For my friend, my sister, my favorite Slytherin, and my fellow aficionado of all things samosa and chai.

Happy birthday, Vic - you deserve nothing less than the world.

Draco has a small problem.

He's utterly fucked.

"I'm in love with him."

Rather than looking surprised, as Draco had expected Blaise to look — his vehement dislike of the Potter hero is public knowledge — he looks faintly amused.

"We — the entire Slytherin body — were wondering when you would arrive at that conclusion," Blaise says poshly, because Zabinis couldn't talk any other way. "It's been incontrovertible for a long time. I'm astonished you didn't identify it earlier."

Draco stares at him for a moment. "Can't you talk like a normal person?"

Blaise looks miffed. "I am talking normally. Your range of vocabulary is merely inferior to mine."

Draco wants to hit his head on the wall. Arguing with Blaise is like arguing with a slab of brick. Or the gargoyle outside the headmistress's office. It simply isn't possible.

"You're no help," he sighs, and turns his back on his housemate.

Blaise's eyes follow him out of the room, burning into the back of his robes, but he doesn't say anything.

He bumps into Weasley on his way to find Pansy. Granger's with him. Those two had been attached at the hip since last summer.

It's just a brush of clothing, but clearly Weasley is spoiling for a fight. "Watch it, Malfoy," he snaps.

"Watch where you put your oversized feet, Weasley," he retorts.

Weasley whirls around, his wand already sparking in his hand, and Draco draws his own. But before either of them can make a move, a new voice joins the conversation. "What's going on here?"

Draco groans internally. Of course. He should've known. They come as a package deal. Three for the price of one. You would think that Potter would be distracted by his girlfriend, but no.

Three against one are not the odds he wants to face.

Potter is the last person he wants to see right now — which is normal — but the new feeling that comes with it makes Draco want to retch.

It doesn't help that Potter looks more, well, attractive than usual with his perpetually mussed hair, which Draco itches to run his fingers through, just to feel its texture. He's dreamed about this moment before, his hands sliding through Potter's hair, his lips on Potter's collarbone —

Potter's lips are moving, but Draco can't hear what he's saying, his heart is pounding too loudly —

Fucking hell. If this is how he reacts every time he's with Potter, Draco would just rather avoid him altogether.

"Well?" Potter's sharp voice punctures his fantasy and Draco is jarred into the present. "What have you got to say for yourself?"

Ordinarily, at this point in the conversation, Draco would have inserted an insulting remark about Potter's appearance or his friends. But ordinary is not ordinary anymore.

"You're gorgeous," he blurts out, and he has one moment to register the dumbfounded expression on Potter's face before he bolts.

All he knows that he's going back to the Slytherin common room, for no reason other than that he needs a moment to breathe.

Open mouth, insert foot.

I said he's gorgeous... I told him to his face that he was gorgeous…

"...Fuck," he says aloud to the empty dorm room. It's a good thing that it's empty, because he doesn't feel quite ready to tell anyone about his mortifying encounter with Potter. It's still too fresh, and he still wants to be incinerated on the spot.

You could have said anything else, anything else in the world…and you picked "gorgeous"?

"I know, I screwed up," he says to no one. "What do I do now?"

The answer comes in the form of Pansy Parkinson, who Draco resolves to consult before he does anything rash or stupid. Pansy may be a bit high-maintenance but she does dish out some good advice about boys.

And she doesn't even charge money.

Draco's situation is slightly different, because oh, there's the fact that he loves his rival, and the fact that he can't seem to keep his composure around him.

"Potter?" Pansy asks, looking surprised. "I thought you hated him."

Apparently, the entire Slytherin body hadn't known — Blaise had been wrong, and Draco reminds himself to heckle him about it later. It didn't happen very often, that Blaise was wrong.

"I don't, not anymore," he admits. "Well, I still have the urge to hex him, but I also have — er, other feelings around him now. Stronger feelings — you know, the I want to snog you and possibly spend the rest of my life with you feelings."

"You want to snog him," Pansy says, tipping her head to the side and piercing him with her eyes. Draco gulps, a warm flush crawling up his neck.

"I want to snog him," he confirms.

"Excellent." He's unnerved by the hungry look in Pansy's eyes, like she's about to sink her teeth into something juicy. "Come with me and we'll talk."

There's a slight obstacle. Potter's going out with Ginny Weasley and they're sickeningly, disgustingly in love, so much that Draco wants to projectile-vomit every time he sees them together. Perhaps throw a punch in the general direction of Weasley's face.

But the girl has a wicked Bat-Bogey hex and even though Draco hates her, he's forced to admit that Weasley would definitely kick his ass.

But Pansy assures him that she is more than able to distract Weasley while Draco goes after Potter.

"Oh, don't worry, I'll keep her busy," Pansy vows, a gleam in her eyes. She twirls her wand between her fingers and Draco decides to trust her.

All it takes is one Dungbomb. In the ensuing confusion, Pansy grabs Ginny and pulls her into the girls' loo, leaving Potter alone in the corridor.

"Potter." Draco steps in front of him, trying not to think of their last encounter. Even so, heat creeps up his neck and he self-consciously tugs up his collar.

"What have you done with her?" Potter demands, apparently panicked. "Where is she?"

"Relax, Potter, she's fine."

"Malfoy, I swear —"

"Potter." Draco doesn't know why he's in love with this idiot. "Your girlfriend is fine. For the love of Merlin, just shut up and let me talk."

Potter still glares at him, but obliges — something that is frankly astonishing, because he never listens to Draco.

Maybe common sense had finally penetrated his brain.

"About the other day, when I said you were…" He doesn't even have to finish his sentence, because Potter's face becomes bright red.

"I…wasn't in the right state of mind," he awkwardly continues, hating every word that comes out of his mouth, because it's all lies, lies. "It was a bad time, and…"

"I get it," Potter says, not looking Draco in the eyes. Which is a good thing, because looking into Potter's eyes is like drowning in the ocean and looking straight at the sun simultaneously.

Thank you is what Draco desires to say, but what comes out of his mouth is "Glad we have an understanding. I'll be off then." He summons the remainder of his dignity, turns, and begins to walk away.

That is, until Potter says, "Wait." And because he's weak, Draco stops.

"Did you mean it? Do you really think I'm gorgeous?"

Had this been any other question, any other conversation, Draco would have answered "none of your business" or "what's it to you" and stuck his nose up in the air.

But hearing the undercurrent of hope in Potter's voice makes him hope a little too.

He doesn't face Potter, he doesn't speak loudly, even though they're alone, but what he does do is say, "Yes, I meant it."

It's all over the school that Potter and Weasley broke up. Hell, it's plastered on the front page of the Daily Prophet, which is more of a gossip magazine now than an actual newspaper.

"Look at this." Pansy shoves the latest edition in his face while he's eating breakfast. The first thing he sees is Potter's stupid(ly pretty) face winking at him and he almost chokes.

"Pansy!" he splutters indignantly.

Pansy ignores his protests in favor of pushing away his plate, wresting his fork from his hand, and dropping the newspaper in his lap.

Crossly, Draco glances at the headline (GOLDEN COUPLE SPLIT?) and his heart skips a beat. Or two. His indignance evaporates.

His delight must've shown on his face because Pansy beams. "Isn't this marvelous?" she gushes. "Now you and Potter can—"

Draco claps a hand over her mouth as her outburst causes strange looks from the other Slytherins. "Will you keep your mouth shut?"

"Sorry." Pansy's eyes are glittering with barely suppressed glee, seemingly unabashed.

At that moment, Potter walks into the Great Hall — well, it's more lumbering than walking. He looks like he'd been trampled by a hippogriff, and he has a distinctly dazed expression on his face. The sight is almost hilarious — almost.

An outbreak of whispers erupt around Draco as everyone gawks at the Boy-Who-Lived. As if they'd never seen a boy post-breakup.

What's even stranger is that his ex-girlfriend wanders in a few moments later. Her eyes zero in on Potter and she makes a beeline towards him, a determined look on her freckled face. It doesn't take a genius to put two and two together and Draco's heart lurches painfully as he connects the dots.

"She's going to try and get him back," he mutters to Pansy, who also has her eye on them with an inscrutable expression. At his words, she tears her gaze away.

"I don't think so," she hisses. "See how she's not flirting with him? They're actually talking like two friends."

"How can you tell?"

"Look at their body language." Pansy jerks her head towards them. "If they still had feelings for each other, they would be touching each other constantly. Giving each other secretive looks. Looking as though they wanted to fuck right then and there."

Draco studies them with her observations in mind. Now that Pansy had dissected it, he could see a distinct lack of any of the things she had mentioned. Potter and Weasley were conversing without any obvious sexual tension or any signs they were attracted to each other. They looked as they had during the pre-relationship stage — relaxed, at ease.

Two questions remained: why had their breakup gone so smoothly? The "Golden Couple" had surely fought over something, hadn't they? At least, in Draco's mind, that's how most relationships ended. And how had the Daily Prophet gotten ahold of the scoop so quickly?

"I think you're right," he concedes, his tone carefully neutral. But Pansy sees right through it.

"Of course I am," she says flippantly, her eyes focused on Ginny. Draco pretends not to look at her, diving back into his breakfast.

Now that Potter's back on the market, Draco's competition materializes out of nowhere. He almost feels bad for Potter, who is being showered with invitations to Hogsmeade. The way the invitations are delivered are ridiculous.

One girl serenades him in front of the entire school. Another sends him singing flowers. A third arrives in the form of frogspawn, whose sender is revealed to be a mousy sixth year Hufflepuff. Needless to say, Potter turns them all down.

With each rejection, Draco's hopes mount.

One morning, after an encore of the serenade, Pansy slides into the seat next to Draco and pokes him playfully. "Hey, you," she says, a flirtatious lilt in her voice.

Draco gags. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" he snaps.

Pansy shrugs and reaches for the toast. "What do you think?"

"What I'm thinking," he says, "is that my totally platonic female friend is all of a sudden flirting with me. Have you missed the memo that I'm gay?"

"I haven't." Pansy calmly butters her toast. "I'm doing an...experiment, that's all." Her eyes dart not-so-subtly towards the Gryffindor table and Draco raises an eyebrow.

"An experiment, huh? Does this experiment happen to involve a certain she-Weasley?"

"No," Pansy says, a little too quickly.

Draco jabs his butter knife in her direction. "Aha!" he crows; he isn't the only one pining after forbidden fruit. "You fancy Weasley!"

"Not so loud!" Pansy snaps, her face coloring scarlet. "Yes, I fancy Weasley, will you keep your mouth shut?"

"Okay," Draco says, but a fit of laughter overcomes him — he doesn't know why it's so funny that Pansy fancies a Weasley. He smothers it quickly as Pansy elbows his side.

"You're a terrible, terrible friend," she says. "I'm sensitive to your feelings, but you're laughing at mine. Honestly, what was I thinking when I fancied you?"

Draco abruptly stops laughing. "You...fancied me?"

"Merlin help me," she grumbles. "Of course I did! Why do you think I agreed to go to the Yule Ball with you, when I could have asked someone else?"

"Because you wanted to show up Granger?" Because you couldn't find another date?

"Well, yeah, but I wanted you to notice me. I thought myself hopelessly and naively in love with you and when you asked me, I couldn't believe it."

Draco puffed out his chest. "I was quite a hit with the ladies," he boasts. Pansy elbows him again, eliciting an outraged yelp from him.

"Don't be so full of yourself, especially not around me," she says. "And haven't you noticed, not a single girl has invited you out since you asked me to that ball. I've been keeping tabs."

"Yes—yes they have!" Draco protests, disconcerted by this realization. "Leah Fells asked me out —"

"—on a dare," Pansy points out, and Draco promptly deflates.

"...Yeah, I guess you're right." He changes the subject to avoid seeing and hearing Pansy's smugness. "So, about the she-Weasley —"

"Draco, just shut up and pretend you're into me."

"I need to talk to you."

Draco freezes mid-stride and almost topples over. His heartbeat skyrockets as he spins around, his eyes taking in the disheveled black hair and the ever-haunting green eyes that could dismantle Draco with a single glance.

And then, he sees the red-haired girl next to him.

"Weasley," he says coolly, before turning to Potter (his heart jumps into his throat). "What do you want, Potter?"

"I…" Potter scuffed his shoe on the cement floor, suddenly losing his nerve. "I need to…"

"What he's trying to say is," Weasley interjects, "he needs to talk to you about something."

"I'd figured that out for myself, strangely enough," Draco quips. When Weasley gives him a hard stare, he takes a cautionary step back.

Potter finally lifts his gaze from the floor and his eyes meet Draco's. And just like that, Draco is floundering in the depths of his eyes again.

"I'd better go," Weasley says tactfully, backing away. "I'll see you around, Harry. Malfoy." With a curt nod, she wheels around and marches away.

Draco hardly hears her, because he's too busy trying to decipher the expression on Potter's face. "Potter, spit it out. I don't have all day."

Potter's eyes flash. "Fine." With a huff, he seizes the lapels of Draco's robe and shoves him against a wall. Taken aback, Draco's heart goes into a mad tailspin, his body temperature rising as a warm feeling trickles into his face. He's pretty sure he's bright red now, but he's hardly aware of it. Potter's lips are just centimeters away from his own.

"I haven't been able to stop thinking about you," Potter confesses, his voice husky and low. "Ever since that day you told me you thought I was gorgeous."

Draco flushes as the mortification surges up again, but it quickly recedes as Potter continues.

"Malfoy...I —"

Draco cuts him off. "Draco."

"What?" Confusion momentarily darkens those brilliant eyes of his.

"My name is Draco," Draco whispers.

Potter — no, Harry's eyes remain dark, but the confusion transforms into something else that causes Draco's toes to curl and a sudden rush of adrenaline to drive away all of his fears, his doubts. Harry wants him. Him.

"I...I'm sorry for everything I did to you," Harry says. "Even though it was totally justified." He lets out a hollow laugh.

Merlin, Draco could listen to his laugh for eternity.

"You did what you had to," Draco breathes. "Even though some of it was unjustified, I never truly hated you for it. You were Saint Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, or whatever the hell they called you."

"I wanted to hate you. I really did. And then, when I saw you captured in our home, on the verge of being killed, I...couldn't let them. I had a moment of weakness, and they almost turned on me for it...they were still upset that I hadn't summoned the courage to finish off Dumbledore."

"I think that's when it all started. I couldn't stop thinking about how I had almost gotten you killed — had our years of enmity really reached that point? But now, I look at that decision and know that I made the right choice. Because if I hadn't...I wouldn't have fall —" Draco stops, acutely conscious of the secret he had almost let slip out. Harry couldn't know until the feelings were mutual.

Harry, who had been silent throughout Draco's monologue, abruptly tightened his grip on Draco's robe.

This is it, Draco thinks giddily, he's going to kiss me…

But Harry apparently wanted to delay the inevitable. He brushes his lips against Draco's forehead, his nose, his cheeks, and teases him with a kiss at the corner of his mouth. Draco let out an involuntary whine.

"Just kiss me, you git — mmph!"

For Harry had just swooped down and granted Draco's dearest wish, and Draco couldn't think of a better way to be silenced. He responded to the kiss with equal enthusiasm, his hands threading through Harry's hair.

At last.

He was utterly consumed with the feel of Harry's body pressed flush against his, utterly intoxicated by the way he moved his lips with skillful ease, as if he'd spent his entire life studying Draco's lips — every curve, every contour — and Merlin, he wanted to commit this moment to his memory forever.

If this was his eternity, then he would gladly accept it.

One week later

Draco sits hand-in-hand with Harry in the cool grass by the lake, enjoying the breezy summer afternoon. Draco has a book in his lap, but he hardly looks at it, more transfixed by the shimmering lake.

"You know," Harry begins, his expression thoughtful, "my parents actually fought here. By the lake. My father was a show-off, and he was trying to win my mother's favor, but she wasn't impressed. He and his friends used to tangle with Snape and my mum wouldn't stand for it — until one day, Snape called her a — an offensive name for a Muggleborn," he says, his eyes darting warily to Draco's.

Memories flash before Draco's eyes of a bushy-haired Muggleborn with overly large front teeth. Slugs being spewed onto the ground. Harry's eyes, burning with the fury of Grindelwald himself.

"That's unfortunate," he murmurs uncomfortably.

"It was." Harry turns his attention back to the lake. "But she still ended up marrying him, you know. She fell for him eventually, after he changed his attitude."

Draco still can't put the pieces together, though he senses there's some connection between them. Harry's trying to tell him something.

"A bit like you and me, don't you think?"

Oh.

"Yeah," Draco says, his mouth dry. "A bit like us."

Harry merely smiles.

Crossposted on ao3 under halcyon_epochs.

My writing's a little rusty and I was sick when I wrote the majority of this - sorry about any inconsistencies.