#for jules

Draco stashed it in his old nursery, the one at the very back of the west wing, where no one ever goes anymore. The one with the window that opens up over the roof of the kitchen garden shed.

He waits until the house, always quiet these days, settles into deep silence. The wee hours of the morning, his mother used to say. It’s always darkest before the dawn, she’d said as well. Draco had never understood what that meant. Now he gets it.

So he waits, listens, and waits some more. Then he gets up, throws on the clothes he’s hidden from his mother — the Muggle jeans and t-shirt. A worn hoodie in muted grey. Trainers, still new, that he carefully laces up and double knots. He tiptoes to the nursery, slings his bag across his chest.

Then he leaves.

He slowly opens the window, even though he knows his mother won’t hear him, all the way on the other side of the Manor. He slips out onto the shed roof, and makes his way quietly across the tiles, to where he can climb down the small cherry tree that blooms every spring. He doesn’t run, it’s too dark and he doesn’t want to fall, but he moves quickly through the gardens that he knows like the back of his hand and out to the orchard.

Fire blight had taken fully half of the trees, three falls ago, and there’d been nothing to be done except destroy them, all the waydown to the roots. Draco’s mother had insisted on doing it herself, and as Draco moves through the trees that still stand, he can almost see her, back ramrod-straight with tears streaming down her face as she casts.

Potter is waiting for him, his motorbike parked in one of the clearings. He’s standing, leaning nonchalantly against it, and when Draco approaches, he doesn’t say anything at first, just gives that maddening grin and quirk of his eyebrow as his gaze sweeps over Draco, lighting him up from the crown of his head to the tip of his toes.

Finally, Potter speaks.

“You ready?”

Draco gets closer, close enough to touch, and Potter reaches out, hooks a finger through Draco’s belt loop and yanks him all the way in, winding his arms around Draco.

“Not really,” Draco admits, voice muffled from where he’s buried his face in Potter’s neck, breathing in the scent of soap and Weasley’s washing powder and home.

They stand, still, and Potter simply holds Draco until he’s ready to let go. Finally, Draco takes a deep breath, pulls back and scrubs a hand over his face.

He turns his back to Potter, looks around one last time. The ghost of his mother, destroying the trees, still lingers in the distance. His own childhood phantom runs laughing amongst the memory of trees. No matter how far he goes, Draco thinks, a part of him will always live here.

Behind him, he hears Potter settling onto the bike, and when Draco turns back around, Potter’s still smiling, something soft and affectionate, and holds out his hand. Asks again.

“You ready?”

Draco nods, swallows and takes his hand. Slides onto the bike behind Potter.

“Yes,” he says and now it’s his turn to wrap his arms around Potter’s lean body.

Potter flicks his wand and the bike roars to life. 

“Hold on tight,” he advises, and Draco moves even closer. Holds on even tighter.

Champagne. Appetizers. More courses than Harry can count. Dessert.

Dear fuck, dessert.

When he’d agreed to be set up, it was almost a dare, a joke; ‘Harry’s so hard-up, let’s throw dates at him until someone sticks.’

This is… unexpected.

“Satisfied?” Malfoy dabs his pretty mouth with a cloth napkin.

“Almost,” Harry says, because he’s been half hard over Malfoy all night.

Back at Harry’s flat, they do it just inside the door, Malfoy’s expensive shirt ripped open, mouths hot together, Harry falling to his knees.

Appalling, that this banquet has been there all along, disguised as an enemy.