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Draco Flooed into the old Black cottage in the Highlands of Scotland and immediately got a mouthful of soot.

He stepped out of the hearth, brushed himself down, and looked around.

The cottage was, naturally, not really a cottage. It was a cottage in the same way Malfoy Manor was a humble family home, which was to say only if one had been raised by people with too much ancestral money. It was smaller than the Black town house, certainly, and less aggressively miserable than Grimmauld Place, but it was still very much a Black property: dark wood, old silver fixtures, portraits watching from the walls.

Still, there was something unexpectedly cosy about it. The sitting room had low beams, a huge stone fireplace, faded green armchairs, and windows that looked out towards a sweep of wild Highland hills. The air smelt faintly of peat smoke, old books, and something herbal Draco could not immediately identify.

He had asked Andromeda where one might go to have, firstly, a proper summer holiday, and secondly, space to conduct potions research undisturbed. Preferably somewhere no Ministry inspector would come poking about, asking tiresome questions like is that legally approved? and I think that's an unsanctioned ingredient, actually, I'm going to mark you down for it.

Andromeda had recommended the Highland cottage.

“The Blacks have a few old properties up there,” she had said. “Take the west one. You’ll like the garden.”

He flicked his wand, sending his trunks gliding neatly into the bedroom and his books stacking themselves on the shelves. Then he explored.

The kitchen was bright and old-fashioned, with copper pans hanging above the range and a long scrubbed table situated beneath the window. The bedroom was surprisingly lovely, all soft linens and heavy curtains and a bed large enough that Draco could sleep in it diagonally, as nature intended. The bathroom had an enormous claw-footed tub and a window with a delightful view that instantly improved his opinion of the entire property.

And then there was the brewing room.

Draco stopped in the doorway and stared.

It was perfect; a long, narrow room at the back of the cottage. Shelves lined every wall, most of them empty but clean, waiting. There were hooks for drying herbs, a deep stone sink, a workbench, and in the centre of the room stood a large silver cauldron, gleaming beneath a hovering cluster of witch-lights.

He walked towards it and set a hand lightly on the rim. “Goodness,” Draco murmured. “Where have you been all my life?”

The cauldron, being a cauldron, did not answer. This was probably for the best. Draco already had quite enough problems without developing feelings for brewing equipment.

Though, admittedly, brewing equipment had always been among the least troublesome parts of his life.

People were worse. Ministry officials worse still. He worked part-time there now, researching potions and pretending to respect its long list of tedious regulations, and part-time at St Mungo’s brewing for the Healers, which was fulfilling, important, and so stressful it had probably taken years off his life. He spent most of his time being told something was either too dangerous, too ethically complicated, or too likely to explode.

As if anything worth doing was not at least two of those things.

So yes, he needed the break and some quiet. He needed a few weeks in which nobody shouted about deadlines or sent him memos and expected him to actually reply.

Most of all, he needed the garden.

Andromeda had mentioned it. A magical garden, she had said, then she had refused to explain anything further.

Draco made his way through the kitchen to the back door, expecting something pleasant. Perhaps a decent herb patch. Maybe, if he was lucky, a few well-maintained beds of valerian and dittany.

He opened the door and froze. Andromeda had not merely undersold it. Andromeda had committed a crime against description.

The garden was enormous.

It spilled away from the cottage in terraces and paths and low stone walls, folding into the hillside as if it had grown out of the Highlands itself. The whole thing shimmered beneath layers of old magic, Draco could feel it against his skin. Above him, the wards curved over the garden in an invisible dome, breaking the wind and softening the air. Outside, the Highlands were all cold breeze, but here the temperature was impossibly gentle.

A path of pale stone curled away from the back door and split almost immediately into three directions. One led towards a series of raised beds bordered with slate, where sprigs of lavender, feverfew, and rosemary grew in neat silver-green clumps, all of them humming faintly with contained charmwork. Another vanished beneath an arch of climbing roses that shifted colour as Draco watched, deep red blooming into gold, then into a dusky violet. The third curved towards a shaded grove of trees whose leaves glittered at the edges.

Draco stepped outside slowly.

He took another step. Then another. Somewhere to his left, a fountain trickled into a round stone basin full of water lilies that opened and shut in slow, breathing motions. Tiny blue lights skimmed across the surface of the water—Highland fairies, he realised—leaving brief trails of silver behind them. A bed of scarlet flowers turned their heads towards Draco as he passed, their petals fluttering like lashes.

The individual beds were charmed, clearly. Some were warm and humid, full of glossy, tropical leaves that had no business thriving in the Scottish Highlands. Others were cool and misted, their soil dark and peaty, growing pale fungi beneath little glass domes. One narrow bed held snowdrops and ice mint, actual frost clinging delicately to the leaves despite the summer air. Next to it, absurdly, sun-basil basked in a pool of enchanted golden light.

There were plants growing wildly out of season. There were plants Draco had only ever seen dried, crushed, bottled, and outrageously overpriced.

For several minutes, possibly longer, Draco simply wandered. He lost all sense of dignity almost immediately. Every few steps revealed something new: a spiral of singing nettles, silver thyme spreading between stones, a small orchard where the apples glowed faintly beneath their skins, a locked glasshouse full of green-gold mist, and, tucked into a sheltered corner, a patch of black hellebore so healthy Draco nearly had to sit down.

He went back inside and returned with empty specimen tubes, jars, shears, gloves, labels, and his little travelling potions case tucked under one arm. The case was dragonhide, charmed to hold three times its natural capacity, and contained the rarer ingredients he had brought with him in case the garden was merely decent.

How naive he had been. How foolish.

He spent the next hour in a state of increasingly giddy collection, there was no other word for it. Giddy. Appalling, really.

Nothing was labelled, because whoever had cultivated the garden had apparently decided that future generations should simply suffer. Draco had a fair amount of respect for that in principle, but considerably less in practice.

The garden seemed to go on forever. Every time Draco thought he had reached the edge, another path curved behind a hedge or through a gap in the wall, leading to some new secluded pocket: a lavender walk alive with sleepy bees, a mossy circle of stones, a tiny pond where pale aquatic roots trailed like hair beneath the water.

It was the most gorgeous thing he had ever seen.

Well, possibly not the most gorgeous.

There had been Harry Potter at the Ministry last month, returning from an Auror raid with his already tight shirt torn down the front, face smeared with dirt, glasses crooked, one sleeve pushed up to reveal a forearm Draco had absolutely no business noticing. That had been quite a lot to recover from, as visual experiences went.

But the garden was certainly up there.

Draco had just discovered a narrow passage between two hawthorn hedges when he realised the low stone walls were leading him somewhere. They curved in gentle, old-fashioned lines, guiding the garden down the slope, the beds becoming wilder as he went. The herbs gave way to flowers, flowers to trees, trees to a long, sunlit stretch of grass bordered by foxgloves that whispered to each other as he passed.

At the very end stood another low stone wall and beyond it was another garden.

It was clearly meant to be a mirror of his own: the same terraces, the same winding beds, the same old walls, but this one had not been cared for nearly so well. The grass was too long and the herb beds were overrun.

Beyond the overgrown garden, half hidden by trees, stood another cottage.

Ah, so that was what Andromeda had meant by cottages.

Draco gripped the stone wall and peered over. Undisturbed, she had promised. He was beginning to suspect Andromeda’s definition of undisturbed required review.

There was a large gate set into the wall, locked and old, its ironwork twisted into the Black family crest. The far more interesting thing was the crouched figure near an overgrown bed on the other side.

At first, Draco had barely noticed him. The man was half hidden behind a tangle of weeds and muttering darkly to himself while attempting, with limited success, to dig something out of the soil.

Then he sighed and sat back on his heels.

Don’t be a Black, he thought.

Don’t be a Black, don’t be a Black, don’t be—

The man stood and his face came into view.

Draco went very still.

The universe, which had never once let Draco enjoy anything without immediately attaching some form of punishment, had placed Harry bloody Potter in the next garden over.

Draco would have known that ridiculous hair anywhere. It stuck up in all directions with the kind of confidence only Potter could get away with, as if grooming was something he didn't need to do and he'd look perfect without it. His round glasses were slightly crooked. His shirt sleeves were rolled up over his forearms, and there was dirt on one cheek, and his shoulders—

Draco’s gaze betrayed him for half a second, dropping over the line of Potter’s arms, the looseness of his old shirt, the way the fabric pulled across his chest when he straightened.

Then Potter looked up and their eyes met.

Potter’s eyebrows rose. He looked just as shocked as Draco felt. For one blissful second, they simply stared at each other.

Then Draco's shock melted into irritation. “What in the name of Merlin are you doing here?”

Potter dropped his spade with a dull thud and started towards the wall. “Did you follow me?”

“Did I follow—” Draco stared at him. “Potter, I have far better things to do with my life than stalk you like one of your moronic fans.”

Potter stopped on the other side of the wall, close enough now that Draco could see the green of his eyes through the lenses.

“Fine,” Potter said. “Then what are you doing here?”

“I asked first,” Draco said. “So you should answer first. It’s only polite.”

Potter frowned. “Fine. My cottage is down there.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, towards the overgrown garden and the cottage half hidden behind the trees. “I’m here on summer holiday.”

Draco blinked. “I didn’t know Aurors could take holidays.”

Potter looked briefly sheepish. “Usually, no. But I requested a long one this time. I just needed—” He stopped himself and frowned, as though remembering Draco was not someone he was supposed to confide in. “Your turn.”

“My cottage is down the other side,” Draco said, gesturing vaguely behind him. “How on earth do you own a Black cottage?”

Potter’s jaw tightened slightly. “My godfather. Sirius.”

“Well try not to get in my way, Potter.”

“I’m not the one peering over walls at people.”

“I was admiring the garden,” Draco said. “And then you happened to be in it, ruining the view.”

Potter snorted.

Draco turned to leave, because this was already far more Potter than he had planned for the next few months. Then he glanced back at the bed Potter had been attacking.

“Oh, for Salazar’s sake, I have to say something.”

Potter narrowed his eyes. “What?”

“Your gardening skills are terrible.”

Potter looked down at the bed, then back at him. “What do you know about gardening?”

“A lot more than you.”

“Do you seriously expect me to believe Draco Malfoy of all people gets dirty with plants?”

“There is no need to get dirty whilst gardening, if one does it with the proper poise and grace,” Draco said with a smirk.

Potter stared at him in mild disbelief, and if Draco was not mistaken, his gaze flicked, very briefly, to Draco’s mouth.

Definitely accidental, not something Draco should think about for the next six hours like a complete lunatic.

Still, he pressed on, because unsolicited advice was one of life’s great pleasures, especially when the recipient was Harry Potter who was guaranteed to be bothered.

“If you want to dig up the weeds properly,” Draco said, nodding towards the disaster Potter had been mauling, “you need to loosen the soil around the root first, then pull it out cleanly. Then you charm the bed before replanting anything useful, because otherwise the nettles will simply come back.”

“I don’t need your advice, I’m plenty capable of reading some gardening books, thank you.”

“Oh, the great Potter can read? What a surprise.”

Potter’s mouth twitched despite himself. “We’re all just full of surprises today, aren’t we? You can garden and I can read.”

“We’re learning so much about each other already,” Draco said. “What a lovely holiday we’re taking together.”

“Just because we’re next door doesn’t mean we’re doing anything together.”

“No need to get so defensive, Potter. It’s a little something called sarcasm. Learn it.”

“Whatever.”

Draco tilted his head. “Oh, no comeback? Tragic. I’d best be off anyway, since this interaction is over and I have clearly won.”

Potter stared at him. “Won—Malfoy, you don’t bloody win conversations.”

“I do,” Draco said simply.

And then he turned and walked back the way he had come. He kept his pace unhurried and his shoulders straight.

He did not look back, but he did become acutely aware of the possibility that Potter might still be watching him.

Draco stepped inside his cottage and shut the door behind him, then stood there for a moment with his back against it.

Harry Potter.

Of course Draco could not even take a peaceful holiday in the middle of nowhere without Potter turning up in the next cottage, looking sun-warmed and broad-shouldered and irritatingly handsome with dirt on his face like some sort of rugged country man from a deeply embarrassing dream.

He had worked very hard, actually, to avoid this exact sort of thing.

They both worked at the Ministry, technically, though in very different departments. Potter did Auror things. Draco did research and brewing and mostly managed to avoid him by taking alternate staircases, timing his lunches strategically, and pretending not to notice whenever Granger or Longbottom mentioned his name.

Which was difficult, because Draco liked Granger these days. And Longbottom. Ridiculous, but true. War did strange things to a person. Apparently, one survived childhood trauma and came out the other side willing to have drinks with Gryffindors.

But Potter had remained a problem.

They did not get along.

That was the explanation Draco had given himself, and it was a perfectly serviceable one if nobody examined it too closely. He and Potter were capable of being in the same room without hexing each other, which, given their history, was practically a miracle. But friendship had always stayed just out of reach, mostly because Draco had kept it there with both hands.

Because the truth was that he had a thing. A truly inconvenient, deeply humiliating, godforsaken thing for Harry Potter.

And Potter, obviously, would never like him back.

Harry spent the next few days reading gardening books and achieving absolutely nothing.

This was not an exaggeration. He read about soil, drainage, pruning, companion planting, lunar planting, wand-assisted root loosening, warded beds, enchanted mulch, everything.

His garden remained, stubbornly, a disaster, which made him wonder if Malfoy was right, and Harry did not in fact know how to read.

Then, on the third afternoon, Harry decided to use Malfoy’s advice. This was annoying, because remembering Malfoy’s advice meant thinking about Malfoy, which Harry had been making a very mature and committed effort not to do. Unfortunately, the advice was already in his head, in Malfoy’s drawling voice, all smug and precise and irritatingly correct.

Harry glared down at the offending bed, used his advice, and it worked.

He could not go and ask him for more advice. Well. He could.

But he wouldn’t.

He would absolutely not give Malfoy the satisfaction. Malfoy would probably do that awful little smirk and say something like, oh, Potter, how tragic, reduced at last to begging for my expertise. Harry could hear it already.

He owled Hermione about the situation instead.

Her reply arrived the next morning.

Absolutely not.

He was not going to get on civil terms with Malfoy. He was not going to discover that Malfoy was surprisingly kind. In fact, Harry decided he would do the healthy thing and not let Malfoy cross his mind at all.

This proved difficult, because every single window in Harry’s cottage faced the garden, including the ones in his bedroom.

Which was how Harry found himself that morning standing at the window in only his pyjama bottoms, holding a cup of tea that was rapidly going cold, watching Draco Malfoy move through a sea of green.

It felt like intruding on something private. Malfoy looked different here. Not like he did at the Ministry, all sharp robes and sharper cheekbones and that air of expensive disdain he carried around lwith him. Here, he looked… relaxed. Happy, maybe. Carefree, which was not a word Harry had ever thought he would apply to Draco Malfoy.

He was wearing loose linen trousers and a soft green shirt with the sleeves pushed up, his pale hair tied back loosely at the nape of his neck.

He looked almost elfish. Not house-elf-ish, more like some woodland creature from one of those old Muggle storybooks Hermione used to lend him. All long limbs and a face too sharp and lovely to be entirely human. Possibly part Veela, Harry thought darkly. That would explain a few things.

Though, to be fair, Harry was sure everyone noticed that Draco Malfoy was objectively attractive. Objectively, he could appreciate it. Objectively, Malfoy had nice hands. Objectively, his hair caught the morning light in a way that made it look almost silver. Objectively—

Harry took a large sip of tea and made a face as it had gone tepid. He should have looked away but he did not.

At work, Malfoy generally spotted Harry at the far end of a corridor and immediately chose a different corridor, staircase, lift, or, on one memorable occasion, what Harry was fairly sure had been a broom cupboard. It made it quite clear that Malfoy wanted nothing to do with him, which meant Harry could tell himself he wanted nothing to do with Malfoy either.

Except it didn’t often work, because they had mutual friends now, somehow. Hermione liked him. Neville liked him. Andromeda liked him, and Teddy adored him. Even Ron had once admitted, after two pints, that Malfoy was “less awful than expected these days”, which from Ron was practically a sonnet.

So Harry didn’t really know why they weren’t friends.

Malfoy vanished back into his cottage a few minutes later, so Harry went down to the kitchen for breakfast feeling deeply put out with himself.

By lunchtime, he had decided he would ask Malfoy for gardening advice.

Not because he wanted to talk to him, obviously not, but because his garden looked like it had lost a war, and Malfoy’s looked like something out of a rich person’s fever dream, and Harry was practical enough to recognise when someone had information he needed.

The opportunity came later that afternoon.

Harry was kneeling beside one of the raised beds when he spotted Malfoy out of the corner of his eye. He was on the far side of the wall, clipping something purple into a basket and looking, annoyingly, like a painting.

Harry watched him for a few seconds, then he coughed, stood up, and brushed dirt off his trousers.

“Er. Malfoy?”

No answer. Malfoy continued clipping.

Harry narrowed his eyes. “Malfoy. I need some advice.”

Still nothing.

Harry knew perfectly well he had heard him, the tosser.

“Malfoy, I need some advice, please,” Harry called louder.

At last, Malfoy looked up. He drifted over to the stone wall with an expression of exquisite innocence. “Sorry, what was that? I didn’t hear you.”

“Yes, you did, you bloody git.”

Malfoy stopped on the other side of the wall and rested one hand lightly on the stone. “If you want something, Potter, you have to ask nicely. Have you no manners?”

Harry rolled his eyes and took a breath. “Oh, Malfoy,” he said flatly, “would you please bestow upon me the gift of your… counsel?”

Malfoy looked pleased with himself. “You almost sounded as though you had a grasp on the English language there. Well done, Potter.”

“Do not make me regret this faster than I already am.”

“I imagine you regret most things,” Malfoy said brightly. “Your hair, for example.”

“My hair is not asking for advice.”

“No, but it should be. It has been growing wild and unattended for years.”

Harry stared at him. “Are you going to help me or not?”

Malfoy looked over Harry’s shoulder at the garden and sighed, as though personally burdened by its state. “Yes, fine. I will help. Firstly, what are you trying to achieve?”

Harry gestured vaguely. “I just want it to look less abandoned.”

Malfoy leaned over the wall slightly, examining the bed with narrowed eyes. “Start with the nettles along the back. They’re choking everything else. Loosen the soil first, properly this time, and use a root-lifting charm. Not a severing charm.”

“I knew that.”

Malfoy ignored him. “Then you’ll need to clear the slate border. It’s buried, but it’s there. Once the bed is open, you can wake the soil.”

Harry frowned. “Wake it?”

Malfoy looked pained. “Sweet Circe, what are those books teaching you?”

“Mostly that gardening people use too many words for dirt.”

“That is because dirt is what you get on your trousers. Soil is what you grow things in.”

Harry glanced down at his knees, which were filthy. “Brilliant. I have both, then.”

Malfoy closed his eyes briefly, as if praying for strength. “Wand out.”

Harry obeyed.

“Point at the base of the nettles. No, not there. The base, Potter. The base is the bottom.”

“I know what a base is.”

“Evidently not.”

Harry gritted his teeth and adjusted his aim.

Under Malfoy’s instruction, and with only a moderate amount of insult, Harry managed to loosen the soil around the first clump of nettles. The roots came up in a long, tangled mass, which was disgusting but satisfying. He held it up.

Malfoy nodded. “There. See? You can be taught.”

“I’m choosing to hear that as praise.”

“Lower your standards enough and anything can be praise.”

Harry threw the nettles into a pile and moved on to the next clump.

Malfoy had him clear the back row first, then uncover the slate border with a cleaning charm and a small silver trowel Harry hadn’t even realised had been tucked under a mess of grass. Then he talked Harry through waking the soil, which involved a charm that made the earth hum faintly under his hands.

Harry tried very hard not to keep looking at Malfoy throughout this process. Naturally, he failed.

Malfoy stood with one hip against the wall, sleeves rolled up, long white-blond hair sliding over one shoulder every time he shook his head disapprovingly. Which he did often, because apparently Harry was committing crimes against horticulture every thirty seconds. His grey eyes narrowed whenever Harry put his hand in the wrong place, his mouth pursed, and Harry was becoming increasingly aware that Malfoy’s mouth was a problem.

“Not like that,” Malfoy said for the sixth time.

Harry looked up. “What now?”

Malfoy sighed. “Gently. Ease it free, then move it towards the shaded bed.”

Harry did as he was told.

He followed Malfoy’s instructions to the letter. Or tried to. Every time he got something wrong, Malfoy corrected him, sounding increasingly exasperated and increasingly pleased to be exasperated. Harry wondered when, exactly, Malfoy had become so good at this. It wasn’t completely strange, he supposed. Malfoy was a potioneer. It made sense he would know plants. Ingredients did not just appear in jars.

“Potter,” Malfoy snapped.

Harry blinked. “What?”

Malfoy’s eyes narrowed. “Were you listening?”

“Yes.”

“What did I say?”

Harry looked at the bed. Then at the trowel. Then at Malfoy.

There was a short silence.

“I thought not.”

Harry huffed. “Maybe if you came over here and showed me, this would go faster.”

Malfoy's eyes widened, just slightly. A faint colour rose along the tops of his cheekbones, pink against pale skin, gone almost as soon as it appeared. Harry nearly missed it. He would have missed it, probably, if he had not been looking so closely.

“I can’t,” Malfoy said.

Harry frowned. “Why not?”

“Because my time is precious, Potter,” Malfoy said, recovering with impressive speed. “And I cannot be roped into spending more of it with you than necessary. I have things to do, you know.”

“Oh,” Harry said. It came out more disappointed than he meant it to.

Malfoy looked away first. “Yes, well.” He pushed off from the wall and picked up his basket. “That should be enough to keep you from destroying anything important for at least an hour.”

“High praise.”

“Do not get used to it.”

Harry forced a small smile. “See you later, Malfoy.”

Malfoy nodded. “Goodbye, Potter.”

He turned and walked back through his own garden, pale hair shifting over his back.

Harry watched him go.

This, he thought, was the problem with Malfoy. Every time Harry thought they were making some kind of progress, even the smallest possible progress, Malfoy pulled away.

Harry looked down at the half-cleared bed, then at the wall between their gardens and sighed. Apparently, his garden was not the only thing here that was going to be difficult.

Draco spent the next few days inside, simply making a tactical decision to remain indoors (not hiding), where there was brewing equipment, and, most importantly, no Harry Potter leaning over stone walls looking broad-shouldered and asking Draco to come into his garden.

Honestly, the nerve of him.

Draco had enough ingredients already. More than enough, actually. His shelves were lined with carefully labelled jars, so Draco brewed.

He brewed calming draughts, replenishing tonics, two experimental stabilising bases, and one slightly illegal anti-inflammatory variant that St Mungo’s would probably pretend not to want and then immediately ask him for twelve vials of. He stayed in the brewing room until the air was warm and thick with steam and the witch-lights above the cauldron were flickering.

It should have helped, but it did not.

Because somewhere beyond the walls of the cottage, Harry Potter was still there. Probably ruining his garden, standing in the sun like some sort of rustic fantasy for people with terrible judgement.

Draco did not have terrible judgement, usually.

On the fourth afternoon, while going through a stack of old (and technically banned) academic potion journals he had brought, Draco discovered something interesting.

Draco was halfway through an article on advanced emotional stabilisation when a title caught his eye. Amor Victus^[1]

He frowned and pulled the journal closer.

It was not, according to the description, a memory potion. It did not remove the memory of a person, nor did it alter facts, perception, or recollection. Instead, it stripped away emotional attachment until what remained was neutrality. Indifference. The person stayed in the mind but lost all feeling attached to them.

It had been used, the article claimed, in cases of unrequited love.

Well, that was interesting.

The potion was apparently difficult to brew, temperamental, and rather dangerous if mishandled. It required strong intent, exact emotional focus, and, most importantly, a definite desire to be rid of the feelings in question.

Draco leaned back in his chair.

That seemed perfectly manageable. Draco definitely desired Harry Potter to stop appearing in his dreams and various night-time fantasies. So really, he fit the bill rather nicely.

He stood and went to the shelves.

Most of the ingredients were already there: powdered moonstone, crushed asphodel, a little phial of preserved rue. None were rare; it was a very natural potion, and anything he didn't have, the garden would provide.

Draco set the ingredients out in a neat row and stared at them.

The room was silent except for the soft pop of the cauldron behind him and the faint ticking of the old wall clock.

He could brew it, he really could.

He could spend a few careful hours working through the method, let it settle overnight, take it in the morning, and then Harry Potter would simply become Harry Potter. Nothing more. No little pull beneath Draco’s ribs when he heard the name. No ridiculous awareness of his hands, or mouth, or stupid face. No instinctive, treacherous warmth when Potter looked at him like Draco was something worth knowing.

Draco picked up the jar of powdered moonstone, then put it down again.

“Oh, for Salazar’s sake,” he muttered.

He rubbed both hands over his face, which was inelegant but privately permitted, then pushed back from the workbench.

He needed air. Or alcohol. Ideally both.

Andromeda had given him instructions to the nearest village, which apparently had a pub. Draco would like a whisky, and not having to cook for himself while in the middle of a minor existential crisis.

He considered Apparating, then dismissed it. Apparating directly into a Muggle village was inadvisable unless one wanted to terrify Muggles. Apparating just outside the village was also unwise, because the Highlands were full of open stretches of nothing. One wrong calculation and he might end up halfway into a bog, or living out the rest of his life among cows.

So he walked. The path curved down through heather and rough grass, the air cool enough to clear his head. The Highlands were obnoxiously beautiful, all vast sky and hills and wind that seemed personally invested in ruining his hair. By the time he reached the village, he was less tightly wound, though no closer to understanding what possessed him to consider brewing emotional self-amputation in the middle of a holiday.

He asked a local woman where he might find a decent drink. She pointed him towards a small stone pub near the end of the lane.

It looked tolerable from the outside. Inside, it was low-ceilinged, warm, and cosy, with a fire in the grate and a polished bar. Unfortunately, it was also full. Every table was taken, and the landlady was standing beside one of them, laughing with—

Oh, Merlin.

Potter.

Of course Harry bloody Potter was here too, seated at the only table with any spare room, a half-finished pint in front of him. He had clearly walked here as well, judging by the wind-tousled hair and the faint colour in his cheeks.

Draco had half a mind to leave.

The other half, however, remembered there was apparently nowhere else nearby to buy good alcohol, and Draco had not walked half an hour through aggressive scenery to turn around sober.

Taking a chair at one of the other occupied tables would involve asking locals if he might join them, which sounded hideously intimate and embarrassing. So, after a short but brutal internal battle, Draco did the only reasonable thing.

He walked straight to Potter’s table, shrugged off his coat, and sat down.

Potter looked up at him with wide green eyes.

“Hello!” the landlady said brightly, appearing beside him with terrifying cheer. “And what’ll you have?”

“Single malt, please. Neat, if you will.”

“Of course.” She smiled and bustled off.

Potter was still staring.

“Malfoy,” he began.

“Save it,” Draco said. “I don’t want to be here either.”

Potter blinked, then his mouth twitched. “No, I was going to say I didn’t ever think you’d be on a pub night with me.”

“Yes, because I don’t wish to go out with you and your rowdy, brutish Auror coworkers. Sue me.”

Potter laughed.

Draco narrowed his eyes. The alcohol was clearly having some sort of effect on him.

“Well,” Potter said, leaning back. “I’ve got you here now, at least.”

“And this will be the first and last time.”

The landlady returned with Draco’s drink, which he accepted with a grateful nod. He took a sip. Not excellent, but acceptable. It would do the job, and sometimes that was all one could ask from life.

She also placed Potter’s food in front of him: soggy chips and a cheese toastie.

“Are you seven, Potter?”

Potter looked down at his plate, then back at him. “What?”

“The 'meal',” Draco said, putting the word in air quotes.

Potter picked up the toastie and took a defiant bite. “Is a man not allowed to enjoy a simple toastie?”

“A man is allowed a great many things,” Draco said. “That does not mean he should pursue them.”

“It’s bread and cheese. You can’t be offended by bread and cheese.”

“I can be offended by anything if sufficient carelessness has gone into it.”

Potter grinned around another bite.

Draco took another sip of whisky and looked away.

“I’ll have to get some proper food in you at some point,” he said before he could stop himself.

Potter’s eyes sharpened with immediate, awful interest. “Does that mean we’ll go out to dinner together, or you’ll cook for me?”

The thought of both scenarios hit Draco with such force that he took a long drink.

“You wish.”

“I’d prefer if we went out to dinner,” Potter said. “If you cooked for me, I’d be worried about poison.”

Draco placed a wounded hand over his heart. “You think so little of me? I would never do that to our holy saviour, the Chosen One.”

Potter’s grin widened. “One can never be too careful at my level of fame.”

Draco scoffed. “I don’t feel any sympathy for you and your fame.”

“I’ll tell you a story which will make you feel sympathy.”

“I severely doubt that.”

Potter ate a chip, considered him, then said, “I was seeing this bloke once. He came to my place, but he was only interested in finding various paraphernalia I supposedly had left from the war. I swear he wanted to wank to them or something.”

The story was funny. Objectively, it was funny. Draco could recognise that from a literary and social standpoint. Unfortunately, Draco was too busy experiencing a sudden flare of white-hot jealousy to enjoy it properly.

Seeing this bloke. This bloke who had been in Potter’s house. Potter’s actual house. Possibly with access to Potter’s mouth and hands and—

“I must admit,” he said, with what he hoped was casual interest and not the voice of a man resisting the urge to ask for a name, address, and list of weaknesses, “I’ve seen some strange things in the papers. Do you date a lot of wizards and witches, then?”

Potter shrugged. “Eh. Just a few. I mainly stick to Muggles. They know less.” He pulled a face. “But they’re weird too, honestly. Do I just attract weirdos?”

Draco did not consider himself a weirdo. Difficult, yes. Particular, certainly. Occasionally dramatic, in a tasteful way. But not weird.

The whisky, however, had clearly begun loosening something dangerous in him, because he heard himself say, “I think you could attract anyone.”

Potter looked at him.

Draco’s brain realised what his mouth had done approximately one second too late.

He recovered with admirable speed. “Provided you fixed your hair, your clothes, your glasses, and everything else.”

Potter laughed, the bastard. “Right. Everything. Easy.”

“Yes, I then you might be able to pull as much as me.”

“I don’t hear about your habits much in the papers,” Potter said, still smiling a little. “What about you?”

Draco leaned back in his chair and tried to look as though this conversation had not just strolled into deeply dangerous territory. “Oh, nothing serious. Casual things, mostly. Muggles, like you. Or French wizards in the summers I’m there.”

Potter’s eyebrows rose. “Muggles?”

“Yes, Potter. Oh, don’t look so shocked. Is one not allowed to grow out of their childhood prejudices?”

“No, yes, obviously one is allowed, I just—” Potter ran a hand through his already messy hair, making it worse, which seemed to be his primary hobby. “Merlin. I didn’t think I’d ever talk to you about our respective sex lives.”

“I’m not a prude, so I don’t mind.”

Draco did not mind on moral grounds. He was not about to clutch his pearls and faint into his whisky because Harry Potter had, tragically, discovered sex. Draco minded because he did not want to imagine Potter having sex with other people.

Unfortunately, telling Potter this would be insane.

“It’s not that I mind,” Potter said, then stopped. He shook his head, and a mischievous look slid onto his face, which immediately made Draco suspicious. “Do you think you and I have ever shagged the same bloke, then?”

Draco did not like this question.

It was a horrible question. A dangerous question.

He looked down and discovered, with some alarm, that his glass was already empty.

“If I’m going to answer that,” Draco said, lifting the glass and signalling to the landlady for another, “I shall need to be properly drunk first.”

Malfoy did, as promised, get properly drunk. More than properly drunk, actually. Proper sloshed. Five whiskies drunk, which Harry felt was excessive even for someone whose general approach to life seemed to be luxurious self-destruction.

Harry himself was pleasantly tipsy. Two beers, one whisky, and a large amount of pub food had settled him into a warm, loose sort of mood where everything seemed funnier than usual and Malfoy seemed very tolerable.

Malfoy had eaten half of Harry’s chips after spending ten full minutes complaining that they were greasy, under-seasoned, badly cooked, and an insult to potatoes everywhere.

“You keep eating them,” Harry had pointed out.

“Yes,” Malfoy had said, stealing another one. “To understand the full scale of the crime.”

They had spent the rest of the evening trading stories about their dating lives, which should have been awkward and horrifying and, in some places, absolutely was. But it was also funny. Malfoy had a wickedly sharp way of telling a story, especially if the story involved someone embarrassing themselves in front of him, which apparently many people had done. Harry had to admit that, for all Malfoy was a complete toff, he was a funny one. A funny, intelligent, drunk, unfairly pretty toff. Which Harry was not thinking about.

Near closing time, Malfoy did not notice Harry paying the whole bill. Harry considered telling him, then decided against it. Malfoy would probably make a whole thing of it, anyway.

When they finally stood to leave, Malfoy made it halfway upright, swayed dramatically, and sat back down.

Harry pushed a glass of water towards him. “You should drink this.”

Malfoy picked it up between his long fingers and eyed it with deep suspicion. “Is this tap water?” he asked, voice slightly slurred. “Darling, you know I don’t drink tap water.”

Malfoy had taken to calling him darling somewhere around whisky number three, and Harry had taken to pretending this did absolutely nothing to him. His ears were only hot because the pub was warm. Or because of the beer. Or because of some other sensible, non-Malfoy-related reason.

“Er,” Harry said. “It’s not tap water. It’s highly rare spring water from the… Alps?”

Malfoy narrowed his eyes at him. “How is that possible?”

“I have powerful connections.”

Malfoy considered this, then sighed deeply at the glass, as though the water had personally disappointed him, and downed the whole thing.

Then he turned in his chair and called, “Waiter! How is that… possible?”

Harry pulled an apologetic face at the landlady, who only chuckled and waved them off.

“We should really get home,” Harry said, standing.

Getting Malfoy into his coat took longer than it should have done, mostly because Malfoy appeared deeply confused by the existence of sleeves. Eventually, though, they managed it and slipped out into the night.

The village was quiet, the sky above them deep and clear and full of stars. Once they reached the path back towards the cottages, Harry lifted his wand in a lumos.

Soft light spilled out ahead of them, picking out the track through heather and long grass. They walked in silence for a little while, boots crunching over stone, the wind moving cold across the hills.

Malfoy started shivering halfway up the path. Harry rolled his eyes and cast a warming charm over both of them.

Malfoy blinked, then looked over. “Thanks, Potter.” He paused. “You know, you’re actually really great.”

Harry’s stomach did something stupid.

Then Malfoy seemed to sober up for half a second and added, “At… gardening.”

Harry huffed. “I thought I was terrible.”

Malfoy sighed as if the truth was being dragged out of him against his will. “No. You’re a fast learner.”

“I could be even faster if you didn’t run away from giving me a hands-on lesson.”

Malfoy’s mouth twitched. “I suppose I could give you a handsy lesson.”

Harry nearly tripped over nothing. “Hands-on.”

Malfoy waved one elegant hand. “And I didn’t run away, darling. Malfoys don’t run. It’s undignified.”

“You left me hanging.”

“Fine,” Malfoy said grandly. “I’ll give you a handsy lesson.”

“Again: hands-on.”

“I know what the fuck I’m saying, Potter.”

“Uh-huh.”

Malfoy muttered something under his breath, took three more steps, and promptly attempted to faceplant into the path.

Harry caught him by the elbow and hauled him upright. “Be careful, Malfoy. Merlin.”

For a second, Malfoy was very close.

Too close. The wandlight caught the pale line of his cheekbone, the loose fall of his hair, the ridiculous curve of his mouth. Harry could barely make out his expression in the dark, but it felt oddly private anyway, standing there with his hand still wrapped around Malfoy’s arm and the Highlands stretching out silent around them.

Then Malfoy pulled away and continued walking as though nothing had happened.

“Always saving people,” he muttered. “Saving, saving, saving. Bloody Saviour. Goodness gracious.”

Harry stared after him. “Did you want to land flat on your face and break your nice nose?”

The words left his mouth before he had time to inspect them. Brilliant. Maybe Harry was more drunk than he’d thought.

Malfoy stopped and turned, offended at once. “What’s wrong with my nose?”

“What? Nothing. I said it was nice.”

“Sarcasm.”

“No,” Harry said, then swallowed. “Not sarcasm. You have a nice nose.”

Malfoy went very still for a second, then he hummed and carried on walking.

They reached the cottages a few minutes later. Malfoy’s came first, tucked behind the dark line of trees, its windows glowing faintly. Harry’s was further down the lane, but he stopped at the edge of Malfoy’s path and watched him go up towards the front door.

Not because he was worried Well. Fine. He was a bit worried.

Which was ridiculous, because Malfoy was a grown man. A grown, capable, deeply irritating man who had once survived a war and currently, monthly Ministry committees.

Harry stayed where he was.

Malfoy reached his doorstep and then just stood there, swaying.

“For fuck’s sake.” Harry walked up the path after him. “Keys.”

Malfoy blinked at the door, then at Harry. After some fumbling in his coat pocket, he handed over the keys.

Harry unlocked the door and pushed it open.

“There,” he said. “Try not to die between here and your bed.”

Malfoy stared at him for a long moment. In the warm spill of light from inside the cottage, his face looked softer than usual. His hair was wind-tangled, his cheeks faintly flushed, and his grey eyes were fixed on Harry in a way that made Harry’s chest feel strangely tight.

“You should come inside, darling,” Malfoy said quietly. “Stay over?”

Harry’s brain stopped entirely.

He stared back at Malfoy, trying to work out whether that meant what it sounded like, or whether drunk Malfoy was simply the sort of person who invited former school enemies in for sleepovers.

“It’s late, Malfoy,” Harry said at last. Get some sleep.”

Malfoy gave a small, careless shrug. “Yeah. Yeah.”

Harry stood there for a moment, staring at the dark wood, then he turned and walked back down the path towards his own cottage, wandlight bobbing uselessly ahead of him, wondering what the hell Malfoy had meant.

The next morning, Draco woke with a banging headache, a proper five-whiskies-and-poor-life-choices headache. It felt like his skull had been hollowed out in the night and filled with angry bees.

He lay very still for a moment, eyes shut, reviewing the previous evening.

The review was not encouraging. There had been whisky. Potter. More whisky. A discussion about dating, which had almost certainly been a mistake. Potter paying far too much attention with those ridiculous green eyes of his. More whisky. Potter’s mouth doing that unfair little smile.

Then next to nothing.

Draco opened one eye. Oh, that was bad.

He dragged himself out of bed, regretted every decision he had ever made, and made his way to the brewing room. There was a strange knocking sound somewhere nearby, which he chose, initially, to ignore on the grounds that it might simply be his brain trying to escape through his ears.

He brewed a hangover potion with shaking hands and far less grace than usual, swallowed it, and stood with both palms braced on the workbench as the headache slowly retreated.

Blessed relief.

The knocking, however, did not stop. Draco frowned.

He followed the sound through the cottage to the sitting room window, where an unfamiliar owl was pecking insistently at the glass.

“Impatient little beast,” Draco muttered, opening the window.

The owl flew in, dropped a note on the nearest table, and flew straight back out again, as though it had better places to be and very little respect for him personally.

Draco picked up the note.

Draco stared at the parchment. What in the name of Merlin had he said to Potter last night?

His stomach dropped in a small, undignified way. He searched his memory again, more urgently this time, and found absolutely nothing after a certain point in the walk home. Lovely. A blackout. He was twenty-nine and apparently still capable of behaving like an emotionally unstable sixth-year who had just discovered the joys of alcohol.

He had not confessed to Potter, surely.

Even his stupid drunk brain would not betray him quite so thoroughly. There were limits. Weren’t there?

Draco sat down at the kitchen table and pressed the note flat beneath his fingertips.

No. Potter’s message was far too casual. Infuriating, yes, but casual. If Draco had confessed anything truly catastrophic, Potter would not be sending smiley faces by owl. Potter would have run screaming into the hills. Or Australia.

He made Potter wait for an hour.

Not out of panic, obviously. It was important to establish boundaries. Also, Draco required breakfast, tea, a second cup of tea, and a period of staring into the garden while wondering whether he should fake his own death and begin again under an assumed name.

Eventually, feeling almost human, he made his way through the garden towards the low stone wall.

The gate between the two gardens was unlocked.

On the other side, Potter was already kneeling beside one of the cleared beds, sleeves rolled up, hands dirty, hair worse than usual. He had made actual progress. The nettles were gone and the slate border had been uncovered.

“I don’t suppose you were lying in your message,” he said, entering Potter’s garden through the gate. “You’re far too Gryffindor for that.”

Potter looked up and the smirk on his face was immediate. “You should’ve heard the sort of stuff you were saying.”

Draco fought very hard not to look alarmed. He suspected he failed.

“What sort?”

Potter leaned back on his heels. “Potter is the greatest, all hail Potter, I actually think he’s super cool and I just lie about it all the time.”

So Draco had almost certainly not confessed anything. Potter was still joking, which meant Draco had not said I fancy you. If he had, Potter would be behaving differently.

“No part of me thinks of you like that,” Draco said. “I swear to Salazar. Now let’s get this over with, shall we?”

Potter grinned, maddeningly pleased with himself.

Draco began the lesson.

It should have been a disaster. Potter was impatient, heavy-handed, and had the self-preservation instincts of a kneazle near a lit stove, but he was improving rather steadily. They worked through the morning, side by side in Potter’s overgrown garden. Draco showed him how to clear the bindweed without damaging the moonwort beneath it, how to coax charm-sensitive roots out of compacted soil, how to recognise which weeds were actually useful.

By midday, the garden had begun to look less like a cautionary tale and more like something with potential.

“No, Potter,” Draco said, for what felt like the hundredth time. “Like this.”

He demonstrated the wand movement.

Potter copied him badly.

“Like this?”

“Again, no.”

Potter lowered his wand and looked at him. “Would you show me, then? Hands-on, remember?”

Draco looked at him sidelong.

This was a trap. Possibly not a deliberate trap, because Potter was not generally subtle enough to set one without tripping over it himself, but a trap nonetheless.

“Fine.”

He stepped in close and gripped Potter’s hand around the wand.

Potter’s hand was warm beneath his.

“Gently,” Draco said, adjusting his fingers. “You don’t have to be so harsh about everything.”

The words had barely left his mouth before he became aware of exactly how close they were.

Potter was beside him, shoulder nearly brushing Draco’s, body warm in the mild summer air. His sleeve was pushed up again, because apparently Potter had been put on this earth specifically to ruin Draco’s peace, and Draco’s hand was still over his, guiding the movement.

Potter turned his head slightly. Their faces were much too close.

Draco forgot, for one horrifying second, how gardening worked.

“And then what?” Potter prompted, voice quieter now.

“And then you, uh…” Draco cleared his throat. “You spread it with a flick of your wrist. Like this.”

He guided Potter through the charm. The soil gave a soft, pleased hum and loosened beneath them, dark and rich.

“That’s amazing,” Potter said.

Potter was not looking at the bed; his eyes were on Draco.

“I think I, err…” Potter swallowed. “Get it.”

“I’d hope so,” Draco said, though his voice came out far less cutting than intended. “It’s been practically spelled out for you.”

Potter’s mouth was right there.

So kissable. So unfairly, offensively kissable.

Draco snapped himself back into something resembling sanity and drew his hand away at once.

“Well,” he said, stepping back. “We should probably have lunch, don’t you think?”

Potter blinked, as though he too had been pulled out of something. “Right. Yeah. Lunch.”

It turned out, rather interestingly, that Potter was an excellent baker. Draco did not know what he had expected. Burnt toast, perhaps. Something tragic involving beans from a tin. Instead, Potter disappeared into his cottage and came back carrying a basket filled with warm cheese and leek pasties, little savoury herb scones, and a loaf of tomato-and-olive bread that smelled so good Draco immediately hated him for it.

They sat in the garden, backs against the low wall, with the newly cleared beds in front of them and the hills rolling away beyond the wards.

Draco spelled his hands clean, took one bite of a pasty, and had to pause.

“Gracious,” Draco said, staring down at it. “Where did you learn how to bake so well?”

Potter looked pleased. “I’ll only tell you if you tell me how you learned to garden.”

Draco gave him a look. “It’s a long story.”

“All your stories are long,” Potter said, tearing off a piece of bread. “So you might as well.”

“Hm. Well, at least they’re interesting.”

Potter snorted but did not argue, which Draco chose to consider a victory.

He looked out at the garden for a moment, at the cleared bed, at the little silver-green shoots beginning again under the soil.

“When the trials after the war ended, I had the Manor mostly to myself,” Draco said eventually. “My father was put in Azkaban, as you know. My mother fled to France. I was bored, lonely, and the Manor was in a complete state.”

Potter had gone still beside him.

“So I started small. I had always loved the gardens as a child, and after the war they were nearly dead. The wards were damaged, everything was overgrown or rotting or frozen in place. I read as much as I could. Remembered as much as I could from Herbology. Failed repeatedly, obviously, though with great elegance. And then,” Draco said, with some reluctance, “eventually I caved and owled Neville. That’s how Neville and I became acquaintances, then friends.”

Potter was looking at him in that way again, openly and interested.

“Your turn,” Draco said, before he could feel anything about that.

Potter looked down at the bread in his hands. “I was kind of the same after the war. Bored in Grimmauld Place. Didn’t really know what to do with myself.” He shrugged. “I just kept numbing myself on the telly. Then I got addicted to baking shows and taught myself.”

“You learnt to bake from Muggle television?”

“Yeah.”

“Of course you did.”

Potter grinned faintly. “It worked.”

Draco took another bite of pasty, because unfortunately it had worked, very well. “So you aren’t incompetent. How shocking. Why couldn’t you teach yourself gardening, then? Was this all a ploy to spend more time with me?”

It was meant as a joke, a harmless, cutting little comment tossed carelessly into the summer air.

Potter took another bite of his pasty, finished it, and brushed crumbs from his fingers with excessive focus.

“No,” Potter said. “Gardening is far more difficult than baking.” He stood, too quickly. “And you’re the one who offered your advice in the first place.”

Draco looked up at him.

“Break over. Let’s get back to it,” Potter said.

The garden was warm and quiet around them. Bees drifted lazily through the lavender on Draco’s side of the wall.

Draco watched Potter turn back towards the beds.

Was it possible Potter had wanted to spend more time with him?

The thought arrived absurd and dangerous. Draco immediately hated it. No. Potter had needed help. Draco was convenient. They happened to know each other. That was all.

That was absolutely all.

Harry was having a very vivid recurring dream.

This had been going on for several nights now, which felt unnecessary.

The dream was always slightly different, but always, horrifyingly, the same where it mattered.

Malfoy underneath him. That long, slender body laid out beneath Harry’s hands. Pale hair spilling across pillows, or grass, or once, memorably, the kitchen table, which Harry’s sleeping brain had apparently decided was fine. Malfoy’s hands in Harry’s hair, fingers threading through and pulling just enough to tip Harry’s head where he wanted it. His throat exposed. Pale skin under Harry’s mouth. Marks blooming there, red and possessive. And Malfoy making noises. Pretty, soft, breathless, broken ones.

God, he had always thought Malfoy would sound like—

Harry woke up. He stared at the ceiling.

For several seconds, he did not move. He just lay there in the morning light, body warm, heart thudding, brain slowly arriving back from wherever it had been and immediately trying to leave again.

He sat up abruptly, grabbed his glasses from the bedside table, and shoved them onto his face.

The room came into focus. His cottage bedroom. Plain wooden beams, untidy clothes over the chair. Very normal and innocent.

Unlike Harry, apparently.

He rubbed both hands over his face and groaned.

This was becoming a problem. Not because Malfoy was unattractive. Obviously he was attractive. That was not news. Everyone knew Draco Malfoy was attractive. It was practically a public fact, like the Ministry being useless or Ron getting weirdly intense about Chudley Cannons. Malfoy was objectively beautiful. Tall, pale, sharp-faced, silver-haired, long-fingered, stupidly elegant.

Anyone with eyes could notice that.

It did not have to mean anything. Except Harry’s brain had not recently been producing vivid dreams about, say, the landlady of the pub or the bloke at the village shop who sold them eggs. No. His brain had selected Draco Malfoy. Very specifically.

And the worst part was that things between them had actually become… good.

Two weeks had passed since the first pub night. Two weeks since Malfoy had got spectacularly drunk and asked Harry to come inside.

Stay over?

Harry still thought about it far too often.

He would never have said yes, obviously. Malfoy had been drunk. Harry was not an arse.

You should come inside, darling. Stay over?

Like a friendly sleepover? No. That was stupid. Draco Malfoy did not do friendly sleepovers. So had it meant something else?

Had drunk Malfoy wanted Harry to stay? Properly stay? In his cottage, in his space, maybe in his bed? And if he had wanted that drunk, would he want it sober?

More importantly, did Harry want it?

Harry stared down at his duvet like it might answer him.

The past two weeks had not helped. If anything, they had made everything worse. At first, Harry had thought the gardening lessons would be a one-time thing. Malfoy would sweep in, insult Harry, then vanish back to his own perfect little garden forever.

Instead, Malfoy had kept coming back.

The day after the first proper lesson, Harry had been fully prepared for Malfoy to pretend none of it had happened. That seemed very Malfoy. But late in the afternoon, Malfoy had let himself in, as though the gate between their gardens belonged to him as much as anything else.

After that, things had settled into a strange rhythm.

Mornings were usually their own. Harry baked, watched the telly, replied to letters, and tried not to look through the windows too much.

Afternoons were for the garden. Malfoy taught Harry how to prune charm-sensitive roses, how to separate sleeping lavender from ordinary lavender, how to charm the beds so the soil held warmth at night, how to keep moon-moss from spreading into the vegetable patch, and so on.

The garden had started changing under their hands. A little herb path opened up near the back wall. The dead-looking shrubs along the lower terrace turned out not to be dead at all, just dormant. The orchard trees were pruned back, the pond cleared, the broken trellis repaired, and the entire place began to look less like some Black had abandoned it out of spite and more like something that might have once been loved.

Sometimes they argued for an hour about nothing, or they worked quietly side by side.

Sometimes Malfoy would hand Harry a cutting or a tool or a handful of seeds and their fingers would brush, and Harry would immediately forget where he was.

Then there had been the pub. They had gone back three times since that first night. Malfoy had not got that drunk again, obviously. Apparently he had decided one night of disgrace was enough for a lifetime. They talked about work, their friends, and the war sometimes, though carefully and never for too long. They walked home together through the dark with their wandlights bobbing ahead of them.

By all accounts, they were becoming friends.

Maybe that was all they had ever needed. An unplanned holiday in the Scottish Highlands, one overgrown garden (thank you Blacks), and a wall between them that, apparently, neither of them was very good at staying on the correct side of.

Except Harry did not usually dream about biting love marks into his friends’ throats.

Later that day, Harry was back in the garden with the object of his complete mental collapse standing in front of him.

Malfoy looked unfairly pleased with himself, which was annoying because he had every right to be. The garden was finished, and it looked beautiful.

It was almost unrecognisable from the wild, neglected mess Harry had arrived to. The main beds were cleared and replanted. The pond was open again, reflecting the sky in bright pieces. The path had been uncovered all the way down to the lower terrace, where Malfoy had helped him plant night-blooming jasmine and silver thyme.

Harry felt weirdly proud of it.

“Well,” Malfoy said, surveying the garden like a general inspecting a conquered nation. “I suppose we’re done now. The garden looks amazing.”

Harry had known that, obviously, but his stomach sank before he could stop it.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

Malfoy glanced at him. “You’re right, Potter, one can always improve. But it looks near perfection to me, of course because I was involved.”

Harry rolled his eyes, but he did not disagree.

“I have something for you,” he said, before he lost his nerve. “As a thank you.”

Malfoy turned at once. “Oh, I do love presents.”

“Shocking,” Harry said.

“Don’t be tedious. Give it here.”

Harry handed him the little wicker basket he had put together that morning.

The basket was lined with a clean tea towel and packed with baked things: honey oat biscuits, little lemon cakes, and rosemary shortbread.

Malfoy opened it and looked delighted.

Harry felt that stupid warm thing in his chest again and tried very hard not to stare at his face.

“You are absolutely spoiling my sweet tooth, Potter—oh, what’s this?”

Malfoy had found the bouquet. It had seemed like a good idea that morning. A nice idea. A normal, harmless, garden-related thank you. Harry had picked the flowers carefully from his garden, because that had seemed fitting. White roses from the arch, little pale bell flowers from near Harry’s pond. And a few other flowers and herbs whose names Harry had forgotten.

They looked like Malfoy, he had thought. White and green and silver.

Now Malfoy was staring at them like Harry had handed him a live grenade.

“I—Potter, I—” Malfoy looked up, his face suddenly pale. “What do you mean?”

Harry blinked. “What?”

Malfoy stared at him.

“They’re just flowers,” Harry said, feeling instantly defensive. “We’ve been working on a garden.”

“You really don’t know?” he asked.

“No?”

Malfoy shut his eyes briefly, as though asking some ancient ancestor for patience. “In pure-blood culture, gifting flowers is only for if you’re courting, or wish to court.”

“What, are we in the eighteen hundreds?”

“It’s tradition!” Malfoy snapped, though the colour had risen faintly in his cheeks now. “Look, I appreciate the sentiment, but, unless you mean it, you really shouldn’t.” He looked down at the bouquet again, and his voice went odd. “Flowers also have meanings, you know.”

Harry opened his mouth.

I do mean it.

The words appeared in his head so clearly that for a second he almost said them.

I do mean it.

He wanted to. God, he wanted to. The realisation arrived with a horrible, brilliant certainty.

He did mean it. Maybe not in some polished, thought-through, mature way. Maybe not with a plan. Harry rarely had a plan. But he meant the flowers. He meant the careful choosing, the early morning baking, the wanting Malfoy to smile when he opened the basket.

He meant it, and that was terrifying. So naturally, Harry said absolutely nothing.

“What is the meaning?”

“What?”

“The flowers,” Harry said. “What did I accidentally say?”

“Oh.” Malfoy looked down at the bouquet again, expression difficult to read. “Well. It’s been a while since my mandatory childhood classes on flower language—”

“Merlin, pure-bloods are weird.”

Malfoy ignored him. “But roughly, what you just gave me means: please think of me. I’m devoted to you, and I want to make you happy.”

Harry’s entire body seemed to go hot and cold at the same time.

Because that was—

That was not exactly wrong, was it?

It was embarrassingly close, actually.

“Oh,” Harry said brilliantly.

“Yes,” Malfoy said softly. “And of course that’s not what you meant.”

Harry just stared at him.

This was the moment. The moment where any sensible person would say, Actually, I think maybe it is.

“Is… Is that what you meant?”

Harry’s mouth went dry and he panicked.

“No,” he said. “Er, of course not.”

Malfoy’s expression shuttered and he simply went still, then nodded once, curtly, and placed the flowers back in the basket.

“Thank you anyway,” Malfoy said. “Especially for the sweet treats.”

Harry’s chest did something awful.

“Maybe we could go to the pub tonight?” he asked, too quickly.

Malfoy’s fingers tightened very slightly around the basket handle.

“Maybe not,” he said. “I do have some things to catch up on. I actually came here to brew.”

A disappointed, sinking feeling opened in Harry’s stomach.

Whatever he felt for Malfoy, and apparently it was something, it was clearly not reciprocated. Or it had been, for one dangerous second, and Harry had killed it by being a coward, something he usually was not. Brilliant work all round. Ten points to Gryffindor for emotional incompetence.

Harry watched as Malfoy slipped back through the gate, closing it firmly behind him.

Draco put the flowers in a vase.

He was heartbroken, not uncivilised. There was no reason to waste perfectly good flowers.

The bouquet looked infuriatingly beautiful on the kitchen table.

Please think of me. I’m devoted to you, and I want to make you happy.

Draco stared at them.

He had almost allowed himself to hope, which was embarrassing, obviously, but not fatal. Draco had survived worse things than a disappointing afternoon with Harry Potter.

He went into the brewing room. The journal lay open where he had left it, the page on Amor Victus creased slightly at the corner. He smoothed it flat with two fingers and read it again.

A potion not to erase memory, but to sever attachment. One would remember the person, but feel nothing.

That was what he wanted. Obviously. He wanted the pull under his ribs to stop every time Potter smiled. He wanted to sleep without imagining Potter’s hands in his hair, Potter’s mouth on his, Potter’s voice saying his name like it meant something. He wanted to stop feeling as if one careless word from Potter could either ruin or restore his entire day.

The method looked simple enough at first glance.^[3]

The article itself was maddeningly vague in several places, unfinished in others, and included the reassuring note that the potion had “worked only in select recorded cases.” Draco adored putting his emotional wellbeing in the hands of nineteenth-century experimental brewing notes.

But what other choice did he have? Continue living like this?

He copied the method onto a spare sheet of parchment and set it beside the cauldron.

Draco’s eyes caught on the line, which said a scent associated with the beloved. Beloved.

He made a face. “Dramatic.”

Which was rich, coming from him.

He gathered what he already had: powdered moonstone, crushed asphodel, wormwood, nettle tips, rue, heartsease. He had preserved bleeding-heart flowers from the garden.

The rainwater was more irritating. It had not rained since morning, but the garden had collection basins tucked beneath several copper gutters. Draco fetched a clean glass bottle and filled it from the basin beside the greenhouse. Then he stripped white willow bark from the tree near the lower terrace, collected fresh lavender, and smouldered them in a shallow bronze dish until the room filled with soft, herbaceous smoke.

The rainwater shivered beautifully in the silver cauldron. The moonstone dissolved in delicate, pearly clouds. Seven clockwise stirs turned it bright and metallic, like captured moonlight. The asphodel and wormwood sank together, and for a moment nothing happened.

The potion began to steam and the scent rose slowly.

It smelt like warm bread and whatever ridiculous aftershave Potter used that smelled of cedar smoke. Coffee beans. Rosemary scones and honey biscuits. Like Potter’s ridiculous baking basket.

Nettle tips one at a time. Three counter-clockwise stirs after each. White willow bark and rue. Lavender smoke curled over the cauldron and sank into the surface, turning the silver liquid milky at the edges. He lowered the heat and watched, waiting for pale blue.

It took hours.

The potion was temperamental in the extreme. Too much heat and it darkened. Too little and it clouded. The nettles had to be added at exactly the right intervals.

By midnight, Draco’s shoulders ached.

The potion had finally settled into a faint, ghostly blue, but Draco could not add the heartsease until the steam stopped. It continued rising in thin, elegant ribbons for nearly an hour.

Draco sat on the stool beside the workbench, wrapped in a shawl, glaring at it.

“I have things to be devastated about,” he informed the cauldron. “Do hurry up.”

Eventually, the room became too hot and too full of the scent of herbs and flowers and the awful warm smell of Potter lingering underneath it all.

Draco needed air. He wrapped the shawl tighter around his shoulders and went outside.

The garden at night omething else entirely. The wards shimmered faintly above the terraces, catching moonlight like a veil of glass. The paths glowed pale beneath his feet, each stone holding a soft silver gleam. Night-blooming flowers had opened along the beds, white petals unfurling like little moons, and the roses along the arch had deepened to a dark, velvety blue.

Draco walked like sleepwalking, with no intention at all.

He knew where he was going before he admitted it to himself.

The low stone wall between the gardens appeared at the end of the path, pale under the moon.

For one delirious second, Draco thought he had actually cracked. Perhaps the potion fumes had gone to his head, for Harry Potter was there.

But he blinked, and Potter remained.

He was standing on his side of the wall with his back half-turned, dressed in a loose nightshirt, his hair reflecting silver in the moonlight.

“Why must you always be around?” he said, voice cutting through the night, exasperated and exhausted and far too raw.

Potter turned in surprise.

“Hello to you too.”

“I’m quite done with pleasantries around you.”

Potter blinked, then huffed a quiet laugh. “Our conversations before were pleasant? Wow.”

“As a matter of fact, they were.” Draco walked closer to the wall as he spoke, because apparently his body made its own stupid decisions. “I refrained from telling you how annoying you are. How absolutely maddening.”

Potter’s amusement faded slightly.

Draco reached the wall. Potter was on the other side, close enough now that Draco could see the glint of moonlight on his glasses, the shape of his mouth, the dark line of his throat above the loose collar of his shirt.

“How distracting, how fucking… distracting.”

Potter stared at him.

It was dreadful, really, how quickly the air could become charged around Harry Potter. One second Draco was trying to be furious, which was his right and frankly one of his finer qualities, and the next he was thinking about Potter’s lips. Plump, slightly parted, entirely too close. Potter’s hair was a mess, naturally. His nightshirt slipped loose at the collar.

Draco wanted to grab him by that collar and ravish him.

“I was starting to get the impression you liked me, actually,” Potter said.

Draco’s pulse kicked hard.

“I—how?”

Potter’s mouth twitched. “I thought we were becoming friends. I was going to ask about a first-name basis soon.”

How absurd that something so small could sound so enormous.

“Well, I don’t want to be on a first-name basis with you. In fact, I’m going to be leaving.”

He would finish the potion properly. He would drink it. Harry Potter would be a man in the next cottage and after the summer a coworker, and nothing more.

He turned.

“Goodbye.”

“Draco.”

Draco stopped dead.

His heart did something so violent it was frankly embarrassing.

“Don’t leave,” Potter said.

The sound of Draco’s name in his mouth was unbearable.

Draco closed his eyes briefly.

“Don’t do this to me,” he said, turning back. “Don’t mess with my feelings.”

Potter looked startled. “I’m not—”

But Draco was already walking back to the wall. The wall between them. The stupid, ancient, symbolic wall that had become the site of every ruinous thing that had happened to him this summer.

“Draco,” Potter said again.

Draco surged forward and kissed him. The wall was between them, awkward and cold at his waist, but Potter leaned in at once like he had been waiting, like the distance had been the only thing stopping him. His hand came up immediately, fingers threading into Draco’s hair, and Draco made a soft, startled sound against his mouth before he could stop himself.

Potter kissed Draco like he wanted him, warm and eager and a little desperate, one hand in his hair and the other braced on the stone wall between them.

Draco’s hands found Potter’s nightshirt, gripping the loose fabric, pulling him closer even though the wall made closer mostly impossible. Infuriating, obstructive, outdated, unnecessary wall. He kissed Potter harder in retaliation, licking into his mouth, and Potter made a low sound that went straight through him.

For a moment, Draco forgot everything. All of it vanished beneath Potter’s mouth and Potter’s hands and the dizzying fact of being wanted.

He broke away, breathing hard.

“Potter—”

“Harry,” Potter said immediately.

Draco stared at him.

“Harry,” Draco said, and felt Potter’s fingers tighten slightly in his hair. “Do you truly like me?”

He expected yes, but the question clearly caught Potter off guard.

“What?”

Draco’s chest went cold.

“It’s a simple question.”

Potter swallowed. “I—well. It’s complicated, isn’t it?”

Draco pulled away from him sharply.

“No,” he said, voice low and furious. “It’s not fucking complicated.”

Potter looked stricken. “Draco—”

“Stop saying my name. It’s Malfoy.”

Potter stared at him, stunned.

Draco stepped back from the wall, the cold night air rushing into the space where Potter had just been. His mouth still tingled. His hands were shaking slightly, hidden under the edge of the shawl.

“I’m leaving.”

Potter said nothing.

Draco turned and walked away as fast as dignity allowed, then abandoned dignity entirely halfway up the path and nearly ran.

He slammed the cottage door behind him and he went straight to the brewing room.

The potion waited in the silver cauldron, pale blue and perfectly still. The steam had stopped.

He added the heartsease with a hand that only shook a little.

Then came the token from the beloved.

Draco went to the kitchen and took the flowers from the vase, using one petal.

“Harry James Potter,” Draco said.

He picked up the bleeding-heart flower and lay on the board, cutting it into two equal halves with his silver knife and added one half, then the other.

The potion turned almost clear.

The final step: speak truthfully that you wish to sever the connection.

Draco gripped the edge of the workbench.

This was what he wanted, right? Easy. He wanted peace. Indifference.

He leaned over the cauldron.

“I do not wish to love Harry Potter any longer.”

Harry couldn’t sleep that night, which was not unusual, exactly. Harry had never been brilliant at sleep, largely because his brain had a long and proud history of choosing the worst possible hours to become active. This was not old nightmares or vague anxiety or the usual midnight spiral about whatever.

Harry lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, replaying the night in the garden over and over until the whole thing had become a horrible little moving picture in his head.

Draco kissing him over the wall, hands fisting in Harry’s nightshirt, mouth hot and desperate and so much better than any dream Harry had been having, which was saying something, because Harry’s dreams had recently been doing very well for themselves.

And then Harry, in a truly spectacular display of emotional incompetence, had said it was complicated.

Harry turned over and shoved his face into the pillow.

“Idiot,” he muttered into the fabric.

Because it wasn’t complicated, was it? Not really. The second Draco had walked away, Harry had wanted to climb over the wall, chase after him, and explain everything very clearly.

He sent an owl to Hermione sometime around three in the morning, because if anyone was going to tell him what to do with his feelings, it woukd be Hermione. She had been doing it for years with moderate success.

Unfortunately, because it was the middle of the night and Hermione was a normal human, Harry did not receive a reply until the next morning.

The owl pecked at the kitchen window while Harry was standing there in yesterday’s shirt, drinking tea that had gone lukewarm, and wondering whether it was too dramatic to throw himself into the pond.

He opened Hermione’s letter at once.

Harry stared at the letter and read it again. Then a third time, because apparently he needed the words to physically beat him over the head before he accepted them.

Harry sat down heavily at the kitchen table.

He supposed he did like Malfoy. Draco. He liked Draco. He liked his stupid cutting remarks and his elegant hands and the way he looked when he was concentrating. He liked the way Draco’s face changed when he laughed properly.

Love was probably a bit soon.

Harry was not going to examine why the word had not immediately terrified him into a coma.

The problem was that he might have already fucked everything up. Draco had looked furious last night. Worse than furious, actually. Hurt. Harry was very used to Draco being angry with him. That was practically tradition, but hurt was different.

He reclined on the sofa after breakfast with Hermione’s letter resting on his stomach, telling himself he would go over there soon.

Soon-ish. After a short nap, maybe. A nap would make him braver. Probably.

He closed his eyes.

The next thing he knew, someone was trying to knock his front door off its hinges.

Harry jerked awake, nearly falling off the sofa.

For one confused second, he thought it was an owl, except owls usually had the decency to knock at windows. He grabbed his glasses from the coffee table, shoved them onto his face, and stumbled towards the door.

The knocking came again.

“I’m coming,” Harry muttered.

He opened the door.

Draco Malfoy stood on his doorstep, soaking wet, covered head to toe in thick, pink, gooey sludge. The sludge dripped from Draco’s hair, slid down one sharp cheekbone, clung to his ruined shirt before plopping horribly onto Harry’s doorstep.

Draco stared back with the kind of icy disdain that might have worked better if he did not look like a strawberry jelly dessert.

“What in the name of Godric Gryffindor happened to you?” Harry asked.

Draco’s eyes narrowed. “Not. A. Word.”

Then he shoved past Harry and marched into the cottage.

“Er,” Harry said, turning after him. “Come in, I suppose.”

Draco was already heading for the stairs with terrifying speed, leaving wet, pink footprints across the floorboards.

“Hey,” Harry called, following him. “You’re getting my floor wet and sticky.”

“Then cast a cleaning charm and be useful,” Draco snapped, without turning around.

He vanished into the bathroom and locked the door with a loud click.

Harry cast several cleaning charms over the trail Draco had left behind. The pink sludge resisted at first, which was concerning, but eventually vanished with a small offended hiss.

He sat on the sofa and waited, bouncing one leg.

He had no idea what was going on. Maybe this was some elaborate form of payback. Maybe Draco had invented a way to make Harry feel guilty by arriving at his house looking like a kneazle who'd fallen into some jam. If so, it was working, though Harry could not entirely see the tactical advantage.

He must have dozed off again, because the next time he opened his eyes, Draco was coming down the stairs, clean and dry, wearing Harry’s clothes.

Draco had put on Harry’s red jumper and a pair of Harry’s pyjama shorts. The jumper was too broad on him, the shorts were shorter on Draco than they were on Harry, because Draco was taller and had legs that went on for an unreasonable amount of time. Long, pale, bare legs.

The cottage suddenly felt ten degrees hotter.

Draco was smoothing a wrinkle out of the shorts with a look of deep personal suffering. “Do you own anything that isn’t some horrible shade of yellow or red or both? And shorts like a Victorian schoolboy, really, deeply inappropriate for people of our advanced ages.”

Harry blinked. “Would you mind telling me why you’re, uh—”

His gaze betrayed him, dropping to Draco’s legs again.

“Why you’ve broken into my house and stolen my clothes?” Harry finished.

Draco sat down on the sofa, then immediately stood again, then sat again. “You would accuse me of such petty crimes? I don’t owe you any explanation.”

He crossed his arms, uncrossed them, then dragged one hand through his damp hair and looked furious with himself for doing it.

“But I will be staying here for a while, so prepare me a room.”

Harry folded his arms.

“If you want to stay here, you’ve got to explain.”

Draco let out a long, tragic sigh and leaned back, closing his eyes. “Fine. But I’ll make it quick because I’m exhausted.”

He went quiet for a while.

“I was brewing a potion after I—” Draco stopped. His mouth tightened, and something vaguely sad crossed his face before he smoothed it away. “After I left last night. I was about to finish it and it went wrong. Well, it blew up. My whole cottage is positively ruined, along with everything inside it.”

Harry blinked. “Why didn't you come sooner?”

“Forgive me, Potter, for not immediately sprinting to your doorstep looking like a disgraced blancmange after our… interaction last night.” Draco sighed. “I spent half the morning trying to clean it, obviously, but the residue won’t move.”

“Are you hurt?”

“Do I look hurt?”

“I guess not. What potion was it?”

Draco went still and looked away, and the sad look appeared on his face again, one hand tightening around the hem of Harry's jumper. “Nothing important.”

“Draco.”

Draco didn't reply, and looked more upset, so Harry decided to make a joke to lighten the mood.

“This wouldn’t happen to be illegal, would it?”

Draco’s mouth curved slightly. “Why, will you arrest me, Auror Potter?”

“No,” Harry said. “I’m off duty at the moment.”

“Hm.”

“But I am judging you.”

“As if that is new.”

Harry wanted to push. He wanted to ask exactly what Draco had been brewing after leaving the garden like that, what could possibly have exploded badly enough to make his cottage uninhabitable for several days. But Draco looked exhausted.

So Harry swallowed the questions.

“I wanted to, uh, talk about last night, by the way.”

Draco’s whole face closed. “No.”

“No?”

“Not now.” Draco stood too quickly, swayed, and caught himself on the arm of the sofa. “Actually, not ever. I am exhausted and not emotionally available for a post-mortem of our conversation.”

“Oh.” Harry sat back. “Yes. Of course. There’s only one bedroom, so you’ll have to take my bed.”

Draco opened both eyes now, looking deeply affronted that there had ever been another option. “Well, I’m sure as hell not sleeping on the sofa like some sort of unhoused person.”

“You are homeless right now.”

Draco made a whole series of offended noises, none of which quite became words. Then he stood, muttering more insults and sweeping back upstairs.

Harry watched him go.

He spent the next few hours baking, because that was what Harry did when he was bored, stressed, emotionally overwhelmed, or housing the man he was possibly in love with and definitely wanted to push against every available surface.

By late afternoon, the kitchen smelled of chocolate, cinnamon, lemon, and butter. There were biscuits cooling on one rack, muffins on another.

He was just sliding the last tray onto the counter when Draco wandered in.

Harry looked up.

Draco had clearly slept. His hair was loose now, falling over his shoulders in pale, soft waves. He stretched both arms above his head as he walked in, and the jumper rode up.

Harry saw a flash of pale stomach. Sharp hipbones. The beginning of those lines disappearing under Harry’s shorts. Harry turned his head so fast he nearly injured himself.

“What is that delicious smell?” Draco asked in the tone of someone trying very hard to pretend the last twelve hours had not happened.

Harry cleared his throat. “Cookies and muffins.”

He picked up a plate and held it out.

Draco’s eyes lit up and he reached for it, but Harry swerved the plate away.

“Only if we talk about last night,” Harry said.

Draco’s hand froze halfway to the plate. For once, he did not recover immediately. His eyes flicked to Harry’s mouth, then away. His throat worked.

Then his expression sharpened into something bright and false. “Devious.”

“Learnt from the worst.”

“I assume that means me.”

“You assume correctly.”

Draco hopped up onto the kitchen island as if he had every right to sit there, long legs dangling, bare knees visible beneath Harry’s shorts.

Harry tried very hard to look at his face. It was a good face, to be fair. Still dangerous, but safer than the legs.

“What do you wish to speak about?” Draco asked, too quickly.

Harry opened his mouth.

“No, actually, allow me to make this easier.” Draco’s fingers curled hard around the edge of the island. “You don’t like me. You were swept up in the moment. I shouldn’t have kissed you, and I was dramatic about it after, which is deeply embarrassing but not, I think, legally punishable.”

“Draco—”

“So things can just go back to normal,” Draco said, and his voice wobbled horribly on normal. “Right?”

No, that wasn’t right. None of it was right. It was all so wrong that Harry’s chest ached.

But the words tangled in his throat. This mattered more than he had let himself admit, and Harry was so much better at doing things than saying them. Telling Draco Malfoy that he liked him so much it had started to frighten him? Apparently impossible.

Harry put the plate down and he stepped forward and kissed him.

Draco went still for half a second, then melted.

Harry settled between his legs, hands coming up to Draco’s waist, and Draco’s fingers slid into his hair with a sound that went straight through him. The kiss deepened almost immediately, messy and hungry and nothing like the careful conversation Harry had been failing to have. Draco’s mouth opened under his, and Harry licked into him, feeling Draco’s thighs tighten around his hips.

Draco kissed like he argued. Like he wanted to win, and like he wanted Harry to know it.

Harry’s hands moved up his sides, feeling the shape of him through the jumper, and Draco’s hands roamed over his back and shoulders with such obvious hunger that Harry shivered.

“I like you,” Harry whispered between kisses, because if he did not say it now, he might never say it. “I like you so much. More than you know.”

Draco went still beneath his hands. For one awful second, Harry thought he had ruined it.

Then Draco let out a shaky little breath, his forehead resting briefly against Harry’s. “You're an absolute nightmare.”

Harry pulled back just enough to look at him. “What?”

Draco’s fingers tightened in Harry’s hair. His face was flushed, his mouth kiss-swollen, and for once he looked more frightened than superior. “It took you long enough. Me too, as if that wasn't obvious. Catastrophically, humiliatingly, against all good sense, I like you too.”

For Draco, this was practically a declaration shouted from a balcony while throwing rose petals.

Harry laughed, then kissed him again.

Draco made a small sound when Harry’s mouth moved to his jaw. Then another when Harry kissed down his throat, and that nearly did Harry in completely, because there they were. The noises. The ones from the dreams. Soft and pretty and completely real.

Harry bit carefully at the side of his neck. Draco’s head tipped back, one hand bracing against the counter, the other tightening in Harry’s hair.

“Harry,” he breathed.

Harry dragged his mouth lower, kissing and biting along Draco’s neck until a red mark bloomed against pale skin. Draco’s breathing went uneven, and Harry felt dizzy with it, with the fact that Draco was here, in his kitchen, wearing his clothes, making those sounds because of him.

He helped Draco pull off the jumper. Then Draco tugged Harry’s shirt over his head, impatient and slightly clumsy, which was so unlike him Harry would have laughed if Draco had not immediately kissed him again.

Harry’s hands found bare skin. Draco was beautiful. Ridiculously so. All long lines and pale skin. Harry let his mouth travel down his chest, over his stomach, lower and lower until he reached the waistband of the shorts.

He looked up.

“Draco, can I—”

Draco’s pupils were blown wide. “Yes, Harry. You can do whatever you like with me at this point. I’m hard as a broom handle. Hurry up with it and fuck me.”

Harry’s mouth went dry and he hooked his fingers into the waistband of the shorts and pulled them down, and after that things became a lot less coherent.

There was the kitchen counter, first.

Draco spread out beneath him on the island, pale hair spilling over the wood, one hand gripping the edge, knuckles going white. Harry took him apart slowly at first, partly because he wanted to do it properly and partly because Draco impatient was a spectacular thing to witness. Draco swore at him in English and then French, which Harry felt was showing off, until Harry finally pushed inside him and Draco’s next insult broke into a moan.

Harry would remember that sound for the rest of his life, probably.

Then the sofa, somehow.

Harry was not entirely sure whose idea that was. He only knew that Draco, naked except for Harry’s jumper pulled back on and hanging loose around him, biting into a chocolate-chip cookie, had looked at him with one eyebrow raised and said, “Surely you can do better than once,” and Harry had taken that personally.

So the sofa happened. The first time was messy and laughing and half-falling off the cushions because Draco kept trying to retain control and Harry kept proving that he had no chance whatsoever. The second was slower, Draco in Harry’s lap, both of them still flushed and sensitive, kissing like they had all the time in the world and also no time at all.

Then after some telly watching and napping, there was the staircase, which was not Harry’s finest logistical decision.

They only made it halfway up before Draco pushed him against the wall and kissed him so hard Harry forgot where they were. It was mostly hands and mouths and desperate grinding, Draco’s thigh between Harry’s legs, Harry biting at his shoulder, both of them laughing breathlessly when Harry nearly slipped on one of the steps.

“Elegant,” Draco murmured.

“You’re naked on my stairs.”

“And still more elegant than you.”

“Shut up.”

“Make me.”

Harry did.

Eventually, somehow, they made it to the bed.

Their breathing was uneven by then, their skin warm and marked, their mouths swollen from kissing. Draco looked wrecked in the best possible way, hair spread across Harry’s pillows, eyes grey and soft and still a little smug because of course he was.

Harry climbed over him and paused.

Draco reached up and brushed his fingers through Harry’s hair, slower this time and tender.

“It's like I'm in a dream,” Draco said. “I really didn't think—” And his voice wavered, though there were no apparent tears in his eyes. “I'm sorry.”

Harry didn't think he'd ever heard Draco apologise to anyone like that, and Harry wondered what for, why Draco looked a little upset, and wondered if had anything to do with the potion. But Harry couldn't figure it out in that moment, so he let the thought go.

“No,” Harry said. “I should be sorry.”

“Well, show me how sorry,” Draco's voice regained its usual edge, “And fuck me again.”

Harry kissed him again, and this time, when they moved together, it was slower. No less wanting, no less heated, but different. Draco’s hands stayed on him the whole time, touching his shoulders, his back, his face, as if he was learning him properly. Harry tried to do the same. Tried to memorise the shape of him, the sounds, the way Draco’s breath caught when Harry said his name.

Afterwards, they lay tangled together under the sheets, both exhausted, sticky, warm, and quiet.

Draco’s head was tucked against Harry’s shoulder. Harry’s hand rested in his hair.

“Would you tell me what happened last night?”

Draco sighed, muffled against Harry’s skin, “I almost made the worst decision of my life.”

“Attempted murder?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

Draco went still for a second. “I shall tell you when I'm ready, and no sooner.”

“Alright.” Harry kissed the top of his head.

They fell asleep like that, Draco’s leg thrown over Harry’s and Harry’s hand still tangled in his hair, every conversation they still needed to have waiting somewhere outside the bedroom door.

Draco woke up in Harry’s bed for the third morning in a row.

Alone, unfortunately. Harry had a habit of waking up early. He lay there for a while anyway, tangled in Harry’s sheets, watching sunlight spill through the window and across the wooden floorboards.

Harry’s room was less awful than Draco had expected. A bit untidy, naturally, because Potter had never met a flat surface he didn’t immediately want to cover with abandoned jumpers and various messes. But it was comfortable, he supposed.

From the window, he could see his own cottage. It looked perfectly innocent from the outside. One would never know that inside, until recently, it had been coated in the toxic pink remains of Draco’s attempt to emotionally lobotomise himself. A private matter, really.

He would have to go over there today.

The potion residue should have lost most of its volatile properties by now. With proper charms, cleaning spells, and possibly some deeply degrading manual labour, he could get the cottage habitable again. His clothes needed checking. His books. His stores. Merlin, his stores. Some of those ingredients were rare enough to make apothecaries weep.

He should go back.

The past few days had been wonderful, but that was no reason to become unhinged about it. He couldn’t simply stay in Harry’s cottage forever, wearing Harry’s (hideous) clothes, sleeping in Harry’s bed, having sex with Harry whenever they ran out of other activities, and expecting Harry to cook all his meals and bake him little treats for the rest of summer.

Could he?

No. Probably not. That sounded like something people did when they were in a relationship.

Draco frowned at the ceiling. Were they in a relationship? They had not technically discussed it. They hadn't discussed many other things, either; Draco had gotten out of telling him about the potion.

Draco got out of bed and showered, brushed his teeth, and dressed in the cleanest of Harry’s clothes available. At least the jumper was dark this time. Navy, not some garish shade, which suggested Harry had experienced a rare moment of taste.

He was smoothing his hair back into something presentable when he heard Harry call from downstairs.

“Draco? Are you awake?”

“Yes, I am,” Draco said. He came out of the bathroom and started down the stairs.

Harry was standing at the bottom with a truly awful grin on his face. A shit-eating grin, in fact. The sort of grin that suggested he had won or discovered something.

In his hand was a book. No, not a book. A journal.

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

Harry lifted it slightly. “Care to explain this?”

Draco descended the remaining steps with all the dignity available to a man whose banned potion journal had apparently been discovered by the Auror he had been sleeping with.

He snatched it out of Harry’s hand. “Why were you snooping? And breaking into my cottage?”

“I didn’t break in. I have your spare key.”

“You stole my spare key?”

“You gave it to me, albeit sleepily, last night.”

Draco looked down at the journal, then frowned. “How is it so clean? I thought it got ruined.”

“I cleaned up this morning.”

Harry said it casually, as if he had not just walked into Draco’s potion-contaminated cottage at dawn and restored it because he wanted to. Harry's kindness remained one of the most irritating forces in the known universe.

“You didn’t have to,” Draco said.

“I know.” Harry leaned forward and kissed him. “But I wanted to.”

Draco softened despite himself, which was his first mistake. His second mistake was closing his eyes.

When he opened them again, Harry had the journal back and was already flipping to the marked page.

“You absolute—”

“This was what it opened on when I found it,” Harry said.

Draco glanced down.

Amor Victus.

Of course the universe was not content with humiliation in small doses. No, it had to ladle it directly over his head like soup.

Draco crossed his arms, retreating into insults and sarcasm as always. “Yes, you insufferable man. I was so bloody obsessed with you I resorted to attempting a dangerous potion to rid myself of those unrequited feelings. There. Mystery solved.”

Harry’s smile faded a little. “You were really going to take it?”

Draco looked away. “Yes. But it blew up because I needed to speak truthfully that I did not want to… like you anymore. When I attempted to say it, it just wasn’t true.”

“I’m glad,” Harry's eyes searched his face. “I’m glad it blew up.”

Draco’s throat felt annoyingly tight. “Yes, well. I’m sure the cottage feels differently about the unsanctioned potion now covering its walls.”

Harry’s mouth twitched. “Unsanctioned, hm? So it was illegal.”

Draco narrowed his eyes. “That is your takeaway?”

“I’m an Auror. It’s sort of my job.”

“You’re off duty.”

“True, but still.”

“What will you do? Arrest me?” He let his mouth curve. “Punish me?”

Harry looked him over, eyes darkening with immediate and gratifying interest. “I suppose I could try,” he said. “But I just think you’d like it.”

“I would,” Draco said, and kissed him.

Harry tossed the journal aside with absolutely no respect for rare academic materials and pushed Draco back onto the sofa. Draco went willingly, obviously. Harry followed him down, warm and solid and already kissing him harder, one hand at his waist.

For a few minutes, Draco allowed himself to be thoroughly distracted.

Then Harry’s mouth moved to his neck, and Draco remembered, with difficulty, that he had been trying to have a sensible morning.

“Harry, darling,” Draco said between kisses.

Harry hummed against his throat.

“Harry.”

“Mhm?”

Harry lifted his head. He had that dazed look in his eyes again. The post-kissing, hazey look. Draco had already become deeply fond of it, which was alarming because fondness was a gateway emotion to all sorts of dreadful things, like domesticity.

“I should go,” Draco said.

Harry blinked. “Why?”

“Because my cottage is fine now, apparently, and I need to make sure all my clothes and books and stores survived. They’re expensive.”

“I restored everything.”

Draco stared at him. “Everything?”

“Everything I could find.” Harry shrugged. “There were a lot of jars. I didn’t touch anything I didn’t recognise because I like having all my fingers.”

A sensible decision from Harry Potter. Truly, miracles abounded.

“It’s probably still messy,” Draco said, because he needed some argument left or he was going to do something unforgivable, like stay because he wanted to. “And besides, you don’t want me in your hair for another night.”

Harry sat up on his knees and looked at him.

“That,” he said, “is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said, and you’ve said a lot of ridiculous things.”

“Excuse me.”

“I want you to sleep in my bed every night.”

Draco’s mouth went dry.

Oh.

Draco sat up a little. “We can’t move in together. We’re not even dating.”

“Shall we change that?”

Harry got off the sofa and disappeared into the kitchen.

For one mad second, Draco wondered if he had gone to fetch a marriage contract. With Potter, one never knew. The man had been raised by Muggles and had the romantic subtlety of a Bludger. Perhaps this was how Gryffindors courted. A kiss, a crisis, several rounds of sex, and then some paperwork.

But Harry came back holding a small bouquet. He looked faintly nervous now, which was unfairly charming.

“I read up on flower language,” Harry said. “I still think it’s silly, by the way. You should be able to give flowers to whoever you want.”

Draco did not answer. He was looking at the bouquet, full of flowers: camellia, gardenia, lily of the valley, white roses, myrtle, and fern.^[2]. All in varying shades of white and green. Together it was ridiculous. And beautiful.

He took the bouquet carefully, fingers brushing over the twine tying it, and found he had no words at all. Which was inconvenient. Draco liked words. Words were useful. Unfortunately, his had all fled at the sight of Harry Potter standing in front of him with a bouquet that said everything Draco had been too afraid to want.

His eyes stung. He did not cry often. He was not about to cry because Potter had discovered symbolic floristry and weaponised it against him.

Except apparently he was.

“It means I like you,” Harry said quietly. “A lot. And I want to be with you. And I want you to stay here for the rest of the holidays.” He gave a small, crooked smile. “I’m not amazing with words, so I guess the flowers do help.”

Draco looked down at the bouquet again.

Then back at Harry, and simply said, “Thank you.”

Harry smiled, and Draco pulled him back down onto the sofa and kissed him deeply.

When they broke apart, Draco held the bouquet carefully to one side so it would not be crushed, because romance was one thing but ruining perfectly good flowers was another.

“I’ll only stay,” Draco said, recovering just enough to smirk, “if you bake for me as well.”

Harry’s smile widened. “All your favourite things.”

Draco hummed, pretending to consider. “And breakfast?”

“Yes.”

“Proper tea?”

“I’ll try.”

“That is not reassuring.”

“I’ll let you supervise.”

“Obviously.”

Harry kissed him again, slow and warm and smiling against his mouth.

Draco leaned into it, one hand still holding the flowers, the other sliding into Harry’s hair, letting himself have this impossible thing. Harry’s mouth. Harry wanting him to stay. Harry bloody Potter was his, and it was all he'd ever wanted.