WARNING: this chapter contains depictions of a sexual nature. If you don't like it PLEASE don't read it or you'll probably feel at least mildly uncomfortable.

Chapter 10: Day 10 - 22:04

Jaw cracking in an aching yawn, Sirius paused in step to rub the balls of his hands across his eyes. He was, for the first time in a long time, actually wearied. It was more than likely that he'd actually manage to fall to sleep before midnight that night.

It had been a good day, he acknowledged. Good in a satisfying way. The morning had begun with an Order-monitored quidditch match between Sirius, Harry, Draco and the Weasleys – Hermione wisely stepping out with admissions of her flying ineptitude – and in spite of being outnumbered by Weasleys with just the three of them, Sirius, Harry and Draco had won. It was more than satisfying, not only the winning and the competition, but simply the act of flying. That, and sharing time with his godson. Harry flew like James, perhaps even better than his father, and seemed to revel in the act itself as much as in the quidditch. His permanently affixed grin had been contagious, and Sirius found that even with Draco's disagreeable presence he thoroughly enjoyed himself.

Draco had made good his words of the previous evening. While he wasn't any more approachable than he had been – ever – for some reason he seemed more… agreeable. Or more correctly, Sirius found there was less to object to of him than he had previously considered. He couldn't quite put a finger on what it was. It wasn't as though his snarky remarks had become any less taunting. It wasn't as though he teased the Weasleys to just short of bullying any less. It wasn't that he'd even attempted to pull the stick out of his arse that gave him such a rigid posture and sense of entitlement.

If Sirius was to put his finger on it… perhaps it was that his amusement was just a little more noticeable than it had been before, his smiles just a little wider. Or perhaps it was that he met Sirius' gaze without immediately smirking across the distance between them. Or that when he talked idly to Harry as they drifted from the makeshift quidditch pitch back towards Girmmauld Place, when he flicked Harry's fringe from his face and caught Sirius staring at him on the verge of frowning, he didn't scowl challengingly.

Or maybe that was just Sirius' perspective. Was it? Did Draco really act any differently, or did Sirius simply assume that he was acting so? He didn't think that he was so generous as to think Draco better than he was. He didn't want to think the boy was better. Because he wasn't. He was a little shit. He was just… for some reason he was acting different. Better. Sort of.

In addition to his largely enjoyable morning, on top of the fact that Draco Malfoy had apparently taken a turn for the mildly decent, Sirius had been distracted. It was a good distraction, even if the actual nature of said distraction was not, in itself, good. Because Sirius had made headway with his private Death Eater mission. Or private no more, it would seem. Perhaps it never had been. For Moody had shouldered through the door at lunchtime, slapping down a file of parchments and scarfing down a sandwich from the half-eaten spread on the dining room table, and muttered something unintelligible to Sirius before departing.

Sirius had picked up the files under the curious gaze of his fellow quidditch players and had immediately committed the rest of the afternoon to reading and Floo-calling every possible Order member who had, according to the reports in the file, had an inkling of relevance to, or knowledge regarding, Bellatrix Lestrange. Sirius would find the bitch and bring her down, that he vowed. And he was making a good job of filing down the possible hideouts for his estranged cousin.

It was because of his furious study, his candlelit reading of handwritten notes and detailed reports, that Sirius had missed dinner that evening. It was also the reason that he found himself heading up to bed after eleven o'clock that night, the familiar ticking of his kitchen clock ringing in his mind and his eyes aching from straining to read in the darkness. He felt a little guilty for his abrupt detachment from reality, for ignoring his guests entirely. Although, he rationalised, they probably hardly noticed. Were probably warily grateful if they did. He knew he'd been… disagreeable the past days. Knew this, even if he didn't exactly feel remorseful for his behaviour. And though he knew too that he'd been decidedly more agreeable in the past day or two, it was hardly unwarranted that his guests would be wary of another sudden mood swing. He realised with as little sheepishness that that was what it had been.

He did feel a little guilty, however, that he had been so detached from his surroundings with his fixation on his knowledge seeking. Especially seeing as he'd promised to have another chat to Harry that evening about having a makeshift defence practice session before his godson went back to school. With the rapidly approaching end of the holidays, there wasn't all that much time left, hardly an opportunity anymore. It was for such guilt, and his determination to reschedule the conversation if not to immediately set a time for the lesson, that Sirius felt urged towards Harry's room on the second floor.

It was the murmur of voices through the half-opened door that stopped him in step, however. They trickled quietly into the hallway, barely audible and riding upon the illuminating radiance of flickering candles within.

"…don't want to force you into anything, Draco. Seriously, I'm sorry. I feel really bad about that."

Sirius frowned, slipping silently to wall in compulsive positioning for prime eavesdropping. There was genuine regret in Harry's tone, and Sirius knew immediately that he would have to know why.

Draco snorted in reply, which instantly raised Sirius' hackles indignantly. How dare he make light of Harry's apology! It was short-lived however, for Draco's words drove that indignation firmly from his mind.

"Why are you apologising? You have no reason to do so; it's hardly your fault. Besides, I thought I already told you that I'd rather spend time with you than with my parents this Christmas. Even if it is in such a miserable establishment as Grimmauld Place."

There was such genuine affection in Draco's tone that Sirius was distracted even from the derogatory reference to his house. It was, after all, entirely accurate. He had to forcibly pull himself from his astonishment, his disbelief even, as Harry continued. And he found himself frowning at the hint of melancholy in his tone.

"That wasn't exactly what I was referring to."

"Then pray tell, do clarify."

Harry sighed with exasperation, and Sirius fathomed that through the wall he could almost make out the rolling of his godson's eyes. "You know what I'm talking about."

"Tell me anyway."

There was a brief pause, the sound of a squeaking of bedsprings and a grunt as bodies shifted position. Sirius held himself still, waiting silently. There was a part of him that knew he shouldn't be listening in to Harry and Draco's conversation, that simply because the door was left open a little, and most likely by accident, didn't mean that he had a right to overhear. But Sirius had never been one much to play by the rules, not even when it was solely he himself who set them in the first place. It was something in him, some key element lacking perhaps, which had always infuriated his professors when he was in school.

He almost stopped breathing when Harry continued, the better to hear his words. "Look, I know you've been getting along better with Ron and Hermione these days."

"And the Weasleys as a whole," Draco added, self-satisfaction rich in his tone. Sirius nearly butted his head against the wall in exasperation.

"Yes, well done, Draco. Very mature of you." For all his degrading words, Harry's voice quivered with amusement. "What I meant was that I'm grateful for that."

"You don't need to be grateful for my actions," Draco said slowly. There was another squeak of springs and Sirius imagined that he was shifting to pin Harry with his famous stare. He'd certainly afforded as much to Harry at every other opportunity that day. It was almost as though he couldn't tear his gaze away. "Just like you don't need to concern yourself should discord arise between us. Such disagreements are solely between the Weasleys and myself – or Hermione, should it matter. You don't even come into the equation."

"How can you even say that? You wouldn't even be talking to them if we weren't dating." A pause, another squeak of the bed. "Yeah, that's what I thought. You can't exactly refute that."

"Irrelevant," Draco brushed aside.

"It's not," Harry countered. "Just like it effects you how I feel about and interact with your mum and dad."

There was a murmur of muffled words from Draco that Sirius strained to make out. He caught a muttered, "even call them 'mum and dad'," followed by a burst of laughter than sounded distinctly Harry. Even without seeing him, even when elicited by Draco, Sirius found his own lips curling slightly at the sound. It was just… infectious.

The laughter was very obviously smothered a moment later after the faint sounds of a scuffle ensued. Draco's voice was faintly breathless when he spoke next. "That is because my mother and father are more reasonable, and far less emotionally involved, in the consideration of their relationships. They are changeable depending upon rational circumstance. You know that. I've told you that." Harry gave a hum of agreement. "Besides, what I meant is that it shouldn't concern you what the status of my relationship with Hermione, or Ron, or Ginny or anyone else is. It doesn't matter."

There was another pause, and the absence of scuffle, of laughter, of any sound entirely, suggested a gradual dwindling of the light-hearted mood. Harry's next words confirmed dampening effect. "You know it wasn't really them that I was referring to."

"I gathered that," Draco said quietly. "You've worried about him enough that it was fairly obvious you've been thinking about it for at least the last hour."

"And then some," Harry sighed. "I know it's stupid. It's not like anyone could change his mind about anything. He's stubborn like that."

"Reminds me of someone…"

"If you're referring to me –"

"Of course."

"We're not even related. It's not like I could have gotten my stubbornness from him."

"Maybe not related, but you still care for him greatly," Draco said quietly. And in that instant, after simple static listening, Sirius realised that the boys were talking about him. He felt a clench in his gut and his throat tighten. There was very real concern, worry even, in Harry's saddened tone. And it was because of Sirius? Because he was worried that Sirius and Draco, what, didn't get along? That actually worried him?

A memory of Hermione's words, of Harry's fears as to Sirius' response to a confession of his sexuality, rose to the forefront of his mind. Harry was truly overthinking every aspect of this relationship, wasn't he? Worried desperately about how his friends and those he cared for felt about it. Worried how Sirius felt about it, about Harry, about Draco, about… about everything. Sirius had never considered others in his own pursuits, no one other than himself and the person subject to his attentions. It had just never occurred to him. Perhaps, as Draco had seen fit to point out, he'd merely considered that anything he shared with another person was solely between himself and them. Everyone else could just bugger off.

Evidently, Harry didn't think so. He worried for how his friends felt, worried for their contentedness even at the expense of his own. That much was apparent from the degree that he evidently gnawed at the issue. As Sirius hunkered in the hallway, hidden by the wall and the darkness of night unlit by any stray candle, he felt guilt well up within him.

He'd been… Sirius had been terribly selfish. That reality hit him with the force of a Stupefy. How had he not realised it before?

Harry was speaking again, cutting into Sirius' thoughts sharply enough to snap him to attention. And what he heard cut him to the core. "I do. I really care about him. He's basically the only family I have left. And you might say it doesn't matter, that his opinion shouldn't matter, but to me it does. I can understand why you hate him –"

"Hate is a strong word," Draco interrupted quietly. Much to Sirius' surprise.

"Strong, but pretty relevant wouldn't you say?" Harry paused, as though awaiting a reply. Whether Draco gave him one or not Sirius didn't know, but he continued a moment later anyway. "I just don't want the fact that you two can't get along to be a problem, is all."

The silence was too loud. Sirius could hear his own breath, hoarse and worryingly loud, as he strained his ears for the faintest sound. His eyes stared blankly into the darkness, but he didn't see the hallway. Instead, he fathomed that he could see the frown on Harry's face, the one that he'd noticed several times over the past few days directed towards him but hadn't really appreciated before. Hadn't really considered as being anything but a simple, irrelevant frown. It meant so much more than that now.

It was Draco who broke the silence, and surprisingly it was to say almost exactly what Sirius wished he could. "It's not a problem, Harry. It won't ever be. I talked to him yesterday, you know. I told him where I stood, where he should stand. And I like to think he took my words to heart as being reasonable, even if he does dislike me. Strongly. You've seen him today; he seems less antagonistic. Towards me, anyway. No?"

Harry was silent, unresponsive. There was another squeak of springs, the shuffle of movement as bodies shifted and the rustle of what Sirius assumed were sheets.

"Harry," Draco continued after a moment. "Harry, look at me. You know I hate it when you don't look at me." He paused again, evidently awaiting Harry's response to his request. Which Harry likely obliged, given he dropped his persistence. "It's not a problem, Harry. It never will be. I'm dating you for you. Sirius doesn't have anything to do with how I feel about you. And quite honestly, I sincerely doubt think he ever will."

There was a huff of breath, something between a laugh and a sigh. It was followd by Harry's chuckle which didn't sound as amused as it perhaps should have been. "You're being awfully generous tonight. What brought this on?"

"Hmm," Draco hummed. "I wonder."

Sirius would never know what made him look. All he knew was that, with the tone of Harry's voice, with the murmur of Draco's response, he simply had to see. Had to observe for himself the expressions that would accompany such words.

He shouldn't have looked. Definitely, definitely shouldn't have looked. And more than that, he should have withdrawn from the room upon seeing Harry and Draco, naked and intertwined with one another, wrapped like a pair of coiling snakes atop the bed sheets. Arms wrapped around necks, around shoulders and stroked skin. Legs curled around their fellows, around waist and locking on hips, toes gently stroking along an exposed calf.

And yet Sirius couldn't look away from the bed directly opposite the door. For it was all in the expressions that the pair shared, and instantly, like an epiphany, Sirius understood what Remus had meant when he said that they were 'in love'.

They might not have known it. Might not have realised it themselves, perhaps not even recognised the depth of affection in their mutual gazes, in their voices and in the gentleness they touched one another. But Sirius saw it all. He saw the smile curling Draco's lips, a smile and not a smirk, and the way it crinkled the corners of his eyes as though he was genuinely happy as he gazed down at Harry lying beneath him. He saw the answering smile spreading across Harry's face bethat faint almost-dimple that his father had shared shadowing his cheek, the complete trust that he held in the smoothness of his brow and his closed eyes. How he tilted his head just slightly when Draco leant forwards and unhooked his glasses from his face only to impress his lips onto his eyelids to the soft clink of the lenses falling to the floor.

It wasn't passionate. It wasn't heated, not like Sirius had always been with his partners. It was different entirely, from the gentle exchange of kisses to the stroke of Harry's fingers across Draco's bare back. Even when Draco slid his hands down Harry's waist, drawing his fingers down his leg in a slow caress to slip behind Harry's knee and hitch it more firmly around his waist, it was with the care afforded to the incredibly fragile, the breakable. As though Draco truly did believe that Harry was something that deserved gentleness and felt no qualms about affording him what was deserved.

It unfolded with the precision of a stage play, almost scripted in its fluidity. When Draco positioned himself between Harry's legs, when his hips eased forwards and he thrust in slowly, almost carefully. When Harry uttered a moan that Sirius should definitely not be listening to and left him faintly mortified to have overheard. And when they fell to one another, cleaving together in an embrace that should have made any love-making awkward yet somehow failed to do so. Harry wrapped his arms tightly around Draco's back, in a mirror of the locking of his legs around his waist, and, eyes closed, lost himself to an utterance of groans and murmurs of "Draco". His body seemed to respond reflexively, undulating beneath Draco and hips rising to meet the rhythmic thrusts of his love. Blind turns of his face met any inch of Draco's exposed skin with a kiss.

To say that Draco lost himself would have been accurate, yet not in the way that Harry did. He was all careful, slow and methodical movements, as though he was struggling to maintain a semblance of order in his actions and not entirely succeeding. He leant closely over Harry, one arm propped to his side close enough to touch while the other wrapped gently but firmly around one of his thighs. He kept up a slow, steady pace with his thrusts, timing every second or third with a dropped impression of lips to Harry's own, to his cheek, his neck, the side of his face. The only indication that he was on the verge of abandon was the occasional hitch in his pace, the ever-so-slight increase, and the sharp exhalations emitted in tandem with Harry's moans in a sort of harmonic melody.

Sirius didn't remember leaving the room. He wasn't sure if he shut the door, if he made a scene and a fool of himself by failing to escape notice. He could have stumbled like an elephant down the hall, up the stairs and into his bedroom for all he knew.

He thought it unlikely, however, given that nearly an hour later he was still sitting in a state of stunned confusion on his bed, staring blankly at the opposite wall. No one had pursued him to accuse or demand answers for his actions.

He just… couldn't seem to get those words, those tender expressions, out of his head. Harry, his godson Harry, was in love? And Sirius truly hadn't even noticed? And more than that, he was in love. Because dislike him though he did, Sirius could not deny that what had been radiating so sincerely from Draco Malfoy's face had been about as close to loving as Sirius had ever seen on anyone's face.

Unexpected.

Surreal.

Flooring.

And it changed everything. Sirius had been blind – a blind fool – for not realising it before. For not understanding after speaking with Remus, with Hermione and Narcissa. From seeing the two boys together at every opportunity since Christmas.

How had he been so blind? Blinded indeed, by some misguided competitive streak. Because really, it was no competition at all. Not for Harry's affections. Not in this.

And even if there had been, Draco would have certainly won, hands down. Sirius was not even in the same race.