Review reply Truthfully, I'm not much a fan of MPREG myself. But I do love HarryxDraco (OTP!), LoverFaery.

A/N: Shmanks to all the reviewers, subscribers, yada yada blah. Just one question: do I have to change my post-HBP stories to AU, now that Deathly Hallows has been released?

.-xXXx-.

When you smile, I melt inside
I'm not worthy for a minute of your time
I really wish it was only me and you
I'm jealous of everybody in the room


Please don't look at me with those eyes
Please don't hint that you're capable of lies
I dread the thought of our very first kiss
A target that I'm probably gonna miss

- First Date, Blink 182

Draco took a deep breath and let his head fall onto the marble counter with a dull thunk.

He didn't know how to feel. Everything was so horribly cliché – Harry had even given him a bunch of flowers, despite claims that this was just a friends thing (even though they weren't actually friends to begin with) – and yet Draco didn't hate it.

Draco hated most things. He hated cats, and mornings, and Mudbloods, and bad hair days, and emotional girls, and clingy people, and people who depended on him, and being ordered around, and almost being forced to kill Dumbledore, and when people in suits wore ugly or mismatching ties.

He hated it when his mirror made snide remarks about his shirt – thank Merlin that this one was silent – and when the House-Elves burnt his toast back at the Manor. He hated the Ministry of Magic, and when his favorite jeans got holes in them.

He hated having to fight off twenty pigeons with Stunning Spells for his lunch (it'd happened once before; a seagull came and stole his sandwich moments later). He hated liars, and people with greasy hair (but not Snape), and bad Muggle romance movies.

Sure, he hated a lot of things. But he hated clichés most of all.

However, he didn't hate it when Harry was cliché.

He raised his head a few inches and stared at himself in the mirror. Grey eyes stared back at him, for some reason fearful.

Fearful of what would happen when he went back into the restaurant? Or fearful of what would happen afterwards, after dinner?

Draco shakily took a deep breath, composed himself, and left the safety of the bathroom.

"Hey," Harry – Draco was having a hard time continuing to think of him as Potter when Harry was currently playing the role of the sexiest thing Draco had ever seen – said airily, waving a fork. "Took you a while."

"You're tactless," Draco said, settling himself in his seat.

"Any other character flaws that you can point out in me?" Harry countered, setting the fork down. "We haven't seen each other in months, yet you find it necessary to criticize me already, and we're not even up to dessert so far."

"Yes," Draco said, stabbing a piece of chicken schnitzel with unneeded violence. "You're needy. You always need to play the hero; that's probably why you became a Healer. I get the feeling that, if I had to spend a lot more time with you, you'd drive me insane. You almost did, at Hogwarts."

Harry looked at him incredulously.

"But?" he said, raising an eyebrow.

"But what?" Draco replied.

"There's always a but."

"There isn't one here."

"Then why did you agree to come?"

Draco took a deep breath.

"Because, well, no matter how much I try to deny it, you've always intrigued me, Ha– Potter. And this is just a friends thing. Right?"

Harry looked so hot when he was embarrassed and confused, sitting there in his open-necked shirt and hand in midair. He let his hand fall to his lap and he muttered something by way of reply.

"What did you say?" Draco smirked.

"I said, 'it's a nice restaurant, isn't it?'"

.-xXXx-.

"So," Draco said, bracing himself against the cool breeze.

"So…" Harry replied, looking up at the stars splayed across the velvet sky.

They trudged along in silence next to each other for a while, with no definite purpose of where they were going.

"I've never ridden a camel," Harry said suddenly, turning to Draco in a pool of lamplight. "But I've ridden a Thestral."

"So?"

"I'm just trying to make conversation."

Draco shook his head, grinning. Stupid Harry with his stupid attempts at conversation, when all Draco really wanted to do was see if that mouth tasted as good as the words that dripped from it sounded… Or maybe just go home and sleep.

They walked on in silence. Their hands brushed a few times, but Harry snatched his hand away as if burned.

When it happened for the third time in the space of a minute, Draco turned to him and said, "What is wrong with you?"

"You know," Harry said, wearing that sheepish grin he was wearing in that photograph in that article in Witch Weekly, which had really started this whole rollercoaster of confusion. "I might get cooties from you."

Cooties… Draco was suddenly reminded of the jumbo box of condoms sitting on his bedside table. One look at Harry and Draco was willing to bet everything in Gringott's that Harry was thinking of it, too.

"I want to ask you something," Harry said, stopping abruptly again under a streetlight.

"I'm not stopping you."

"You don't have to answer it if you don't want to."

"Believe me; if I don't want to answer it, I won't."

"Okay then," Harry said, fixing him with a penetrating stare. Draco gulped. "How could you possibly think that you were pregnant? You're a guy!"

"Thank you for noticing," Draco said sarcastically. "You might've also noticed that I'm a wizard. Believe it or not, Potter – Harry – we can do magic."

"But if you thought you were pregnant," Harry said, becoming increasingly more confused as he went on. "Then you must've had sex with another guy. And if you had sex with another guy –"

"Then that, therefore, must mean that I'm gay," Draco concluded. "And, to finish it all off, I'm a bottom. You don't need to be a trained Healer to figure that one out."

Harry stared at him.

"What, Potter?" Draco snapped, annoyed because Harry was just staring at him, not saying anything: not teasing, not patting him on the back, not shaking his head – just staring at him. "This isn't the Dark Ages, you know. People are allowed to be open about their sexuality."

Harry continued to stare at him.

"For goodness' sake, say something!" Draco shouted, scaring a few birds out of their tree.

"You –" Harry muttered, then shook his head.

"What?"

"You're a bottom?"

.-xXXx-.

A/N: This is getting pretty long. I'm going to post part two of chapter five as a separate entry.