H—

This week's going to be a busy one and I'm afraid I won't be able to see you outside of work hours till Friday. Can I make it up to you with dinner?

—D

Harry frowns at the note. It's only Monday morning and he's missing the man's company already, which feels pathetic but justified. He'd spent Sunday at the Weasleys, but being surrounded by Ron and Hermione and George and Angelina and Dean and Ginny had only made him lonelier. He wasn't exactly kicking himself for opting out of a day at Malfoy Manor, but Harry wonders if that might've been better.

Harry looks around his office, at the open case files on his desk and the moving pictures he's pinned up on the walls and the fishbowl Ginny had gotten him after he'd broken up with Anthony.

"His name's David," she'd said about the blue betta fish inside. "You won't ever get sick of his voice, since he doesn't have one, or his nervous tics, since he doesn't really have those, either. Just feed him once or twice a day and he'll be the most reliable friend you'll ever have."

Harry smiles at the memory and pulls the nearest case file close enough to study it. Flipping through the pages, he tries to remind himself why the Fwooper infestation in Staten Island, New York had ever come across his desk. He picks up an inter-office memo to send down to Luna's department, but decides he'd better dash off a reply to Draco first.

D—

I like the single letters thing. It's cute. It's like a thing we can have between us.

Harry shakes his head and crumples up the paper. Surely he can do better than that.

D—

Dinner would be lovely. If you ever want to get lunch or take an afternoon break together, let me know.

—H

"Doesn't sound too clingy, does it, Dave?" Harry asks his fish. David glub glub glubs in return.

"Glub glub to you, too," he grumbles as he folds the note into an airplane and sends it off. He's about to write Luna when she comes right through his office door.

"Harry, have you seen the Staten Island Fwooper incident report?" she asks, sounding decidedly less dreamy than usual. "I think it may have been misplaced."

Harry closes the file and holds it up. "I was just wondering why this would be under my jurisdiction," he says. "And, not to impose, but isn't Staten Island outside our area of operation?"

Luna steps forward to take the file and smiles at Harry. "Thank you. And, well, yes, but their Magical Creatures department leaves a little something to be desired. We get called in a lot on their larger fiascos."

"And the Fwoopers are a fiasco?"

She nods. "The mania, you know."

"Right. Well, nice to see you, regardless of circumstance." Harry grins at Luna. "Would you like to have lunch sometime, me and you and Nev?"

"That sounds lovely," says Luna, back to her typical far off tone. "Are you and Draco having lunch together as well as groping each other in public?"

Harry scoffs. "We weren't groping, it was just kissing. And we did once, but I don't know if it's a regular thing." A muted green paper airplane zips through the doorway and into Harry's waiting hand. "This should be him, actually. Wonder where he got these nicer colored papers." Somehow not caring that Luna might find him rude, Harry unfolds the paper and reads Draco's note.

H—

I'd quite like that. Tuesday would work well for me. Also, I don't say this particularly often, so cherish it: I'm sorry I won't be able to see you more, selfishly and otherwise.

—D

"What did he have to say?" asks Luna.

"Not much, but just enough," Harry says. "Oh, God. Was that as disgusting out loud to you as it was to me?"

"I think you're just being romantic," she says. "And I've never seen that bit of you before, and I like it. You seem happy now."

"Did I seem unhappy before?"

Luna cocks her head to the side and examines Harry. "No, you were satisfied enough, but not ever excited about very much, and now you seem excited just to see me. It's nice, really. Appreciating him makes you appreciate everyone, I suppose."

It was true, Harry thinks as he heads for Draco's office and knocks on the door at lunchtime the next day. Luna's always been strange, but she's a damn good judge of character, and he's never met anyone more observant, not even Hermione or the most skilled among the Auror department.

"Come in," he hears. Harry opens the door and sees Draco at his desk, head bent over a piece of parchment, brow furrowed in concentration. Draco looks up at him and smiles brilliantly for just about a second before looking down again.

"There's this brief I need to finish two hours ago," says Draco. "I'm much happier to see you than I look right now. There's a new Quidditch Today on the table next to you if you need a distraction."

Harry picks up and leafs through the magazine, coming across an article about the advantages and disadvantages of the Wimborne Wasps' choice of broom and reading it till Draco places the brief in his out box. Draco stands and stretches and shrugs his way out of his robes.

"You could leave yours here, too, if you'd like," he offers. "I find I'm much less comfortable without them, especially in public."

"Don't like people knowing you're a Ministry employee?" Harry removes his robes and drapes them over the chair next to the door.

"Don't want people thinking I have the attitude of the kind of Ministry employee that wears their uniform out of office," says Draco. "Oh, close the door."

Harry obliges and is promptly pushed against the wall. Draco kisses him and Harry loses himself in it, relishing the feel of Draco's fingers in his hair and Draco's hips under his hands. It's only a few seconds before Draco takes a step back, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, smirks, and opens the door, but it's a few seconds that leave Harry's mind and heart and inner workings rattled.

"A little warning would be nice next time," he says to Draco, who's still smirking.

"No, it wouldn't," says Draco. "I like the way you look when I've surprised you. And judging from the tightness of your trousers, you're not too unhappy about it."

Harry struggles not to blush. "And you have to do it when I don't have anything to hide it, not even robes. So cruel."

"Well, I can't lose all my high points over time, now, can I?" Draco takes Harry by the elbow and Apparates them out in front of a restaurant, its name written in script. Harry recognizes the language as French but can't parse out what it says.

"It's called The Garden," says Draco. "You don't speak French, then?"

"I don't speak any other languages."

"I can teach you a couple if you'd like. Not easy, but worthwhile if you ever want to travel."

"I haven't done so far," Harry says. "But it's something I'd like to do eventually."

"Eventually?" Draco gives his name to the maître d, who leads them to their table. After they're seated, Draco asks, "Why not now?"

"Well, I've got my job right now," says Harry. "And a life, and friends, and a boyf—sorry, a significant other."

Draco smiles. "I don't know why you'd let any of that stop you." A waiter comes by, and Draco orders for Harry and himself in what Harry assumes to be perfect French. "The Auror corps relies on you but they have plenty of other talented people in their employ. Your friends, they've got enough going on, what with Hermione's regular insistence that she and Ron reproduce and Ginny's wedding planning and the inevitable breakup of Longbottom and his girlfriend. And me, well, you could bring me along and I could help you with language and the like." He leans back and crosses his arms, looking self-satisfied.

"Alright, a couple questions, then," says Harry. "Well, one, really. What do you mean, the inevitable breakup of Neville and Luna?"

"She's bored," Draco says. "She doesn't listen when he's talking, she looks at every other man as a prospect or at least a piece of meat, and he's oblivious enough that eventually she'll have to break things up herself."

"I've always thought of her as the most perceptive person I know," says Harry. "But maybe that's you. I mean, why you're here with me is beyond me, but you seem to understand people quite well."

"Beyond you," Draco echoes, a small smile on his face. "You're saying you don't understand why I care to spend time with you?"

Harry shakes his head. "Not really, no. I mean, I guess we get along and you like talking to me and you think I'm attractive, for some reason or another, but I can't really work out why you find me appealing, physically or otherwise."

"Do you want an itemized list, then?"

"Wouldn't mind one."

"Well, for one thing, you say things like that," says Draco. "You have no perception of what a thoroughly, bafflingly good person you are, and your ego doesn't seem to exist. You have a good sense of humor about yourself and the Ministry, you're friendly to everyone you meet, you don't let the press get to you, you're top notch at your job—is that enough for you?"

"Well, you've just described me, as you perceive me, in a non-physical way, and it was pretty nice to hear," Harry says. "What about how I look?"

Draco rolls his eyes. "Fine. I suppose I can do this. Your hair's never going to be anything but a wreck, but it looks right on you somehow. Your smile is just the right kind of crooked, you don't look weird when you grin—that's really common, you know," he says with a pause. "Your skin tone makes me think I should go outside more often, your muscle tone is borderline perfect, and your eyes, I'm not even going to go into that, because I hate the thought of how I'd sound if I did."

The waiter drops off their food and Harry looks at Draco, wishing everyone else in the immediate area would go away so he could have another kiss.

"I could talk about yours, if you'd like," says Harry after taking a bite.

"Humor me."

"I can hardly stop looking at them whenever I'm around you. They're that kind of incredible." Draco's smiling now as Harry continues, "Your hair and your skin are about the softest things I've ever touched, your smirk is infinitely more appealing than it was when we were in school, and you say my muscle tone's perfect? Have you seen yours?"

"It's not all that amazing," says Draco.

"You're charming, and funny, and intelligent, and you're upfront about things. You say what you mean. No one does that enough, and you always do. You act the way I try to on my best days and you have an ego but, well, you've earned it." Harry shovels some food into his mouth in order to shut himself up. The look on Draco's face is hard to discern until the furrowed lines seem to fall away and he's full on grinning.

"I'd almost think you liked me," says Draco.

Harry puts down his fork and reaches for Draco's hand. He interlaces their fingers and grins. "Yeah," he says. "Almost."