Harry pushed away the tray of pastries levitating dangerously close to his face. He'd skipped breakfast that morning. He'd picked at his lunch before abandoning it in a corner of his desk. He just couldn't eat. It was the butterflies in his stomach.

Draco intercepted the tray, picked up a butter scone. They were both leaning against Ron's desk, arms slightly touching, listening to Ron's diatribe against Ulmer.

"Just stop taking everything he says to heart," Draco said wisely.

"I can't! That's the problem! I can't stand listening to him anymore- bloody useless meetings- he doesn't even understand the basics of what it takes to run this department so-"

"Yeah, he's a hack. Everybody knows he's a hack," Draco added. "That's never gonna change."

Harry glanced at his watch. It was twenty minutes to three. Barely five minutes had passed since he last checked. The hours plodded on. Stretched out. Expanded. He couldn't stand it anymore, the waiting.

He'd been waiting for too long.

First, he'd waited for Draco to say something. To do something. To signal to Harry in some way that he was ready to move things along. He didn't. Not really .

Sure, they were constantly together. At work, after work, at the weekend. They went for walks together, they ate together, they even went shopping together. They spend more time together than they ever had. But Draco just didn't look at Harry like he used to. He didn't seem haunted by the same desire that haunted Harry. What if he'd changed his mind? What if he didn't see him like that anymore, after everything?

"That's ridiculous and you know it."

They were in Quality Quidditch Supplies - Ginny needed new gloves for the upcoming season - when Harry's will finally gave out and he verbalized the thoughts eating away at him.

"It's been months now and he hasn't said anything," he argued, picking up a random pair just to put it back on the shelf one second later. "Months."

"Have you considered that he's waiting for you to get better?"

"I am better! I've been better for a while. I'm not getting any better than this."

"So tell him."

"How? How does one tell someone that?"

Ginny let go of the tag she was inspecting. "Just ask him out. He'll get the message. He's not an idiot."

Just ask him out. Wasn't he supposed to ask him out?

"But how?"

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Gosh, Harry, find out what his favorite restaurant is and invite him to dinner! It's not rocket science. Teenagers do it all the time and, believe it or not, they manage without step-by-step instructions."

Harry mumbled something to the effect of not needing to be talked down to like a child, but was in fact thankful for Ginny's straightforwardness. It was the reason he had talked to her in the first place, instead of Ron and Hermione.

However, in order to find out Draco's favorite restaurant Ron and Hermione were simply unavoidable. He took advantage of an evening Draco met a muggle friend and the three of them were alone.

"Hmm… good question," Hermione said, stretched over her sofa. "It used to be Evelyn, but I think he doesn't go there that often anymore."

"Why? Are you planning to ask him out?"

Harry pretended he didn't hear Ron. "Where is Evelyn?"

"No, no, forget Evelyn. I think it's Tina's Kitchen. Definitely Tina's Kitchen."

"Tina's Kitchen. Noted."

"You are, aren't you!" Ron exclaimed, a wide grin on his face. Hermione shook her head amused, but didn't do anything to spare Harry.

"I am," Harry confirmed, cornered.

"Well, I'll be damned. Harry Potter, organizing a date. That's a first."

"That's not true," he retorted confidently, crossing his arms, knowing full well it was, in fact, completely true.

But just because he had a plan and the name of a restaurant didn't also mean he had the determination to actually go through with it. He kept stalling, waiting, hoping maybe Draco would make the first move in the end. Harry couldn't explain, not even to himself, why that was.

It was the mental exhaustion caused by the endless ruminating that finally pushed him to pick up the phone, make a reservation and just hope for the best. He thought asking Draco would be the hardest part. But no. That had actually been simple. Sweet. Waiting the two days in between, on the contrary, had been torture. Having to see him, to sit next to him, to bloody have his arm pressed against his, all while putting on an act of nonchalance, of casual dispassion - it drove Harry insane. He just wanted it to be over. He wanted to meet Draco, go to Tina's Kitchen - a deceivingly simple name for what turned out to be a very expensive, over the top, Michelin starred restaurant - and… and then what? They'd gotten so good at acting like friends. At being friends. How were they supposed to switch back? And is that what they were supposed to do - switch back?

Draco was grabbing his shoulder.

"... I'm going, I need to stock up on Moondew. Harry?"

"Oh, yeah- sorry, yes."

"See you tonight."

"Yeah, see you tonight."

Draco slightly squeezed his shoulder before turning around and leaving Ron's office. Harry swallowed nervously as he watched the hem of his robes disappearing behind the door. He glanced at his watch again. It was thirty past three. This day was never going to end.

He arrived in front of Draco's building at eight o'clock sharp, just as Draco was coming out of the lift. They locked eyes through the glass of the entrance door and smiled at each other.

God dammit . Why did he have to look so good?

"Hey," Draco said, letting the door fall shut behind him.

"Hey," Harry echoed. He felt too awkward, too out of place, standing in the middle of the pavement, hands in his pockets.

"Hey," Draco said again, quieter, once he reached him.

"Hey," Harry laughed, not knowing if he should lean in and hug him hello or not. "How are you?" he asked instead, voice cracking slightly.

Draco bit his lip, looked to his left. Looked back at Harry. "Honestly?" Harry felt his pulse in his ears. "Terrified," he eventually said, laughing. Harry let out the air he'd been holding in his lungs. "I just spent two hours getting ready," Draco continued, gesturing at his clothes. "Which is ridiculous. We already saw each other today."

Harry had to step closer to Draco to make way for a rushed couple passing by. He wanted to reach out, tuck that one wild strand of hair behind his ear. Grab his waist. Anything, really. Just touch him. He didn't.

"... just to end up wearing chinos and a shirt, like always," he concluded bitterly.

"You look very good," Harry said, surprised to discover he knew just the right thing to say, surprised to find his voice didn't betray him.

Draco passed a hand through his hair, looked away from Harry. Harry never knew nerves could look so attractive on someone.

"You too," he said, catching Harry's eyes.

They stayed like that for a beat, looking at each other, flushed from the heat and from everything else.

"It's a bit awkward, isn't it?" Draco laughed, cutting through the silence like butter.

"Very much so," Harry admitted with a smile.

"You do look very good." As he said that, he reached out and brushed something off Harry's shirt. Harry followed the movement of his hand, wishing he wouldn't move it away. He did.

"I also spent ages getting ready," he chuckled. What would have been the point in lying?

"Did you?"

"I did."

"I like your shirt," he said, barely a whisper, grabbing the collar of Harry's shirt between two fingers, as if inspecting the material. "It's really… nice."

They were inches away. Driven by a surge of confidence he couldn't identify the source of and by a need he'd held back for far too long, Harry leaned in, brushed their lips together. He went weak in the knees when Draco answered, kissing his lower lip unhurriedly. Tenderly.

Their mouths came apart, but they didn't back away. They rested against each other for a while, eyes closed. Brushed their lips together one more time. It wasn't really like a kiss - not like any they'd shared before. More like a breath for air.

Draco backed away. There was something so intense in the brightness of his eyes, the flush of his cheeks, the redness of his lips. The sound of traffic slowly reached Harry again.

"Well, that makes things less awkward, I guess."

Harry let out a chuckle. "We should probably get going," he remarked, looking at his watch, still dazed.

"Let's get going, then. And where exactly are we going?"

"To Tina's kitchen."

"To Tina's kitchen?" Draco exclaimed, genuinely surprised. He casually put a hand over Harry's shoulders. "Jesus, I'm in for a treat, then."

Harry smiled under his breath, willing himself to remember to thank Ginny and Hermione later, and put an arm around Draco's waist, reveling in the new found right to do so.

They sat down at their table by the window overlooking the interior garden. The sun was almost setting, so a candle had been lit on their table. Harry wanted to laugh about it, or at least about the over the top decor, but Draco seemed unbothered by all the luxury surrounding them.

"I can never decide what to get," he said, eyes focused on the menu. "Everything seems like an experience in itself."

Harry found he couldn't really picture any of the dishes presented in the menu. He didn't, in fact, understand half of the words. He glanced back up at Draco and found him staring.

"You look so out of your element," he chuckled.

"I am," Harry admitted, closing the menu.

"You know, we could have gone somewhere normal. At the pub around the corner. I wouldn't have cared."

"I know."

"I'd have loved it just as much."

"I know."

Draco ended up ordering for both of them. He also ordered a bottle of wine, but only after apologizing profusely about it.

"It's just- with the steak-"

"I don't care, Draco!" Harry said, exasperated. "Enjoy your wine and stop worrying about me."

The food was, just like Harry expected, out of this world. He didn't even know food could be done like that. Draco talked in depth about every single dish, telling Harry about the original recipe the chef had modernized or about why it was so revolutionary to combine common vegetables with exotic fruit. Harry found it just as endearing as he found listening to his speeches on potions. Or old French movies. Things he didn't care for, but which Draco managed to make sound interesting somehow. So he let him talk, enjoying the breeze from the air conditioned room and the knowledge that Draco was having a good time.

"No," Draco said when Harry reached for the check. "I'm paying."

Harry grabbed the check before Draco could take it. "No."

"I ordered twice as many things as you did."

"You can get the next one."

Draco fell back in his chair and crossed his arms. "Who even are you?" he smiled, lips red from the wine.

The temperature didn't drop much at night, just enough to make walking a bearable exercise.

"So, there's a film playing-"

Draco grabbed his waist, brought them close, pressed their lips together.

"Or we could go back to-"

"Yes, let's do that."

"Do you want to walk or-"

"Just do it."

Pop.

They started taking their clothes off in the living room and somehow didn't finish by the time they reached the bedroom. They managed to land on the bed despite their confused fumbling, Harry underneath.

"Hey," Draco smiled, finding his eyes for the first time since they'd left the restaurant.

"Hello," Harry laughed, rolling them so that he could be on top.

"Thank you for dinner."

"You're very welcome."

"It was exquisite."

"Can we review it later, please?" he said, finishing unbuttoning his own shirt.

"You're always so hasty," Draco said, his smile contradicting his words.

"And you're always so chatty," Harry retorted, lifting Draco's own shirt over his head. He couldn't be bothered with the damn buttons anymore.

"Er… sorry. It's the new pills," Harry explained, embarrassed, looking down.

"Damn pills," Draco said, shaking his head. "What do you need to be happy for, anyways?"

"It just takes a bit longer…"

"Oh no, not that. I have somewhere I need to be in half an hour, so…"

Harry shut him up with a kiss.

"Are you asleep?" he asked, even though he could feel he was not. He was resting on his chest. Harry had both his hands around him.

"Nuh-huh. Are you?"

"No."

They didn't say anything for a while, then spoke at the same time.

"What time is it?"

"Are you hungry?"

Harry laughed, pulled Draco higher so that he could kiss him. "It's two in the morning."

"How can you be hungry? We just ate."

"I just am."

"Let's go get you a snack."

"You don't have to come with."

"You don't want me to come with?"

"I do want you to come with."

"Then let's go."

They didn't turn on the light. Harry fixed himself a quick sandwich while Draco recounted something that happened at work the day before when Harry was out doing recon work, sitting at his usual spot at Harry's kitchen island.

He'd noticed it before, of course, that he always sat on the same stool. But something about the context - Draco wearing one of Harry's old T-shirts, the fact that it was the middle of the night and they'd just had sex, the way the light from the streetlamp outside reflected on his hair - awakened a memory he didn't even know he had.

It was seven years ago. It had been one of those days where he couldn't stop thinking about Draco so he had called him as soon as he finished work. He went to pick him up at university - that was so weird, remembering Draco as a student and not as his colleague, when he himself had had the same job all this time - and they came to Harry's place. Drank a lot, had sex. What they did every time. And Harry had gotten hungry in the middle of the night, like he always does, and Draco had made him something to eat. Not a sandwich. He had cooked him something - Harry couldn't quite remember what it was. But he remembered not calling him for two weeks after that.

A sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach clouded the happiness he'd felt until a second before.

"You know," he said, sitting down next to Draco, "we saw each other almost every day for the last couple of months."

"I'm aware of that. I was there for most of it."

"It was really nice."

"Are you planning to put a stop to it or what?" he teased, picking a slice of tomato from his plate.

"No, I just…I just meant this isn't- For me, this isn't just about sex."

Draco squinted his eyes at him. "Because you think for me it is?"

"No!"

Jesus. Why did everything he said come out wrong somehow?

"I just know I wasn't very good at expressing that. Before. So here's me. Expressing it. With words," he concluded, slightly taken aback about how it had all come out but overall proud of having said it.

Draco burst into laughter. "And what words! You're simply the embodiment of eloquence, aren't you?"

"Fuck off," Harry laughed, taking a big bite out of his sandwich.

"I'm kidding. That's very sweet, Harry. You're… you're very sweet."

He kissed his cheek and stood up, picked up a glass and filled it with tap water. Came back, a pensive look on his face.

"If it wasn't about sex, then what was it about? For you? Back then?"

Harry took another bite out of his sandwich, tried to gather his thoughts.

"Er… well, I guess it started like that."

"Uh-huh."

"But the more we saw each other… the more I liked you and…" Harry glanced over at Draco. His demeanor had somehow changed. He was tense, had lost some of that easygoingness that had been there just seconds before. Harry swallowed, put the rest of the sandwich down. "Look, I know I didn't handle it very well… I mean, it's not like we'd been very friendly before, and I didn't know what you thought about it and- For me it was obvious I liked you. I thought it was obvious for you too."

"Obvious? No, I wouldn't say it was very obvious."

"I'm the one who called you all the time."

"You only called when you were drunk."

"I was always drunk."

"Yes… well, I didn't know that, did I?"

"Are you upset?" Harry asked, sensitive to the coldness that had settled between them.

"No, no… of course I'm not upset. Come here," he said, the derisiveness in his tone magically gone.

Harry complied, let his head fall on Draco's shoulder, wrapped his arms around him. Suddenly, it dawned on him with incredible clarity. He knew, had always known, he'd hurt him. He remembered seeing it on Draco's face as he closed the door behind him. He remembered the thrill of realizing Draco never said no to him, the power it gave him. He remembered his resolution to not ask him anything about his life in the hopes that that could keep him from getting too attached. He remembered how easy it was to drink those thoughts away, drown them down.

"I'm sorry," he said, grabbing him tighter. "I was an arse. I know I was."

"It's fine, Harry. I just wanted to understand. I'm not upset with you. How can I be upset with you when you're using so many words?"

The joke fell flat. Harry buried his face deeper into Draco's neck. It was Draco who eventually backed away from their embrace.

"Stop sulking over nothing."

"You know… I'm not very good at this." He gestured at the space between them. "I'm not very good at… relationships."

"Hey," Draco said, picking up on the panic in his voice. "I don't need disclaimers. You're fine. We're fine."

"I really liked you. This is what bothers me the most. I don't know why I acted like that. I don't know why I always do this."

"Harry, honestly, it doesn't matter anymore. Really. I should have said something too. I should have told you how I feel. I was just too much of a coward. I was scared you'd stop calling if I did something you didn't want me to."

"I wouldn't ha-"

"I know that now. I just didn't then."

There was something so appeasing in Draco's words. In his tone. In his movements. It was hard to resist the urge to believe him. To believe they were fine.

"How do you always know what to say?" he asked, unable to stop himself from smiling.

"You see, it's because I am very good at relationships."

"Oh, are you now?"

"Good enough to compensate for your self reported subpar skills, that's for sure."

"I guess we're saved then."

"I guess we are," he laughed, pulling him closer.

They spent all afternoon in bed. They couldn't even be bothered to cook, so they ordered food in for both lunch and dinner. Harry couldn't remember the last time he'd done that - it must have been years.

They didn't discuss Draco staying over. It just happened naturally.

"Damn. I forgot I was supposed to meet Blaise for brunch tomorrow morning." They had just turned off the light. Draco had an arm around Harry. "Am I correct in assuming you're not in the mood for brunch with Blaise?"

Harry didn't care much for Blaise. He found him arrogant. "Yes."

"Guess I'll cancel then. Unless you have plans in the morni-…"

"Cancel it."

"Summon my phone for me, will you? I don't know where I put it."

Harry complied. Draco caught the phone with a swift movement, reminding Harry - out of all things - of playing quidditch against him.

"Thanks," Draco said, distracted, his features lit by the light emanating from the phone.

Harry hadn't meant to pry. He really hadn't. But the phone was in his field of vision and he couldn't help but read the last names in Draco's inbox.

Blaise

Ron

Camille

Harry

When was the last time they had texted? On Friday. It must have been on Friday. They texted every day. So Camille must have texted him since. Maybe he had something important to tell him. Or maybe they wrote to each other often.

Was that a problem? Harry couldn't tell.

When Draco finished texting Blaise he carefully placed his phone on Harry's nightstand then reached for Harry.

It wasn't a problem, Harry concluded, settling in his arms. Why would it be a problem?

"I'll cook," Harry announced before Draco could propose ordering food again.

"Suit yourself. But I'm not helping. I'm not ready to go back to being an active member of society quite yet."

"I don't need your help. Just come with me. You can doze off on the sofa."

" That I can do."

The curtains filtered out the last beams of daylight. The apartment felt empty, even though it was not. The air was charged with something unmistakable - the hollowness of Sunday evenings.

"You could stay, you know," he finally said, giving up on trying to convince himself it was perfectly normal for Draco to go home after spending all weekend together.

Draco was halfway through the process of getting dressed. "And go to work wearing muggle clothes?"

"You can borrow some of my work robes."

"Yeah, no, thanks. What you can do, though, is get your work robes, stuff them in a backpack and come with me."

Harry lifted his head from the pillow.

"Alright."

They picked up dinner on the way and ate in front of a film that Harry chose - but only after ample negotiations. They had sex on the sofa. Then in the shower. But it couldn't be avoided forever. Draco eventually led Harry to the bedroom. Harry stopped at the doorpost. The bedroom resembled what Harry imagined a Parisian hotel room might look like, only with more objects everywhere.

"What?"

"I'm just looking." He didn't leave the threshold. "It's the first time I'm seeing your bedroom."

"Well, here it is," he said, sitting down on one side of the bed and turning on the reading light. "In all its glory."

"What's that?"

"It's a clothes hamper, Harry, what does it look like to you?"

"It looks like a very fancy clothes hamper. You can't just put your clothes in a pile on the ground, like normal people?"

"I'm sorry to break it to you, but it is precisely normal people that use clothes hampers and not the other way around. I just bought it, for your information."

"Did you change all the furniture in here as well?"

"I changed some. Are you going to stand there and interrogate me all night long?"

" Interrogate you," he mocked, stepping into the bedroom. He sat down on the other side of the bed. Draco's apartment was on the first floor and the window overlooked a busy boulevard. He could just make up a group of teenagers on the other side of the street, loudly making their way to some party. He felt Draco's hands grabbing him from behind. He let himself be grabbed.

"It's nice to have you here," Draco said when they were both under a thin bed sheet - it was still too hot for real covers.

"It's nice to be here," Harry said, not sure if it was a lie or not. He couldn't quite shake the feeling that he was sleeping in another man's bedroom. With another man's husband.

Draco searched for his hand, kissed it. It was something he used to do before. Harry would carry those memories of Draco kissing his hand around for days. He'd found it so disarming, the ease with which Draco was able to perform a gesture that carried so much meaning. And today - seven years later - he found nothing had really changed. He cupped Draco's cheek, kissed him goodnight, tried to put as much tenderness as he could into that kiss.

But sleep didn't come. Too many thoughts were whizzing through his mind. Too many questions. Too many memories. He tried to chase them away, but found that only made them loom larger. He clung tighter to Draco, concentrating on that. His body. The texture of his skin. His smell. The rhythm of his breathing.

He dreaded the morning, he realized as he pushed his body and his lips against Draco's. It almost hurt, they were so swollen from all the kissing.

He dreaded having to go back to real life, he thought, and then forgot, as Draco answered him avidly.