Author's Notes: I'd like to dedicate this chapter to Memeal and HarlequinTemptation for their amazing reviews. Also, special thanks to Daniella Flux for beta-ing. As for the Gas Lighting, I believe it to be suitably antiqued for use in the wizarding world so please refrain from commenting on it.

(For disclaimer, &c. see first chapter.)

Chapter Two: In Which Differences are Resolved

A time to be born, and a time to die
- Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

In hindsight, Harry probably should have seen the argument coming. As the two of them had talked about their shared experience of being pulled from the past, he had let himself be lulled into a false sense of security, and talked to Malfoy the way he talked to Ron – like a friend.

Big mistake.

'A Gryffindor and a Slytherin in a relationship together?' he had said. 'I can't believe it.'

And Malfoy had exploded.

Harry could see Malfoy's side of the argument, he really could, but Malfoy needed to try and see Harry's as well. Harry, though trapped in the body of his twenty-seven year old self, only thought of himself as being nineteen. He realized that Malfoy was only really nineteen too, but it was different for Harry. Malfoy had run off after the events of sixth year, and had had a significantly longer period of time to adjust to living life away from Hogwarts. Harry had spent a year hunting down Voldemort's Horcruxes with Ron and Hermione, and then killed countless Death Eaters, not to mention Voldemort himself, during the final battle of the war.

Harry had then taken a year off, thinking he'd go to Hogwarts after taking a break. That year off had turned into two, and he still hadn't completed his education, but Hermione had been there to nag him and he had put his name down for a special correspondence course Professor McGonagall had set up in order to help everyone who had been taken out of school by their parents -- or left to fight like Harry -- complete their education or catch up to the grade level appropriate to their age. And so Harry had still very much thought of himself as a Gryffindor and seen the world in terms of who was in which House.

Of course, there was no way Malfoy had considered that before he got up and made a scene in the middle of a restaurant. Pillock.

Harry sighed. He knew, of course, that he'd have to make up with Malfoy eventually. The smarmy prat was the only one who could help him get back to his own time.

Getting up from the small bed he'd slept in for the past two nights – he was staying with The Weasley's until the day before New Year's Eve – he made his way downstairs, and trudged into the kitchen.

'Harry!' Hermione exclaimed cheerfully as he sat down at the table. 'Ron's taken Freddie, Georgie and Daphne to visit with Charlie for the day, so it's just you and us girls now!' Daphne was Fleur and Bill's only daughter.

This was followed by Ginny and Fleur laughing idly, and moving towards the table to help Hermione corner Harry.

'I know you hate me interfering Harry, but how did your date with Hugh go?' Hermione asked, settling her massive girth across the table from him, and slamming a platter of cut fruits down as a peace offering.

Harry took a slice of apple, and chewed it thoughtfully before answering. 'We got into an argument. We yelled for a bit, and then he stormed out of the restaurant.'

Ginny and Fleur exchanged looks, and Hermione sighed in the sort of all-knowing, motherly way Molly did – Mr. and Mrs. Weasely had left to visit Percy and Penelope for a week the previous night.

'So you will be seeing 'im again, 'Arry?' Fleur asked flirtatiously – although really, there wasn't anything she did that wasn't, in some way, flirtatious.

'What do you mean?'

'Oh come on, Harry,' Ginny said crossly. 'You always manage to pick out the most contrary lovers possible.'

'I – I do not,' Harry protested, although he really had no idea if he did or not.

'Of course you do, Harry. Remember Zach Smith?'

Of course Harry remembered him, the git had been almost as bad as Malfoy, constantly picking and prodding at Harry, and when he had announced for Quidditch back in sixth year.

'I can tell by the expression on your face that you do,' Hermione said smugly. 'Although I don't you how you could have expected anything else from him. He always was a prat.'

''Ee called me a no good, French chien when you were dating, 'Arry,' Fleur said matter-of-factly. 'I knew then that 'ee was not the one for you.'

Ginny snorted into her slice of banana.

'Hugh, at least, seemed like a decent sort,' Hermione proclaimed. 'He was quite well put together, wasn't he Harry?'

Harry blushed as Hermione, Ginny, and Fleur giggled at him.

'I wouldn't know,' he said. 'Besides, Hugh's straight.'

'You have to be kidding, Harry!' Ginny exclaimed. 'With that hair and those clothes?'

'I – look, I've already told Hermione I'm going to bring him along on New Year's. If I can get him to talk to me again,' Harry mumbled. 'Isn't that enough?'

'Oh!' Ginny cried. 'Creaver's? How romantic, Harry. You never took me anywhere like that when we were going out!'

Harry smiled. 'You wouldn't let me. All you wanted to do was go to Quidditch matches and bars.'

Ginny laughed. 'Yeah, well Dean's trying to culture me. He's always taking me to museums and art shows – it's a wonder he's not more interested in you than me, Harry. He's the queerest straight man I ever met. Then again, you're probably the straightest gay men I have ever dated!'

All three women burst into laughter, and Harry got the distinct impression that this was something of a long-standing joke between them.

'Eet will be wonderful, 'Arry,' Fleur cooed. 'I 'ave a new Pansy Wood original to wear to the party.'

'Really?' Harry asked. 'M – Hugh mentioned that he knew her when we went out to lunch. I mean, I know we know her – we did go to school with her, after all – but he's friends with her, I think.'

All three women were staring at him in awe.

'He knows Pansy Wood?' Ginny asked incredulously. 'Do you know how many times I've wished I was nicer to her when we were at school together? I would go out, find Malfoy, and bring him to her on a silver platter – unharmed – in exchange for one dress.'

'Er,' Harry said. 'Malfoy?'

'You haven't forgotten, have you?' Hermione scolded. 'All that ruckus when she turned out to be the one funding the Auror's investigation into his disappearance? She was married to Oliver at the time too, the bitch.'

'Of course,' Harry said weakly. 'How could I forget?'

Hermione eyed him suspiciously from across the table.

'I should go. I need to owl Hugh and apologise.' Harry pushed himself away from the table, and walked upstairs as quickly as possible.

XoX

'Can you believe the nerve of him?' Draco asked as he paced back on forth in front of the fireplace in one of the manor's many receiving rooms as Pansy Wood looked on. 'Oh Malfoy, what a dirty, nasty Slytherin you are! I cannot possibly sully my honour by being seen in your presence!'

Pansy rolled her eyes.

'Oooooooooh, Malfoy, I hate you and all your icky Slytherin pals! Oh, Malfoy, I never grew up!'

'Draco,' Pansy snapped. 'I love you, dear, but if you don't shut it I will make sure you never get laid again.'

Draco's mouth closed.

'That's better, darling. Why don't you and I spend some time together, hmm? We could go out shopping, or get some ice cream. How about some chocolate? I know how much you love chocolate.'

Draco sighed and allowed Pansy to placate him with her false promises. He knew he was being ridiculous. He knew he shouldn't care this much about Potter and his stupid prejudices, but he did. Potter had always been able to crawl under his skin, and Draco had always felt a bizarre need to return the favour.

'I don't want to,' he told Pansy firmly, stopping the flow of words from her mouth. 'I shall stay here and pout. Alone.'

Pansy pursed her lips, and Draco stopped his theatrics for a moment to think about how little everything had changed. Pansy still knew how to deal with him, and he with her.

'Don't you have a husband to get home to?' he asked tiredly. 'A handsome Quidditch player wasting away in want of you?'

'No,' she answered. 'He has practise today, so you get all my attention. Aren't you lucky?'

Draco growled.

'Draco, honey, I know you're depressed. Can't we just go to the Ministry and ask for their help? Or maybe turn some lights on in this foul place?'

'No Pansy, we can't. The Ministry would arrest me if they knew where I was, and there are no House Elves left anymore.'

'I doubt the Ministry cares about you anymore, Draco. And it's not that hard to turn on the lights, all you have to do is flick a switch.'

Draco snorted. 'Flick a switch and kill us both. The manor has gas lighting, Pans. Without the House Elves around to keep it up the pipes have deteriorated. If you turn the lights on the whole manor will fill with gas, and we'll die a slow, painful death.'

'Oh,' Pansy said.

'Exactly.' Draco sighed dramatically and flopped over onto Pansy's lap. 'Maybe I should just turn the lights on and let myself die. I'm sure I'd make a wonderful corpse.'

Pansy hummed and began stroking Draco's hair. Really, nothing had changed since they had last seen each other. 'Why don't you come stay with me and Oliver, Draco? I know you need the dining room here, but you can just come back. I'm not sure I like the idea of you staying in a house where flipping a light switch could kill you.'

'But how will Potter find me when he wants to come crawling for forgiveness, Pans?' Draco asked plaintively. 'I bet that bastard doesn't even realize what an idiot he is. He's probably laughing at me with fat Granger and the Weasel right now.'

'Fat?' Pansy asked with a smile. 'Granger's gotten fat?'

'Yes,' Draco answered smugly. 'Enormously fat. She's pregnant.'

Pansy's lips twitched. 'Pregnant isn't the same thing as fat, Draco. Don't get my hopes up like that.'

Draco smiled. 'What about you? Are you continuing the proud Wood line anytime soon? Giving another unfortunate young boy that last name?'

Pansy wrinkled her nose. 'And be called fat? Of course not. It's quite in to adopt right now,' she told him. 'I was thinking of getting one from Asia somewhere.'

'Pansy!' Draco exclaimed playfully, shoving the woman gently.

'Well, it's true,' Pansy insisted. 'Don't blame me for being honest with you. They have special orphanages for wizarding children in China. If I ever want a baby I'll have one shipped over express.'

The two of them kept straight faces for all of ten seconds.

When her laughter had subsided, Pansy sighed and settled back into the couch. 'It's good to have you back, Draco.'

XoX

Harry had, after much pestering from Hermione, Ginny, and Fleur, decided to go over and apologise to Malfoy. But, much to Hermione's chagrin, he refused to Floo directly from The Burrow, stating that he'd go to The Leaky Cauldron first. Mostly he did it so that Hermione wouldn't ask questions about him Flooing to Malfoy Manor.

When he got to the Manor, he found it deserted. The furniture was covered with dust cloths, and he could see footprints leading from the room in the thick dust that had settled on the floor.

Harry followed the most trodden path through the long halls of the manor, his footsteps echoing strangely as he went.

Eventually, Harry came to the dining room Malfoy had been talking about the day before. The room was covered in esoteric writing and symbols, all the deep brown of dried blood. The only part of it Harry could make sense of were the names around the symbol.

Alright, he thought, staring at his own name in horror, so Malfoy very definitely wasn't lying.

Just as he was about to step into the room to get a closed look at the diagram, he heard voices coming around the corner.

"… refuse to apologize to him, Pansy," Malfoy was saying. "He's going to have to talk to me first."

Harry turned to face the direction the voices were coming from just as Malfoy and… Wood turned the corner.

"I'm sorry for being such an ass yesterday, Malfoy," Harry said, before Malfoy could ask what he was doing in the manor.

"Oh," Malfoy said. "I – I guess I'm sorry too, for making a scene."

Pansy Wood smirked from where she stood beside Malfoy. "You two made the papers, did you know?" she asked in a falsely cheerful tone.

"W-what?" Malfoy stuttered out, Harry could only look on in horror as Pansy reached into her handbag and pulled out a copy of The Daily Prophet.

"Harry Potter was seen dining in one of his favourite restaurants with a new boyfriend on Boxing Day," she read eagerly. "The two are reported to have fought, loudly, causing Mr. Potter's date to storm out of the restaurant. Will this torrid relationship be over before it has truly begun?" Pansy smirked. "My, my – you only made the gossip column this time, Potter. I distinctly remember a front page story when you finally broke up with Smith for good."

Harry flushed. He hadn't told Malfoy about his sexuality the day before. He hadn't the time, and he didn't really trust the other man not to shout it out to the media the second the two of them returned to their own time. Then again, for all Harry knew, that was what had happened to out him to the entire Wizarding World.

"You're gay?" Malfoy asked incredulously, mouth hanging open. "But you – you're Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, paradigm of straightness!"

Harry shrugged. "Not so much the last one, really," he said. "Problem, Malfoy?"

Pansy snorted as she replaced the newspaper in her handbag. "Not so much, Potter – surely you didn't think Draco here was straight?"

Despite himself, Harry found himself blushing. "Well, um, weren't you two a couple, then?" he asked defensively.

Simultaneously, they laughed.

"No, Potter," Malfoy said, his voice full of pity. "Whatever gave you that idea?"

"Maybe the fact that you had your head in her lap, and she was stroking your hair the last time I saw you two together," Harry suggested sarcastically.

"Potter," Pansy managed to pant through her laughter. "We've been friends since we were born – of course we're a little touchy-feely. That's just who we are."

Harry stood there, embarrassed, and waited patiently for the two Slytherins to stop laughing at him.

"Alright, Potter," Malfoy said, once he'd caught his breath. "I forgive you for being an ass. Now, what can I help you with?"

"Um..." Harry said.

"There was a reason that you needed to come over instead of just sending a note, wasn't there Potter?"

"Well…" Harry began, feeling inexplicably like a child who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "I wanted to see the diagram."

Malfoy pursed his lips. "Well you've seen it, now bugger off."

"That's not all I wanted to talk to you about," Harry said, glancing nervously at Pansy. "You see, Hermione's got it into her head that we're… going out. You know?" Harry didn't dare look up to meet the Slytherins' eyes.

"Oh," Pansy said. "Well that will work out nicely, won't it?"

"What? Pansy are you mad? Why on Earth would I go out with Potter, of all people?"

Harry really didn't want to examine the reason behind the sting he felt at Malfoy's words.

"You're not going out with him, are you?" Pansy said cheerfully. "This Hugh character is. That way, you and Potter can spend an ungodly amount of time together trying to figure out how to send yourselves back without arousing suspicion."

Turning to face Harry directly, she added: "I assume you're taking Draco to the New Year's bash at Creaver's?"

"Er… yes," Harry answered. "I suppose – where is Creaver's?"

Pansy rolled her eyes. "Oh, honestly! Creaver's is in Grimmauld Place – you own it, you fool."

"I – I do?"

"Of course," Pansy told a rather bewildered Harry. "You opened it once you finished your schooling at Hogwarts and – I probably shouldn't be telling you this. The less you know about your past… future, the better."

"Why?" Harry asked.

"Well obviously, you need to do certain things or you'll create a paradox in time when you get back. Do you know how dangerous the spell in there is?" she asked, waving a hand at the dining room. "If even one line of that pattern is smudged it could destroy the fabric of time as we know it."

"But," Harry said, puzzled. "What if we were supposed to come forwards, and the only reason I opened that restaurant in the first place was because I knew I had it here. What if the only reason Malfoy's hair is blue is because he saw it here and decided he liked it? What if –"

"Hold on, Potter," Malfoy interrupted. "I don't like my hair like this, but I can't change it back."

"Oh," Harry said. "Well maybe you did it anyway because you remembered having it here, even though you didn't like it."

"I'm getting a headache," Pansy said abruptly. "Draco, have fun with Potter – try not to kill him. I'll see you both at Creaver's in a couple of days – you'll both be getting Pansy Wood originals within the next couple of days, and I better see you wearing them."

"Yes, mum," Malfoy quipped sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

Pansy stuck out her tongue, and walked down the hall in the direction from which Harry had come, leaving him and Draco to their own devices.

XoX

After several moments of awkward silence, Draco and Harry had decided to attempt going out for a meeting over dinner again to try and get to know one another better. This time, Harry had allowed Malfoy to choose the restaurant.

So, of course, Malfoy had chosen the fanciest place in town – Creaver's.

"You own the place," Malfoy had said. "Surely you can get us in for free."

So here Harry was, forced by Hermione into the starchiest robes he'd ever been made to wear, standing outside his restaurant waiting for Malfoy to show up. And that was when the limo rolled up.

Malfoy, Harry reflected as the other man stepped out of the limousine and waved his driver away, knew how to make an entrance.

Malfoy's robes were dove grey with lavender and light blue designs stitched into them. On anyone else, they probably would have been ridiculously feminine, but Malfoy managed to make it work. The clasp holding his cloak on was ornate; clear gemstone which might have been diamonds – Harry was no expert – encased in swirling patterns of highly polished silver. Admittedly, his hair was still blue, but his air of complete confidence stopped any of the passers-by from commenting.

"Potter," Malfoy said, raising an eyebrow when he reached Harry. "Are we going in?"

Harry nodded and offered Malfoy his arm. "Remember, they think you're my boyfriend, so call me Harry – you wanted to eat here, you have to deal with the consequences. There's a reporter at every second table in there!"

Malfoy smirked. "Lovely. Now I know why Pansy asked me to wear these ridiculous robes."

Harry, who had not thought they looked anything close to ridiculous, asked: "Isn't she one of the top wizarding fashion designer on the scene? Shouldn't she know what she's doing?"

Malfoy snorted. "It's different when you can remember her getting mud all over her robes at age seven, or the racoon eyes she always had when she tried to do her own make up at age twelve."

"So you two are really just friends?"

"Believe me, Potter," Malfoy said as they neared the restaurant entrance. "I'm queer."

"My name's Harry, remember?"

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "I suppose I'm 'Hugh' then. Why on Earth did I pick 'Hugh' of all names? I could have chosen any name in the world and I chose 'Hugh'."

"I don't think it's that bad a name," Harry said defensively.

"Your name is Harry."

"Glad you remembered. What does that have to do with anything?" Harry asked.

"Well," Draco replied, "I'm just saying that you're not in a good place to judge whether a name is nice or not – you have one of the worst names in the world."

"Oh, and I suppose Draco is so much better?" Harry protested.

"Oh course. Have you run into anyone else with that name?"

Harry sighed. "No. We're going in now, so starting acting like a boyfriend."

Draco snorted and pushed the door open.

XoX

Sitting in the overdone robes that Pansy had assured him were the height of today's fashion, Draco couldn't help but feel a little smug. Here he was, Draco Malfoy, sharing a romantic dinner with Harry Potter while the media tried to be subtle about taking photographs of the two of them. Shortly after they sat down, Potter had cast a silencing charm around their table, much to the disappointment of their onlookers.

Draco leaned towards Harry, placing a hand on the table. "Hold my hand, Potter," he said, smirking slightly.

"What?" Potter asked. "Malfoy, are you insane?"

"No, I just think that it would make a better front page then the two of us sitting stoically on separate sides of a table. Or did you not want to be convincing?" he asked with a sneer. "Grab my hand, Potter."

Potter sighed and leant over to cover Draco's hand with his own.

"There," Draco beamed. "Isn't that just so much better?" The cameras were clicking away furiously.

"Well it's certainly going to make the front of every wizarding newspaper in London if that's what you mean," Potter answered tartly.

"Perfect," Draco said with a flirtatious grin. "I've never been on the front of a newspaper before."

"You're exasperating – now I remember why we got into a screaming match last time we talked," Potter said wearily. "I'm not sure if we're going to be able to put up with each other long enough to find a way home."

Draco smiled his first genuine smile of the night and said: "If Pansy can put up with me I'm sure you can too, Potter."

Potter smiled back at him, and Draco found a flush stealing over his cheeks. "Well," Potter said. "Just as long as I don't have to stroke your hair."