For megyal, and just 'cause is all. No...For the recent pleasure her work has given me. And maybe three blinks long, if that? And five minutes of fast and furious fingering! (Well spent!)

First went well.

Harry gingerly assured himself of this, pushing parchment into files, laying them aside. Tedious but necessary. He could think whilst beavering away at it.

I think he likes me.

He told himself this over tea, much later, taken in the canteen. He'd looked for a blond (whiter than blond, actually; just call it Malfoy-coloured) head very briefly, but desisted. He didn't need to be obvious.

Malfoy wasn't present anyway. Harry would've known already.

He said he'd be willing to do it again. I wonder…

Harry allowed himself to wonder while waiting for the Floo bank to open up. It was a crush, as always; five p.m. and they fled like field mice from a hungry kneazle, all these co-workers of his.

I wonder, he thought, circular-spinning, meanwhile gaining home—a pint, carry-away, no shoes—and time to think again. No, time to think more. Allowing himself to think, rather, which he'd carefully not been indulging in all day. I wonder if…he meant it?

…if he meant it?

Draco tapped his wand against his chin, considering. It had been…nice, the whole dreary outing. He'd expected 'dreary' and it was: a second-rate meal at a café off the beaten track, a no-thrills film after, in Muggle London. Drinks at the Leaky, entirely boring. Excepting...excepting, well.

I… hope he did.

It hadn't been dreary—far from it. It had been…nice.

Far too nice. It had been Potter...Potter! But, then again, Potter. Potter.

Before he went to sleep that night Draco cursed himself for being so fucking—so sodding—so bleeding…

Well. He wasn't about to dwell on it. 'Nice' wasn't a state he should revel in. Not-'dreary' wasn't a plus he should dwell on...but.

But.

I wonder if maybe today…was Draco's first thought, upon waking. Well, if not, Potter! Potter.

(And here he sat up in his huge messy bed with a decided huff. The dawn of the new day was beautiful; his thoughts, chaotic. Potter? Ah...ah.)

It's my turn, isn't it?

Harry, sitting up bleary eyed and blind, thought of white-blond and tapas plates and the amused swirl of grey eyes fixed on his, never wavering.

And smiled.