Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

No Walls Around My Heart	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 3640 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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            “We have to have food besides cake.”
            Draco made his voice as soft and smooth as he could. Harry had his back turned currently, and was digging into one of the ancient cupboards where Draco’s ancestors kept linen that Draco didn’t often use. He didn’t see the point in having a cloth that slipped like silk through your fingers if it would only get spots of sauce and juice and all the rest on it.
            “I don’t see why,” Harry said absently, turning around with a tablecloth that gleamed like moonlight. “What about this one?”
            “The house-elves have already chosen a tablecloth that works. And we can’t simply eat cake.”
            “It’ll take an army to demolish that cake. It might as well be an army of hungry Weasleys.” Harry held up the cloth over his head, studying it with an admiring eye. “I like this one.”
            “There’s no point. We have one. In the meantime, you know that your friends won’t thank us for feeding that much sugar to their children.”
            “They can leave the children at home. They don’t have much of an appetite anyway, as young as they are. The adults can eat the cake, and Ron and Hermione and Bill and Fleur can take pieces home for them.” Harry paused. “Percy is coming, right? I can never get all the way through one of his letters without my eyes glazing in boredom.”
            Draco sniffed. Percy Weasley was one of the few Weasleys whose company he genuinely enjoyed, at least in something other than a guarded and wary way. He had a sense of formality and proportion that Draco liked. “He is. His children and wife with him. And we need fruit. Vegetables. Other things.”
            He moved to the side, because Harry was staring so hard and with such determination at the tablecloth that Draco thought something was wrong. Then he caught sight of the way Harry was biting his lip, and his eyes narrowed.
            “You little shit. You always intended to have other food!”
            “Of course I did.” Harry turned around and stuck his tongue out at him. “As if I want to listen to the way Ron and Hermione would complain if the only thing that Rose and Hugo got to eat at our party was sugar.”
            “You sounded like you didn’t mind fooling me,” Draco muttered, but there was a warm feeling in his chest. He grabbed Harry around the shoulders with one arm and pulled him towards his own chest, nuzzling the back of his neck. “You remember joking like this?”
            “Yeah.” Harry tilted his head back and let his hands waver on the tablecloth until Draco took it from him and tossed it back into the cupboard. “Pretty well.”
*
            Draco had been studying with Potter and actually sharing the same room as him sometimes for almost a month before he began to notice that Potter had a real sense of humor.
            Well, he had always known that. The way that Potter spoke about Slytherins was its own kind of humor. But it had always been the kind Draco didn’t find funny, so he had ignored it as much as possible.
            This time, though, he came out of the bathroom just as Potter finished arranging some pink ribbons around a heart-shaped box. Potter studied it for a second, then snickered. Draco looked it over cautiously from a distance, but he didn’t think it looked dangerous.
            Then again, some of the Weasley twins’ pranks never did.
            “What is that?” Draco asked, as Potter picked up the box and swung it around in his arms. If it had a trick or joke inside, at least it wasn’t finicky. Potter seemed to have no hesitation about handling it like it was made of wood.
            Potter gave him a smile. “Come with me if you want to see something funny.”
            Draco wasn’t sure he did, not without an explanation, but he found himself following Potter anyway as he walked out of their room and down the twisting corridor the school had built to the door of Weasley’s and Blaise’s room. Draco found himself hanging back a little as Potter knocked smartly on the door. If this was part of a prank on Blaise, he wanted no part of it.
            Weasley, though, was the one who opened the door, yawning and knuckling at his eyes. Potter slid to one knee before him and held the extravagant pink box high above his head. Weasley froze in the middle of another yawn.
            “Will you allow me to declare my love for you in the middle of the corridor?” Potter asked, loudly enough to make some of the other doors open.
            Weasley’s jaw made it most of the way to his chest. The advantages of being so tall, Draco thought madly, holding back the mad urge to cackle at the same time. This was ridiculous. And he still had no idea what was going on, or only a faint one.
            “Mate! Mate! You said—”
            “That I wasn’t in love with you, yeah,” Potter answered in a soft voice that went right under all the snickers and outright laughter that were starting around them. Draco thought he would have missed it if he wasn’t standing right behind Potter. “But you also went on and on about me possibly being that way. So I thought I would reassure you.”
            Draco blinked. He thought he was starting to understand. But not as fast as Weasley, who gave Potter a helpless glance, shook his head, and then grabbed Potter’s arms and hauled him to his feet. “Stop being ridiculous,” he said, and raised his voice. “Harry is not in love with me!”
            “But he made you that pretty pink box!” Blaise called from behind Weasley, his voice sounding merrier than Draco had heard it all term. “That must mean he’s sincere.”
            “It’s one of George’s pranks,” Weasley suggested, and reached over and wrenched the box away from Potter. “Look—”
            He must have touched something the wrong way, or else the box really was a prank. The lid sprang off, and bits of pink ribbon and confetti rained on the floor, accompanied by small, glimmering stars of illusory light. Draco was so busy watching them that he almost missed what had happened to Weasley himself.
            Pink hair. Pink cheeks. Pink lips. He looked like Pansy when she was twelve and had slept with her makeup on, then accidentally made it permanent when she was trying to get it off.
            Draco worked his lips against the laughter, but he lost. Potter grinned at him over his shoulder.
            “Mate, what the hell?” Weasley asked. He conjured a mirror and held it up, then recoiled in horror from the glass.
            Potter stepped towards him and lowered his voice, once again going right under all the snickers. “You ought to know better, Ron. Yes, I’m looking for a nice boy to date, as Hermione would put it. But I’ve never, ever fancied you. I told you it would be a joke if I did. Well, now there’s been the joke. Stop worrying about it, okay?”
            Draco gasped a little as two thoughts hit him, almost hurting, at the same time. His second one was, When did Potter decide he wanted to find a nice boy to date?
            He buried the first thought. It hurt too much to think about right now.
            “Okay,” said Weasley, and Draco thought there was some shadow removed from Potter’s face when he said that. “Okay, mate.” He punched Potter in the arm. “Now, are you going to tell me how to remove this pink, or not?”
            Potter stood there thoughtfully for a minute, then shrugged. “You know, I didn’t think to ask George that.”
            Weasley’s jaw found new depths to travel to. “Mate—”
            “It’s all right, you can owl him, and I’m sure it’ll be fine,” said Potter loftily, and turned away from Weasley, back to their room. Along the way, he caught Draco’s eye, and winked.
            Draco followed him in silence, nodding and smiling absently when Potter demanded to know whether he was funny and whether Weasley hadn’t got what he deserved for getting all concerned and defensive about Potter wanting to date him. He was more occupied with that first thought which had hit him, which kept re-emerging despite all the control Draco was exerting to put it back in its place where it belonged.
            What bloke wouldn’t jump at the chance to date Potter?
*
            “We’re—really going through with the bower idea?”
            Harry couldn’t believe it. Draco had mentioned that he wanted to decorate the front of the house to welcome the people who would soon be arriving for their party, but Harry had thought the ideas he was mentioning were extravagant fantasies, not something that he would actually put in place.
            Apparently, Harry had been the one fantasizing about Draco’s lack of desire to decorate. There was a long lattice that looked like wrought iron but which Harry knew would be made of some lighter, grey wood extending from outside the front door down most of the gravel path to the gates. It bent and twisted to follow the path, and it was decorated with shining, wide-blooming white roses.
            “That’s not a bower. I don’t know where you got that word.” Draco had come up behind him and was frowning heavily at him.
            “It’s an arbor, then,” Harry said, and raised a hand when Draco opened his mouth, probably to tell him off. “Whatever word you want to use. I didn’t think you would actually do it.” He looked at the decorated thing again and shook his head.
            When he turned back, Draco’s eyes were slitted and his head tilted as though he was listening to some distant sound. “Why would you think I was less than serious?”
            Harry sighed soundlessly. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have doubted you.”
            Draco smiled back at him and swirled away to tell the house-elves something else. Harry watched him and shook his head.
            He should have remembered how serious Draco was about decorations, or at least those decorations that wouldn’t cause him any trouble to put up.
*
            Harry watched Malfoy as carefully as he could. For the past fortnight, or almost, Malfoy had been twitchy. He would sigh and glance at the walls and then away again. Harry would have thought he was looking for something, but he never seemed to look at the same wall twice in a row. Instead, it was as if he really expected or wanted something to be there that simply wasn’t.
            Harry finally asked, when he thought it was going to drive him mental if Malfoy glanced and sighed one more time. “What is it? Is there something I can do that would make you feel more at home here?”
            Malfoy turned around in his chair, staring at him, but Harry stayed in one place and gave him a steady stare back. He didn’t know what was going on, only that it was obviously bothering Malfoy, and now that they were getting along, he didn’t think it was so unusual of him to offer to cure it.
            Malfoy fidgeted with his fingers in his lap for a second, and finally whispered, “Back at the Manor, there would be all sorts of decorations for Halloween by now.”
            Harry waited a second himself, so he wouldn’t come out with something stupid about being surprised that the Malfoys celebrated Halloween. Then he nodded. “And you want to put some decorations up here?”
            “The Great Hall has them. Enough of them. I really ought to be satisfied. But…” Malfoy looked as if he was pinching his thigh.
            “There can be some here, too,” Harry said, deciding that was the source of his reluctance. He wanted to have the decorations up, but he thought Harry would think they were silly or stupid.
            Harry himself didn’t feel that great an impulse to decorate. Halloween was always going to be the night his parents died and he was left an orphan to him. And he wasn’t a kid anymore; he didn’t want to get sick eating sweets just because it was something Dudley got to do and he didn’t.
            That didn’t have anything to do with decorations, though, and Malfoy wanting them. Harry drew his wand and turned to the wall, concentrating for a second. Then he nodded and waved his wand.
            “Creo vespertilio!” he said, and then turned around and pointed his wand at the height of the wall above the bathroom door and said it again.
            A black wave of light leaped out of his wand and hit the wall, where it formed into a transparent dark bat that began to flap its wings enthusiastically. Harry put another one above the door out into the corridor, and then tried to remember the word for apple. He had to give up, but Malfoy murmured a quiet word beside him, and some orange ones appeared hanging in garlands that dangled from side to side of the room.
            Harry smiled at him. “There you go. Maybe we can look up some more spells to do it later. I’m afraid that’s about my limit.”
            Malfoy looked at him in silence for a second. Then he said, “And you did it for me.”
            “Well, yeah,” Harry said, and shrugged as Malfoy went on looking at him. “I mean, I wouldn’t have decorated if you hadn’t said something. But it’s not like I hate it.” He sat down and looked up at the orange apples. They would need some red ones, he thought, to go with them.
            “It’s nothing compared to what will be in the Great Hall later,” Malfoy said softly.
            Harry grinned at him. “Yeah, but we’ll get some sweets from Honeydukes. We won’t have as many, but it’ll be better-quality. And just for us.”
            Malfoy paused for long enough that Harry had to keep looking at him instead of turning back to his homework. “Why, Harry Potter,” he finally said, and his voice was stilted a little out of true, “are you inviting me to a private Halloween celebration?”
            “It could be that I am,” said Harry, and considered him. “The question is whether you’ll want to join me or not.”

            “I do,” said Malfoy, and his face was soft and glowing with sincerity. Harry thought that it was a rather good look on him. He wondered how many people had ever got to see it.
            Well, I’m one of the lucky ones, he thought, and smiled at Malfoy as he pushed his chair over towards him. “Then let’s start planning our trip to Honeydukes, and whether anyone else deserves any of those sweets or not.”
            Malfoy laughed. Harry found himself staring, and decided that was permissible. Malfoy was lovely when he laughed.
            Maybe the solution to some of my problems isn’t as far away as I think.
*
            “Did we forget to put up banners?”
            Draco leaned back lazily on the wall of the kitchen as he ate his mini-lunch—to the squeaking distress of the house-elves, he had decided that he was too busy to sit down and have them prepare a special meal—and watched Harry checking things off on a list. His own treacle tart was dripping off his fingers onto the page, but it wasn’t like they would need it after today.
            He likes to decorate just as much as I do. The difference was that Harry didn’t think of it like that. He would bury himself in details later, instead of planning ahead and wanting to surprise their visitors with something beautiful the way Draco did.
            “We did forget to put up banners.” Harry looked up with a faint frown and sucked down the rest of his treacle tart in a way that never failed to make Draco’s bones liquefy. “I remember now. We had that argument about what they were going to say.”
            “I couldn’t come up with anything good to say,” Draco told him. “Everyone already knows what kind of party they’re here to celebrate, and the house-elves will welcome them. That takes away the two most pertinent possibilities right there.”
            Harry turned and gave him a bigger frown. “Then you decided we didn’t need them?”
            “I thought we did. I simply couldn’t come up with anything for them to say.”
            Harry snorted. “It’s not often that you’re wordless.”
            Draco snorted back. “And most of the time, when I am, you have something to do with it.”
*
            By Christmas, they were getting on better than Draco could ever have imagined. And he didn’t think it was because Potter had made a promise to McGonagall or anything tiresome like that, either.
            They had shared a private Halloween celebration after all, and other private moments since then—a quiet word here when one of them looked ready to explode, a touch to a hand that defused a confrontation with someone else, sitting by each other in class and competing silently to take the best notes. Draco felt as though someone had lit a fire in his chest that would and could burn steadily, and would go on burning even if someone tried to take the kindling away.
            Weasley sometimes gave him flat glances, as if he thought Draco was trying to seduce his best mate and was trying, himself, to decide what to do about it. Granger sometimes watched them thoughtfully, and so did Longbottom. Most of the other eighth-year students were preoccupied with their own problems.
            Draco knew he was going to pass his NEWTS. He had seldom studied so well as he did sitting beside Potter in the library, or their room, or even with Potter’s friends, on the days when Potter wanted to be with them and Draco didn’t want to leave his side. Everything was fine as long as Draco kept his mouth shut, and he had learned to do so in the face of some rather extreme provocation.
            No one else seemed to notice that silence and that good studying, except Potter, and then his glances were lingering in the way that Draco had learned to meet with a flush in his cheeks.
            Two days before Christmas—a holiday neither of them were going home for—Draco opened his eyes and found Potter sitting on his bed, contemplating Draco. “Draco,” he said, trying the word on for size.
            Draco blinked sleepily at him for a few seconds before figuring it out. Even after all the silence and shared moments, this was the first time Potter had used his name.
            He stayed speechless, and that was probably a good thing. It meant he couldn’t speak and ruin the mood as Potter knelt in front of him, looked him in the eye for a long, motionless moment, and then kissed him.
            He could return it, and he did it, lest Potter think he was kissing a statue. In seconds, Potter’s hands were wild and greedy in his hair, tugging Draco to the side so he could kiss him better, and Draco rolled on his bed and reached up.
            Potter came down to him in a smooth leap like the moment a trout leaped out of water.
            Draco closed his eyes and wrapped himself deep in Potter’s warmth, and let concerns that were larger than that minute, that space of seconds and happiness and peace, go.
*
Severus1snape: Thank you!
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No Walls Around My Heart