"George?"

"Hi, love," George said cheerily, kissing Harry on the cheek. "I bought us dinner since you seem to have opted out of cooking tonight."

Harry hesitated and shifted from foot to foot. "Before we eat..."

George sighed and laughed a little. "We're going to break up, aren't we?"

"How did you know?" Harry asked, noting that his tone hardly captured just how surprised he was.

"Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm kind of a crap boyfriend," George said apologetically. "I'm filthy as fuck, I don't ever volunteer to make dinner, and whenever you bring up how you'd like to take a job somewhere that isn't the shop, I put my hand down your trousers so you'll forget you ever entertained the thought." George paused. "But the sex has been good, right? You shouldn't take that one away from me."

"Yes, the sex has been terrific," said Harry. "And you're taking this awfully well."

"Well, Harry, we've been together, what, 63 days now?"

"You've counted?"

George gestured behind Harry's head at a three-month calendar on which the date May 15 was covered with a heart. If Harry remembered correctly, it was June 17.

"Oh. Right. Good mental math there."

"Mental math?"

Harry shook his head. "Never mind. So you're really OK with this?"

"Oh, absolutely. I'm definitely not good enough for you," said George, sounding cheerful. "The messiness, and the sex as a distraction, and the unhelpfulness, and the way I look entirely too long at other blokes."

"You really do," Harry agreed. "You'll be great for someone more lenient and less neat and slightly more sex crazed, though I don't lack too much in that department, do I?"

"It's been lucky for me, sure," George said with a sigh. "But I think I'm OK with all this. So you'll be moving back to Grimmauld Place, then?"

"Sure."

"I'll help. May as well help with something, right?"

Harry kissed George on the cheek. "May as well."

Moving didn't take long, considering that the extent of Harry's personal possessions was not particularly extensive, and Grimmauld Place already housed much of what he owned. Harry turned down George's offer of one less shag, though he couldn't quite pinpoint why, especially after George left and Harry's bed, despite Grimmauld Place's typically warm temperature, felt terribly cold. After two hours of sleeplessness, Harry made himself some tea and propped himself up on his multitude of pillows, digging his battered copy of Quidditch Through the Ages out of the trunk nearest his bed and began reading.

Minutes later, he heard an odd sound at the mistakenly cracked window. Harry peered over at the dark form that was gliding into his room, across the floor, and up the side of his bed. It looked quite a bit like his cloak, so he simply peered at it with curiosity until realizing what it was.

"What the fuck is a lethifold doing in London?" Harry asked no one, slapping at the creature with his book. The lethifold seemed unaffected by the pummeling and slithered ever closer to Harry, latching itself onto his arm and going for the face before Harry heard a banging noise from the window, which flew open, as if by magic.

"Get away from him, Zion," a familiarly drawling voice said firmly. The lethifold seemed to relinquish its hold on Harry and even shrunk back slightly as Draco Malfoy made his way across Harry's bedroom. Harry, shirtless and, in fact, trouserless, pulled his sheet over himself so Malfoy—was he Draco now, considering his relationship with Hermione, or had he reverted back to Malfoy now that they'd broken up?—couldn't see quite as much as he did when he'd walked, well, flew, more like, into the room. That is, if he'd bothered to look, and he might not have, considering where his attention had been.

"Zion?" Harry asked in disbelief. "He's ... it's ... the lethifold's your pet?"

"Yes, Potter, he got attached when I was visiting his colony." So Malfoy it was, then. "He's not quite domesticated yet, but he's a fine companion. I'm proud to say that the Manor's yard is now completely devoid of pests." Malfoy draped the lethifold around his neck; though Harry hadn't known that lethifolds made any sort of noises, considering their behavior during attacks, but the beast seemed to be purring.

"And what's he doing in my room?"

"That I don't know," Malfoy admitted, stroking one end of the lethifold, presumably the side Malfoy had decided was its head. "He's never left my flat before, except for when he was clearing the Manor's yard. I suspect it has something to do with his attraction to solitary environments." Malfoy smirked. "Though I'd never thought of you as the solitary type, Potter. Did you break up with Weasley? Are you lonely and heartbroken?"

"Though it's not really any of your business, Malfoy, yes, I did, and no, I'm not. George wasn't what I was looking for." Harry didn't know why he'd felt the need to tack on that detail. Maybe it had something to do with the way Malfoy was casually sitting on the chest of drawers across the room from Harry, ankles crossed. Or maybe it had something to do with Malfoy's hair hanging loosely across his forehead, somewhat obscuring the boy's—man's, Harry supposed—steely grey eyes but somehow highlighting his defined cheekbones and pale pink lips. How Harry could see all this in the pitch dark, he couldn't quite tell. But he could. And it was ... unusual, but only unusual in the best possible way.

"Not what you were looking for. Were you looking for his sister, maybe?"

Harry snorted. "Hardly."

"So you are gay, then? Couldn't be sure if you were just trying to find your footing, as it were."

"Why were you trying to determine that, anyway?" Harry stretched his arms over his head and leaned back, keenly aware of the way Malfoy's eyes drifted down his body. Malfoy seemed to snap back as he noticed Harry noticing and abruptly jumped down from the chest of drawers.

"I wasn't," said Malfoy shortly. "I apologize for Zion's behavior. I won't be allowing him to strangle any peacocks anytime soon, you can be sure of that."

With that, Malfoy slipped back out of the window and Harry shook his head, lying back, drifting off to sleep, and trying his best not to think too much about Malfoy's retreating backside.