ORIGINAL: The Amour

[Chapter Fifteen]


What to do. What to do. Harry glanced at the silver clock sitting atop the mantelpiece.

“Shit!” he swore out loud. There was only thirty minutes until first class. Draco! Where the hell are you? He thought desperately.

Giving a little shiver, he got out of the bed and began collecting his carelessly discarded clothing from the floor. The prospect of wearing them again was a bit objectionable, but it wasn’t like he had a choice.

After slipping his boxers on, he walked over to the wall and turned the knob of a wooden door. It was a closet full of satin and velvet formal robes.

‘Why the hell does he have so many?’ he gaped at the full yet neatly arranged contents within.

Shaking his head in half amazement, half exasperation, he shut the door and continued over to the next one.

And the next one.

With one last forest green door to go, Harry had counted a total of five doors. All of them being various sized closets. From what it looked like, Draco was obsessed with clothing.

Finally, and knowing that he didn’t have much time left, he yanked the remaining one open and almost cried out loud in relief. If he couldn’t change clothes, then he at least wanted to shower.

The glistening marble tiles and over exaggerated tub made Harry gape in shock. So Draco had his own Prefect’s bathroom. How fair was that?

Biting back the urge to take a luxurious bubbly bath, he stripped off his boxers again and stepped into the rain of warm water. He let out a sigh of contentment.

He treated himself to Draco’s abundant supply of body ointments, soaps, shampoos, and conditioners. There were so many that he couldn’t possibly tell which was which.

He grinned to himself, while massaging his skin and thinking about how he’d smell of Draco all day. It would drive him mad.

Pondering next, of a way to get to class unnoticed, he didn’t see the bathroom door open.

He jumped and hit the wall when an amused drawl rang through the heavy steam.

“Enjoying yourself, Potter?”

“Shit Draco! You scared the hell out of me!”

“Sorry.” Draco smirked. “So you found the bathroom all right did you?”

Harry snorted. “Yeah, after five doors! Geez, how many closets do you need?” He couldn’t see Draco through the steam but he could hear his footsteps coming closer.

Suddenly they were face to face.

Harry’s cheeks flushed pink despite the fact that his nude body was nothing new to Draco’s eyes.

The silver pools were glittering with a certain hunger that made Harry’s insides swirl with a pleasurable satisfaction.

Draco closed his eyes and leaned forward so that his lips were tickling Harry’s earlobe.

“I’ve decided that I’m not letting you take showers in my bathroom anymore.” he whispered.

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Well, at least not on weekday mornings, because I’m this close to making you ditch first class so that I can ravish you...”

Harry’s eyes widened in horror. “Oh fuck! I totally forgot about the time!” he halted his sweet shower and yanked a fresh towel from the hook. “Draco, you’ve got help me. How the hell am I supposed to get out?”

He roughly dried his body and hair and reached for his wrinkled clothes but they weren’t there. He looked about frantically but found them nowhere.

“Draco!” he shouted angrily. “Where did you put my stuff?”

Draco smiled innocently. “Oh the nasty and smelly clothing you were wearing yesterday?”

“Yes! Now quit playing games and give them to me!”

“Eww! No! Even if I don’t have any classes with you today, you are not embarrassing yourself wearing that shit.”

Harry advanced on Draco with his arms clenched to his side. He was about to threaten the blonde further when something soft fell over his eyes.

Furious, he wrenched it off and his mouth dropped open.

“What the- how did you-” Harry stuttered. Clean clothing that he’d just had washed yesterday were in his hands.

Draco pursed his lips in mock injury.

“I woke up twenty minutes earlier than usual, dragged my exhausted body through the halls, waited for some Gryffindork to come through the ugly fat Lady Portrait, told them to get Granger, listened to them whine incessantly, finally met Granger, made her get your clothes, brought them oh-so-kindly to you, and this is the thanks I get?”

Draco expected Harry to laugh or at least smile but instead, and to his surprise, Harry’s face paled rapidly.

“Y-you talked to Hermione?”

Draco nodded.

“Didn’t she.... ask... anything?”

“Of course. She’s always been one to nose around. It’d shock me if she kept her mouth shut.”

“Wh-what did- you tell her?”

With a sigh, Draco ran his fingers through his hair.

“I told her about us.”

Harry’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. “You- you did?”

“Yeah, she suspected that something was going on. She was furious with me at first for showing up at Gryffindor Tower. Apparently she believed the shit about me dumping you for Blaise.” Draco gave a grimace at the name. “But she decided to give me a chance and so we talked for a bit.”

Harry bit his lip to conceal his tenseness. So now Hermione knew about them. That wasn’t a problem, no. But a more terrifying and perturbing worry was plaguing him. One that he'd somehow managed to avoid, until now.

But for some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to voice the words. His mouth became uncomfortably parched and so he just shifted his gaze to the floor. To hell with classes. He was probably already late anyways.

Draco was studying Harry’s face intently. He saw every flash of fear, every flicker of panic that Harry felt, reflected in his bright green eyes. he wanted to touch the hapless boy, to hold and comfort him, and to tell him that there was no more to worry about, that everything was okay.

It wasn’t his place to do that though. At least not yet.

“Harry?” he murmured softly.

Harry lifted his face slowly. “Yeah, Drake?”

“There’s someone you need to talk to. And they knew that you’d probably miss first class and so they’waitwaiting for you out by the Quidditch Pitch.”

Harry’s body seized up again. His mouth formed a silent ‘no’ and he shook his head.

Draco reached out and caressed Harry’s cheek.

“It’s okay Harry. It’s not him.”

“...oh...”

“And here, I also brought you this. Thought you might need it.”

From the folds of his robes, he pulled out a watery, shimmery substance.

Harry’s invisibility cloak.

“Draco...” Harry said with a small smile. “You’re unbelievable.”

Draco grinned smugly. “Were you really that desperately helpless these past few weeks?”

Harry flung the cloth around his shoulders. His head was now suspended in midair.

“Yes.” he replied, pecking Draco on the nose. “Utterly, totally, pathetically helpless.”

“Ugh, get away you bodiless maniac!” said Draco, swatting his hand at the invisible body.

With a laugh, Harry leaped backwards and with a last smile at Draco, disappeared completely into thin air.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Harry’s heart was pounding madly, and it wasn’t a nice feeling either. Draco hadn’t told him who the person was. At first, he’d been afraid that it was Seamus, but apparently, it wasn’t. So who?

Having only his invisibility cloak, he was shivering from the frosty December air. The frozen grass crunched softly under his feet as he made his way down the sloping lawn toward the Quidditch Pitch.

When he got there, he didn’t take his cloak off. Instead, he snuck into the stadium vigilantly and weaved his way through the stands and finally came to a abrupt halt right before entering the ground field.

He craned his neck around the corner and to his out-and-out surprise, there stood gangly Ron, his blazing red hair clashing with the calm scenery around him.

Harry threw his cloak off and walked quickly to where he was.

Ron noticed him and grinned awkwardly. His hands were twiddling a bit nervously.

“Hey mate.” He greeted Harry with a nod.

“Hey Ron.”

“.....”

“Er- yeah. I’m glad you came.”

“Yeah.”

Harry stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and looked at the ground. Did Ron know about him and Draco? Why did he want to talk to Harry? Questions were flying inside his head crazily.

The silence seemed forbidding and gauche as they stood there, waiting for the other to talk. Finally Ron cleared his throat.

“Look Harry, I really wanted to say I’m sorry for not being a brilliant friend lately... I guess I was too caught up in my own stuff and I didn’t realize that things weren’t going so well for you...”

Harry didn’t reply.

“Malfoy told Mione and me this morning about you guys.... I um.... well, congratulations I guess for getting back together.”

Harry looked up in mild surprise. “You... you aren’t freaked out and mad about it?”

Ron shrugged, his face a bit pink. But maybe that was from the cold. “Well, I was a bit caught off guard but I’m not mad, no. I mean, I gues. Ma. Malfoy’s not that bad....”

If Harry wasn’t in a low mood, he would have chuckled at Ron’s effort to sound agreeable with Harry. In truth, he knew that no matter how Draco changed, Ron would never learn to like him. Ever.

“And I never knew about Cho.... and how she... went out with me just so that she could use me.” Ron’s voice tried to hide the pain he felt but Harry could still hear it.

“Ron- don’t feel bad about her. I never knew that she could be such a lying fib. It’s awful, what she did to you.”

“I deserved it though.” he said shaking his head sadly. “I’ve been a complete shit-head of a friend and I admit it.”

“No you haven’t Ron. I’ve been worse to you. I guess I missed you a lot.”

They looked at each other and exchanged timid smiles.

“So you forgive me?” said Ron hopefully.

“If you’ve forgiven me.” Harry replied.

“Then I guess we’re back to being bloody good friends?”

“Yeah, bloody good friends.”

They laughed and hugged each other happily.

After embracing each other for a long time, they pulled apart and flopped down onto the grass.

“Reckon Flitwick will be mad at us?” Ron grinned lazily as he yanked a handful of grass from the ground.

“Nah, he’s a good man. He never gets too upset about anything. And I don’t think he’ll dock any points either.”

“Yeah, probably.” Ron agreed. “We’ve got divination today too.”

Harry groaned in disgust. “Nooooooooo. That class literally kills me. No wonder Trelawny predicts my death each time. She’s the one that’s driving me towards it!”

Ron laughed and gave a friendly punch to Harry’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry mate, you won’t die anytime soon.”

Harry rolled his eyes in mock sarcasm. “Thanks Ron.”

“Anytime. Anytime.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They stayed at the pitch, talking and making up for all the time that they’d spent emotionally apart as friends. They found endless things to gossip about and even made jokes of each other as if the past month had never happened at all.

Only the forewarning bell, announcing the end of first class was able to cease their nonstop jaw waggling.

During second class, which was Transfiguration, they hardly cared when Professor McGonagall took ten points from Gryffindor because they were turning each other’s hair different colors and guffawing loudly.

Hermione tried her best to look disapproving and exasperated but her mouth was twitching and her eyes were smiling. She was too relieved to to see the two back to being such good friends.

The sudden change seemed to surprise the rest of the Gryffindors too. They kept glancing over at them with esteeming smiles on their faces.
They all felt that it had been extremely dull without Harry and Ron clowning around during classes and in the common rooms in the evenings.

Now, no other word except happy could better describe the aura the two glowed with. It was a cheering sight.


Luckily, Seamus did not have Transfiguration that day and so Harry never had to think about once.

Until lunch.

As the trio departed from the classroom, Ron and Hermione claimed that they needed to do something and gave him very vague and unconvincing reasons as to why and what it was.

Harry just nodded and smiled good naturedly. It was quite obvious to him that they just wanted a bit of intimate time together. He watched them leave hastily and continued on toward the Great Hall.

That’s when he caught sight of Seamus sitting down at the Gryffindor table with Neville and Dean.

Cold sweat and shivers running down his spine, he whirled around at the the doors and stumbled back into the hall.

He couldn’t go in there. He just couldn’t. He closed his eyes and covered his face with his hands wearily. His stomach growled in hunger but he didn’t care.

Suddenly, he felt a hand slide onto his shoulder from behind and he nearly screamed in terror. He jumped and rounded on the person.

His eyes widened and then softened at the peculiar sight in front of him.

Draco. Standing with a coy smile on his face, and holding a stack of croissants out to Harry.

“Thought you might be hungry, since you didn’t have breakfast and all.” he said.

Harry grinned gratefully. “What’s happened to you Draco? First you bring me my clothes and now this?”

Draco shrugged and tried to force a blasé look on his face.

“Oh, so you’re hinting that I wasn’t like this before?”

“Gosh, please. You always used to make me do stuff for you. Not the other way around!” A teasing glint flickered across Harry’s eyes and Draco couldn’t seem to be able to keep his pout any longer.

With a laugh and a playful tug at Harry’s sleeve, he pulled the raven haired boy down the hall and up the stairs until they came to another corridor that was very familiar to Harry.

“Draco- what are we doing here?” he asked bewilderedly as Draco paced to and fro with his eyes closed.

On his third stride back, a large oak door faded into the stone wall before them.

The entry to the Room of Requirement.