Chapter Two

A/N: I'm really regretting that summary; this fic's bombed! It's slash, okay people? Not het. Thank you to the people who reviewed or put it on alert. Sorry for the delay in posting; fanfiction's been misbehaving slightly.

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"Ginny?"

"Mm… wha…"

"Wake up, honey." Harry sat down on the edge of their bed, dressed and ready for work. For some reason unknown even to himself, he had an odd predilection for taking Muggle transport part of the way to work every day, so he left early. "I've got to go."

Ginny's eyes fluttered open reluctantly, and she looked up at him. "Already?"

He smiled. "It's eight twenty. I just thought I should wake you up to say bye, since I won't see you till tomorrow night."

"Oh…" She rubbed her eyes, the bright blue glinting in the early sunlight. "I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you too," he said softly. "Say hello to Mione for me. And make sure you get some more sleep before you have to go to the hospital."

"I will. Bye baby."

"Bye." He leaned down to kiss her before he stood up and left the room. He felt like a right bastard doing what he was going to do while she was away, but every time he told himself to quit, something stopped him.

Ticket office, train, tube, walk. The same as every morning, but with an even bigger guilt trip than usual.

Street, telephone box, sign-in, badge, lift, atrium. Yes, hello stupid fountain. He still maintained that the Ministry had some damned unpleasant décor in places.

He reached his office on the second floor and sat down in his swivel chair, picking up a piece of parchment and scribbling a memo, enchanting it and sending it zooming off to its destination. Whether he would be doing anything 'irresponsible' in his girlfriend's absence depended on the reply to that memo.

It flew back in ten minutes later with an answer.

Fine, floo over at 7 tonight. I know how crap your cooking is without her around, so I'll have dinner ready.

Harry smiled, against his conscience. Yep, he was definitely going to be doing something irresponsible. Stowing the fluttering memo in a desk drawer, he turned his attention to his in-tray, overflowing as usual.

At eleven, an owl flew in, and he recognised it as his own, Hedwig, still with him now and snowier than ever. Ruffling her feathers gently, he took the parchment from her leg, guessing correctly that it must be from Ginny.

Hi Harry, I got more sleep after you went, like I promised. Now I'm bored and I don't have to go to work just yet. I wish you were here! Ginny xxx

It was sweet and so characteristic of Ginny to send a message like that, but it didn't bring a smile to his face. He couldn't carry on like this; something was going to give soon.

At five thirty, Harry flooed out of the Ministry and home to the house, noting how quiet it felt with Ginny out at work. Whenever she was there, the house seemed more alive somehow. There was so much he loved about her, but it just didn't feel like enough any more.

Dropping his briefcase in the bedroom, he took a shower, emerging from the bathroom half an hour later wrapped in a towel. Slipping his glasses back on, he swung open the wardrobe and started debating what to wear. The only problem with this way of living was that it made him feel like a girl half the time. And the frequent clothing debates weren't the half of it.

Eventually he settled for something he'd worn before: black jeans and a dark green sweater with a V-neck. It was still only six fifteen; he had three quarters of an hour to waste. He spent a while longer getting ready, blow-drying his hair and brushing it until it lay almost flat (not that that would matter), and going on a hunt for his shoes, which always seemed to have a mind of their own, and at that a mind which was hell-bent on escaping. At last, holding both shoes, he went downstairs and sat down in the kitchen, flipping through the Daily Prophet, noting that a couple of his Hogwarts contemporaries were getting married.

At quarter to seven, he realised that the floo powder was running low and he was going to have to get more soon, without Ginny knowing. She'd never noticed how much of the stuff they got through, fortunately. He returned to the kitchen, dug in a drawer for a Wizarding Supplies owl-order form, filled it in with a biro, and found Hedwig in the utility room, sipping from her water dish. He tied the form to her leg, stroked her head and let her out of the charmed skylight, watching her flutter off across the garden before she ascended, a little further away from the houses.

Finally it was seven o' clock. Harry ran a hand over his hair, straightened his glasses, and picked up the bag he had been hiding under the stairs. Taking a deep breath in, he tossed a handful of floo powder into the fireplace, and stepped in after it, his words muffled by the sound of the flames as he said his destination.

For a long moment, he was whirling through an endless tunnel lined with fireplaces. He'd never quite adjusted to flooing, though he had to admit it was a lot easier than it used to be.

Then, abruptly, the moment was over, and he stepped neatly out onto a black and silver rug. His exits had definitely got more dignified with time. He hadn't fallen out of a fireplace for months now.

He looked up, making sure he still had his bag and was in the right place. Oh yes, this was the right place. He was standing in a huge room with an open, railed staircase at one side, leading to galleries above, dark wood flooring that shone softly, and deep red walls and furnishings. Everything was either gleaming gently or giving off an impression of incredible softness, and it was all lit by understated chandeliers hanging from the high ceilings. The room's majesty was still impressive, even though Harry had stood here so many times he had lost count.

At present, the room was empty. He glanced at his watch; it was seven o' clock alright, maybe even a little past. His eyes were still lowered to his wrist when someone walked in from the right hand end of the room.

"Are you still obsessed with punctuality?" The newcomer spoke. "If I'm thirty seconds late or whatever, I'm sorry, it's because I was doing dinner."

It was funny how they still talked like this sometimes, even though so much had changed. Harry never really thought about it; he just supposed that old habits died hard. Or in his case, this kind of exchange could be valuable for veiling what he was really thinking. His head snapping back up to look towards the door, he walked forward. "Sorry. I shouldn't complain; you didn't have to let me come here tonight anyway."

There was a strange flash in his host's eyes as Harry said that, but then they reached each other and a handshake turned – as it customarily did with them – into an embrace, a brief kiss, and a smile from both parties.

"So Harry, how was your day?" A pale, slender arm slipped around Harry's waist and led him towards the kitchen.

"Oh, not so bad. Busy, but then it always is," Harry answered, dropping his bag by the door as they passed through it. "That smells good," he added, inhaling the scent from the kitchen stove.

"What did you expect?" his host asked, flashing him a smile. "Since the emancipation of the house elves, I've learned a lot about how to cook."

"I'm not contesting that; I've eaten your cooking too often to be able to criticise it." Harry smiled back, wishing that these conversations could happen more often. There was definitely something more than just a physical spark between them, and he wished to god either that he could stop feeling the way he did, or that it could be requited.

He sat down in the chair that was pulled out for him, and at a wave of his host's wand, plates landed on the table in front of the two of them. "Enjoy." Harry obliged.

When he finished his meal and was sipping his second glass of wine (a light, fruity white), he looked up to watch his companion, who was finishing a last morsel of sea bass. Fine blond hair fell across pale, sculpted features, framing glinting silver-blue eyes and delicate lips. At length, those eyes were raised and came to rest on Harry. "Que pensez-vous, Monsieur?" (1)

Harry smiled, placing his wine glass carefully back on its coaster and indulging the sudden transition in language. "Très bien, Draco." (2)

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Translations: (1) "What do you think, Sir?"(2) "Very good, Draco."

A/N: Please please review guys, I need the boost.