A/N: It's not Sunday.
I am aware of this.
It's just that I've realised that there are people reading this story who have been reading my stories for, like, two and a half years. They've followed me through original characters, across genres, pairings, and now fandoms. That's crazy! And they're still reviewing! I would send them all cake if I could, but that's a bit of a logistical nightmare, so instead, this chapter is humbly dedicated to VAVikingGirl, snickerdoodle6949, mauralee88 and anyone else who has been with me since forever. I really do love you guys. I'll post again on the weekend as normal.
In this chapter the title of the story will start to make a bit more sense. Or a lot less sense, maybe. I do wonder whether anyone has translated the Latin for themselves or figured it out yet...

Chapter 3- Of Devious Thursdays

Harry knocked lightly on the door, hoping and wishing that he wasn't disturbing anything.

"Come in," Malfoy called out.

He didn't want to go in, either. But he did, pushing the door open but not stepping into the room.

Malfoy was sat on the windowsill, well, half on the windowsill, with one long leg draped down inside the room for balance. The sash window was thrown up and he was lazily smoking a clove cigarette.

"Didn't know you smoked," Harry said, not bothered either way.

"Didn't know you cared," Draco retorted. He flicked the cigarette out of the window and pulled the sash back down. "Did you want something?"

Did he? Oh yes. "What happened in here?"

Although that wasn't really what he wanted to say, it was the most immediate, pressing issue he came up with. Regulus' old bedroom had been admittedly a dump when he'd moved Draco into it. The wallpaper had been peeling, the woodwork was chipped, it was dark and dank and the entire place was covered in dust. Now, although the elegant dark wood and ornate fabrics remained, the room had been restored to what seemed to be its former glory.

One of Draco's shirts was tossed carelessly over the back of a high backed chair and the large, gilt framed mirror that Harry was sure used to be cracked and clouded now hung straight on the wall. It was undoubtedly beautiful, but Harry had had nothing to do with it.

"What?" Malfoy shrugged. "I guessed you had a house elf do it."

"I don't own an elf," Harry said coldly.

"I don't know then."

"There's a garden out back, you know," Harry said. "If you want to smoke."

"Really? Where?"

"If you go out through the pantry there's a door to the outside. It's a courtyard really, more than a garden, but Remus and Sirius always used to go out there when they wanted a smoke."

"I'll check it out," Draco said, nodding. Harry turned to leave. "Wait," he called, halting him.

"Yeah?"

"I saw the article. In the Prophet."

"There's been a lot of articles in the Prophet recently," Harry said drily. "I've stopped reading it to be honest."

"About Severus."

"Oh," Harry qualified and stepped back into the room, suddenly feeling the need to sit down. He perched on the edge of the chair, careful not to lean back and crease the shirt. "People needed to know."

"Yeah," Draco said vaguely. "How did you... how did you know? All of that?"

"He gave me his memories just before he died," Harry said. Although he had been instrumental in making sure the wizarding world knew that Snape was a hero, he was wary of releasing exactly how those memories had come to be in his possession; aware, maybe, that once their existence was known, everyone would want a piece of them.

"Why you?"

Harry snorted. "Tactful. He was dying, Malfoy. If he didn't give them to me then his story would have been lost forever. The only other person who knew that he was a double agent was Dumbledore."

Draco shook his head and dropped his cheek to the wall, peering out of the glass to the fading afternoon sunlight. "All those times he was trying to help me. And I just thought he was trying to steal my glory. Not that there's any glory left in being a Malfoy now, anyway."

Leaning forward so that his elbows rest on his knees, Harry surveyed the blonde man. Since their awkward conversation in the bathroom a few days prior he'd been very wary of trying to engage Draco in any kind of conversation beyond simple greetings or words about the baby in their care.

"Did no one suspect anything? On your..."

"On my side, you can say it," Malfoy interjected. "My aunt never trusted him. Not really."

"Bellatrix?" Harry asked. A small knot of something nasty had formed in the pit of his stomach.

"Yeah." He looked over at Harry. "You didn't like her."

"I didn't like her?" Harry repeated incredulously. "The woman was a fucking psychopath, Malfoy! She killed my godfather, she tortured my best friend, we're pretty fucking sure she killed Teddy's mother..."

"Okay, okay," he said. "I didn't like the crazy bitch either. At least you didn't have to live with her. She wasn't just insane, you know," Malfoy continued. "Aunt Bella. She was fucking crazy, but she wasn't insane."

"Tell me. I'm listening."

"She knew nonverbal magic, wandless magic, nonverbal wandless Unforgivable curses, for fuck's sake. I heard whispers around the Manor that there were only about five wizards in existence who knew how to do that, you know. She used to spend hours and hours locked up with the Dark Lord and no one knew what they were doing. He taught her a lot."

"And then she taught you."

"Yeah. She was the one who taught me the Unforgivables on rabbits in the Manor grounds. She wasn't going to give it up until I could do nonverbal AK at the very least. And wandless at the best."

"How much wandless magic can you do?" Harry asked.

"A lot," Draco admitted. "They started me with wandless duelling spells, and once you can do those then you can apply the theory to pretty much every other spell you know.

"Uh..." he looked like he was debating about whether or not to continue. "After you escaped with Granger and the Weasel back in March she kept me under Imperius."

"You're kidding."

"I wish I was."

"How long for?"

Draco sighed heavily. "Um, about four or five weeks, I think."

"Fuck, Malfoy. Why?"

"Mostly to save me from myself," he admitted. "From time to time I'd say the wrong thing and after the escape we were tortured pretty badly. By Bellatrix, interestingly enough."

Harry was aghast. "She tortured her own family?"

"Oh yeah. I said she wasn't completely insane, but she was definitely fucking crazy. It made her a complete unknown entity. We'd be there, killing rabbits on the South lawn and I knew that if the Dark Lord ordered her to she'd kill me with as little thought as those poor fucking rabbits. He was the only thing she cared about.

"But, then again, she kept me under Imperius to stop me getting into more trouble, so I guess she did care about me on some level."

"I can't imagine..." Harry shook his head. "The not knowing must have been awful."

"You can't understand how fanatical these people were about blood purity and family lines and the honour attached to being of Black and Malfoy descent. That's why she taught me Occlumency, you know."

No, Harry thought after a moment. I don't know. The thought must have registered on his face, because Malfoy elaborated.

"I'm gay, Potter."

"Oh," Harry managed.

"I don't want to marry a pure blood witch and make lots of nice little pure blood heirs. I needed to hide this fact from as many people as possible until we could come to some sort of arrangement that would probably have meant me marrying some poor witch and having a male lover on the side.

"Of course, Aunt Bella blamed my father for my sexuality."

"How did she manage that?"

"Apparently there's a long tradition of Malfoy men being gay. It goes back hundreds of years. They were all at it."

Harry laughed softly. "That's incredible. You can't inherit sexual preferences."

Draco tilted his head to the side. "I don't know. Either way, the Dark Lord would undoubtedly used the information to torture me and my family even further. Any little sign of weakness..."

"You were one of the youngest," Harry said; stating the obvious, he was sure, but hoping to prompt Malfoy into revealing more about what had happened on the other side, such as it was, in the previous year.

"Yeah. By at least ten years."

"And... you took your father's place? When he was sent to Azkaban?"

"Yeah."

The cold Malfoy mask was back in place. He summoned a small, engraved tin from a bedside drawer and rolled another cigarette with long, skilled fingers. He threw the sash wide open again and lit the cigarette with the tip of his wand, huffing mauve smoke into the dusk.

There was more, so much more that Harry wanted to know. He didn't know if Malfoy's silence was one of introspection, or fear, or his way of indicating that it was time for Harry to leave. The high pitched cry of a restless infant prevented Harry from learning anything more.

"Potter."

Harry stopped, once again, with his hand on the silver doorknob.

"I'll tell you more. Another time."

"Okay. Me too."

xXx

"We need food," Harry said dryly, standing at the open pantry door the next morning and surveying the severe lack of anything to eat. They had plenty for the baby, of course, but nothing for them to eat. Truth be told, Harry had ordered takeaways for the past few nights.

"Well, go and get some then," Draco said. He didn't look up from his Prophet or his coffee.

"I need you to watch Teddy for a few hours then."

"What?" Draco looked up in horror. "No, don't leave me on my own, I hate that."

"I'm not packing up everything to take him with me when you're staying here anyway not doing anything," Harry huffed. He pulled his jacket from where it was slung over the back of a chair and started to button it up. Malfoy, to his delight, looked more than slightly panicked.

"What do I do if he wakes up?"

"Same thing you do if he wakes up during the night," Harry said as he patted his pockets, making sure he had his Muggle credit card in his pocket. He preferred the Muggle supermarkets to the market on Diagon Alley. No one recognised him in the former. "Feed him, change him and be bloody nice to him."

"What if something goes wrong?"

"Draco. Nothing will go wrong."

"But what if it does?"

"Stick your head in the fire and call Hermione or Mrs Weasley."

Draco looked disgusted. "Yeah, like either of them would help me."

"No, but they'd help Teddy. I'll be as quick as I can."

Harry rushed out of the door before he could be held up even further.

The aisles of Waitrose were blissfully quiet and he hummed along to the music being played from hidden speakers as he pulled food from the shelves. Since Malfoy had kicked up such a fuss about being left alone he stocked up as much as possible so that he wouldn't need to do another shop for a few weeks.

It had been a while since he'd been to a supermarket, Harry mused as he perused the different cereals on offer, trying to think of what Malfoy would like. The little corner shop served him well enough. And Molly used to drop round leftovers for him when he was living alone. Not so much since Malfoy had moved in as well.

When it came to the baby aisle he found his hands going automatically to the formula Teddy liked best, the nappies they were running low on, and a few toys and rattles as a treat.

"New dad?" the grey haired, smiling lady at the checkout asked as he started piling his things on the belt.

"Yeah, sort of," Harry smile d back. "My godson has come to live with me."

"Oh, how lovely," she said and packed his bags for him.

He could have easily shrunk and lightened the bags to be able to carry them home himself, but it would have been too conspicuous and he called a taxi from the supermarket's payphone to make the short journey instead. Harry checked his watch as the driver helped him to the door with all the bags; he'd only been gone for just over an hour. And he'd spent a fortune.

Harry unlocked the front door with a covert Alohomora and started piling the bags into the hall.

"Draco?" he yelled. "Malfoy! Come and help me with all this you lazy shit!"

The house was silent. Harry snarled and muttered curses under his breath as he pulled the last few bags through and shut the door behind him, then spelled the bags feather light and levitated them through to the kitchen table.

He supposed the other two residents of the house were napping and turned on the small radio he kept to keep him company when he was cooking. Not that he recognised any of the wizarding bands apart from The Weird Sisters.

When the shopping had been assigned to the correct cupboards Harry set about making a cup of tea, having purposefully set aside the chocolate biscuits when he was unpacking.

"Make me one," Draco said as he came into the kitchen through the pantry and the door that lead to the courtyard. He had a smiling Teddy sat on his hip and he looked happier than when Harry left.

"He woke up then," Harry said as he reached up for another mug from the cupboard.

"Yeah. We've been out in the garden."

"I was taking the piss about a garden, Draco." Harry poured another mug of tea from the pot. "It's a sunless concrete box, I'm aware of that."

"Well yes, but if you go through the door at the back then it takes you through to the garden," Draco said with an air of maddening superiority Harry was used to hearing from Hermione.

"There isn't a door at the back," Harry said. He carried the two mugs of tea to the table with the packet of biscuits between his teeth. Draco had set Teddy up in his soft, levitating chair again and was making blue sparks appear from the end of his wand.

"Um, yes there is. Where else do you think we've been?" Harry stayed silent and drank his tea, sensing a trap. "He does this thing when he touches flowers, it's so cool, he can make his fingertips change to the same colour as the flower. Like a chameleon."

It was the first time Harry had seen genuine enthusiasm from his childhood nemesis since, well, he'd been torturing Harry back in their school days. His face seemed to light up as he talked about the baby.

"Maybe you can show me later."

"Yeah," Draco said, distracted as Teddy tried to grab the end of his wand. He switched to conjuring bubbles instead which Teddy seemed to love as he tried to pop them.

"The lady at the supermarket asked me about him," Harry said. He split the packet of biscuits down the side and took one, offering the packet to Draco. "But it's too risky to take him out yet though. He might go blue again."

Teddy's hair occasionally turned colour, but most of the time it was a light, reddish blonde that he'd inherited from his father. They had no idea about the development of his Metamorphmagus abilities and how it would affect the baby as he grew. Harry supposed he should ask Hermione. She could always send him a book from the Hogwarts library.

"So the world didn't end just because I left you alone with a baby, then."

"Shut up, Potter," Malfoy mumbled. "I've never been around kids before. It's fucking scary. You feel like you're constantly in danger of breaking them. Or hurting them."

"There's books with the stuff Hermione brought over," Harry said, dunking his biscuit. "About how to look after children. They're Muggle books, but I've found them pretty useful."

Draco nodded.

They lapsed into awkward silence.

"Have you closed up your house yet?" Harry asked eventually, just to break the tension that was building.

"Yeah. Sort of."

Harry raised an eyebrow, wanting him to continue.

He huffed. "The elves have been given instructions to keep the place clean, but I don't really know what else to do with them. I got the impression you don't want them here."

"It's not really big enough," Harry said. "And no, I don't want an elf here."

"Why?"

"I'll tell you another time."

"Fine." Malfoy crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm not setting them free, before you suggest that. My mother will be out in five years and if she finds out I've dismissed the elves she'll have a fit."

"Why don't you send them to Hogwarts? Just temporarily, I mean. That's what I did with Kreacher."

Draco frowned and made more bubbles for the gurgling baby. "That's an idea, I suppose."

"Call McGonagall."

"You call her."

"They're your bloody elves, Malfoy."

"She won't take a call from me."

"She will."

"She bloody well won't."

"Fine," Harry said, just to break the argument. "I'll call her. How many are there?"

"Six."

Harry rolled his eyes and ignored Malfoy's sarcastic 'what?'

"You hate me," Malfoy mumbled after another Harry had refilled both their mugs and started on the second half of the packet of biscuits.

"I don't hate you," Harry said honestly.

"You do. Don't try and be so superior that you can't even admit to hating me. You've always hated me."

"I don't hate anyone, Draco," Harry sighed, feeling tired and very old all of a sudden.

"You must."

"I really don't, I promise. It takes too much energy to hate people. Anyone who was worth hating is now dead, and if I'm going to spend my time thinking about people who aren't here any more then it's going to be about people I loved. Love," he corrected. "People I still love."

Draco nodded slowly, thinking. "The people who raised you. Your aunt and uncle."

"What about them?"

"Have you seen them? Since it all ended?"

"No," Harry said shortly.

"Really? Not even to tell them you're still alive?"

"They don't care if I'm alive, trust me," Harry said to the pale brown tea in his mug. He looked up to Draco's slate grey, disbelieving eyes. "If you want me to recount the horrors of my childhood then I'll warn you that it's a pretty gruesome story."

"It's up to you."

"I spent ten years being beaten, verbally abused, physically abused, mistreated, not fed properly and thoroughly bullied by my cousin. Happy now?"

"Not really," Draco mumbled. "I didn't know…"

"No, no one knew it was that bad," Harry snapped.

"Not even Dumbledore?"

Harry sighed heavily. "I think he had an idea."

"And he didn't get you out of there?" Draco asked incredulously. The baby's eyes were drooping and Harry could tell he was only moments from falling into sleep. That was good. It was time for his nap.

"No."

"Why the fuck not?"

"Don't say fuck in front of the baby, Malfoy," Harry said and helped himself to another biscuit.

He snorted with laughter and took a biscuit too. "Fine. Why not?"

"It's a really, really long story," Harry groaned, pushing his glasses up to rub at his eyes.

"In case you hadn't noticed, I don't exactly have anywhere to be."

Harry made a third pot of tea as he spoke, needing the distraction and familiar routine as he recounted his deepest secrets to his worst enemy. "When Voldemort killed my parents, he offered my mother a chance to save herself, if she stepped aside and let him kill me. She didn't, of course, so she died saving me.

"That kind of magic; well, Dumbledore always used to say that Voldemort never understood how powerful those sacrifices are. He used that magical protection that my mother had given me and extended it to my aunt, who was my mother's sister. So as long as I was living there, he couldn't get to me.

"Which is why he left me there for ten years."

Draco nodded. "I suppose that makes sense."

"It was the same brand of magic that saved my friends, and Neville. Because I died for them-"

"Wait, what?"

Harry cursed under his breath. He had never intended to reveal that particular secret. "Nothing, don't worry. Like I was saying-"

"No, hold up a minute. You're saying you died?"

"I thought your mother would have told you," Harry said honestly. Rather than sit back down at the table, he hoisted himself up to sit on one of the counters. It gave him a height advantage. And, he liked sitting on the counters.

"She didn't have chance to tell me much."

"Voldemort killed me." Harry waited for this information to sink in. "I came back though," he qualified.

"How- what- I don't understand."

Harry laughed humourlessly. "It took me about three years to understand everything."

"Does this have to do with my wand?"

"Oh dear. This is going to be a really, really long conversation," Harry groaned, thumping his head back against the cupboards.

Hours later, Harry started pulling food from the refrigerated pantry and started making a chilli. He had spent the best part of the afternoon explaining to Draco about Horcruxes and Hallows and dying but not really, and waiting for Draco to offer more information about what had happened at the Manor.

"Your mother saved my life, did she ever tell you that?" Harry said as he fried onions.

"No. I thought you died?"

It was part of his blunt nature- he didn't hold anything back- that Harry was starting to appreciate.

"I did die you insensitive prick. After that."

"Oh."

"She wanted to find you, and she said she'd never be allowed back up to the castle otherwise… so yeah."

"She didn't tell me," Draco repeated. "But there was a lot she didn't tell me, so I'm not really surprised."

"Don't you hate me?" Harry asked curiously. "I mean, we did a lot of really horrible stuff to each other."

"I suppose I know what you mean. About not having the energy to hate people any more."

"Maybe hate is a bad word," Harry qualified. "Resent me, maybe?"

"Whatever game it is that you're playing, stop it," Malfoy snapped. "Don't use my feelings to justify your own."

He stomped out of the room and it was only with turning around that Harry noticed the surveillance charm was pulsing slightly, showing the now awake baby. He turned the heat down on the stove and leaned back against the counter.

Malfoy had obviously forgotten that Harry could watch him from the kitchen. It was slightly mesmerising, watching the cold, distant teenager turn gentle and caring as he changed the screaming baby, shushing and cooing at him as he vanished the dirty nappy and snapped on a clean babygrow. It was too early for a feed, but Draco hoisted Teddy up on to his shoulder and started to pace the room, rubbing his back and singing a song that Harry didn't recognise.

Maybe it was a cliché, but he seemed like a different person from the boy who'd thrived on their mutual hatred at school. Sure, the snobbish, argumentative side of him was still there, but still. He was changing. When Draco grabbed the baby seat in his spare hand and made to leave the room, Harry hastily grabbed a baguette and chucked it in the oven as well to warm through, making himself look busy.

"Smells good," he commented as he re-entered the kitchen. Harry supposed that was the most he could expect in the way of apologies.

"Thanks," he muttered and started heaping chilli and rice into two bowls, setting them on the table with the bread.

"I meant to ask before," Draco said as he tore his bread apart. "You know the basement downstairs?"

"Uh, no," Harry said. "There isn't a basement in this place."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Yeah there is."

"Where?"

"Down there," he said with amusement, pointing below them. "I was wondering if I could turn it into a potions lab. I'm probably going to do my NEWT in Potions anyway. Distance learning, you know."

"I don't have a problem with you doing it," Harry said. He wiped up extra sauce with his bread. "But there isn't a basement down there."

"How many steps are there up to the front of this house?"

He sensed a trap. "I dunno. Eight?"

"Right. If there are eight steps up, what do you think is under the first floor? Level with the street?"

Harry, thankfully, was a step ahead of him. "You go down the steps into the kitchen."

"Right," Malfoy said with more amusement. "You go down two steps into the kitchen. Two, Potter. What about the other six?"

"Sirius would have shown me down there if there was a basement," Harry said, although his confidence was waning.

"Maybe he didn't know it was there either. It's a dump, Harry, it'll take some cleaning up. I just wanted to make sure it was okay with you."

"Yeah. Fine, go on, I don't care."

"Cool."

"When did you find it?"

"Last night," Draco said. He stood and collected both bowls, taking them to the sink.

"You don't sleep, do you?"

The glare he received was icy. "I sleep fine."

Although the topic of the basement/ Potions lab was dropped for the rest of that evening, it surfaced again the next morning over breakfast and the Muggle cereal Draco had delighted in.

"How the fuck did you get that lab put together so quickly?" Draco said, chasing a marshmallow shamrock around his bowl.

"I didn't," Harry protested. "I still haven't even been down there."

Draco rolled his eyes and dumped his bowl in the sink. He poked at the surveillance charm that followed both men around the house now; they'd learned that the little charm was actually surprisingly resilient and could be subjected to enlarging and shrinking, silencing and volume control, and could be told to follow them and would obediently bob along, just over their shoulder.

After checking that the sleeping child was in fact, still sleeping, Draco grabbed Harry by the wrist and dragged him to his feet.

"Come on," he insisted and headed for a back corner of the kitchen. There, next to the cupboard that Kreacher used to inhabit, was a small, arched doorway.

"That never used to be there," Harry said, suddenly unsure. The door was the same colour as the stone walls, low, indiscreet and undoubtedly boring. If Harry had been pressed, he would probably admit to thinking it lead to another cupboard or storeroom, such was its ability to blend into the background.

Draco rolled his eyes and pushed at the dusty handle.

"Lumos," he muttered, lighting his wand as they trudged down a dark, wooden staircase. Harry lit his wand too and stumbled over the bottom step. Malfoy sniggered.

The basement clearly ran the length of the house; dank, dusty and narrow. At either end of the room was a semi circular window which was level with the road but so covered in much and grime little light seeped through it. What was interesting, though, was a long table through the middle of the room that held five shiny black cauldrons, and cabinets that lined the full length of each wall, full of ingredients.

"Nope, never been down here before," Harry muttered.

"Well, all this shit wasn't here yesterday," Draco said. "The dirt was. But it was empty."

"I haven't got a clue where it came from then."

"Can you do one of those," Draco waved his arms emphatically, "You know, little orange cleaning thingies?"

"A vacuuming charm?"

"Yeah. Clean out the muck."

Harry cast several and let them bounce around the room. "I'll come back and let them out later, get a few new ones in," he explained.

They ascended to the kitchen in silence.

"You really don't know anything about the room?" Draco asked.

"No!" Harry huffed, exasperated. He went to the sink and started on the dishes. "So you're taking your NEWTs, then?"

"Just Potions," Draco qualified, grabbing a tea towel and drying the dishes Harry had washed. It was a shock, the first time his domesticity had come to light, but Harry was starting to get used to it.

"Did you get invited back to school?"

Draco snorted. "If you want to call it that."

"What?" Harry demanded, his hackles rising.

"Oh, chill out, Potter," Malfoy drawled. "I got the same generic invite as everyone else. They must have known I wasn't going back though."

"Not many people are," Harry said in an attempt to cover his embarrassment. "Hermione said only about twenty people were going back to repeat their seventh year."

"And you're not?"

"No."

"What are you going to do?"

Well, that was the million Galleon question. What exactly was Harry Potter going to do next?

"I haven't got a bloody clue," he admitted. "I was on the verge of calling McGonagall and going back to school just because I had nothing better to do when the call came about Andromeda. You?"

"I don't know either," the blonde man admitted. "I had a stern owl from my mother saying not to let the Manor fall into disrepair, and to keep my head down and my name out of the papers, but other than that…"

"It's not like you need to work," Harry said without thinking.

"You either," Malfoy bit back.

"I always wanted to be an Auror," Harry continued, ignoring the jibe.

"Not any more?"

"I don't think so."

"Okay, what would your perfect job be, if they handed it to you right now?"

Harry toyed with the end of his fork, thinking. "I suppose the only other thing I was any good at was Quidditch."

"I knew you were going to say that," Malfoy crowed.

"How about you?" Harry demanded, flushing pink. "Mr doing a NEWT in Potions and nothing else."

"Not just a NEWT, Potter, I've been accepted to do a BAT as well."

"A what?"

"A BAT, Potter."

"Never heard of it," Harry said, hopping up on to the counter.

"Don't suppose you would have," Malfoy said, sending all of the dishes back to their cupboards with a lazy swish of his wand.

"What does B, A, T stand for then?" Harry asked, hating that he didn't know.

"Bloody 'ard test," Draco deadpanned.

"Seriously."

"Brilliantly advanced," he said with a smirk. "It's the next level up from NEWT. Most people do them as part of their career, if they need to, it gives you the equivalent of a teaching certificate in that subject."

"Wow," Harry said. "So you're going to be a Potions Master, then?"

"God, no chance," Draco said. "When I applied to do the NEWT as distance learning they offered me the chance to do the BAT at the same time. It's probably going to take a couple of years to get both qualifications."

"Well, that makes sense, I suppose," Harry mumbled. He picked at a loose thread on the knee of his jeans until his snitch flitted into the room. He caught it lazily and stroked the gold metal with his thumb.

"I need something to stop me going bloody crazy," Draco qualified. "Unlike some people, I can't just sit around all day doing nothing."

"I don't do nothing all day," Harry snapped but Draco was already waving his words off.

"You're too sensitive," he smirked. "Don't get your knickers in a twist."

Harry glanced over at his conspectus charm and sighed. Teddy was starting to stir again.

"I've got it," he said. "You go back to your newts and bats and cats and snails."

"Snail," Draco snorted as Harry jumped down from the counter. "Good luck with coming up with an acronym for that."

Harry headed for the door, but was called back by Draco's "Oh, Potter?"

"What?" he said irritably.

"You need to watch Teddy tomorrow afternoon."

"Why?" he demanded, even though it wasn't a problem, particularly.

"Because it's Thursday tomorrow," Draco said as if he was speaking to a rather slow child.

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"I have somewhere to be on Thursday afternoons."

Harry studied the other man for long seconds. "To do what?"

"None of your business," Draco said, turning away from the penetrating gaze. "The baby's still crying, Harry."