Harry stood out in the cool night, an arm draped over the rail of the balcony that suspended him above the busy street below Grimmauld Place. Leaning against the rail, he took a deep breath in and relished in the chill of London's autumn. The night shone a luscious blue above him, dotted with stars and wisps of clouds, and his ears rang with the far-off sound of passing cars. Yes, this would be a good evening.

"Help me with this cravat?" came Draco's voice behind his back, and Harry turned to meet his gaze as he walked out of Harry's bedroom and into the balcony.

Harry stepped closer to him and busied his hands with the knot of Draco's tie. "You know, you're the nobleman-by-blood here," he commented as he wove the cloth into a loose knot, "you should be the one well-versed in fixing cravats."

"Well, I've always been rubbish at it."

"That I know," Harry said, tightening the knot and finishing off his work with an affectionate palm against Draco's chest. "There, all done."

"Thank you, Mr. Potter," Draco smiled at him, and stepped past Harry and toward the balcony's rail, where Harry had stood scarcely seconds ago.

"Joining me?" Harry said, retaking his spot at the ledge.

"Do you mind?"

"Not at all," Harry said, leaning forward on his forearms with the same lithe carelessness with which he had been enjoying the evening beforehand. "Quite glad you're out here, actually."

"Well, thank you for having me," Draco said. "It's not every day one gets to stay in London with his..." He trailed off at that, and glanced uncertainly at Harry.

"...with his mother's cousin," Harry offered slowly, though he knew full well what Draco had meant. Of course Sirius wasn't what Draco was aiming at, but Harry much preferred living in this naive pretense than having to confront the label he and Draco had been putting off on assigning to their relationship. Besides, Sirius had been the pretext for Draco's visit to London.

"It'll do him good to stay in the city for a few days," Sirius had reassured Narcissa and Lucius, who hadn't looked so convinced. "After all, if the Malfoy family is seeking to expand its estate to an urban landscape, it would be well for the heir to experience what life in an established city household is like, wouldn't it?"

Under business pretenses —and not wanting to upset his wife, who thought Draco should congratiate more with the Black side of the family—, Lucius had relented. Less willing would he have been, perhaps, if he knew that Draco had spent a minute amount of time on 'estate matters' and much, much more of it snogging the nephew of the bachelor Lord Black. A house as large as Grimmauld Place, with as many empty rooms as it had, was chock-full of perfect little havens of which he and Harry had been making the most of, and which he dreaded to think he'd be having to leave behind in a few days.

Absentmindedly, Draco let his hand descend to the pocket of his dinner jacket, from which he drew his silver cigarette case. He opened it and nudged a slender cigarette out, balancing it between his index and middle fingers as he replaced the case back inside his pocket. Then, he drew a lighter from the pocket of his pants, and held the flickering flame aloft before it as it wavered in the night breeze. When the flame caught, Draco took a long drag and felt the rough ardor of the tobacco roll down his throat, recognizing the abrasion that custom had turned from painful into pleasant, before he pushed the smoke back out and exhaled a flume into the night beyond the balcony.

Harry watched him silently, staring up at him with something close to awe. Noticing this, Draco turned to him and smiled, holding the cigarette out. "Care for a smoke?"

"I only smoke when I'm with you," Harry said gingerly as he accepted the cigarette, as if trying to convince himself of the veracity of this one exception.

"I'm a terrible influence," Draco shrugged, loosening the pressure of his fingers to let Harry take the cigarette. Now it was his turn to watch as Harry inhaled and proceeded to almost immediately nudge the smoke back out with a cough, drawing a hand across his lips as if to wipe away the bitter burning taste.

"And you're terrible at this," Draco laughed, palming Harry's back gently as if to aid the cough on its way out. He moved his hand to grab the cigarette again, but Harry yanked his own away and tilted his body slightly to the side.

"Let me have another try," he said, flushed.

"Alright," Draco said, removing his right palm from Harry's back. "Take a deeper inhale. Your breath in is too shallow. You need to hold it, sustain it, let it simmer there and then glide out. Not sputter it out like some faulty chimney."

"Look at you, turning your vices into poetry," Harry quipped as he drew the cigarette to his lips again. This time, he slowed his intake and let the smoke settle in his throat before pushing it out more gently. Though he didn't cough this time, his voice did come forth more raspily: "Better?"

"Much better, but you're not quite there yet," Draco said, taking his cigarette back and taking a well-practiced drag from it.

Harry watched him, a smile sitting placidly on his lips. "Well, then, I guess I'll have to continue inviting you to my balcony so you can teach me how to smoke."

"Oh, don't pick it up. Terrible habit," Draco said even as the smoke poured out and over his moving lips.

Harry laughed. "Should I take that to mean you don't want to be a guest on my balcony more often?"

"Oh, absolutely not," Draco said. He tapped the cigarette lightly, holding it over the rail, to send the ash drifting in weightless swirls to the street below. With a shortened cigarette in his left hand, he wrapped his right arm around Harry's shoulders and pulled himself closer, his chest and groin pressing up against Harry's. "In fact, I quite enjoy being your guest."

He leaned forward eagerly to kiss Harry, but Harry ducked out of the way and let Draco's lips barely brush against his cheek. "Eager, aren't we, Malfoy?" he teased, but sent his left arm around Draco's waist and pulled him even tighter against him. Draco's left hand hung limply by his body, the cigarette almost slipping from his grasp, and he found a gasp lodged in his throat at Harry's hold. "That's better," Harry said lowly, with Draco too stunned to try to kiss him again. "Hold it. Sustain it. Let it simmer there..." and at this Harry leaned in, so that the tip of his lips ever so slightly touched Draco's, "...and then glide out."

Harry closed the gap between them, his lips pressing against Draco's in a kiss that was as strong as it was tender. Draco responded immediately, his eyes closing and his mouth easing to fit against Harry's own. It was a chaste kiss, but one full of passion, and Harry's hand did not leave the small of Draco's back as he moved to kiss Draco more deeply.

Draco relished in the kiss for a few instants and then pulled away abruptly, taking two steps away from Harry and leaning back against the balcony. He gave his cigarette another shake and brought it to his lips with a trembling hand, as if to steady himself.

"Something wrong?" Harry asked, extending a hand toward him, but Draco recoiled.

"We're out in the open," he hissed, drawing in air as sharply as he had the cigarette smoke. "We're complete idiots, Harry, we're out on your balcony, anyone could see us..."

Harry frowned, but he made no attempt to step closer. "Well, do you think anyone's looking?"

"You never know," Draco shrugged, facing away from Harry and back over the balcony toward the stretching city beyond it. "My father has eyes everywhere. It wouldn't surprise me if he had a pair on me."

"You're paranoid," Harry chuckled softly, but he stayed where he was— and Draco, irrationally, felt hurt. It had no reason to, since Draco had been the one to pull away, but Draco cherished every brush of contact with Harry, and to have Harry deny him that —even if he had asked for it— stung. "But I understand."

"I just don't want him to know," Draco sighed, the smoke trickling from his mouth with the escaping breath. "You know what it's like, for people like... us... If we get caught and arrested. They try to break you, you know. They make you do labor and treat you like a dog until you'd rather be dead, or rather not have been born at all."

"You don't know that for sure. It's only rumors that come out of the prisons. And besides, your father surely could bail you out."

"It's kind of you to assume he'd want to," Draco let out a dry, monosyllabic chuckle.

He and Harry stayed in silence for a few moments, leaning against the rail and looking out, the inches of space between them tangently perceivable like an icy growth expanding. The cold permeated Draco until it pushed him to speak.

"I just don't want this to end," he spoke softly, looking at Harry out of the corner of his eye. "It's like a honeymoon, every time I'm here. I would hate to be deprived of it."

"Even if keeping it means living in secrecy for the rest of your life?" Harry said. His words were surprisingly sharp in Draco's ears. "Lord Malfoy will expect you to marry, and carry the line of the Ashcroft Estate."

"And you won't?"

"No," Harry shrugged, still refusing to look at Draco. "I'm practically the adopted son of the eccentric Lord Black. I'm allowed to be a bachelor, like he is, it wouldn't surprise anyone. Plus, I'm not nobility— I'm not sure anyone is interested in me carrying on my bloodline."

"The Potter line," Draco blurted out, desperately grasping at a last resort to trip Harry over with. "Wasn't your father a nobleman?"

"He might as well have stopped when he married my commoner mother," Harry said, using the exact words he'd heard Lucius Malfoy use to gossip about his origins at the last Black ball. He knew Draco knew— and Draco, again, felt a pang of hurt ripple across his chest.

"Fine, then, have it your way," Draco said cuttingly. "But don't tell me a bachelor's life is all you've hoped for."

That finally made Harry turn toward him, but his green eyes were full not of anger as Draco had expected but of sorrow. "No, of course not," Harry said softly. "If I could have it my way, I'd live out the rest of my days with you. But you know as well as I that that won't be possible— given all you know about what life is like for our kind behind bars."

"Don't get smart," Draco said reproachfully. He took a few hesitant steps toward Harry, wavering between placing a hand on Harry's cheek or refraining from touch whatsoever. He chose the latter. "That is what I would want, as well. If only it were possible."

"It might be," Harry shrugged, again turning away. "Just not here."

"Just not here," Draco echoed him, and again let his eyes trail over London. Not for the first time, he felt an ardent grudge against his position, an ire at being born into aristocracy, with all its obligations, instead of into freedom, with all its hardships. He wasn't built for the simple life, that he knew, and he was profoundly appreciative of the comforts of his life as it was, but he yearned for more than that life could give him. Besides, because of his position as the only direct heir to the Malfoys, the rest of his life was practically spelled out before him as clear as day: he would marry, have as many children as it took to yield a male heir, and waste away in opulent misery in the dark, drafty manor he had only ever called, out of custom, home.

Harry picked up on his pensiveness and spoke to pull him gently out of it, his tone softer and lighter than when he had last spoken. "Fancy doing something fun, then? Dinner someplace?"

"Trying to woo me, Potter?" Draco said with a smirk, and Harry was happy to notice the snide joking tone had come back into his voice.

"Oh, I don't need to. Trying to spoil you, more like."

"Fancy that. A nobleman wooed by a commoner."

"Weren't you the one talking about the Potter line just minutes ago?"

"Well, I don't recall that at all," Draco said, turning his nose upward and crossing his arms over his chest. This evoked a laugh from Harry.

"C'mon, Draco, I'm being serious. Let's go out tonight, just you and me."

"Not just you and me," Draco said nervously. "My parents are sure to have friends wherever we end up going. I should think it'd be rather suspicious for the two of us to be out alone at this time of night, without women on our arms."

"Alright, then, I'll invite us a couple of friends. If only Hermione were closer..." Harry's eyes trailed upward, a very visible display of the thought he was putting into who would be their distraction-intended female guests. "Oh, I've got it! What about the Patil sisters? I happen to know they're staying close by, and Parvati would be thrilled to explore London. Yes, I'll give her a ring."

With that, Harry spun on his heels and went back inside. Draco heard him stomping down the stairs toward the telephone in the foyer, by which the address book lay.

"Ah, yes, excellent," Draco grumbled to himself, letting his cigarette stub fall to the floor and crushing it swiftly under the heel of his shoe. "The Patil girl."

"We're going out!" Harry called out as he dipped into the library, where a fire was crackling, to let Sirius know where they were going.

Sirius, however, wasn't at home; but his armchair was occupied by a tall man with thinning brown hair and a small mustache. He was clad in a sweater vest and run-down trousers, in which his legs were crossed atop a footstool where he was comfortably stretched out with a book in hand. The man looked up from his book and at Harry: "Shall I let Sirius know?"

"Yes, please, Remus."

"Excellent," Remus nodded. "Will you be needing the chauffeur?"

"No, I'll be driving."

"Not very becoming of the Black heir," Remus smirked, and the same smile passed along Harry's lips, an evident sign of a shared joke. "Just don't scrape the car, will you? Sirius will flip if he knows I lent it to you and the same thing happened again."

"I'll be more careful, I promise," Harry flashed Remus an impish grin. Remus only gave him a grunt of acknowledgment and turned back to his book, which Harry took as his cue to leave.

Outside the library, he beckoned to Draco, who followed him out of the door and into the sleek black car that Draco knew to be Sirius's pride and joy.

"I'd better not scrape it again," Harry mumbled as he twisted the key in the ignition, "or the bachelor Lord Black will take it upon himself to ensure he no longer has an heir."

The car started with a low rumble. Harry withdrew the hand brake and pressed the pedal to move out of the Grimmauld Place driveway, shifting the car into second gear as soon as they reached the road. When in a car, Draco seldom rode anywhere other than the backseat, and to ride beside Harry as he wove his way through the streets of London was a rare pleasure. He closed his eyes and took in the sounds and senses of the drive: the purr of the car as it rolled on the road, the slight vibration of the motor palpable even through his seat, the whoosh of the night air through the open window.

"So Sirius is fine with this?" he asked Harry.

"If he's not, he will be," Harry answered, making a left. "Remus will get through to him. He always does."

"He loves him very much, doesn't he? Sirius?" Draco blurted out without quite knowing why.

Harry stayed silent for a moment before responding quietly. "Yes. Yes, he does." Draco thought he could make out a small note of yearning in Harry's voice, and felt the same twinge reverberate in his chest.

They drove in silence for the rest of the way, Draco keeping his eyes closed. He only grimaced in slight displeasure when they stopped by the Patil house and the girls climbed into the backseat, saying hello politely but remaining quiet the rest of the drive, happy that Harry was enough of a chatterbox to keep them both entertained. He was content with simply enjoying the drive, though he'd liked it better when it was just Harry and him.

It wasn't long before they arrived at the motor club. The club was a modern, towering building with yellow light spilling out of the numerous windows. The place thrummed with swing music, undoubtedly coming from inside, and lively clubgoers streamed in and out of the doors in a continuous flow, dressed to the nines for an elegant night out.

Harry stepped out of the car and handed the keys to a waiting valet. He then moved to the back door on the left, opened it, and helped Parvati out. Draco dismissed a fleeting jealousy and did the same, politely opening the right back door to help Parvati's sister Padma out. Both of the Patil girls wore long evening gowns cinched at the waist and with a draped skirt, the hems and neckline embroidered in a gold-thread pattern and the belled sleeves finished in similarly-colored lace.

"Ladies, you both look stunning," Harry said radiantly as they made their way to the steps leading up to the door, and both of the Patil sisters giggled in flattery. Yet again, Draco was grateful for Harry's charisma— he did not have it in him to pay a compliment to Padma, though she was on his arm and she did —objectively speaking— look rather fetching.

The two pairs made their way up the steps, Harry arm in arm with Parvati and Draco with Padma. Though they attracted no questioning stares as they entered, only a few nods of greeting and automatic glances from the people around them, Draco couldn't shake the paranoia that had grasped him since the balcony. Suppose his father did have friends out here, and suppose they could see straight through the ruse? They'd report back to Lucius, and then he would ask Draco what he was doing out with a Patil girl, and he wouldn't know what to answer—

"Good evening," Harry's voice brought Draco out of his thoughts. They had arrived at the maître's stand, where a reedy man in a too-tight dinner jacket was looking serviceably at Harry. "We'll be using Lord Black's table tonight, please. I'm his ward."

"Mr. Potter, of course," the maître said warmly. "Right this way." With an outstretched arm, he pointed them toward the dining area, and Draco's heart sank: the maître was pointing directly at a vacant table in the middle of the action. Well, that certainly dashed all of Draco's hopes for a secluded corner. Nonetheless, he followed Harry as he made his way through the maze of tables, briefly but politely greeting the occupants he recognized.

"You're very quiet," Padma remarked. It was meant to be in jest, as her smile clearly suggested, but Draco couldn't do more than squeeze out a queasy smile. No, paranoia and chivalry were definitely not demeanors that could coexist, at least not in him.

They reached their table and sat down: Draco and Harry across from each other, the Patil girls in the two chairs in between them on either side. When they had settled and the waiters had descended upon them to place napkins across their laps and deposit a menu in front of each of them, Draco felt a light kick under the table. He looked across and found Harry staring at him. The kick came again, accompanied by an almost imperceptible smile on Harry's lips. Then Draco felt Harry's legs clamp around his right one, undoubtedly to transmit him comfort. I got you, they seemed to say, and Harry's expression seemed to confirmed. I'm right here. Draco felt something soften in his chest: the tension in his shoulders dropped, and he let out a breath in a sigh. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad.

However much he relaxed, however, he still felt a thousand eyes boring into his back. It didn't help when he spotted Yaxley, an acquaintance of his father's, dining at a table across the hall. He remained mostly silent throughout dinner, ruminating his chicken and barely enjoying the glass of wine set before him, as Harry chattered amicably with the two girls, his legs still firmly around Draco's. Draco could feel Padma's disappointment at being neglected by her date; he felt sorry for her, but he just didn't have it in him. He was glad Harry did— Harry, who wasn't scared of the rumor mill, who wasn't scared of the whispers that might snake their way back to his family. If only he had a Sirius!

It wasn't until dessert —a three-layered decadent chocolate cake with a raspberry jam filling— that a question roused him from his terrified stupor. "So, Harry," he heard Parvati croon beside him, "has the heir to the House of Black any promising... prospects?"

"No, he does not," Draco said brusquely. He'd immediately recognized the implication, and he hadn't liked it one bit. What he liked even less was that, from Harry's expression, he had clearly been poised to entertain it.

He felt Harry's legs' grip loosen around his own. Harry shot him a puzzled look before turning to Parvati. "He does not, in fact," he said, trying to twist Draco's outburst into a suave joke. "I'm not really looking to marry at the moment."

"Oh, why not?" Parvati said, her fork hovering between her fingers. A bite of cake was staked upon it, but to Draco, she seemed entirely uninterested in eating it.

Harry shrugged. "I don't know. Not quite ready to surrender the bachelor life just yet, I suppose."

"Must be nice," Padma chimed in. "What about you, Mr. Malfoy?"

"Well, my father would like me to marry," Draco said, clenching his fork and hoping it didn't show. "However, I'm afraid this is just one more of the many things my father and I disagree on."

"That's rather a shame," Padma said, though Draco supposed it was more out of politeness than anything— he hadn't, after all, proved a very engaging date.

"Yes, I daresay it is," Harry said cheekily, prodding at Draco's leg with his foot.

For some reason, something about Harry's boyish grin and the volume at which he had made his remark irked Draco. He yanked his leg out from between Harry's. "Perhaps I enjoy the bachelor's life too, Mr. Potter."

Harry's grin wavered. Draco felt his legs shift under the table, seeking his, but he folded his own under his chair and far from Harry's reach.

Sensing the tension, Parvati piped up: "I must echo my sister in saying that it is rather a shame, not for you, but for the women you undoubtedly must be swamped with."

"Why? Do you count yourself among them?" Draco sneered. Parvati looked stunned at the rebuke. She pursed her lips and continued eating her cake, but the clang her fork made against the plate was unnaturally loud.

Draco turned to Harry, but he found none of the worried permissiveness with which Harry had treated him all evening— even that would've been a comfort, because Harry looked absolutely furious. He raised a hand and motioned to the waiter for the check, which was thankfully brought to them swiftly enough that it was scarcely a couple of minutes before they could rise from the table and head back toward the car. They walked in pairs again down the steps and to the valet, but there were none of the chivalrous formalities this time. Padma, standing a few inches from Draco, probably wouldn't have let him take her by the arm, which was just as well, because he (still) was not feeling much like it.

The car was brought to them as swiftly as the check had been, and with a muttered thanks, Harry slid back into the driver's seat. Everyone resumed their positions, but there was none of the pleasant lull of the previous drive this time around. To Draco, every jitter of the machine seemed hostile, and the engine's lowing seemed more like the roar of a beast in wait of pouncing.

It felt like an eternity before the car pulled up at the door of the Patil house. Harry opened the door and got out of his seat to help Parvati out, but when Draco moved to do the same, Harry shot him a look that told him he'd better stay where he was. Draco complied.

Harry helped both of the Patil sisters out and walked them to their door, where he waited with them as the doorbell rang through the house and they waited for one of the maids to open the door. Draco caught Parvati's words of farewell: "Thank you very much for taking us out this evening, Harry."

Padma echoed the sentiment. "It was a pleasure to dine out with you," she said, placing a very intentional stress on the last word. But it didn't sting Draco.

Finally, the door opened and the Patil girls stepped into their home. Harry waited until the door was closed and the foyer light was out to walk back to the car and get into the driver's seat with a slam of the door. Draco flinched, but stayed impassive, looking ahead in anticipation of a conversation he did not want to have but knew very well he'd have to.

It came soon enough: Harry made a right just two blocks down, once the Patils' house was out of sight, and parked by the pavement. He shut the engine off in one swift movement, and the rumble of the engine died. The headlights, illuminating the patch of street right before them, were simultaneously extinguished.

They sat in that silent darkness for a few minutes before Harry spoke, his voice shaking out in anger. "Care to explain," he started, enunciating every word as if it was taking every ounce of self-restraint not to explode, "what that was all about?"

He wasn't looking at Draco, and for some reason, that made Draco's eyes fix to Harry's face, as if begging for a glance. "She was flirting with you," he said lazily, hoping that would be enough. It wasn't. Harry kept looking straight ahead, stonily silent. "Harry, she was flirting with you," Draco pleaded.

"So?" Harry said flatly.

"So... I may have felt... threatened."

"Threatened?" Harry said, his head jerking around to face Draco. Now Draco wished Harry hadn't looked at him, because the piercing anger in his green eyes was too much to bear. "Did you seriously think I was going to act on it, Draco? Who do you take me for?"

"Well, you didn't exactly stop her," Draco spat.

"What would you have me do? We invited them to dinner, it was only polite to engage with them. But I never would have let it go further. I should think you would know that."

"How could I know that?" Draco's voice rose in volume.

Harry's rose even louder. "Maybe you would if you'd looked! If you'd looked at how, when she tried to put her hand on mine, I slipped mine out from under her. But no, you were too busy sulking, creating fears in your head that were entirely unfounded—"

"I was terrified the whole night!" Draco shouted. "I was terrified, Harry, don't you understand?"

"You weren't scared, you were paranoid!" Harry yelled back. "And for no reason! There was nothing to arouse suspicion in our little party, absolutely nothing, and maybe you would've been less paranoid if you'd allowed yourself to stop being miserable for a second and just enjoy dinner—"

"Enjoy dinner?" Draco said, his voice climbing to a shrill pitch. "You want me to enjoy dinner? I wanted to go out with you, and instead I had to sit through a whole night of you and that Patil girl making googly eyes at one another—"

"Her name is Parvati!" Harry yelled, his hand hitting the steering wheel. Draco shut up for an instant, and Harry took a few panting breaths before his voice returned to its usual volume. "Her name is Parvati, Draco, not 'the Patil girl,' and she's actually a really decent person, if you got to know her instead of automatically considering her your enemy!"

"Well, maybe you should marry her, then!" Draco exploded. Harry was silent again, but this silence wasn't tense. It was hurt. Draco had cut deep, and he regretted it almost as soon as he said it, because the anger in Harry's eyes had melted into a murky upset. "Harry," Draco whispered, sending a hand forth to brush Harry's cheek with, but Harry seized it before it touched him and put it back into Draco's lap.

"Maybe we should go home," he said coolly. "I'm done talking about this."

"Maybe we should go home then," Draco answered, the same coolness rearing up inside him, "but maybe we shouldn't go home together." He opened the car door and spilled out onto the street.

"And just where are you going?" Harry snorted, peering out at him.

"To my Aunt Bellatrix's."

"Perfect. That's great. Just stalk off to your auntie's instead of dealing with a disagreement—"

"You said you didn't want to talk about this!"

"Tonight! I meant tonight! What, did you think I was just going to put a lid on it?"

"Wouldn't be the first time."

Harry paused and spoke with the same coolness. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"You tell me, Harry, you, who are happy to just put a lid on us when a girl bats her lashes at you—"

"You can't possibly be serious, Draco. It was your idea to invite women along so it wouldn't be suspicious. And it's really not fair to me to pretend otherwise."

Harry was evidently hurt, but Draco ignored the part of him that wanted to apologize and let his usual scorn take over. "Whatever, Harry. You said it yourself. You can allow yourself to be eccentric. Maybe you will remain a bachelor, but a true one at that. I'm going to Aunt Bellatrix's. Good night."

Draco slammed the car door and walked briskly along the street, turning a corner in the general direction of where Lestrange Manor was. Harry watched him go. He seethed silently until he had lost sight of Draco; then, he banged his fists in frustration against the steering wheel, allotting himself one outburst of all he was feeling, before he switched the ignition on, turned the car around, and drove home alone.