"Oh, fuck me this is disgusting," Draco says. He's knee deep in muck in the pool room, trying to clean the sides of the pool with scouring charms, but the filth is proving difficult to budge.

"That doesn't make me overly inclined to fuck you," Harry says from where he's standing above the lip of the pool, working on the walls.

It's Monday, and their various and sundry guests are arriving on Wednesday, which means that Draco had insisted they concentrate on cleaning the pool before working on any of the other rooms.

"Really? This isn't sexy?" Draco lifts up one of his gaiter clad legs and waggles it around.

"Oh, well when you put it that way," Harry says. "I'll be right down." He moves as if to actually come and join Draco for half a moment before turning back to the corner he's working on.

It's unfair, Draco thinks. That they have these flirtatious conversations. They really get Draco's hopes up, only for reality to bring him back down to earth. They're friends and nothing more.

"How's it going up there?" he asks.

"I'm spurred on by the thought of a shirtless Viktor Krum," Harry says. "Which is the only reason I haven't thrown my hands up in despair." Draco scowls at the side of the pool. He should never have suggested Krum come stay. He pokes angrily at the tiles with his wand.

"This is magical residue," Draco says, pulling his wand away and staring at it. "It must be, or it would react better to these scouring charms."

"Is there a better way for cleaning up magical residue?"

"There are some very extreme ways," Draco says, lowering his wand. "There's a very potent potion that doubles in size every ten seconds, burning up most dirt in its path until it fills a room and then it implodes."

"And you haven't suggested that because?"

"It's rather dangerous and you need a bunch of rare ingredients."

"We could check the potions room," Harry says. "See if the ingredients are in there." Draco sighs. Harry's stubborn enough that now he knows the potion exists, he's going to want to do it, whether or not that room has what they need.

"Yeah, alright," Draco says, relenting. Because it's Harry, and really, he'd do almost anything at this point to keep Harry happy. "Levitate me out, will you?" Harry points his wand at Draco and Draco does his best to stay still as the other man lifts him up and out of the pool.

…

"It's a good thing I went through this with a quick scourgify the other day," Draco says as they walk into the potions room. He'd done that with all of the hidden rooms on the first day after finding them. It hadn't done much for the pool room, clearly, but it had gotten the worst of the dust out of the rest of them.

There are still places he's missed, spots where he can see the dust is piled up still, but it's a wry sight better than it had been. He wonders briefly if they can use the foam bomb potion for the other rooms, but then dismisses the idea when he remembers that the other rooms have furniture in them. The ballroom perhaps, and the now empty solarium, if they wanted to do a deeper clean there.

Draco walks over to the desk and places the book he'd summoned from his room down. A small cloud of dust rises up and Draco's glad for the masks they're wearing.

"It was only a quick scourgify," he clarifies. He runs a finger down the index of the book, looking for the foam bomb potion, before flipping to the correct page.

Draco is pleasantly surprised to find all of the ingredients they need in the potions room. He hasn't gone through to catalogue everything that's there, but it's quite the collection. There are even rare ingredients, like occamy eggs and basilisk skin. Draco's impressed and can only guess at how much it cost to put the collection together.

"So how do we do this?" Harry asks.

"You can read, can't you Potter?" Draco asks, indicating the book.

"You're in the way." Harry hip checks him.

"I'm gathering ingredients," Draco counters. He picks up one of the cauldrons that sits on a shelf above the main work table and walks it over to where there's a sink set against the wall. "There," he says. "You can have all the space you need." Of course, he could have told Harry what they're supposed to be doing, but it is more fun to tease him. It's always been more fun to tease Harry. And somehow it's satisfying even when he doesn't get a rise out of him.

"So we brew most of it, bring it to the room that needs cleaning, and then add the ambered glue?"

"Exactly. And then get the fuck out of the way and close the door behind us." Harry gives a strangled laugh. "Unless we want to get dissolved away as well."

"It dissolves organic matter then?"

"Something like that." The potion's exact effects are only vaguely described in the book, but Draco knows from experience that it cleans away magical debris, along with dust and other such dirt, while leaving behind things such as wood and metal. He'd made the mistake of leaving a pile of parchment in a room that he had foam bombed once and that had disappeared too, though it had left the curtains behind.

"Well, let's get to work then," Harry says.

…

It takes the better part of the morning to brew the base potion. Draco had expected it would go poorly, just given how poorly their potion brewing had gone during school when Professor Snape had paired them together. But they're grown ups now. And they're no longer competing for house points, or trying to sabotage each other for the fun of it.

They take a break around midday for lunch and spend it reminiscing about school and their old Potions lessons, and while Harry doesn't have fond memories of Snape's classes, he opens up a bit more about Slughorn's.

"So you're telling me that you had a book that helped you?" Draco has all but finished his sandwich and is picking at the crusts now.

"Yes. It was Professor Snape's book from when he had been a student. I'm not sure why he'd kept it. I suppose it had some good notes in it," Harry trails off before shoving his sandwich in his mouth.

"That explains so much." Harry cocks his head to the side. "How you were suddenly so much better at Potions than I was, or even than Granger was for that matter." In the years following school, Draco has come to realize that Hermione Granger was a far better student than he ever was. Not that he'd admit it to her face, even though he probably should. Maybe if she ever stops by to visit. After all, she's one of the few people he's never managed to apologize to.

"If it makes you feel any better, I'm not sure I actually learned anything from that book. I'm still pretty clueless when it comes to Potions. Nearly failed my practical on the Auror Exam." It doesn't make Draco feel any better.

"There's a potions component to the Auror exam?" he asks. Harry nods.

"You have to brew antidotes based on theory," he explains. "And I don't know if you remember the time that Slughorn asked us to do that?"

"Do I ever? That was the hardest challenge he gave us all year." And it had been the first one that Draco had beaten Harry at. "You gave him a bezoar." Harry nods.

"It was the only thing I could think of."

"It wasn't the worst answer," Draco allows.

"I did the same thing in my Auror exam." Draco raises his eyebrows.

"That took balls," he says. He'd thought the same thing back in Slughorn's classroom. He smiles, thinking about how shocked everyone had been that Harry Potter, Golden Boy of Gryffindor had all but cheated on his assignment. He wonders how the aurors took it.

"I think if I had been anyone else, they would have flunked me," Harry admits.

"Ah, so you skated by on the strength of the Harry Potter name?" Harry scrunches up his face in embarrassment.

"Yes." Draco rolls his eyes.

"Prick," he says fondly, even though he knows full well that had he been in Potter's Auror class (ha— like they'd ever have let him join) he would have been furious.

…

"Are you ready for this?" Draco asks Harry. They're back in their gnome gear, staring down at the cauldron that they've placed in the middle of the swimming pool room.

"I was born ready," Harry says and Draco groans.

"You're an idiot." The corners of Harry's eyes crinkle in amusement. "Right then, three, two, one." Draco drops in the ambered glue and then they turn and sprint out of the room. The last thing that they see before they shut the door is a cloud of foam starting to crest over the lip of the cauldron. The door shuts with a decisive click.

"Now what?" Harry asks.

"Now we wait."

"That's boring," Harry says. "How long does it take?" Draco shrugs.

"A room that size? Maybe a couple of hours?"

"In which case, I'm going to continue sorting through Sirius's room." Draco nods. "What seeing as we have seven people coming to stay this weekend."

"I thought you'd heard me when I mentioned Pansy," Draco says, not for the first time.

"I'm easily distracted. Clearly."

"And it's not my fault Weasley's bringing, uh, other Weasley." Harry shakes his head.

"It's fine. Knowing Percy, he won't touch anything without permission."

"Make him share with Ron?" Draco suggests.

"I'm trying to repair our friendship, not doom it."

"Would you like any help upstairs?" Draco asks. "It might be helpful to have an outside opinion on what to keep?"

"It would be nice to have company." Harry shrugs. "Come on, let's get out of these get ups."

"Are you saying I don't look sexy in this?" Draco asks as they make their way out of the sitting room.

"Incredibly sexy," Harry says. "It's all in the way that the suit hides any sort of shape your body has, other than vaguely human."

"I mean, vaguely human is the sexiest of shapes."

"Draco, you're a menace."

"Oh, you love me," Draco says and then stops walking because, oh Circe, what has he just said? Harry coughs, and starts to make his way up the stairs.

"I'll see you up there?"

"Yeah," Draco manages to get out. "Be right there."

…

"I'm putting any personal effects, so letters, clothes, etc., in this box," Harry says as soon as Draco walks into Sirius's room. Draco nods. "And I must admit, this is a much more attractive outfit than the gnome suit." Draco stops dead and just blinks at Harry. "Sorry, am I not allowed to say you're attractive?"

"I—" Draco tries to speak but his throat is dry. He swallows hard, pulling himself together. "I'm just glad you've finally realized the obvious." He flashes Harry his winningest smile, and then makes his way over to one of the chests of drawers and pulls a drawer open. He's disappointed when he finds it empty. He makes his way through the drawers until Harry looks up and says,

"That one was already empty."

"Right," Draco says. "What should I work on then?"

"I would say we should remove these posters, but I think it would be far more hilarious if we leave them up for Percy."

"So, I'll tackle the closet?" Draco asks.

"It's empty," Harry says. "Just sit and keep me company." Draco wants to protest that there are other things he could be doing, but spending time with Harry is what he'd prefer to do.

"Alright," he says. "We can discuss sitting room furniture while you sort through things."

"What if," Harry says and then pauses, squinting down at a piece of parchment. Draco waits for him to continue and makes his way over to the bed in the meantime. He sits down on the side farthest from Harry. "What if you just chose everything for me?"

"You have no opinions?"

"No."

"None at all?"

"Head is empty," Harry says, pointing at it.

"Well, we knew that." Draco leans back against the headboard and puts his hands behind his head. Harry turns around and glares at him and Draco smirks.

"Plus, I trust you," he says.

"Do you?" Draco asks. "That's interesting."

"I trust your design opinions," Harry clarifies. "You have a good eye." Draco nods and pushes himself off of the bed.

"I'll go get my catalogues then, so we can pick some things out."

"Can you order them on the internet?" Harry asks, not turning around.

"If someone showed me how the internet worked, I probably could," Draco says. "But Pansy won't let us get a computer. She says they're too muggle."

"Then it's a good thing Pansy's not here." Harry smirks and puts a sheaf of papers into the box of personal items. "I'll teach you tonight."

"Is this going to be like the dishwasher?" Draco asks, narrowing his eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, am I going to be monumentally pissed off with you for not showing me this muggle invention earlier? Is it something I might have found useful to know about, I don't know, two weeks ago?"

"Erm," Harry says. He sits down on the edge of the bed. "It's going to be just like that I'm afraid." Draco groans. "But in my defense, you never asked."

"I hate you," Draco says. He mostly means it in a sarcastic way, but with the added pressure of people arriving in two days, Draco finds he's been getting irritated more quickly, and over the smallest of things. He turns stalks towards the door.

"No, you don't," Harry says. Draco stops walking and hangs his head. He takes a deep breath.

"You're right. I don't hate you." He turns to face Harry. "But it is taking all of my willpower not to tackle you onto that bed right now." He's not sure if he wants to hit Harry or kiss him. Maybe both. Probably neither.

"Go on then," Harry says, challenging. "Do it."

Draco doesn't think. He crosses the room in three strides and pushes Harry back onto the bed. He straddles him, pinning him down with his hands. He stares down at Harry and Harry stares back up at him, his eyes boring into Draco's.

It's too much. Draco scrambles off of him and out of the room, not looking behind him as he all but sprints down the stairs.