Chapter Text
As those kinds of discoveries so often are, this one is bad timing.
The next time Draco comes over they cook together, and Harry touches his neck, so Draco asks him to do it again once he’s pressing himself into Harry’s hands. He opens himself as Harry watches, and then he moves in to kiss the side of Harry’s mouth.
“Condom?” he asks. This is a fairly simple request, but since they’ve had sex a few times without it by now, Harry pays notice.
“Has someone been scolded about safe sex?” he asks, and turns his head to kiss Draco’s lips. Draco smiles against it.
“Not quite,” he says. “I did have unsafe sex with someone else though, and I haven’t gotten my test results back yet." He kisses Harry's jaw. "So we should probably use a condom until then, just to be sure.”
Harry’s brain locks down after it hears the words ‘sex with someone else’ out of Draco’s mouth. It feels like the floor is being pulled out from under him, and his heart skips a beat. It feels like being punched in the face, or having 10.000 tons of bricks dropped onto your chest.
“What?” he says. His voice sounds wrong. Draco is too occupied with kissing down Harry’s jaw to notice.
That’s the worst part; Draco clearly doesn’t think this is a big deal, which means that he doesn’t think of them as being exclusive (And they aren’t. Harry was the one to make sure Draco knew they were just shagging for God’s sake).
“Is that a weird thing to say while we’re making out?” Draco asks. He just sounds vaguely amused. “I just don’t want to potentially infect you with anything. Honesty, right?” He kisses Harry’s jaw again, but then seems to notice that Harry didn’t laugh, or even smile. He pulls away, and locks onto Harry’s eyes.
“When?” Harry asks. This time he sees the recognition in Draco’s eyes when his voice still sounds strange. Draco sits back on his heels, still on Harry’s chest.
“That’s not really any of your business,” he says.
“Right. Sorry,” Harry says. He sits up, catching Draco’s face between his hands. Draco allows himself to be kissed, but doesn’t reciprocate.
“We’re not exclusive,” he turns his head to say. Harry keeps pressing kisses to the corner of his mouth.
“Yeah, I know,” he says. Just kiss me, please, he thinks. Don’t make me think about this.
For some time, Draco does. He opens his mouth and allows Harry to take what he likes. Harry tries to be into it, he tries to let Draco’s lips on his speak and make him okay with what he’s just been told. He tries to tug at Draco’s hair, and invoke passion, but it doesn’t work. All he can think of is someone else’s hands doing this, and Draco letting them. All he can think about is this entire thing meaning less to Draco than it does to him.
He pulls back. Still holding onto Draco’s jaw, he breathes into his neck.
“I can’t,” he says. “I’m sorry, I can’t.” Draco’s hand comes up to hold the nape of his neck, as Harry tries to gather his thoughts.
“I’m sorry,” he says, pulling back to look at Draco. “I know I don’t have any right to, but I’m jealous.”
Draco sits back on his heels again, to be able to watch him better. Harry’s hands fall from his face. “Like, really jealous,” he says.
“You’re sending some very mixed signals here,” Draco says. He doesn’t sound angry, thank God; he just sounds confused.
“I know.”
“Just three weeks ago you reminded me that we were ‘just shagging’.”
“I know.” Harry lies down, and puts his hand over his eyes. “Trust me, I know.” He feels more than sees Draco get off him, before he lies next to Harry instead, his head on the pillow too.
“What do you want then, Harry?” he whispers. He puts his hand to the middle of Harry’s chest. Harry keeps his eyes closed, but puts his own hand down over it.
“I don’t know,” he says. Draco taps his chest. Harry opens his eyes, and turns his face to look at him. He’s frowning, Draco is; His brows are knitted together and are creating a line between them. Harry reaches over to smooth it out, but then realises what he is doing, and lets his hand drop to the pillow between them; maybe he isn’t allowed to do this right now. Draco frowns even more.
“I don’t know,” Harry says again; he’s aware that he sounds defeated. Draco sighs.
“All right,” he says.
“I’m sorry,” Harry repeats himself. “I–“
“Stop apologizing,” Draco interrupts him, and for the first time he sounds actually annoyed. Harry opens his mouth, wanting to apologize again, but closes it just in time.
Draco’s smile is barely there, and it’s rather melancholy, but it does make him draw a line down Harry’s forehead with his index finger.
“I think you should find out,” he says then. “What you want, I mean. Before we do anything else.”
Harry purses his lips; this is exactly the kind of situation he’s been worried about all along. Friends with benefits was always going to be a transition state; now is the time where they have to figure out to what. He nods, though.
“Yeah.”
Draco sighs again, and runs a hand through his hair. “Sleep on it, yeah?”
Harry nods. “Okay.” A beat of silence, then: “Will you stay? Tonight?” Thankfully, Draco smiles softly.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’ll stay.”
They get up and put on some clothes, because neither of them are really able to sleep naked. They’ve never done it like this before; gotten into bed with the sole intent of sleeping. Harry turns the light out with a single word, and then he lies down on his back, next to Draco. They both keep their hands to themselves.
It’s terrible. It’s really bloody horrible, and Harry hates this distance between them, but he isn’t sure what to do for it to go away, just for tonight.
In the end he says, “Giraffes right?” into the dark. When he turns his head slightly on the pillow, he sees Draco’s lips moving as if he is trying hard not to smile.
“Yeah?” His tone is exasperated but tinted with fondness; relief surges through Harry.
“Well,” he says. “When they want to know if a lady-giraffe is ovulating, right? They head-butt her in the stomach so she pees. And then they drink it. And they can, like, taste if she can get pregnant or not.”
Now Draco is smiling. He’s biting his lip, but it fights its way through anyway. When he turns his head, and their eyes meet, he giggles.
“Goddamn you,” he says, but again it is fond. He turns to his side, but grabs Harry’s hand and pulls his arm with it, so Harry ends up spooning him. When he exhales against Draco’s neck, Harry realises how tense he was.
“Thank you,” he whispers into the skin there. Draco squeezes his hand.
“Go to sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Harry nods, and kisses Draco’s neck. Then he does.
__
When he wakes, Draco have rolled out of his grip, but he’s still in the bed and sleeping, breathing softly. The late-summer-sunlight shines in through blinds and falls on his face, illuminating a single line of it over the rest. Harry stays on the pillow and watches it; watches him. With it, he knows more than anything that he’s in love with Draco; that he wants to have him, for his own, and give him that soft, content expression he’s wearing right now as long as he’s allowed.
Draco stirs on the pillow. When he seems awake, Harry reaches out to touch the sunlight on his face. Draco hums softly and smiles gently.
“You look pretty in the morning,” Harry whispers. Draco’s smile gets bigger, so Harry touches the corners of it.
“Go for a walk with me today?” he asks. Draco hums again.
“Alright,” he mumbles. Harry touches the place between his eyebrows where tension seeps in again, until it falls away in yet another soft smile. He kisses Draco’s forehead in thanks.
When they get up, Harry makes them both coffee and toast in the kitchen, and Draco leans against his shoulder with his morning tiredness. He really is like cat, pushing his nose against Harry’s jaw. Harry touches him between his shoulder-blades, like usual.
“This is your move,” Draco tells him softly, when he does. Harry supposes it is.
Harry packs them a thermos of the coffee and two sandwiches. Draco doesn’t have his broom with him, so instead he gets behind Harry on his, and they fly over the city and the following countryside illuminated by the early morning light. Draco’s hands press into Harry’s stomach, where he is holding onto him.
He lands them near a path through a patch of forest, and they get off. In the beginning Harry’s hand is at the low of Draco’s back, but then the road becomes twisted and narrow, so Draco walks a few steps ahead of him.
“What is this place?” he asks. He’s walking upwards, where the path leads them to the top of a small hill. The light on his back is patterned by the leaves above and around them.
“This is the place I used to go,” Harry says. “Right after the war. When everything was … a lot worse.”
Draco turns around to watch him, and waits until Harry is by his side and past him, before he walks on. “I didn’t know everything was ‘a lot worse’,” he says.
Harry shrugs, because what can he really say? That it was possibly the worst experience of his life, those three months before he realised that he could talk to people, and they’d talk back; that they all had similar stories now.
They make it up to the top of the hill, and the forest opens into an open landscape. When he sees the bench, Harry recognises it easily. It is situated in the high field, where you can see the entire stretch of land before the city, and then the clump of it, if the weather is good. It is today.
“That’s where I used to sit,” Harry says, pointing at it. Draco watches him for a moment. Then he makes towards it.
They sit down on it, both watching the city. Harry draws his legs up before himself, and puts his arms around his knees.
“What I– I guess what I’m trying to say,” Harry says, “with all of this, is that, I’m still not entirely alright. And I’m pretty difficult at times. I have no idea what I want to do with my life, either. I didn’t really expect to still have it, after the war ended.”
Draco has watched the sky through it all, but at that he turns his head and watches Harry again. He doesn’t protest though, which Harry appreciates. The good thing about Draco is that he understands in a different way; he doesn’t get offended or sad when it becomes clear that Harry has darkness within him.
Perhaps because he has, too, Harry thinks, because then he says, “I understand.”
“I know,” Harry says. He means it; he really does know, now. Draco rests his head on the back of Harry’s shoulder.
“It’s complicated though,” Harry says. They’d be; the two of them together would be. They’re similar, but they’re also so very different. And that’s not even including the thoughts of everyone else who’d feel their opinion on the matter was important.
Draco just shrugs. For a long time they sit in silence. Draco puts his hand up to rest on the inner side of Harry’s elbow, pushing his fingers into the soft skin he finds there.
“I just need you to be sure,” he says, eventually. It’s said like the punctuation mark to a long thought; it’s said like this is all that’s important, all that matters. “The rest of it, that’s fine. For now. Just, before you make a choice, be sure you’ll be able to stick with it.”
Harry doesn’t tell him that he’s never been surer of anything else in his life. Well, except maybe that Voldemort should die, but that one is hard to beat. Instead he kisses Draco’s temple and says, “I promise.”
“Good,” Draco says. They share some more comfortable silence, but then he squeezes Harry’s arm and rests his chin on Harry’s shoulder to watch him. “Take me home?”
Harry does. Once inside he makes them tea, and Draco discovers that they’re alone. When the tea is done, he grabs Harry’s hands and leads them into Harry’s bedroom. In there, he gestures for Harry to lie on the bed, which he does.
Draco then crawls on top of him. He covers Harry with all of his body, and when Harry’s hands come up to touch his hips, Draco pushes Harry’s hair out of his face and rubs their noses together.
“So,” he says. “Let’s talk.”
“Hm.” That’s all Harry says, so Draco nudges his chin with his nose, in request for a proper reply.
“I like you?” Harry says. Draco smiles.
“You say that like it’s a question. Are you affirming with me?”
“No,” Harry says. “I like you.” He smiles softly, and kisses the corner of Draco’s mouth. “I like you a lot.” Draco smiles too, at that.
“Good,” he says. “I like you, too.”
Harry can’t stop his grimace, as he looks past Draco’s head to the ceiling; the words remind him that Draco slept with someone else; reminds him that maybe their level of affection for one another is widely different.
Draco sees, of course. He grabs onto Harry’s chin, and guides his head down so their eyes meet.
“You just had a thought,” he says. “What was it?”
Harry grimaces again. This time it’s intended and means ‘I’m not sure I should say that.’ Draco kisses his temple and pulls back with a determined look.
“Tell me,” he says.
“It’s just. You slept with someone else. I’m not judging, it just makes me think that maybe this means more to me than it does to you?” He watches with anticipation for what Draco’s reaction will be. For now he just frowns.
“I don’t just mean ‘like’,” Harry continues. It’s more vulnerable, and more near the truth than anything else he’s said up until now.
“Harry, it was just sex,” Draco says. “With that other guy.”
“And this isn’t?”
Draco smiles, like it’s amusing in a sad way. “No,” he says. “It never was. Never could be, not with our history, not really.”
Harry studies his expression, so Draco rubs their noses together again until he smiles.
“I don’t just mean ‘like’ either,” he says.
“You don’t?” Harry asks. He can’t keep the smile out of his voice. Draco rolls his eyes, but they are still full of affection.
“Of course not,” he says. “God, you are daft.”
Then he kisses him. It’s long and deep, and it makes Harry able to breathe again because it tastes like affection.
“If I tell you something,” Draco mumbles into his cheek when he pulls back, “do you promise to tell me something, too?”
“Okay?”
“I’m in love with you.”
There it is again, that feeling of the rug being pulled out from under your feet, and the moment where you don’t know if you’ll fall or be caught, only this time it feels like he falls and is caught once he hits the ground, and they can be on it together. He can barely feel his own grin, so large is it. Draco chuckles at him.
“Hm?” he says, and kisses the corner of Harry’s mouth. “Do you have something to tell me as well?”
“Git,” Harry mumbles. Draco laughs. Then: “I’m in love with you, too.” Draco beams and nuzzles into him like he is pleased.
“I know,” he says, but Harry kisses him anyway. Draco hums into it, and it gets deeper when Harry presses his fingertips into his hips.
“Is it still complicated?” Draco asks into Harry’s skin when he pulls back a little.
“I mean, it probably will be,” Harry says. “We are complicated people. But that’s like the ‘putting in effort to make this work part’.”
“You’re talking about dating?”
“Yeah,” Harry says. “That could be a simple decision. We could make it one. I like sex with you and I like not-sex with you.”
Draco chuckles. “What’s not-sex with me?” he asks. Harry kisses his cheek.
“You know, hanging out. Do you want to date me?”
“Do you want to date me?” Draco asks, but his tone is cheerful; he’s teasing.
“Don’t make me do all the work,” Harry complains. In fact, he knows he’s done almost none of it; thank God for Slytherins getting what they want. Draco laughs, so Harry runs his hands up his back. Draco pushes into him.
“Yes,” he says then. He’s saying it to Harry’s cheek, and he’s smiling. “I do want to date you.”
“Good. I want to date you, too.”
“Good.” Harry lifts his head to watch Draco’s face. Draco looks barely able to conceal his smile, so Harry kisses him to let it free. They chuckle into each other’s mouths.
“Good talk,” Draco says. Harry chuckles and pulls back again, so they can watch each other.
“Yeah,” he says. “Good meeting.”
Draco laughs. “Great meeting.”
Harry leans up to kiss him. When Draco’s hands come up to cup his face, and he allows Harry’s legs to snake around his hips, Harry decides he could get used to this. Maybe it’s as simple as that.