A/N: So here's chapter 6, I know it's been a loooooong time, but I haven't had internet access for a while, plus I've been busy with college and all, so yeah…. Plus, I had a whole bunch of stuff to do, so hahaha…. Anyway, sorry about the long wait. It was unfortuanate but necessary, especially since in the middle of the chapter I hit a horrible wall of writer's block. Cuz most of this fanfic has been awkward situations, and it's funny and kinda charming, but I'm tired of writing awkward scenes, so it's like, uhhhh what now? Anyone else get that way sometimes? Just sick of writing one kind of thing? Anyway, I'm done. Thanks for putting up with my rant. Enjoy the chapter!

Chapter 6

And so she remained in the dark as to why Harry and Draco were being forced to marry, perhaps for the better….

Harry woke up the next morning dreading that evening and what the press would say about it. He couldn't believe he was actually going through with it. In a way, it was the strangest thing he had done yet. He had the day off, so he took his time getting ready for the day. He and Draco had agreed to meet for lunch at a restaurant in London, near Diagon Alley, and he still had three hours until he had to leave. Draco had said the place was a Muggle trend, so he dressed accordingly in jeans and a nice shirt. He knew Draco wouldn't appreciate him dressing too casually when he was with him.

After attempting to tame his hair for half an hour and failing miserably, Harry left for the restaurant, and arrived five minutes early. Upon opening the doors, he saw that the restaurant was actually a fairly casual café and bar. The lights were low, giving it a cozy feel and the bar and chairs were made of cherry wood, making it darker, but warm and welcoming. Soon after arriving, Draco opened the door and looked around for Harry, and walked toward him once he spotted the raven.

"Hey. Did you order anything yet?" asked Draco, sitting down across from him.

"No, I haven't been here that long. So how are you?" Harry asked, opening the menu to see what they had to eat, but not taking his eyes off the blonde just yet.

"I'm fine. I'm glad that I got meeting the Weasley's out of the way. I was worried it wouldn't go well."

Harry smiled at him. "I understand, they can be quite… intimidating." He chuckled quietly. "I've been there for so long, they think of me as their own. I don't really understand it, but I appreciate it. And I really appreciate you at least trying to forget about your past with them. It really means a lot to me."

Draco shrugged it off easily. "We need to convince everyone we're in love. It was the logical choice to be made. And they actually weren't terrible."

Harry smiled knowing that Draco had actually had a nice time last night. After lunch, Draco, once again, dragged him through a few shops to see about dress robes for the ball in May. They finally found a set that was 'acceptable' for Harry, according to Draco anyway. They got the measurements they needed and would pick them up the next day. Draco still had yet to find a set of robes as far as Harry was aware, not that he minded. He just hoped that he wouldn't have to go through the torture of going and searching for the perfect set of robes for Draco. He liked the man, but shopping was not his thing at all.

After shopping, Harry was unsure of what they would be doing, Draco never told him. And so they ended up walking in the garden in awkward silence, interrupted only by the babble of a small stream and the chirping of birds back early from winter. Snow was still on the ground, but the chill was leaving, and quickly as it was the middle of February. Many of the taller plants in the garden were bare, but the Malfoys had made sure that there would be flowers in bloom year-round, and the garden was still full of life, though it was more subdued than in spring and summer.

After a few long minutes, Harry finally gained the courage to speak. "I've never been in the garden before. It's nice. A bit too organized for me, but nice."

Draco smiled. "Well, I'll take that back-handed compliment." He laughed a little.

Harry blushed. "I didn't mean it-"

"I know. You like more casual settings. I know. It's fine. I take it as a compliment. Really I do." Draco patted his shoulder smiling.

The raven smiled at the gesture. He knew that his and Draco's tastes were quite different, and he was fine with that, he knew that Draco was used to the finer things in life, and Harry couldn't really begrudge him for it. It wasn't really his fault.

Staring into the blonde's eyes, Harry suddenly was struck with the urge to kiss him, and he promptly looked away, blushing and embarrassed. He was unsure of what he was supposed to do, and he realized that they had stopped walking. He looked up and found that Draco was looking at him intensely. Biting his lip, his eyes flicked from Draco's gaze to the blonde's lips. Failing to gather the courage, he pulled away and started walking toward the Manor.

Draco watched him walk away for a moment before following him back and washing up for dinner, which was eaten in silence. After dinner, Draco showed Harry the guest room he would be staying in that night. Harry nodded as he entered the room. He had decided not to bring a change of clothes so that it would be more believable that they had 'finally' had sex. He still felt weird deceiving the world, but it needed to be done. He turned to see Draco leaning against the doorframe, and half smiled.

"Thank you…."

"For what?" asked the blonde.

"The room, understanding…." Harry ran a hand through his hair. "For putting everything on the line for this."

"I don't really have a choice with that last bit, so don't be thanking me." Draco waved it off, not wanting or needing his thanks.

Harry was unsure of what he was supposed to do at this point. It was far too early to go to bed, but the entire situation was so awkward, he wasn't totally comfortable with being alone with Draco. He hated that he had to do this. He didn't really want to marry the man. And to make it worse, he couldn't even keep the name Potter.

Draco suddenly brightened. "I have an idea. I know a club down in London with a fantastic bartender. Very pretty too. She can make just about anything you could ever want. And the music isn't half bad either. What do you say?"

Harry stared at him for a moment, bewildered at the request. "Er, yeah, sure." It would mean he wouldn't have to be alone with Draco. At least not completely alone with him anyway.

"All right then, let's go."

"What you're not going to complain about my clothes for once?" Harry asked teasingly as he brushed past him to the hallway, looking back and grinning at him.

"You're presentable for where we're going." Draco smiled, winking at him, making Harry stop and stare at the blonde as he passed him.

The next morning Harry woke and, for a moment, couldn't remember for the life of him where he was. He had a pounding headache and couldn't remember when he got back the night before. After looking around the room for a moment, though, he realized he was at Malfoy Manor, and relaxed. Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes to try to stop the pounding in his head.

There was a knock at the door and Draco came into the room with a potion in his hand. "Here, you'll want this," he told him tossing the vial onto the bed between his legs and sitting at the end.

He snatched the vial up and downed it quickly, wanting the headache to be gone. After a moment, it was indeed gone. "Thanks."

"No problem." Draco smiled at him "So you're prepared for the press reaction, right? I mean, we made it seem convincing enough outside the manor with the club."

"Yeah, I'm still a bit nervous about it though." Harry ran a hand through his hair.

"That makes two of us."

"What time is it? Six?"

"Six thirty. Work is at seven, right?"

Harry nodded and flung off the sheets, padding away to get ready for everyone asking where he was and why he was in Muggle clothes. He rubbed cold water down his face, hoping it would wake him up. Draco followed him after a few moments, and handed him his glasses. "Bed head is so much worse when your hair is a mess in the first place," he told the raven, chuckling a little.

Harry grumbled a bit and tried to flatten his hair for a few long moments, then gave up. Nothing was going to make it behave. A lot of it was sticking out in just about every direction possible, and was pretty knotted. Harry pulled his clothes on, and after a moment realized that Draco was in the room looking at him with an expression he had never seen on the blonde before. "What?"

"I just… never saw that scar before. What's it from?"

Harry looked down and remembered the scar on his chest from the locket, and looked away. "Something of Voldemort's…. I went to Godric's Hollow and Voldemort was there and Slytherin's locket burned into my skin. Hermione had to cut it off…."

Draco was silent. "I'm sorry about everything I did to help him-"

"You didn't give me away here. That makes up for it. Ron, Hermione and I would have died if you hadn't done what you did. Luna and Ollivander too. He whole world honestly would have suffered if you hadn't. We were lucky that you were brave enough to do what you did. Thank you."

"Yeah, but then at Hogwarts-"

"I told you, it makes up for it. Just forget about it, Draco, please."

After a long moment, the blonde nodded. "Breakfast is on the table, if you want it." He left the room, the door still opened wide behind him, and Harry stared after him for a few seconds before following him.

"I think it would be a good idea if I dropped by your office during lunch. To keep up the whole charade and all." Draco was calm now, but his voice was cooler than Harry had heard in a long time, but he knew his efforts would be wasted to get him to talk about it.

"All right, about 12:30 then?"

The blonde nodded as Harry sat down and served himself some eggs bacon and pumpkin juice. Breakfast was eaten in silence, the chill from Draco's attitude permeating the room. Harry decided that it would be best to leave with barely enough time to get to his office just to make it a bit more believable.

So at exactly 6:57 a.m., Harry Flooed to the Ministry and made a mad dash for his office in the Auror Department. He reached it at 7:02.

"Harry? Why are you in Muggle clothes?" asked a bewildered new recruit.

Harry blushed scarlet. "It's not your job to ask questions, get back to work." He muttered and slumped into his chair, his head on his arms. The back of his neck was almost glowing red.

"Hey, Harry!" called a familiar voice. He looked over his shoulder and saw Hermione and groaned internally. "Why… Oh… Nice touch. Bet you had fun last night."

"Please don't Hermione. What do you want?" He really didn't want to deal with the embarrassment anymore.

"Just delivering some reports that you need to look at. The Department of Mysteries is doing some things that may need some clean up in the next few weeks. Sorry about that." She smiled apologetically at him.

Harry sighed heavily. "Can't you keep your experiments under wraps these days? Come on. I've got to keep Aurors going left, right, up, down and sideways! Between you and Mr. Weasley's Department, we're up to our ears." He signed the papers anyway. "So I hope that things haven't been too weird down there. I remember some of the things from fifth year."

Hermione laughed, taking the papers back. "You know I'm not allowed to talk about it Harry. Besides, if you really need to know, the Head of Department will talk to you." Harry rolled his eyes at her. "So what actually happened last night if it's not too much to ask."

"We went to a club in downtown London, had a few drinks, and went back to the Manor." Harry shrugged it off, but he was blushing again.

"I meant all of yesterday. I know you had the day off."

"We went to lunch, went shopping unfortunately, walked through the garden, had dinner, went out and came back. That's really it." Hermione raised her eyebrows at him skeptically. "…Well, there was a weird moment in the garden. I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to do. It was really weird."

Hermione gave him a knowing look and a wink and left him sitting bewildered.

The rest of the morning, no one asked questions, but Harry could feel the funny looks boring into the back of his neck, and blushed brightly whenever he felt it. When Harry's lunch finally rolled around, he felt like his face would never cool down. Unfortunately for him, the worst was yet to come.

At 12:34, Draco walked into the office, and everyone stared at him as they went about their business. Draco, for his part, only blushed slightly, and had the wherewithal to act a little shy as he walked to Harry's office. As the blonde approached the office, Harry was just walking out, ushering Ron out in front of him. Harry froze when he saw the man standing outside his office.

"Draco. I-I didn't… expect you to be here…." He stammered, running a hand through his hair nervously, blushing like crazy.

"Well, what did you think I would do when you just disappeared this morning?" Draco asked, running his gaze up and down Harry's clothes.

"Well um, I-I… needed to… get… to work…." Harry looked away, somehow his blush deepening. "I… didn't want t-to… wake you…." His voice faded with every word, and Ron mumbled something uncomfortably and walked off, a light blush on his face.

Draco's gaze softened and he smiled at the raven. "I brought you lunch. It's just leftovers from last night."

"Thanks." Harry kissed the blonde on the cheek and beckoned for him to come into his office, which did have a door, though it was rarely shut. This was one of the few times it was closed. "Really, though, thanks. I'm starving." He dug in for a few long moments, Draco watching amused. "Thanks for picking up on that out there. I really appreciate it."

"It wasn't that hard to catch it." Draco chuckled. "So how's work been?"

"Hermione came up to have me sign some papers for the Department of Mysteries, and I've been getting emergency after emergency to send someone or other out on. It's been a real pain in the arse." Harry took a few more quick bites.

"Sounds like it. Has anyone given you grief?" he asked, looking around at the office. The photos on the wall, which were mostly of Harry, Ron and Hermione at various points, were all, of course, magical. There was one though, that caught Draco's attention. It was of Lily and James Potter. It had to be, because the redhead was definitely not Ginny; she had exactly the same eyes as Harry, and the man looked almost exactly like the raven. "You're parents look good together," he told him, turning his gaze back.

"… Thanks…. You know, my mum and Severus were good friends when they were young. He was the one who told her she was a witch."

"Really? I didn't know that."

Harry nodded. "They were very close even though they were in different Houses."

Draco came around the desk and put his hand on the raven's shoulder. He turned around to face the blonde, and looked up at him sadly. "In a way, I wish that we had gotten along better when we were younger. You're nowhere near as bad as I thought you would be."

He rolled his eyes. "Thanks," he said sarcastically, then he sighed. "No, I know what you mean. I honestly thought you'd be just as foolish sometimes."

Harry smiled at him, and Draco leaned down and kissed him for a long moment, and when their lips parted, he told Harry that he ought to go, and he agreed. Both stood and Harry walked Draco out to the lifts, where they shared another kiss.

Going back to his office, everyone stared, and the bright blush reappeared. Reaching the door, he turned around. "Don't you have anything better to do than stare at me?" he demanded and closed the door behind him and finished his lunch.

A/N: Whew. That took me a while to get written. I'm soooo sorry for the lateness! I've been busy with college and moving out and stuff. I'm settled better now, so things should be more consistent, but no promises. I hope you liked it!