The Start of It All

Harry pushed the arm away. “Draco” he whispered indignantly. Draco’s hand had been trying to make its way onto his stomach.

Draco had his eyes on the door while he leaned in to speak directly in Harry’s ear, “Harry” he whined as he gave up another attempt at cuddling. “Let’s go to a movie.”

“We’re watching a movie here.”

As Draco leaned away from Harry in disappointment, Harry’s mother entered the room. Draco had an idea.

“Mrs. Potter, don’t you think it would be a good idea if Harry got out a bit more? I mean you could use the time to relax and stop bringing us popcorn. And Harry could stop being such shut-in.” Draco knew he was pushing it. He knew why Harry insisted they hang out in his house. Because here they couldn’t do anything. Harry had yet to come out to his parents and while Draco didn’t have a problem with that he was getting a bit frustrated with Harry’s self-imposed rules.

“What did you have in mind, Draco?” she continued.

“Well, we could go see the new action film that’s out. All we do here is watch movies anyway, might as well get good quality movie-popcorn while we’re at it. Or we could go to a skate park. I’m sure there’s a lot of things we can do, other than just sitting around. In fact I think my mom was hoping he’d come to dinner some time.”

“That’s a fantastic idea, I’ll go get my purse.” Draco’s face fell. He hadn’t thought she would want to come along. Harry was still sitting next to him, suddenly looking very triumphant. Draco was sure that his boyfriend shouldn’t look like that when his mother was intruding on what could be their first real date.

When Lily came back in she gave Harry some money and said, “Now remember your curfew.”

Harry didn’t look so smug anymore, “Mom?”

“You’re in the house entirely too much, I never get any private time and your sister is spending the night at your aunt’s. I may finally get a few hours of ‘me time!’ Now get!”

Harry didn’t really have much of a choice as Draco had already pulled him off the couch and was working on pushing him out the door.

Harry looked betrayed. How could his own mother send him out like that. On his own. To defend himself against the beast that was Draco Malfoy.

Draco was only about a year older than him, but he had had a boyfriend before. Draco was Harry’s first boyfriend. And they weren’t even official yet. They weren’t official because Harry was scared he was 13 years old and wasn’t getting any useful advice from his parents because they only had advice about girls. And he was trying to give himself rules that he assumed his parents would give any child of their own on how to deal with these sorts of things. He only met with Draco at either of their homes, and only when there was supervision. They would stay in any of the main living areas with the doors open, never in each others bedrooms. But his mother had just sent him off with Draco to a place that was known for the ease it allows in making out… which scared him.

“Don’t worry,” Draco reassured him, “we’ll have fun. And … I’ll protect you” he added with a leer as they made it to the bus depot.

During the whole bus ride Harry looked out the window. He had to get himself in the mindset if this was going to happen. He and Draco hadn’t actually done… well, anything. And Harry knew that it was a result of his rules, which he was quite proud of by the way. But he knew it would have to change eventually.

Okay, so Harry knew he liked Draco and sometimes all he wanted to do was be held by him. He certainly would rather go to the movies with Draco than any of the girls at school. And Draco was really nice and patient, but sometimes all Harry wanted to do was ask what Draco expected from him. He’d heard that gay boys were easy. Actually what he heard was that they were major league whores at a young age, and he was scared that Draco had already gone that far with his ex and was expecting the same from him.

Draco looked down at Harry, “If you really don’t want to go we can just go to my house” he suggested.

Draco’s parents already knew about his orientation and they seemed to like Harry’s rules. Maybe they had heard the same things Harry had heard.

“No, we can see a movie.” Harry was really nervous, but he did really like Draco and he might as well get this over with now. And he did get that brilliant smile he sometimes got from Draco. Yeah, that smile would make whatever happened later easy.

When they finally made it to the theatre Harry realized that the money his mom had given him was really very useless. Draco bought the tickets, he bought the drinks, and he bought the one giant tub of popcorn “to share.” Draco also picked a nice cozy spot… in the very back of the theatre where no one could see them.

Draco also thought it was good idea for Harry to hold the popcorn, so that ever few seconds during the entire movie Draco’s arm would find its way across Harry and scare him to death thinking that Draco was suddenly going to pounce on him.

Draco seemed to have taken notice of this because he started frowning and turned to whisper in Harry’s ear. “Do you not like the movie?”

“It’s fine.”

“You haven’t had any popcorn, you love popcorn.”

“I’m… not hungry?”

“If you didn’t want to go out with me you could’ve just said so, I wouldn’t’ve bothered.” Now he looked angry.

“I … it’s not that… I… do want to go out with you… I mean… we are? Aren’t we?” Harry was getting scared now, was he going to lose his first boyfriend before he was even allowed to say it aloud?!

“Well, you have an odd way of showing it.” Draco turned to glare at Harry, but when he saw the look on his face he smiled. “Don’t worry, I was scared my first date too.”

And Harry suddenly stared right into Draco’s eyes “I’m… I’m not scared.”

“Yeah,” was Draco’s reply while he quite underhandedly snuck his arm behind Harry’s seat. Harry didn’t notice until there was an arm around his shoulders. He stiffened. “Is this alright, or should I back off?”

Harry was trying to calm down when he heard Draco’s whisperings, which is when he suddenly realized there was no one sitting anywhere around them. For some reason that helped him feel better. “Umm… it’s okay.” Except now he was terrified of moving.

After a couple of minutes like that Harry started to get a crick in his neck and gave up his statue impression. His leaning back startled Draco a bit, but that smile suddenly reappeared when he felt Harry’s lean against his shoulder.

When the movie finally ended Harry realized that he’d missed the whole thing freaking out or sleeping on Draco (which he did from the exhaustion of freaking out). Draco didn’t seem to mind.

They were waiting behind the movie theatre waiting for Draco’s mom to pick them up with half the tub of popcorn. “You know you could’ve just told me that you were scared of me and I would’ve tried to help.”

“I’m not scared of you! You’re hardly any bigger than me!”

Draco smiled, “I meant that I would’ve answered any questions you might’ve had with whatever was scaring the pants off you.”

Harry was suddenly looking at the ground. Draco groaned as he found a spot behind Harry and wrapped his arms loosely around his waist. “You alright?”

“Yeah.” he was getting used to this hugging thing I mean he had just woken up to it a few minutes ago. “I just… I wasn’t sure…” He summoned up some more courage, “I thought you were going to try to kiss me.”

“Oh! Did you not want me to?”

“I … not yet. I don’t think… Just not yet.”

“No pressure. That’s good to know, I suppose. How about I make you a deal that I won’t ever plan to kiss you than.”

“What!”

Draco chuckled, “I mean that if we kiss… then we do. But I won’t ever plan anything just so we can kiss. Even if it is at the movies or the kissing capital of the world. How’s that?” For emphasis he gave a little squeeze of his arms, bringing Harry just that bit closer to him.

That sounded good, Harry wouldn’t have to worry about any expectations from Draco as long as he kept to his word. “Promise?” Harry asked with his pinky finger held up.

“Promise.” Draco reassured him by hooking his own pinky finger around Harry’s.

And that’s when the moment hit. Harry turned around in Draco’s arms and it was the perfect moment, all he had to do was lean in a little and it would be perfection… instead of Harry heard a crunching sound above his head and looked up only to see Draco’s hand crunching popcorn over him. “MY HAIR!”

Draco was shoved away as the popcorn war ensued. By the time Draco’s mom arrived both boys were greasy and covered in popcorn bits.

She smirked at them as they entered the back seat.

“Harry didn’t eat his half of the popcorn,” was Draco’s explanation.

“And Draco’s an arse,” was Harry’s, even though he was leaning on him with Draco’s arm keeping him close.