I'd half-expected the Prophet to send reporters out posthaste at a public sighting of newly-gay Harry out to brunch with a Death Eater, but our meal passed… Surprisingly pleasantly. Uneventfully. As we stood to leave, he dropped a handful of galleons on the table, and I raised my eyebrows at him.

"What? Didn't you know I'm loaded?" I mirrored his smirk as we left, emerging back out into the snow that had grown slightly more volatile.

The dominoes are gonna start toppling now. Seeing us together in any context outside of interrogation is sure to start rumors, and we weren't exactly cold with each other. Still… At least the rumors won't be baseless.

As we trudged through the storm back toward the castle, bellies full and huddled together, giggling slightly at the back-and-forth push and pull of our shoulders against one another, the normalcy I'd been desperately hoping for blossomed around us. And I quickly became intoxicated with it. We'd been to brunch, just a couple of teenagers in love, and it'd been… Fine. Better than fine. It'd been wonderful. And I survived.

At one point, we'd fallen into easy step with one another, and Harry smiled up at me.

"Happiness suits you," he declared. And, as if to prove him wrong, my smile faltered. I didn't mean it to, truly. I just… Disagreed.

With a glance ahead of us, and behind, Harry looped his arm through mine and held it tightly to his side. We might've been alone, but even if we'd been before the entire Wizengamot, having a smiling and in love with me Harry Potter holding onto my arm would've felt uncomfortable. Wrong. Wrong in how right it felt. I don't deserve this.

Still, I couldn't bring myself to pry my arm from his grasp as we ambled through the gathering snowstorm. Beyond the warmth he brought my elbow, a painful kind of warmth spread through my ribs, and my brow cinched.

"You're thinking something stupid," Harry observed, and my frown met his pout. With Herculean effort, I forced my thoughts into words for him.

"This… Hurts. Not… Like how I'm used to." A student rushed past us suddenly, and Harry lept from my side like I'd burned him. We slowed to a halt as the faceless shape sprinted toward the castle. And eventually he turned back to me, waiting. Somehow, the tumult of the storm we found ourselves in grounded me. Matched the maelstrom inside me, and allowed me to meet his curious gaze. "It hurts… Being with you. Being happy… Hurts. Worse than the bullying, worse than… What I do to myself."

My eyes dropped to my snow-covered boots, and my head started to ache with how hard my brow was knit. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing some fraction of ease to return. The ease I'd felt in the Hog's Head, when we were just bantering, eating breakfast and enjoying each other's company. But my heart only tightened, and so did my throat. Fuck. Shit, if I cry in this weather, it'll sting.

Harry hummed, cleared his throat, and faced me more fully. Curiously, I opened my eyes back to him, and saw a grim determination on his face. "Right."

I hadn't a moment to prepare before his hand sliced through the air and connected with my cheek with a CLAT. Frozen in place, I stared, unseeing, at the ground behind his shoulder as my mind raced to catch up to what the fuck just happened. My cheek stung as he shifted his weight in my line of sight.

"Better?"

Of all the fucked-up solutions I could've conjured, this hadn't been one of them, but as I slowly came back to myself, I found… My chest had loosened. The knot forming in my throat was gone, and something like… Bliss? I focused on his face suddenly, and though he wore an apology so near to the surface, utter gratitude swelled within me. And without even checking our surroundings, I pulled him into my arms.

"Better." He stiffened in my embrace for a heartbeat before slowly reciprocating. Fuck, he gets me… Too well. "Thanks," I choked out.

He huffed a laugh and buried his face in my shoulder, arms tightening slightly around me. "Anytime."

Every surface of my skin that'd been exposed to the storm stung, but especially my palm as Draco and I sunk into the Room's chairs facing the fireplace. A groan at the pleasure of the fire's warmth leaked from my lips as I reclined my head back and shut my eyes. We hadn't explicitly agreed that we'd return here, but our legs had led us here nonetheless and a bit of privacy was always welcome with us. My eyes were drawn up as a less-than-relieved groan reached my ears.

Draco sat forward in his seat, elbows on his knees and forehead in his hands.

"Alright?"

He scrubbed at his temples with a deep breath. "Headache."

Suddenly, my realization from brunch returned, and I drew in a sharp, involuntary inhale. And he squinted sideways at me, curious. Alright, Harry, it's now or never. Hesitantly, I rose to my feet and approached him.

"I-I can help with that…" Corny git, 'I can help with that?' You couldn't have come up with anything smoother?

Still wearing confusion under his pained grimace, Draco sat back in his chair as I knelt before him, and my hands were on his knees before I gave myself a chance to back out. I can't tell him I've only done this once before, he'd definitely laugh at me. I only hope it's not too obvious… With a shuddering sigh, I drew my palms up to his hips with an upsweep of my eyes to his.

"Harry," he began, eyes wide. "You don't have to do that, I'm sure I'll be f-fine."

I frowned, more at myself for being chicken shit, and set to work unfastening his trousers. He didn't argue again, didn't try to stop me as I released his quickly-responding erection. And my mouth filled with saliva. Fuck me, he's gonna murder my throat. I don't even know if I can fit it all in… A glance up at his face drove all the anxiety from my mind. His chest was heaving slightly, his grey eyes pleasantly half-lidded as he watched me, and my tongue was drawn down like a magnet to swipe up his length. He pulled his lower lip between his teeth as I did so, but it didn't hold in the groan I earned when I took his head into my mouth.

If I was going to have any chance at all of fitting it all, I would have to angle it towards me, so I decidedly grabbed the base of his cock and did just that. I worked slowly, taking more and more of him with each pass, until I could've sworn he grew in my mouth. My jaw was already starting to protest, but he'd never once asked for a break, all the times I'd fucked his mouth. So I only sucked like his cum was an antidote to some poison I'd ingested.

And it was… So worth it. Once he released his lip, he threaded a hand through my hair - present, but not pushing. And watched me. Every gasp was interrupted with an exhale of varying sorts: groans, whines, sighs, in no established order or pattern I could distinguish. The sound of his voice sent shivers up my spine, and I felt my own body responding. At one point, his other hand joined the first on my head and swept my hair off my forehead. I happened to glimpse his eyes flicker to my scar, and something in his expression… Shifted.

"Stop, stop," he gasped, suddenly pushing my face away from him. I coughed once into my elbow and frowned curiously up at him. I knew I wasn't doing as shit a job as I'd worried I would, so why…?

My unspoken question was quickly answered as Draco withdrew the pillow from behind his back and cast it onto the floor behind me. And then his hands were on my shoulders, pushing me back.

"W-wait, why…?"

I let him push me to the floor, the pillow comfortably nestled under my lower back as he leaned over me. "I want you to enjoy this, too," he whispered against my lips before hastily undoing my own trousers and tugging them down. My heart leapt into my throat as he bared me down to the thighs, whipped his wand out of his pocket, and prepped us.

"Can't just enjoy a good thing, can you?" I huffed as he angled one of my knees back and positioned himself. And was answered with only a half-smile on his still-gasping lips before he pushed into me.