When I woke up the next day, the sun was just beginning to rise and so I put on some old t shirt and sweatpants and grabbed some paint. That's where Draco found me a couple hours later, walking over to me still in what he fell asleep in, no shirt and some of my old pajama pants that were a bit to long for him. We had slept in the same and I neither of us cared, it may have taken the sweet haze of drugs for us to confess our love, but it had been there before yesterday, before we had even become friends. We sat in peaceful silence for a bit, Draco watching me paint until it became clear. It was the two us, in each others embrace, lips touching, but it only showed our torsos, the rest of the painting was there colors of the sunset in the background, it was amazing.
"You truly are an amazing artist." Draco said finally, it was now close to noon and the painting was only half complete. "There is one thing you are forgetting however, in your face, you have some freckles on your cheeks." Draco pointed out and I looked over at him with my brow furrowed.
"I don't know what you're talking about. Pale people like you have freckles, do you see my skin color? There is no way."
"Hey, I know what I'm talking about, I've been looking at you ever since I was eleven." He placed his hand on my jaw, his thumb slightly brushing my cheek. Despite being covered in paint, I leaned in, Draco meeting me in the middle, our lips meeting in a soft, sweet kiss, full of nothing but passion. We lost track of everything around us until we heard Sirius loudly clearing his throat behind us, making us part, but neither one of us wanted to stop.
"What do you want Sirius?" I asked, still staring into Draco's beautiful grey eyes.
"Well, if you cared to check the time, I thought I remind you because you seemed pretty… preoccupied with blondey over here. You have to be at work in thirty minutes." My eyes snapped open and I jumped into action, not even eating breakfast and running out the door in record time, not even remembering the pain all over my face.
When I walked in, I was two minutes late and I nearly ran behind the counter. No one seemed to feel the need to tell my I had paint all over my face except for one kind woman.
"Do you know that you have yellow… paint on your cheek, right?" She asked as I handed her her straight black coffee. Sure enough, I felt at my face and there was the odd texture of dried paint right where she had said.
"Thank you for telling me, I'm sure I would've walked around all day with yellow on my cheek." I said, grabbing a cloth and wetting it, rubbing off all of the yellow.
"Do you paint?" She asked.
"Yes I do, I just don't get a lot of money for it, so here I am." I said with a small chuckle, handing the other people their coffee as she leaned up against the counter.
"I'm Cindy Greenwood, I work in the art industry. Do you have any pictures of any of your work?" She asked and my heart soared, this could be it, my break. I whipped out my phone, going through the gallery and showing her the picture of the broken angel.
"Wow, this is good. Such pain and passion in this, I love it. Here, this is my card, send me some more pictures of your work and I'll contact you if I like it." I only nodded, to shocked to speak. I put the card in my pocket, almost forgetting the coffee orders piling up. I couldn't believe it, she wanted to see more of my work.
For the next few days I work relentlessly on different paintings, I would paint whenever anything hit me, no matter what it was. If I was at work I'd do a quick sketch of whatever it was in fear of forgetting whatever it was and whenever I had finished anything I would take a picture and send it to Cindy. She never relied, only viewed everything I sent her, I don't know she thinks, but f she wanted me to stop wouldn't she have told me already? There was only two more days until Christmas and we had arranged to celebrate it at night. I had even managed to get the day off at the bar so I wasn't rushing off somewhere in the middle of things. Seeing as Draco was homeless, he was staying with me, but Sirius had gone back to Grimmauld Place to keep up appearances, but he visited us as often as he could. To my surprise, Draco was an avid writer, so I gave him my typewriter I had gotten when I wrote some poetry or something and ever since he's either been looking for work or clicking away on his little typewriter. As the countdown to Christmas got shorter and shorter my anxiety grew. On Christmas night I would be seeing the twins for the first time in seven years and I was worrying what they would think.
"Harry, it's going to be okay." Draco said one night after dinner.
"I don't know that, they could hate me and tell everyone in the wizarding world where I was. I would go back to Azkaban and I don't ever want to step foot back in there. I'm so happy with my life, with you, I just don't want to ruin it." I put my head in my hands, shaking it back and forth trying to clear my head. I sighed, getting up. I walked over to my dresser, knowing that my worries won't go down one bit if I just sit and mope. I smoked almost the entire pipe, giving only some to Draco. He didn't mind, though, he doesn't really like me when I'm wrought with worry.
"I love you so much Harry." Draco said as I ran my hands through his silky hair. He was currently lying on my lap, staring at the ceiling as I read one of my many books.
"I love you to Draco, more than I could express in words." I went to kiss him on the forehead, but he scooted forward at the last minute and our lips met. Draco tried to deepen the kiss, but I pulled back. He looked at me in question, but I just bookmarked my page and set my book on my bedside table, looking back to face him, in his now, upright position.
"Harry, what's wr-" I cut him off with a deeply passionate kiss, nearly slamming him into the window with the force of it. He moaned when I bit his lip softly, I loved the taste of his lips and there was no denying it. He threw me back so that I was laying on the bed and he was hanging over me, running his hands through my hair as our lips danced as one. I was happy that our building was around those of only about two floors because I didn't want anyone to see us, I also didn't want to be watched either. I tugged at Draco's shirt and he took it off, along with my own. I flipped him over in one playful moment and fingered the waistband of his jeans, touching his skin hidden by the fabric. I was just about to go even farther when suddenly… it was over.
"Draco?" I asked looking at his withdrawn form in confusion, I was horny and he had seemed pretty into it a second ago.
"I love you Harry, but not yet." He said, slithering out from underneath me.
"Ugh, Draco, you really know how to screw with a man don't you?" I asked, looking at his shirtless chest with lust in my eyes.
"You know it, now, I'm going to go to sleep because I have a job interview in the morning." He crawled into bed and turned off the lights, leaving me sitting on the other side all alone and horny.
Christmas day finally came and I was a nervous wreck. I needed Draco and drugs to calm me down, but I had to go to work and so did Draco since he got the job at a high class restaurant around the block. I was so proud of him, he was now a waiter/music critic/blogger and he was training to be a wine expert to go along with him. Business at the coffee shop was slow in the morning, people going to church and opening presents and stuff like that, but one person I did see was Cindy.
"Hello Harry." She said, I didn't think I'd ever see her again to be honest.
"Hello Cindy, did you get the pictures I had sent you?" I asked, handing her her black coffee just like a week or so ago.
"I did and I loved them! I couldn't believe how good you are, and it's nice to see that you don't have any paint on your face today." We laughed a bit and talked about art concepts and some of my pieces and she even put me in contact with an art dealer. This calmed me down a bit, but when I got home I still need two scotches and a make out session before I was ready. Draco and I had gone out two nights before and got a tree along with some lights and ornaments, but not to much. We even got presents for everybody and wrapped them up, putting them underneath the tree like a traditional muggle. Sirius came first, putting his presents under the tree along with ours and I put on some old Christmas vinyl I had bought for the occasion.
"Would you like a drink Sirius?" I asked, going over to my makeshift bar.
"Do you have Firewhiskey?" He asked and I looked at my vast collection of different kinds of liquors.
"Sorry, but it doesn't look like it." When I looked up I saw that Sirius was holding out a bottle of the very drink he was talking about.
"Now you do! Happy Christmas." He said, with an undoubtable amount of holiday cheer. I grabbed the bottle and two shot glasses, ripping off the bow and pouring him some.
"Woo! Now the party's getting started!" Sirius said, shaking his head, he was acting like a frat boy.
"Calm down Sirius, you might give yourself a heart attack." Draco said, coming up and sitting on one of the bar stools across from me.
"Hey, watch what you say to me young man!" Sirius shouted, making us both laugh uncontrollably, it truly was a merry evening so far. I was in the middle of mixing an old fashion when there was a knock at the door. They were here.
"Do you want me to get it?" Sirius asked and I nodded my head, continuing to make my drink. I looked up as Sirius opened the door, showing the four redheads holding presents.
"Sirius!" They said, coming in and standing in middle of the room.
"Sirius, where's Harry?" Fred asked, looking around, the edge of my lip twitch up when he passed right over me.
"He's over at the bar." Sirius said, pointing right at me as I took a sip of my old fashioned. I didn't really like the way all four of them stared, but I couldn't blame, I looked extremely different then the papers told everyone.
"Harry?" George asked, walking up to me looking perplexed.
"It's nice seeing you again Gorge, would you like a drink?" I asked, trying to lighten the mood.
"Maybe in a bit, you look so different." He said, still holding his present.
"Well, you haven't seen me in seven years, I was bound to grow up sometime." I laughed a bit, walking around them and into the living room. "You guys can put your presents under the tree." I said, gesturing to the good sized tree we had set up a day or so ago. Draco was lying in the hammock, rocking back and forth as he stared at the ceiling, he really liked doing that.
"So, Harry, is this your place?" Bill asked, looking around.
"Originally yes, but a parasite has moved in and started paying some of the rent." He looked at me strangely before Draco got up and walked over to me with a playful glare in his eyes.
"I am not a parasite, you allow me to live here. Parasites are unwanted and freeloaders, go back to school Potter." I rolled my eyes, laughing.
"Malfoy?" The twins said in unision, equal expressions of shock of their faces.
"Weasley." He said in his old snobbish voice, Sirius had told them that there would be one other person, but not who.
"Shut it Draco. Yes, this is Draco and we're friends now. He's not a little prat anymore and he's actually pretty nice, but he can leave you in the middle of things." I said with a chuckle, receiving a smack up the head.
"Hey! You two be nice to each other! Everyone come 'round," Sirius was definitely tipsy, "it's present time!" I grabbed one more drink and went over to sit on the couch. Sirius was the closest to the tree, so he handed out the presents, the twins were sitting on the rug next to him and Draco, Bill, Charlie, and myself were sitting on the couch. Everyone had about six presents except for Hedwig who had only gotten something from Draco and I. Draco had gotten me a whole two ounces of weed, along with some nice paint. Sirius had gotten me a little black dog figurine, and Fred and George had gotten me some joke stuff, Charlie gave me some nice dragon skin boots and Bill got me silver necklace that said, 'Undesirable No. 1' which made me laugh. The thing that I was the most excited about was the present I had gotten Draco. Seeing as we were both little stoners I had also gotten him some weed, but I also got him some lighters and a pipe. Not any pipe though, this one was special. The pipe was long, made of white wood that had black carvings in it. I had carved it myself (a skill I got from Azkaban) the design was beautiful if I might say myself, I had carved a dragon and a snake and they seemed to dance, curling around the pipe with a certain grace.
"Oh Harry, I love it." He said, giving me a hug and a sneaking little peck on the lips.
"Why don't we try it out?" I walked over and grabbed my own, filling it up we both lit up.
"Harry James Potter, murderer and druggy. That would a nice headline." Fred said, making us all laugh.
"What, would you like some?" I asked, holding out the pipe and lighter. They seemed to think about it for a second before grabbing it and taking a perfect hit.
"Wow George, you're a natural." I said jokingly. We chatted for the rest of the evening, some of us getting high, some of us getting drunk, but I did impresses the redheads of the group with my bartender tricks. It was nice to have my friends back again, I like my new ones, but the Weasleys knew who I was really was and Draco was just amazing… if you know what I mean.