Title: Sign, Symbol, Token, Chapter 19
By: PepperjackCandy
Rating: PG13 (up to "second base" explicit, beyond that implied)
Disclaimer: All characters in this chapter belong to J.K. Rowling

Warning: This is a slash story (Harry/Draco), though romantically-slashy, rather than erotically-slashy. Hence the PG-13 rating.

A/N: Oh, look! I'm finally really earning my PG13! Harry and Draco talk about sex in this one! (Singing: Let's talk about sex, baby, Let's talk about you and me . . .)

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Suffering from slightly frostbitten toes, but full of a warm, tingly feeling inside, Harry crawled back into his bed and got a few hours of sleep. He was awakened by Ron. "Harry! It snowed out last night."

"I know." Harry responded without thinking.

"How did you know?"

Harry sighed. "I had another attack of insomnia last night and when I got up, it was just starting to snow."

"Another one? You know, Hermione and I've been talking, and we're starting to worry about you."

"Don't worry. I'm fine."

"We saw you with Malfoy yesterday, and . . ."

While Ron searched for words, Harry panicked. Thoughts whirled through his mind. They saw me with Draco? Yesterday? Last night? While we were outside?

" . . . you just didn't seem yourself . . ."

Oh, God.

"I mean, you used to be able to be civil to Draco. I remember on the train our first year, you were even almost polite to him. But now, he brings your assignment back to you, which he really didn't have to do, and you were . . . insulting to him."

"You are defending Draco Malfoy?" Harry prayed silently that perhaps Ron and Hermione might be accepting of his relationship with Draco, once they were finally able to go public with it.

"Of course not." Ron snorted. "But, like I said, it seems like he's *trying* to be civil. And I'm just wondering if the sleep deprivation's getting to you or something."

"I'm fine, Ron. I once thought that Draco Malfoy and I could be friends, but that thought lasted only until he opened his mouth. Now I know for certain that he's just not worth the effort." Harry said, perhaps a bit too shortly before heading off to the showers.

After breakfast, the Harry, Ron, Hermione and Neville went down to Potions, where they paired off in their usual way, Harry and Ron, Hermione and Neville. I hope that Draco was able to convince Snape to follow our plan. Harry thought, butterflies fluttering in his stomach. I know that Pansy'll go along, especially if she thinks that this is the best way to make Lucius happy.

Soon enough, the entire class was assembled and, as planned, Draco and Pansy had paired off. Once Snape was deeply into his lecture on flying potions -- including an extensive in-depth look into why they were banned -- Pansy used a small hex to tickle the back of Ron's left ear.

"Harry?" Ron whispered, "did you just tickle my ear?"

Harry shook his head. "Nope." He whispered back.

"Is something the matter, Mr. Weasley?" Snape asked.

"No, sir."

Another tickle -- this time, his right ear.

"*Someone's* tickling my ear."

Harry gave a token glance around the room. "Dunno." He shrugged.

"Well, keep your eyes open."

"Mr. Weasley, would you care to share what I'm sure is your riveting point of view on flying potions with the entire class?"

"No, sir. It's just --" Ron stopped again.

A quick brush across the back of Ron's neck. This time, Ron stood upright, knocking his chair over in the process. He turned around just in time to see Pansy lowering her wand. "It's Parkinson, sir. She's tickling me."

"Parkinson, is that true?"

"Yes, sir." Pansy responded with a smirk.

"That'll be five points from Slytherin and Gryffindor. Parkinson, Potter, you two trade seats."

"But, sir," Ron protested, but he was silenced by a look from Snape that clearly said that he was perfectly willing to take points from Gryffindor if Ron kept arguing.

Sulkily, both Harry and Pansy stood, picked up their books and traded seats.

Since the laws prohibited the creation of true flying potions, their laboratory exercise was to make a potion similar in theory, that makes inanimate objects lighter than air.

Draco brought his cauldron to the table while Harry got the ingredients. "I'll get them. You'd probably sabotage it somehow." Harry told Draco in a perfectly normal tone of voice.

"I know why you would think that of me, and I'm sorry." Draco said in a tone that seemed truly penitent.

When Harry brought the ingredients back, both young men reached for the first ingredient together, brushing their hands together, which sent a tingle down Harry's spine and, from the look in his partner's face, did the same to Draco.

This seemed to begin Draco's calculated assault on Harry's sensibilities. He 'accidentally' reached to stir it at the same time as Harry did, causing Harry to grab Draco's hand rather than the stirrer. When Harry dropped the yak's eye on the floor, Draco trailed a slow finger over the back of Harry's neck.

When he stood, Harry said, exasperated, "Dr --" but caught himself there, blushing.

Draco stuck the tip of his tongue out at Harry and winked.

"Are you trying to drive me crazy, Malfoy?" Harry demanded aloud.

Draco blinked. "What did I do?" He demanded.

Harry, unable to respond, simply pursed his lips and went back to work.

As they left the classroom, which still had a number of quills and other paraphernalia levitating near the ceiling, Harry could hear Draco rejoining his cronies, "I don't know what to do about him. You two'd better help me, 'cause if my father gets wind of how miserably I'm failing at winning Harry's trust, we'll all three of us pay."

Later that evening, when they were alone together, Harry looked up from his Potions essay -- Snape had asked them to research and create a potion to remove the buoyancy of the objects they'd used that day's potion on -- Harry asked Draco, "That was actually a genuine question. Were you really trying to drive me crazy?"

Draco correctly took this as an invitation to kiss Harry. "Why? Did I interfere with your concentration?" He asked when they parted.

"Just a little." Harry responded with a grin, tackling Draco and kissing him again. "Study break!" He announced kissing Draco one more time.

After their study break, they lay in each other's arms on the floor. "Harry?"

"Mm-hmm?"

"Are you a virgin?"

"Yes . . . You?"

Draco nodded wordlessly.

"The great ladies' man, Draco Malfoy, is still a virgin?" Harry couldn't help but laugh. "How'd that happen?"

"Well, my father's idea of talking to me about sex was to tell me that if I let the Malfoy family seed fall into the wrong hands, he'd kill me. I've just never been sure who the right hands were, so I just sort of . . . kept it to myself."

"What am I?" Harry asked, merely curious.

Draco grinned and kissed Harry's nose. "You are definitely the right hands. Once this whole mess with my father's over, that is."

Harry sighed, cuddling closer to Draco and smirking. "I think I can live with that."

Several weeks passed in a flurry of activity, Gryffindor beat Ravenclaw and Slytherin beat Hufflepuff in Quidditch. Harry *had* to root for Hufflepuff openly, but he and Draco celebrated Slytherin's victory privately with food each had lifted from the kitchens separately.

"It is interesting, Harry Potter." Dobby said when Harry came down for his share of the food, "Draco Malfoy was just down here looking for food, too," which made Harry wonder how much Dobby knew about his relationship with Draco. Harry, leaving is worries at the bottom of the Astronomy Tower's spiral staircase, went up to meet his love.

"And we didn't need to use the 'snooker play' at all." Draco grinned after he swallowed a mouthful of venison. "Though you could just *see* them watching for it the whole game."

"Well, Aaron's an excellent Seeker." Harry smiled. "And Erik was a great choice for Keeper." His grin grew. "And outside of my own team, of course, I've never seen such good Chasers, and -- oof!"

"But what about my team's Beaters?" Draco insisted from his new position on top of his boyfriend.

"Beaters? Oh, well, I guess they're all right." Harry laughed as Draco began tickling him. "All right! Yes, you are by far the best Beater I've ever seen." He looked up into Draco's eyes and kissed him thoroughly.

Their kiss was ended by Harry wincing in pain. The initial pain passed quickly, leaving a sort of tight, burned feeling on his skin.

"Are you all right, Harry?" Draco asked, concernedly.

"Yeah." Harry nodded. "I'm fine. But you can expect another owl from your father in the morning."