The way Hermione's been eyeing him lately, eyes beady and suspicious and maybe a little worried (which he pointedly ignores so that he won't have to feel guilty) has him nearly thinking that he won't be able to sneak out of the common room tonight like they'd planned.

But, for once, fate seems to be on his side.

"Fuck!" Ron hastily points his wands at the flames, leaping from his seat in the middle of a game of Exploding Snap. Several of the first years shriek, along with everyone who had been watching the game, and Harry thinks he hears Seamus cackling triumphantly beneath it all.

He doesn't stick around to find out.

It's not unusual for Harry to disappear from the dormitory and come back well after midnight to stumble into bed, still in his clothes and utterly exhausted. It had started as a restless habit – he'd take the map and his cloak, and he'd wander the halls of Hogwarts like one of the ghosts, bleak and mourning. Sometimes he was numb inside; sometimes, though, the pain of memory radiated from his skull and down his spine, clenching his stomach like a vice.

So many people were dead, because of him. Because he hadn't been fast enough. Brave enough.

Some Gryffindor.

Tonight, though, was a different sort of rendezvous.

He remembers the first time they'd crossed paths in the middle of the night. If Harry felt like a ghost, then Malfoy looked like one. It had seemed a small miracle when the Board of Governors had allowed Draco back at the school for the remedial year. Returning Slytherins were sparse – most of them didn't want to return, not after being condemned during the war.

For whatever reason, though, Draco had returned. Most likely to an empty, eerie dorm, and the suspicious glances of his classmates. But he'd done it.

Harry had asked him that night, "Why?" and he had told him, with quiet, tired force behind his voice, that any respectable Potions Master had their NEWTs, and it was really none of his business what Draco did with his life, anyways.

He supposed that he was right, but with a shrug he continued his badgering. He'd followed him all the way back to the dungeons that way, prodding him, faintly amused at the way he'd irritably tried to shake him off. It came with an odd sense of relief when he saw Malfoy disappear through the portrait hole, safe and sound. If Slytherin could ever be called safe.

At least neither of them had earned a detention. An hour in each other's company, and no hexes fired? A record!

Harry snorts to himself, hastily pacing down the corridors in search of the blond. That had been three months ago. They'd known nothing of each other then – had still been shells of who they'd been, before it all.

As it turned out, going through a war together changed people. Brought them together. Even from opposite sides of the thing.

It was nearly midnight and he had to hurry. He guiltily wondered if he could get away with Apparating to their meeting spot – the rebuilding of Hogwarts was far from completed, and the wards were flimsy. Harry had found himself able to Apparate as far as Hogsmeade, and he was sure that the Headmistress wouldn't approve.

Still. It would be worth it.

He didn't want to keep his lover waiting.

Something on the map catches his eye. He darts around a corner just in time, cursing and flattening himself against the wall as Filch comes grumbling through the hall, his mangy cat at his heels.

Some things never change.

He was nearly there – he swore he could see that white hair in the glimmer of the torchlight. Stuffing the map into the pocket of his robes, he crept along the wall, as fast as he could manage without making a lot of noise.

His friends weren't quite ready, he'd decided, to know about his… affair… friendship… whatever this was. Draco Malfoy? He could already see Ron's horrified, disgusted expression, and hear Hermione's lecture. He shook the hypothetical from his head. No, they weren't ready. Maybe when he knew where they were headed, it would be easier to tell them.

Draco was looking around in annoyance, masking his anxiety with a scowl. He leaned against the wall, looking as ethereally handsome as ever, and Harry couldn't resist sneaking up and grabbing his waist, whispering, "Boo!"

Stiffening, the Slytherin shoved him away, hard. "Damn it, Potter! What did I tell you about that?"

Harry stumbled back, covering his mouth to hide a laugh as the hood slipped from his head. He let the cloak pool at their feet and leaned closer again, reaching for him. "Oh, come on. It's all in good fun. I'm here, aren't I?"

"You act like that's such a gift," Draco grumbles, but he lets Harry pull him closer, his hands coming up to rest on his shoulders, long fingers trailing through the hair at the nape of his neck. He sighs, softer now. "You need a haircut."

"So do you," Harry says cheerfully. Both of them had, presumably, not cut their hair since May, and it was about to be January. He whispered a quick Tempus and blinked. Ten minutes? That's more time than he'd bargained for. What to do…

"Did you tell your friends who you were off to celebrate the New Year with?" Draco asks with practiced casualness, but Harry knows enough of him now to pause guiltily. Draco frowns, looking as though he might step back. "You didn't."

He knew that he was everything Harry should never associate with. A Slytherin, a Death Eater. An aristocrat. Harry should have known he'd be insecure. It wasn't as though he hadn't voiced all of these things before.

He reached up to cup his face. "Well, there's still time," he murmurs, eyes falling to the blond's pale pink lips. Color faintly creeps up Draco's neck as he leans closer, breath wafting over his face. "If you want, we can go tell them ourselves."

Draco looked vaguely as though his heart might stop, staring at Harry with wide, guarded eyes. "You're sure." It's heartbreakingly uncertain.

Harry pauses, remembering what he'd thought about his friends just moments earlier. Perhaps he'd jumped to conclusions. After all, they were adults now. He'd saved Draco's life, and Ron hadn't given him any shit for that. Neville would certainly be welcoming, despite everything, and Hermione was more mature than any of them.

And if they didn't like it, well. They could go and stuff it.

If Harry loved him, then Draco was here to stay.

"Absolutely," he says, and kisses him just chastely. Draco leans into him gratefully, curling his fingers around one of Harry's wrists.

"I'm holding you to that, Potter," he whispers.

Harry grins as he pulls away, and tugs at his waist.

"Come on, then. We've got eight minutes."