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Before Ginny and Luna were five hours into their marriage, Ginny had set off a round of sparklers that had nearly burned their cottage to the ground, Luna had charmed her entire wedding dress an enchanting shade of periwinkle to disguise the stain from Neville spilling elderberry liqueur on it, Daphne Greengrass and Hannah Abbott had been caught snogging in the brides’ guest bathroom, and the couch in their living room had been drenched from where George dumped a bucket of ice water onto Ron, who’d passed out from a combination of firewhiskey and a quantity of Lee Jordan’s homemade cider that could put a troll to sleep.
In all, it was exactly what Harry would have expected of a Weasley party.
By the time the evening crossed the threshold of midnight, most members of Ginny and Luna’s family had left for the night. What remained resembled a combination Hogwarts reunion and house party that Harry didn’t expect to slow until the first light of dawn. For Ginny and Luna’s part, they only seemed to have eyes for each other; love, Harry realized, could blind you to just about anything in your perimeter, even if that meant Theo Nott and Dennis Creevey stripping naked and making togas out of your bedsheets to mock-duel in the front garden while pretending to be Salazar Slytherin and Godric Gryffindor.
“This place is crawling with Slytherins,” Ron half-slurred to Harry, who was watching the party unfold from his perch on the counter next to the makeshift bar. Harry watched as he tried fruitlessly to twist the top off of a bottle of beer, which he took from Ron’s hand and replaced with a cup of water.
“That’s what happens when one of the brides could befriend an acromantula if given enough time,” Harry said. If Ron were a bit more sober, he might remember that he actually quite liked a few of said Slytherins, namely Blaise Zabini, who was one of the only people on the planet who could keep up with him when he got really intense about Quidditch statistics.
“And I love that,” Ron said. “I love her. Did I ever say? She’s phenomenal. Batty as hell, of course, but we always knew – and never seen Ginny smile so much in her life until they were together, you know. I mean, never thought I’d see –”
Ron got a little choked up then, which might move Harry a bit if it weren’t the third time he’d nearly cried talking about the two of them in as many hours.
“They’re a lovely couple,” Harry said.
“Yeah,” Ron said weepily, patting Harry aimlessly on the knee. “Suppose I should try to have an open mind about their guest list.”
His eyes had fallen across the room to an empty corner in the boisterous living room, populated only by Pansy Parkinson and Draco Malfoy, each with a firewhiskey in their hands, and each behaving as though they were at some elite Ministry gala and not a rapidly devolving house party. They were dressed just the same – the wedding had been a casual affair, but Pansy was in something tight and dark and low-cut, and Draco’s robes were sleek and obviously expensive, cinched at the waist, and drenched in a shimmering emerald green cape. The moment Harry had seen him earlier during the ceremony, he’d had to physically resist rolling his eyes.
“I have to admit, I wasn’t sure if they’d show,” Harry murmured.
Ron pushed a cup of punch into Harry’s hand, and had somewhere along the way poured one for himself. “Drink up. Maybe we can witness a real duel before the night’s out between you and your archnemesis.”
“He isn’t my archnemesis,” Harry said. “I think that was Voldemort, and I’ve sorted him.”
“Oh, have a little fun,” Ron said conspiratorially. “Don’t you think it would feel good to hex him once just for old time’s sake?”
“It is too early in the night for you to be trying to rile me up into a duel for entertainment,” Harry said, and then paused. “But honestly, yes. It probably would.”
A chorus of cheering broke out from the drinking game going on in the living room, and Dean threw down a handful of tarot cards grumpily and chugged what remained of his bottle of beer. Ginny stood up and clapped her hands together, then cast a few emerald sparks into the air with her wand to gather the attention of the room.
“Alright, you lot,” she hollered. “It’s time to move this outside before you tear our house apart. But more importantly,” she added, reaching her hand across the room to George, who came to stand at her side. “George has a little display planned he’s been dying to show off.”
“Fi-re-works!” Dean chanted. “Fi-re-works!”
“Put legally, they might be referred to as explosives,” George said cheerily. “Let’s just say there’s a reason we were waiting til Mum went home to set them off.”
“Alright, everyone out!” Ginny shouted, gesturing broadly toward the door until the party began milling out onto the front garden.
Hermione appeared at Ron’s side, and Harry followed as she guided him to the door by the waist. “I thought we said we were switching to water,” she said.
“We’ve been trying,” Harry sighed.
“I’m a grown-up!” Ron bellowed. “I’m allowed to drink!”
“Yes, and we’re the grown-ups who will have to deal with you tomorrow when you’re half-dead from a hangover,” Hermione said with a mixture of impatience and affection as they followed the crowd outside.
Harry stopped a few paces from the house, watching Hermione and Ron join the others as they gathered a safe distance away from George’s set up. The night air was cool and rich with summer, and nearly everyone he loved was here breathing it in, safe and happy and excited at the prospect of watching things blow up.
“Potter,” a voice drawled beside him.
Draco looked, as Harry had half-suspected, even more ridiculously posh up close. He kept his hair longer these days, tucked behind his ears and falling just past his jaw, and the silk of his robes glinted beneath the moonlight as he turned to Harry. In his silver eyes, there was a dull, impatient look, like Harry was the one who had stopped to greet him, and not the other way around.
“Malfoy,” Harry said with a nod.
Harry glanced through the open doorway into Ginny and Luna’s cottage, which had been completely emptied. In the other direction, the entirety of the party was gathered around George, who was assembling an amount of undetonated pyrotechnics that Harry felt fairly certain were breaking enough safety codes to fill a small textbook. The two of them were alone.
“And here I thought you’d be front in line to see something like this,” Draco said. “I seem to remember you having a penchant for bald displays of power.”
“If we’re still holding each other to the same behaviors as we had at fifteen, would that explain why you’re cowering at a distance?” Harry said pleasantly.
Draco sneered at him. “I’m glad you think you’re funny.”
“I do.”
A bright ball of silver-blue light burst into the air from where the others were gathered. Harry could hear a chorus of half-drunken ahhhs as the explosive light took the shape of a hare, and was joined by another bright and burning form of a horse — Luna and Ginny’s patronuses, which spiraled through the air against a backdrop of sparking fireworks and smoke. Harry always forgot that deep down, George was a huge softie.
Harry leaned against the facade of the cottage, and Draco stood beside him. “I’m surprised you’re still here,” Harry said. “I pegged you for the type to be in bed with a boring book and a cup of warm milk by nine-thirty.”
Draco scoffed. “I can’t say I’m not surprised as well,” he said. “Normally my tolerance for the juvenile isn’t quite this high.”
Harry turned to him. “Then what are you still doing here?”
Draco met his eye in a glance, and then looked back to the crowd. The patronuses had faded into smoke, replaced with an ear-shattering deployment of red, gold, blue, and bronze fireworks and sparklers. Draco’s pale skin glinted with the changing colors of light, shimmering off of his cheek and hair. “I’m wondering that myself.”
Harry pulled in a breath, the scent of distant gunpowder. “We might have a better view upstairs,” he said. “Gin and Luna have a spare bedroom with a huge window. Want to check it out?”
Draco hesitated, his eyes dropping down to the crowd.
“They’re all sloshed,” Harry said quietly. “Even Hermione is tipsy."
Draco paused a moment longer, then shook his head indifferently. “Lead the way.”
The staircase was littered with vibrantly colored confetti from the numerous wedding crackers Ginny and Luna had handed out, and someone apparently was without their shirt, since one was hanging in a rumpled pile on the banister at the top of the stairs. Draco followed Harry into the guest room, whose sparse interiors illuminated with a flash of light through the window the moment they stepped inside.
“I’m surprised no one is passed out on the bed,” Draco said, glancing at it disdainfully.
Harry walked to the large window, looking out over the shape of the ambling party in the distance, cast in a sheen of multicolored light. Above them, George’s fireworks spiraled into the air, so bright the stars behind them dwindled in the distant sky.
“He’s outdone himself,” Harry murmured.
Draco joined him at the window. He was quiet for a moment, head cocked as he watched the pyrotechnics. “It’s fitting,” he said after a while. “They’re a good match. Both a touch mad, but – in an odd way that suits each other.”
Harry shrugged out the window. “I think that’s just love.”
He turned to find Draco staring at him, his eyes intense and bright in the darkened room. “What?” Harry asked.
Draco put two cool hands on either side of Harry’s neck and pulled him into a kiss. It was impatient, and it edged on desperate, and tasted slightly sweet with a mixture of punch and merlot. Outside, the muffled sound of the crowd cheered as the sky flashed in a rainbow of color, and Harry felt his hands hovering on the sides of Draco’s body, stilled with surprise.
Draco pulled away, hands lingering on Harry’s shoulders. “I was wondering if I would get to do that tonight.”
Harry glanced over at the open door. He spelled it closed with a wave of his hand, and then bunched his hands into the silky collar of Draco’s posh robes and pushed him against the wall next to the window and reconnected their lips. Draco’s hands dropped to Harry’s waist, pulling him close by the hips, and he let out a soft sound of content into Harry’s kiss.
“Hi,” Harry said, pulling away.
“Hi,” said Draco. He brushed Harry’s hair away from his eyes. “Haven’t seen much of you tonight.”
“Really?” Harry said. “I was standing during the ceremony. Next to Ron. He’s the one with red hair.”
“Ah,” Draco said. “That one.”
“I’ve missed you,” Harry said lowly, pressing a kiss to the soft skin beneath Draco’s jaw.
Draco’s breath hitched. “You saw me three days ago.”
“A long three days,” Harry murmured.
“They’re going to notice that we’re gone,” Draco said.
Harry pulled away and looked out the window. George’s display was winding down, but Neville and Angelina were setting up a table with drinks outside as some of the party milled back into the house. “They’re all drunk,” Harry said. “There’s so much going on. It’ll be fine.”
“Pansy isn’t drunk,” Draco pointed out.
“Pansy already knows something is up,” Harry said. “You should have seen the way she was glaring at me earlier. It was like she was trying to kill me with her eyes.”
Draco hesitated, looking over his shoulder at the closed door. Then he wrapped his arms around Harry’s back and pulled him close, locking him into another kiss. These found moments were so rare and fleeting that each kiss felt like the very first, every encounter charged with such haste and desperation. Between his cramped flat with Ron and Hermione and Draco’s small shared space with Pansy, they’d gotten creative in the past weeks since whatever this was kicked up – snogging in the bathrooms of pubs and alleys behind the Ministry and, apparently, in the spare bedroom of the two brides who’d been married less than six hours prior.
Draco parted Harry’s lips with his and licked into his mouth. There was something new about the way he kissed tonight, the way he dug his fingers into Harry’s hips – something that quieted the sound from outside, that made the world feel like it was contained in this room alone. Harry’s mind was emptied of everything except for the fact that he wanted. He broke their kiss with a gasp as Draco dropped a hand to Harry’s groin, the heel of his palm pressed between Harry’s legs.
“Fuck,” Harry whispered, his heart pounding a maddening rhythm in his ears.
Draco pulled his hand back. His own breathing was unsteady, his eyes glinting in the darkness. “Is this alright?” he murmured.
Harry took advantage of the moment to bring his breathing back into check. “It’s fine,” he said. “I just thought you were worried about people noticing we were gone.”
“Yes, well,” Draco said, and he locked his eyes on Harry’s while using both hands to undo Harry’s belt. “That was before I decided I wanted to suck you off.”
Harry’s breath caught. “Did you?”
“If that’s alright with you,” Draco said. He pulled Harry’s belt out of the loops and tossed it to the ground, and then reached behind him to pull the curtain over the window.
Harry’s mind would have been too blank to protest if he wanted to. And he very much did not want to. He gave a small nod, and then Draco dropped to his knees, and then there was a cool rush of air as Draco freed Harry’s hardening cock from his trousers and pants. He watched as Draco spat into his palm – an undignified, crude act that made Harry’s cock twitch – and wrapped his fingers around Harry, meeting his eye from the ground as he pulled one long stroke down his shaft.
“Fucking hell,” Harry groaned.
“You know, I wasn’t sure about coming today,” Draco said, his eyes intense on Harry’s as he continued to work him to hardness with languorously slow strokes. “But I’m glad I did in the end, because it was really a lovely ceremony, and Theo looks very funny in a toga, and they used my favorite bakery for the cake.”
Draco worked a twist into his strokes, and Harry’s breath caught. “Nothing to do with this, then,” he managed.
Draco glanced at Harry’s rigid cock in his hand, like he’d just noticed he was wanking it, and then looked back up to Harry’s eye. “Nothing to do with this at all.”
Harry couldn’t think of a retort before Draco took his cock into his mouth and his mind immediately melted. Draco’s lips stopped at the head, tongue swirling around it and licking at the slit, and by the time he had taken Harry’s cock farther into his mouth, Harry was fairly certain he’d forgotten how to breathe. “Fuck,” he heard himself say, hands running through Draco’s fine, silver-blonde hair. “Fuck, Draco, that’s good.”
Draco hollowed his cheeks, taking Harry down to the base, and Harry let out a shaky moan as he bobbed up and down Harry’s cock. He could hardly take the sight of him, lips stretched around Harry’s length, eyes bleary and watering, long hair falling into his eyes as he dug his fingers into the backs of Harry’s thighs and worked him with practiced, fastidious skill.
Harry felt his legs lock and tightened his fingers in Draco’s hair. “Wait,” he managed, an objection which took the complete breadth of his self control. “Wait.”
Draco pulled off, rocking back onto his knees. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, pulling away a trail of glistening spit.
“I don’t want to come like this,” Harry whispered, pushing his fingers through Draco’s hair. He guided Draco back to his feet by his arm, unhooking his cape where it latched around his neck and pushing it off to the ground. “I want you.”
Draco froze, eyes scanning Harry’s as if waiting for a punchline. “Now?”
“If you’re not too busy,” Harry breathed as he worked Draco’s flies.
“You want to have sex for the first time on the night of your ex-girlfriend’s wedding,” Draco said flatly. “In her spare bedroom.”
Harry paused. “Is that much worse than being sucked off in her spare bedroom?”
Draco didn’t need much convincing. Mercifully, he helped free himself from his own robes, which were presenting a very complicated puzzle in Harry’s arousal-muddied mind, exposing the slim shape of his chest as Harry yanked his trousers down. Draco was right – it was questionable. But Harry was tired of sneaking wanks and blowjobs when Draco was right here, and also a bed was right here, and he was beautiful in the low light, and Harry was slightly drunk off of wine and more drunk off of the warm company of the celebration, and there was nothing he wanted more than Draco right here and right now, even if they were the only ones who would know.
He helped Draco kick out of his pants and allowed himself one long look at him in the moonlight – the angles of his body outlined in a faint silver glow, hard and fittingly sharp – and then pushed him onto the bed. “What do you want?” he murmured, taking Draco’s cock in his hand and relishing in the small sound of pleasure he made at the contact. “What do you like?”
“Fuck,” Draco whispered into Harry’s neck, working the buttons of Harry’s shirt with a frantic speed. “I want you to fuck me.”
Harry pulled in a breath and attempted to keep his mind from leaving his body. He shrugged out of his shirt and then pulled Draco to the edge of the bed by the waist, standing between his legs. For a moment, Draco looked down at him, his eyes lidded with anticipation and bright with lust, hair a disastrous mess across and around his face. Harry took his cock back in his hand, and Draco’s head dropped down onto the bed with a sigh as Harry began to work him, murmuring an incantation to summon lubricant into the other hand.
“Get on with it, Potter,” Draco said with a dazed smirk.
Harry didn’t even have the capacity to respond. He pushed a finger into Draco, which shut him up immediately as he let out a low, hushed moan.
“Did either of us lock the door?” Harry asked.
Draco glared up at him. “Is one finger deep really the time to be asking that?”
Harry summoned his wand and used it to lock the door, casting a muffliato for good measure, and then tossed it onto the bed. Out of the window, George’s display concluded with one last flash that peeked through the curtains, and the quieted sound of applause spilled in from the distance.
Draco reached up for Harry, who leaned down to meet him in a sloppy kiss as he pushed another finger in. The sounds Draco was making now were growing more and more untethered, louder now that they had assured privacy, and Harry slowly worked his cock in rhythm as he pushed in and out of Draco’s tightness with his fingers.
“God, Harry,” Draco was saying, along with other debauched, illogical half-sentences: “Oh my – fucking – Christ on a –” And there really wasn’t much time, Harry knew, but despite himself, he pulled back and slowed his pace, curling his fingers up and into Draco until he found a spot that replaced Draco’s words with short, high gasp.
“Hello,” Harry murmured.
“Potter,” Draco growled. “If you don’t fuck me right now –”
Harry pulled his fingers out, casting another lubrication charm and stroking his own cock until it was slick. If there was more time, he might spend it taking Draco in when he looked like this – the way he flushed hard red across his cheeks, but how his whole face went pink, creeping down his neck and shoulders. The demand fading from his eye, replaced with complete and utter desperation. Right now, Harry could do whatever he wanted with him. Draco belonged to him entirely.
But there wasn’t time, so Harry lined himself up, steadied his breathing as the head of his cock nudged against Draco’s slick hole, and pushed in.
Draco shut his eyes. Harry stopped at the head, as much for Draco as it was for him, fully aware that if he moved too quickly, this was all going to be over before it started. This moment had played out differently in Harry’s mind – it had played out plentifully in Harry’s mind as well – largely minus the part where it took place on Ginny’s wedding night. But for as many times as he’d robustly imaged it, nothing could prepare him for what it would feel like to finally be inside of Draco – slick, and tight, and entirely his.
Draco’s eyes fluttered open, his breathing heavy, and Harry pushed deeper. Draco let out a small, slightly pained moan, but nodded rapidly until Harry pulled in another breath and pushed deeper – slowly – until his vision faded, and the tight warmth overtook him, and he was inside of Draco to the hilt.
The sound Draco made could only be described as a whimper. Harry wouldn’t want to describe the sound he was making.
Harry dropped down and kissed Draco again as he pulled out slowly, feeling Draco’s body cling with tight warmth around his cock, and then pushed back in just as slowly. He pushed his face into the crook of Draco’s neck, moaning into it as he pulled out again, increasing his rhythm as his body was overtaken with the type of stark, overwhelming pleasure to which his imagination could never have done justice. Draco tangled his fingers into Harry’s hair, turning to kiss his jaw through his gasping moans and desperate, messy kisses that were as clamoring as Harry’s thrusts.
“You,” Harry murmured against the cool skin of Draco’s neck, pumping into him with a mounting ferver. “Are –”
“Tell me,” Draco breathed, his voice untethered and dizzy. “Tell me.”
“Perfect,” Harry whispered. “Perfect. God, you’re –”
Draco arched into his thrusts and then let out a choked off moan which told Harry exactly what he needed to know. Harry pushed up to take him by the hips, working that angle until Draco was nothing but an unwound series of whimpers and moans. Harry wasn’t going to last long listening to that. He wasn’t going to last long being this deep inside of Draco, who was slick and tight in a way he could never have been prepared for.
Harry took Draco’s cock in his hand, drinking in the delicious moan he’d known that Draco was going to make. Draco shut his eyes tight as Harry began to stroke him in rhythm with his thrusts, the only sounds he was making now devolved into a staccato series of: “Harry – Harry – Harry –”
Draco came with a shout of a groan, streaking lines of come onto his own chest and Harry’s hand and arm, eyes rolled back into his head and hair sticking clammy to his face. It was nearly too much for Harry to take in – the way Draco’s body clenched around him, the full-bodied, fluttering moan, the knowledge that it was all at the hands of Harry, who kept thrusting less in pursuit of his own orgasm and more to keep seeing that expression of complete, abject pleasure on Draco’s face.
Draco pulled in a series of long breaths, eyes rolled up to the ceiling, and then took Harry’s hand away from his cock. Harry watched in lust-addled awe as Draco pulled two of Harry’s fingers into his mouth, licking them clean of his own come, and then meeting Harry’s eye with an intense gaze as he sucked on them. Hard.
It only took a few more thrusts until a burst of nearly painful pleasure coiled beneath Harry’s belly and his own orgasm hit him like a whitecap in the ocean, knocking the air out of his lungs as he emptied deep into Draco. “Fuck,” Draco whispered, watching him with such intensity it was all Harry could do not to look away as he thrust through the last waves of his release.
Then his mind went as blank and quiet as the dark room around them, and he dropped his weight onto Draco, who wrapped his arms around Harry’s back and kissed the curve of his collar.
“Salazar, Potter,” Draco mumbled, sex-dazed and loopy as he traced his hand up and down Harry’s back. “Fuck, I love you.”
Harry felt his entire body go stiff. Draco’s hand had frozen on his back. They stayed like that for a few pounding heartbeats, and when Harry pushed up onto his hands, Draco’s eyes had blown wide.
“What?” Harry said.
Draco put both hands on his face like he was trying to hide. If he did reply, Harry wouldn’t be able to hear it over the sound of the blood rushing in his ears, but Draco just stayed like that, his face out of sight.
“What was that?” Harry said again.
Draco dropped his hands away, sitting up and shifting back so Harry pulled out, come leaking out of him. Gone was the man devolved into pleasure, replaced by the same stiff, hardened version of him that Harry was used to seeing. “Nothing,” Draco said.
“Pretty sure it was something,” Harry said.
“It was nothing,” Draco said. “You’re a good shag. That’s what I said.”
“It may be what you meant, but it’s not what you said,” Harry murmured.
Draco glared at him. “I didn’t mean it.”
The panic in Harry’s body had subsided, replaced by the crystal clarity that Draco was lying, and doing so poorly. It might scare him more, those words, if he hadn’t already known them to be true. If he hadn’t already known – or at least hoped – that they were coming.
“I love you too, Malfoy,” Harry said with a grin.
Draco sneered. He was still red, maybe even redder now, and glowering. “That’s lovely for you,” he said.
Harry’s mind was swirling, still slightly loopy in a post-sex haze. “You love me,” he said. “You said it first.”
“I didn’t say it,” Draco said. “It doesn’t count. Fuck off.”
Harry pushed him back onto the bed by the shoulders, pinning him down with a kiss. “No take backs,” he said.
“This isn’t elementary school, Potter,” Draco snapped.
Harry lay down on the bed next to him and pulled Draco into his arms. Draco fidgeted stubbornly, and turned over his shoulder so he was facing the wall away from Harry. Harry pressed a kiss into his shoulder. “Sorry, but I heard it,” Harry said. “You’ll have to obliviate me if you want me to forget.”
“I wish I could obliviate myself,” Draco said, but he let Harry pull him closer and melted against his chest.
“I don’t blame you,” Harry said. “It was really embarrassing.”
“Oh shove off –” Draco snapped, attempting halfheartedly to struggle away as Harry laughed and pulled him close again.
“It’s fine,” Harry murmured against his neck once Draco settled. “You don’t have to say it if you’re not ready. I’ll pretend to forget. None of this is a rush.”
Draco was quiet for a long moment, long enough that Harry wasn’t sure whether he might actually be uncomfortable or upset. Then he felt Draco take in a slow, long breath, his chest expanding and contracting as he exhaled.
“They’re all going to find out eventually,” Draco said.
“That you love me?” Harry asked.
“Shut up.”
Harry contemplated this for a few heartbeats. “I always thought we’d tell them eventually. Didn’t you?”
“No,” Draco said after a beat. “I didn’t think anything, because I never thought any of this was going to last.” He shuffled out of Harry’s arms and turned over to face him. “Did you?”
“Of course I didn’t,” Harry said, because Draco had asked whether he thought it was going to last, not whether he hoped it would. “But it did last.”
“It’s only been five months,” Draco said.
“I don’t think I’ve kept a secret from Ron more than three days past the age of seventeen,” Harry said.
“I don’t think I’ve ever kept a secret from Pansy,” Draco murmured.
“We don’t have to do anything until you’re ready,” Harry said.
Draco sat up on the bed and squinted at Harry like he was trying to make him out in the darkness. “It doesn’t bother me if people know.”
Harry took in another breath and let it out slowly, waiting to make sure his mind was working properly. “Then why are we sneaking around?”
“I thought it bothered you,” Draco said.
Harry could only blink at him. “Why would it bother me?”
All of the vulnerability emptied from Draco’s face as he rolled his eyes. “Because your friends might not approve of you dating a former Death Eater?”
Harry nearly flinched at the ire with which Draco said the words – the way it was directed not toward Harry, but toward himself. “They don’t see you like that,” he said. “You wouldn’t be here if they did.”
“Then why are we doing this?” Draco snapped.
Harry laughed and shook his head. “I have no idea,” he said. “Because the sneaking around is sort of hot?”
“It is sort of hot,” Draco murmured. He reached across Harry for his mess of robes on the bed and fished out his wand, waving it to clean their mess with a few charms before starting to get dressed. “It’s also sort of annoying.”
“Do you want to tell them?” Harry asked, pulling on his shirt.
“Maybe,” said Draco quietly. He met Harry’s hands halfway up the buttons of his shirt, finishing the top four and flattening his collar. “But probably not tonight. I’m many things, but not a show stealer.”
He finished working and met Harry’s eye, and then looked away. Harry stood to pull on his trousers, watching in silence as Draco recomposed himself – finishing his robes with that dark cape, and then finger combing his hair back into a semblance of order. “Do I look like I’ve just been shagged?” he asked.
“Not at all,” Harry said. “Do I?”
“You always do, a bit,” Draco said. “And it’s very annoying how attractive it is.”
Harry pulled him into a kiss, long and indulgently slow, a hand winding around the small of his back. “I do, you know,” he said. “Love you. Absurd as all of it is.”
Draco hesitated, his eyes wary.
“You don’t have to say it back,” Harry added quickly, then smirked. “Even though you already did.”
“Honestly, Potter –”
Harry cut him off with another kiss, and when he pulled away, Draco’s eyes were nearly crossed with a kiss-drunk loopiness. “I just wanted you to know,” Harry said, his voice dropped low and serious.
For a moment, Draco looked like he was going to tell him off again. Then he pulled Harry close by the waist and kissed him with such an uncharacteristic tenderness that he didn’t need to say anything else. Harry felt it – those heart-pounding, breath-catching nerves that had fluttered through him the very first time they’d kissed all those months ago. It felt as confusing now as it did then – in ways impossible, in ways absurd, and just nebulous enough that Harry had no choice but to see where it led.
It was Harry’s turn to be dazed when Draco pulled away. Draco combed a hand through Harry’s hair with a rare patience. “If you’d like to go out now, I can wait here a few minutes so we’re not egregiously obvious.”
“Right,” Harry said. “Yeah.”
Draco kissed him on the crown of the head. And this, Harry supposed, was something he would miss whenever they got around to telling the others, whenever they didn’t have to sneak around so much – the way this side of Draco was only his, the way all of Draco’s affections had to be condensed in small, concentrated bursts when they weren’t sure when the next time would be.
As Harry had expected, no one in the party was sober enough to notice their absence. Half of the gathering was still on the front garden, and as he walked downstairs, it was clear everyone was too engaged in the impromptu Weird Sisters karaoke Seamus was heading up to notice him slipping back into the fold. Ron greeted him with a cup of punch and a continuation of a conversation they’d had two hours ago about Charlie’s new boyfriend, and a few minutes later, Harry spotted Draco sidle up to Pansy and Luna. Pansy glanced across the room to Harry briefly, but showed no other signs of suspicion.
“There you are,” Ginny said to Harry, appearing at Ron’s side to change his punch out for a water while he was preoccupied debating Dean about the latest Cannons match. She rocked forward on her feet, her cheeks red with drink. “I was beginning to wonder if you snuck out while George was trying to burn a hole in the atmosphere.”
“I wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye,” Harry said.
“That’s what I told her,” Ginny said pleasantly. “I also told her that you’d never use our spare room to snog your boyfriend on our wedding night, but for some reason she didn’t seem to believe that one.”
Harry felt all the blood drain from his face. “You what?”
“At least, I’m assuming it was only a snog,” Ginny added innocently. “I don’t blame you. The fireworks are very romantic.”
Harry couldn’t resist the urge to glance at Draco across the room, as if to ascertain he was still there. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ginny let out a slightly drunken hoot. “It’s very convincing, Harry, especially when you try to make goo-goo eyes at him in the middle of a conversation.”
“I –” Harry stammered. “I’m not –”
“All I’m saying is maybe next time you’re trying to be sneaky, close the curtains before you start eating each other’s faces,” Ginny said with a shrug and a large grin that proved she was enjoying this far too much.
Harry pushed a hand through his hair. “Yeah,” he said. “Noted.”
“Oh, don’t worry, Harry,” Ginny said. “I reckon I’m the only one who saw, and I’m not going to tell anyone.”
“Thanks,” Harry said with a grimace.
But the grin didn’t drop from Ginny’s face. “After all, why would I?” she said. “Everyone already knows.”
“They –” Harry stammered, his mind racing. “Come again?”
Ginny waved a hand dismissively. “Hermione came home to the two of you snogging so intensely I suppose you didn’t even notice her disapparate,” Ginny said with a shrug. “That was a few weeks ago. And you know how word gets around.”
“Hermione?” Harry said, feeling a warm flush pool in his cheeks. “Why didn’t she say anything?”
“Same reason no one else did,” Ginny said, growing solemn. “We figured you would tell us when you were ready.”
“Or when you put me on the spot about it without warning,” Harry grumbled.
Ginny let out a classic Weasley laugh. “It’s my wedding night!” she exclaimed. “Aren’t I allowed to have a bit of fun? Listen,” she said, pushing Harry lightly on the shoulder. “Does he make you happy?”
“Yeah,” Harry said, without having to question it. “Yeah, he does.”
“Then that’s all that matters,” Ginny said. “Sorry for blowing your secret, but you did hook up in my guest room.”
“It’s only fair,” Harry sighed, because he could never be upset with Ginny if he tried. He ran a hand through his hair. “Err – when you say everyone knows –”
“Everyone,” Ginny said. “With a capital E. Neville has a pool for how long it’ll take you two to tell everyone.”
“Some mate,” Harry grumbled.
“That’s better than Seamus’s pool for how long it will take you to break up.”
“I need to get in on that one,” Harry mumbled. “Can probably make a fortune.”
There was no point in attempted subtlety anymore, so Harry let his eyes drift back to Draco across the room. He seemed to be telling Pansy and Luna a very theatrical story, complete with uncharacteristically large gestures and wide eyes, punctuated by Luna’s giddy, tinkling laughter.
Harry watched Draco as he waited for the flush to slowly cool from his face. Draco seemed lighter than usual, looser in a way that the sex alone couldn’t explain, and Harry couldn’t help but think of how those words had slipped out of him, like they’d been bubbling just beneath the surface, waiting for any opportunity to spill over: Fuck, I love you.
“Are you going to tell him?” Ginny asked, her voice having dropped low and serious as she followed Harry’s eye. “That everyone knows, I mean.”
“I’ll have to eventually, I guess,” Harry said.
Luna and Pansy broke into another round of laughter, and Draco glanced over at Harry while they were caught in it. Harry made no attempt to hide his staring. Draco would usually look away, but his eyes lingered on Harry’s for another moment, face lifting into a smile.
It was true – he’d have to, eventually, if not soon, and then what they had would become a bit of everyone’s.
But at least for the rest of the night, it could be the two of theirs alone.