Chapter 9

"No studying. I mean none, like, yeah? At all. And yes, that includes you too, Hermione."

Everyone laughed at Seamus' stipulations. When Harry spared a smile for Hermione, it was to see her flushed before the sea of entertained attention but similarly amused. On her other side, grinning widely, Ron slung an arm around her shoulders to pull her in an energetic one-armed embrace. It stayed there even as the laughter eased.

The weaving walk back from the Great Hall to the Dragon's Nest seemed shorter in company, but in many ways a little less enjoyable. Harry didn't mind in this instance, the return feast and the atmosphere it created as much an obligation as school attendance itself, but he wouldn't be sad to be rid of the overwhelming company. After Christmas and the parties it entailed, the urge to take a break from theatrics and hype had grown increasingly. Another thing he'd realised about himself, right about the same time he'd learnt that the loudness and vibrancy of his dorm-mates was sometimes tiresome for more specific reasons than that they could be 'a bit rowdy'.

The loudness, the excitement, the feverish near-hysteria of realising that NEWTs were barely months away, and yes, that they would all have to study even harder – it was abrasive, even if it wasn't all bad. Harry even found himself agreeing with Seamus' sentiment; having a night off from study before diving headfirst back into it would be as savoured as a final gasp of air before dropping beneath tumultuous seas. Utterly necessary.

But he had other plans for that night. Plans that provided the welcome relief from the persisting hubbub that surrounded him.

Approaching the Dragon's Nest, feet scuffing up the stone steps towards the arching doorway with its metallic beast slumbering on the front, Harry glanced around himself. He skimmed over the familiar faces of the Patil twins, of Neville standing alongside Hannah in quiet yet enthusiastic conversation, of Terry and Michael arguing and Susan and Mandy sharing a laugh. He skipped over Seamus as he led the way into the tower, hauling Dean after him, then glanced over his shoulder towards the trickling tail end of their party. He frowned.

"How much do you want to bet that someone's bought booze?" Ron was asking, though Harry barely heard him.

It wasn't posed to anyone in particular, but Hermione was the one who replied. "That's a stupid bet. It's practically assured."

"Are you saying you're not up for it?"

"For the bet, or a drink?"

"What's this, you're actually humouring me? I was almost sure that you'd steer clear of anything even resembling a Spritz after what happened at Christmas."

"I didn't say I'd take you up on your offer if it really was one, Ron."

Ron laughed, leading her through the arched entrance, but Harry barely heard that either. Ducking away from his friends unnoticed, he slipped through the thin stream of students, shared a brief smile with Wayne, brushed by Su's shoulder, and picked up his pace as the majority of them fell away to leave only a handful interspersed in its wake.

Daphne bypassed him with a side-eyed glance. Theodore didn't seem to notice him at all. Millicent had already found one of her cats somewhere along the trip from the Hall, and was paying more attention to the fur ball purring in her arms than where she was walking. Only Pansy and Blaise, walking side by side and in muted conversation, remained to take up the rear.

Just the two of them.

They stopped talking long before Harry had reached them, and stopped walking at nearly the same time. Both adopted their usual blank-faced regard, as unemotional as ever, but Harry didn't really care. Not this time. Hermione still said on frequent occasion that she would prefer it if they were all kinder to one another, more forgiving, that they interacted more. The ex-Slytherins – for they still always felt such a way, even if the rest of the eighth years had largely brushed aside such labelling – continued to be on the left foot, standing just outside the rest of their year mates. It was a shame, but not unexpected.

Harry didn't care so much about that, either. Not right then. Glancing between them, he didn't even bother waiting for a disregarding comment or the vaguely cordial nod that they so often offered him.

"Where's Draco?" he asked.

Pansy blinked. Blaise eyed her sidelong. Harry only spared Blaise himself a momentary glance, focusing upon Pansy. If she knew about Draco's feelings then Blaise most likely did too, but she was the only one Harry was certain knew of his and Draco's arrangement. Their arrangement that hadn't felt quite so strange for a long time but abruptly seemed more than a little absurd – and a little obvious – when Harry viewed it through either hers or Draco's lens.

"He's not here," Pansy finally said.

"Yeah, I got that. But he was at the feast, so where'd he go?"

Pansy's lips pinched, the only shift in her expression. "Why do you want to know?"

"Because I want to talk to him."

"So?"

"So, you're the most likely person to know where he went. I didn't even see him leave, but I'll bet you did."

Pansy's lips pinched further. "What if he doesn't want to talk to you?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't really care, to be honest. I'll just talk, then, and he can listen whether he wants to or not."

Blaise snorted. As Pansy shot him a glare, the first real break in her blankness, Blaise rolled his eyes. A touch of the easy swagger Harry remembered he'd once had resurfaced. "You're really something, Potter, aren't you?"

Harry shrugged again. "I don't know. Maybe."

"Yeah, you are. Why else would Draco be interested, after all?"

So he did know. Harry wasn't even faintly surprised. "Where'd he go?"

"Zabini," Pansy said lowly.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Pans, he's going to find him anyway. There's not that many places Draco goes when he'd sulking."

"He's in the library?" Harry guessed.

Blaise smirked. "Bingo," he said with a wink.

Harry nodded. Skirting around the both of them, Harry started back down the passage they'd come, taking the steps two at a time. He only paused as Blaise called him to a halt a moment later. He glanced over his shoulder. "What?"

Blaise, turned after him and propped against the stone wall alongside him, considered him for a moment before replying. "He's in a particularly bad mood lately, just so you know. Tread carefully."

Harry nodded slowly, ignoring Pansy's sighing "shut the fuck up, Zabini, honestly". "You two spent the Christmas break with him, then?"

"With him?" Pansy rolled her eyes in direct contrast to Blaise's abruptly wide grin.

"Yeah, you could say that," he said. "Not much 'spending', though. He was 'studying'."

Blaise made quotations in the air to accompany his words before folding his arms across his chest. He smirked as he watched Harry consider his words.

"Right," he said, nodding shortly. "Thanks for the warning, I guess." Turning, Harry continued down the stairs. He didn't slow when Blaise called after him again, barely registering the amused "kick him out of his funk, would you, Potter."

The castle was silent but for the hum of wind passing down the passages, the murmur and groans of the walls as they settled for the evening. Any trace of students that had passed through it earlier that evening had vanished, and the stone corridors were empty of anything but flickering torchlight, the cool glow of the moon streaming through the windows, and the occasional ghost drifting in thoughtful solitude.

To the company of only his own footsteps, Harry slipped through that silence. It was a little jarring, if comfortably so, after the vibrancy of his fellow eighth years. He would hazard a guess that Draco had likely appreciated it in much the same way as he was. If nothing else, that isolation, the quietude it entailed, was something they shared. Something that Harry had realised was one of several commonalities. Commonalities and… liking?

Maybe. Just maybe.

The library doors were closed, but that didn't mean anything. Seniors were allowed within until ten o'clock anyway. Easing one side open, Harry slipped within, closed the door behind himself, and made his way almost blindly through the dark aisles. He exchanged only a glance with Madam Pince, nodded in recognition of her muttered rules that she seemed to regurgitate every time anyone visited her books, and trekked the familiar route towards the alcove he'd visited countless times before.

It was darker the deeper he went. Darker, briefly, and then lighter as the glow of a glass-bound lamp peeked around the aisles and through the lines of shelving. Pausing just beyond it, Harry peered into the pool of light that spilled over the table. The light that encompassed Draco in his ring of books and quills, inkwells and parchment sheets, that so often decorated the table in their study sessions. For once, Harry considered him with a new light that had nothing to do with the orange glow from the flickering candle.

Draco was handsome. Harry knew that. He'd always known it, even if that handsomeness had been tarnished by dislike that bordered upon hatred on frequent occasions. It was simply a fact about him, much as Harry could recognise that he was blond, or that his nose was a little too sharply pointed to be overlooked, or that he had long and surprisingly delicate fingers. Just facts, except when considered in the light of the words Draco had admitted before Christmas.

Now, Harry couldn't really see him any other way. The urge to step forwards, the assume their usual closeness that had been stripped away for barely two weeks, was a magnetic desire. How many times had Harry approached that study table, with Draco bowed over his books and scrawling line after line of elegant print? It was instinctive to want to follow that trend.

Instinctive… and a want. Harry wanted it. Whether for the comfort of touch, touching in a way that didn't feel quite the same with anyone else, or for another reason entirely, Harry wanted things to go back to the way they'd been. It wouldn't happen, couldn't, but then – paradoxically – Harry knew he didn't want that to happen at all. Because it would never be quite the same anyway.

Draco was sulking, Blaise had said. Whatever that meant. Would he even talk to Harry if he approached him, or would Harry simply have to speak to him without getting a reply, just as he'd told Pansy he would?

There's only one way to find out, an irritatingly rational voice muttered in his head. Though he shrugged it aside alongside his awkwardness, Harry steeled himself for what was to come and stepped into the lamp light.

Draco didn't lift his head. He didn't give any direct indication he noticed Harry. Except, watching him as Harry was, as familiar with his study habits as Harry had become, he knew that the slight slowing of his quill bespoke distraction. That it was just one nudge away from stopping entirely, from Draco speaking and reaching for Harry's textbook or essay and pointing something out, or commenting that it was getting late, or even admitting that he was getting tired as he'd done only twice before. It might not be Draco's undivided attention, but it was enough, and it fortified Harry's resolution further.

"Hey," he said, stopping at the edge of the table. "Seamus has made a decree, you know. No studying tonight, and that includes you. Even Hermione agreed, though not in so many words."

Draco didn't reply. His quill twitched but didn't otherwise pause.

"Draco?"

Nothing.

"Are you going to stay down here until Pince comes and kicks you out?"

Still nothing.

Biting back a sigh, Harry briefly closed his eyes before gathering his courage once more. Why was it that fighting, something he'd once done so well but now felt almost abhorrent to consider, was so much easier to throw himself into that a simple conversation and admission? Why was it possible to risk his own life but not to dodge the urge to save face and slink away from the humiliation of having any words and feelings voiced thrown back at him like a slap in the face?

Harry didn't know what he'd expected. He didn't know what he hoped for from Draco. Folding his arms tightly over his chest, fighting the urge to cling to himself, he took a breath before throwing himself headfirst into the deep end.

Like a band-aid. Just do it quickly.

"I thought about what you said," Harry began slowly, and Draco's quill froze. "About what you told me, and how you felt. I thought about it a lot, actually. Practically all of Christmas."

Harry couldn't look at Draco. His gaze was fixed upon the parchment before him instead, where the nib of Draco's quill threatened to drip a droplet of ink. For the first time he appreciated just how hard it must have been for Draco to stumble through admitting his own feelings. Draco hadn't even been faced with the assurance that a positive reception lay at the other end.

Swallowing a lump in his throat, Harry licked his lips before continuing. "I'm not good at this sort of thing, you know. I've thought it for a while, but really, over Christmas, I've started to think that maybe there's a few screws loose or something. I don't know how to… I mean, I don't really know how to… to…"

"To what?"

Harry's eyes flicked from Draco's quill to his face. It hadn't shifted, hadn't risen, yet the corner of Draco's eye was visibly trained upon him. Harry felt his heartbeat give an anxious quiver, and his arms tightened over his chest just a little.

"This," he said. "Any of this. With you. I mean, really thinking about it, there must have been something wrong with me that I didn't even realise what was going on, right? Or that I didn't think it was weird – or, well, I did, but it wasn't enough for me to stop doing it. Clearly. I just – I don't know what I'm supposed to do, or say, or if I'm even doing anything right, so even though I told you we would talk after Christmas, I didn't think – I mean, I didn't know –"

"What the fuck are you going on about?"

Like a wind-up toy, Draco's switch flipped. He all but flung himself back in his seat, his quill flung from his grasp as his hands rose to his face. He scrubbed at his eyes, rubbed his cheeks, and exhaled harshly through his fingers. The motion was so abrupt, so contrasting to seconds before, that Harry was momentarily thrown. It wasn't a reassuring gesture, and definitely not when coupled with the sharpness of his words, but at least it was more than what he'd given Harry before. Blessedly more.

"This," Harry reattempted. "You. And me. And you liking me. And me… me probably liking you back."

Draco paused in his scrubbing. A brief pause, interrupted only by the tap of Harry's shoes on the ground as he rocked from foot to foot. Slowly, Draco's hands slid down his face. "What?"

"You," Harry said. "I think I probably like you."

"You… think you like me."

Harry's gaze dropped down to his feet as he butted a toe against the table leg. "Yeah. I don't really know how to say it, but –"

"You don't know how to say it."

Harry frowned. "Look, this has never happened to me before, okay? The only other people I've dated have been the other way around."

"Meaning –?"

"Meaning I was the one who liked them first."

"Oh, I doubt that. Ginny Weasley has been a basket case for years. You were just too blind to see it."

The urge to snap a retort in Ginny's defence rose on Harry's tongue, but as he glanced up at Draco, it died before it had properly formed. Draco was staring at him, eyes just a little widened, one of his hands still raised before his mouth as though he'd forgotten he held it there. There was no malice in his expression, in his tone. No derision. If anything, he looked a little stunned.

It wasn't much, but it was enough. Enough that Harry could gather himself once more. Being the only one disconcerted made it so much harder, but when it was the both of them?

Stepping up to Draco's chair, Harry turned his gaze properly upon him. It was strange to be positioned that much higher than him, above him, with Draco's face upturned and as splintered and open as a shattered window. Strange, but not entirely unfamiliar. How many times had Harry sat in his lap, glanced at his face sidelong, clambered over him and off of him with increasing ease and casualness?

"I'm not good at this," Harry said quietly. "At any kind of dating, for that matter, even if I have done it before. This is – different. For me. I don't really know how it's supposed to work, and I don't know what I'm supposed to do, or say, or think. So you're going to have to throw me a bone a little bit, okay."

When Draco didn't reply, Harry slowly, hesitantly, lowered his hand to Draco's shoulder until his fingers just brushed the material of his robes. "I like you," he said, a little more confidently this time. "I like being around you."

"That's not the quite the same thing as my liking," Draco murmured, though he still hadn't blinked away from his wide-eyed staring.

"I'm not so sure about that," Harry said. He took a moment to bite his lip, to consider if this was it, and this was what he really wanted, even if he didn't wholly understand what this was. Even if he likely never would have realised another was going on at all if Draco hadn't planted the idea first. Then, raising his other hand to Draco's chin, he leant over him to touch his lips in the lightest of kisses.

For a moment, Draco didn't move. He was nothing but frozen, as though magically petrified. And yet, just as Harry began to pull away, he shifted. His hand rose to the back of Harry's head, touched then tentatively settled, and he pulled Harry back towards him until their lips were pressed fast.

Warm. Soft. Comfortable, yet not without its tingle of something else. Something other. Something that touches and comfort didn't always entail, and something that Harry didn't feel anymore in a hug from Ginny, or in Ron's butted shoulder and Hermione's affectionate pats as she left him in to common room to retire to bed for the night. It was something that had flickered to life only slowly, evolving and growing bigger and brighter entirely unnoticed until Harry regarded it in just the right lighting.

Oh, a quiet, faintly wondering part of him thought. So that's what it was.

Eyes closing, Harry sunk against Draco, opening his mouth to his warm kisses. His hand settled more firmly on Draco's shoulder, his other curling around Draco's neck, and with less hesitancy, Draco returned the touches.

A hand drifted around Harry's back, around his waist, and fingers hooked into the back of his shirt. Oh, and that, too. A breath of even more familiarity, the hold recognised and remembered but seen in a different light.

Draco twisted in his seat, the chair scraping as he turned, and, lost in Draco's mouth and the kiss of his breath across his lips, Harry barely noticed until Draco tugged him down towards himself. Harry's body reacted instinctively, moved to straddle Draco just as his arms draped over his shoulders, and pressed a little more closely to him until they sat chest to chest. Oh, I think I see what Pansy was thinking now.

Soft touches that tightened until they were practically clinging. Gentle, almost awed kisses that became heavier, thicker, wet and a mess of tongue and sucking lips. Harry had kissed people before, had shared many kisses, and yet this felt somehow different. The experience lay on a bed of routine, of habitual contact, and played practiced chords while somehow producing a tune that sounded entirely different.

Different and better.

Gasping, short of breath and warmer than he had any right to be in the darker reaches of the library, Harry couldn't have said how long it had been when he surfaced from fierce kisses for a gulp of air. So close to Draco that he could taste every exhalation Draco huffed, that he could feel the warmth of him emanating from his skin, Harry slowly opened his eyes.

Close. So close, and closer than ever before, with Harry's arms looped around Draco's neck, his legs bent and flush alongside Draco's thighs, Draco's own arms holding them together so tightly that Harry could feel the heaviness of each breath as it shuddered through Draco's chest. So wonderfully close.

Draco's eyes were heavy lidded as they too blinked open to peer up at him. Slightly dazed, a little disbelieving, but bright with a light that stretch incomparably beyond what the lamp upon the table could illuminate. Pretty eyes, even little more than a dark, formless gaze that met Harry's own with renewed steadiness.

"That's a good thing, I take it?" Harry murmured. They were so close he barely had to whisper.

Draco's amused huff brushed against Harry's neck as he leant forward, forehead dropping to rest on Harry's shoulder. "If you're being an asshole and pretending –"

"I'm not," Harry said.

A pause, then, "If this is some mean-spirited prank –"

"It isn't." Acting on instinct, Harry grazed his lips over the shell of Draco's ear. He couldn't help but smile as Draco shivered slightly. That close, Harry felt it through every part of his body.

Not even a flicker of embarrassment remained, swept aside in the wake of his dazed aftermath. His breath was still were heavy, his lips a little sore not unfamiliarly so yet still somehow different to the effect of Ginny's kisses. His body felt heavy too, blissfully relaxed and comfortable in a way he hadn't felt for weeks. Not since Draco had last given him the benefit of his lap. It felt like a long time ago since Pansy had walked in on them, since Harry had been left stupefied in Draco's wake as he swept from the alcove in a fit of mortification.

Dropping his chin down onto Draco's own shoulder, Harry murmured a contented, "I take it this means that you'll let me sit with you again?"

Draco snorted, the sound muffled but distinct nonetheless. "I knew you only used me for one thing."

"Two, now." As Draco twisted his head, turning slightly to face him, Harry smirked. "You're a pretty good kisser, too."

"Oh." A moment of his own stupefied silence followed before Draco straightened, leaning back in his seat. "Well, there's always room for improvement."

Lifting his own head, peering down at Draco once more, Harry smiled. "Looking forward to it."

"Between study, maybe."

"Of course." Harry rolled his eyes. "You know, I'm not even surprised. I've always been aware of your priorities. Speaking of, did you actually eat anything at the feast?"

"Just as I know what your priorities are. And yes, I did."

"Good, because I'd definitely have to go in search of a house elf otherwise. Especially if you really do plan to keep studying."

Draco's arms tightened around Harry and Harry couldn't help but grin. He couldn't seem to shake it for long, it seemed; with his nervousness swept aside, only delight seemed to lie in its wake. "I'd rather you didn't."

"Yeah, I got that impression."

"I'd rather just stay here for the rest of the night, for that matter."

Cocking his head, Harry regarded him curiously. "Do you really get as much out of this whole seating arrangement as me? I was sure you were only humouring me for most of it."

Draco laughed. The sound was a little exasperated, a little breathless, and felt infinitely better to Harry's ears than the detached, flat words he'd voiced in their brief period of separation. As did the way Draco tightened his arms even further and returned his forehead to Harry's shoulder.

"Harry, you have no idea."

Harry didn't slow as he stepped into the alcove. Dropping his books upon the table, his bag to the floor alongside it, he thrust a kebab in Draco's face to the satisfying, annoyed grunt of his subject.

"Here," he said, shaking it slightly. "Eat it."

Draco sat up from his textbook. He lowered his quill, frowned at the wrap with lips drawing to the side, before plucking it from Harry's hand. At the same time, he reached his other hand towards him, hooking his arm around Harry's waist and pulling him towards him.

Harry readily followed his silent suggestion. It was too easy to fall into Draco's lap. Too easy to lean against him, to soak up the warmth of his presence. Far too easy to press himself up against him, to wrap his arms around him in return and graze a kiss over Draco's neck. As with so many things between them, in such a short time what had seemed so ludicrously impossible became utterly natural. Harry withheld from obliging to that last with only a brief struggle.

"I did have breakfast, you know," Draco said before taking a bite.

"I know." Harry reached for his Defence textbook. In the face of a struggling capacity for practical skills, he found himself turning towards the theoretical aspects of the subject more and more often. God help him, he'd need any extra boost he could get to pass his NEWTs at the rate he was going. "It's past lunchtime, though."

"Most boyfriends don't simultaneously assume the role of caretaker, you know."

"Yeah, I know that, too." Harry flipped open his book. "But most people don't have a hermit for a boyfriend who would probably starve to death if he wasn't either dragged from his study hole or hand-delivered food."

"That's very specific of you."

"You require very specific treatment, Draco."

"Duly noted."

Harry smiled. He wasn't oblivious to the ring of satisfaction that touched Draco's words. The tinge of affection, even. It wasn't so hard to hear when he knew what he was listening out for. Settling into what would surely have to be the most comfortable seat in the world, Harry turned to his own studies. If nothing else, Draco's habits had rubbed off on him at least as much as Harry's had in return. A little pathetically, given their circumstances and all that such studiousness entailed, Harry found he didn't mind studying anymore in the least.