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"Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Potter, it's wonderful to see both of you again." Headmistress McGonagall says with a fond smile on her face as Draco and Harry sit in the two seats in front of her desk, which used to be Dumbledore's before the battle of the astronomy tower.
"It's good to see you too, Professor." Harry says with a nod of his head, curious as to why she called both him and Draco in to talk with her. "What did you want to talk to the two of us about?" He asks, surprised at how quiet Draco is being in the seat next to him.
"I have a simply request for the two of you." McGonagall says, folding her hands atop of her desk, looking over the her two students over her glasses that are perched on the center of her nose. "In order to promote house unity in the light of the end of the war, I would ask that you two stop referring to one another by your last names." She adds, which makes Draco and Harry to look at one another before they look at her with identical confusion on their faces.
"What? How would that promote house unity?" Draco asks, not understanding why the two of them, who are definitely not on first name basis, calling each other something other than their last name would effect house unity within the school.
"To show that just because you two are in what most people consider to be rival houses, you can still be polite to one another." McGonagall says, with a slight smirk on her lips, as she hadn't expected to agree right aways.
"Is this mandatory?" Draco asks, seemingly wanting to do anything other than address Harry by his first name.
"I'm afraid it is, Mr. Malfoy." McGonagall answers, smirk still present on her lips, as this is playing out almost exactly how she had anticipated it would. "Unless you would like detention every time you refer to Mr. Potter by his last name." She adds, offering an ultimatum, knowing that both of them would rather suck it up and call each other by their first names than have detention every night until the end of the year.
"Alright, fine." Harry says with a huff, as he doesn't see anyway that he can get around this, as the idea of having detention just for calling Draco his last name isn't exactly appealing to him.
"Fine?" Draco asks in disbelief, eyes wide as he turns to look at Harry, who just seems to have accepted the situation for what it is at this point, knowing that there's no point in arguing about it.
"Oh! Before I forget, you two also have sign this, in agreement of that fact that you two will no longer refer to one another by last names." McGonagall adds, sliding a shimmering paper over to the two boys, pens appearing in front of both of them so they can sign at their pleasure.
Both Harry and Draco let out signs before they grab their individual pens and sign the paper, which makes another smirk slide onto McGonagall's face before she pulls the paper back to her, folds it up and places it into one of the drawers in her desk.
"Thank you, boys, that will be all." McGonagall says, letting the two boys in front of her to know that they don't have anything else to discuss before they both get up and leave her office in an uncharacteristic silence, making her laugh slightly once they already left the room, as she begins to think of the loopholes in the contract that they're both smart enough to realize.
~*~
"Look if it isn't lover boy with Granger and Weasley." Draco says with a smirk, as he realized over the few days that he hadn't come into contact with Harry that he could call him anything, as long as it isn't his last name.
"Morning, handsome." Harry says with an almost identical smirk as him, Hermione and Ron are walking into the Great Hall, Draco, Blaise and Pansy now walking next to them as Harry and Draco try and think of more snide comments they can make before the two groups separate to go to their separate house tables for breakfast.
"See you later, Killer." Draco says, adding a wink in Harrys direction for extra effect before him, Blaise and Pansy head to the Slytherin table while Harry, Hermione and Ron head to the Gryffindor table.
"What was that about?" Hermione asks as her, Harry and Ron sit down at the Gryffindor table, as Harry hasn't told them what McGonagall talked to him and Draco about the first night that they arrived at Hogwarts for their eighth and final year.
"Oh, uh, for the sake of house unity, Professor McGonagall made me and, uh, Draco, sign something so now we can't refer to each other by our last names. So I can't call him, well, if I could say it it would be a different story." He says after he realizes that he can't even say Malfoy, even when Draco isn't around to hear it, which makes Harry both curious about why McGonagall had them out of everyone in their year sign the paper, but almost makes him realize how serious she was about it.
"Huh, strange." Ron says with a shrug, about to dismiss the topic altogether so he could start eating breakfast before another question pops into his head. "So, you can call him his first name, so what's up with the nicknames?" He adds, beating Hermione to the opportunity to ask the same question.
"I don't know, me and him aren't, and I doubt will ever be on first name basis, so the nicknames are a substitute for the last names I guess. I don't really know, it's a loophole in the paper that McGonagall made us sign, so." Harry answers with a shrug before he fills his plate up with some food, Hermione and Ron following suit after a few moments of them processing what he just told them.
~*~
Harry and Draco continued to address one another by cheesy pet names such as 'sweetie pie', 'stud', 'captain', 'sugar', 'darling', and almost any other nickname that someone can think of. Which, unbeknownst to them, started getting them a lot of attention around the school, and maybe for a reason that they hadn't thought of when they started calling each other nicknames that one would only typically call their significant other.
"So, you and Malfoy, huh?" Ginny asks Harry one night at the Great hall during dinner, catching the attention of Dean, Seamus, and Neville, who all thought that she wouldn't bother bringing it up to him after they told her what had been going on for about a week and a half or so.
"What do you mean?" Harry asks, oblivious to what him and Draco seem to be to almost everyone else in the school other than his close friends and Draco's close friends, as they've all been told what's going on.
"What made you two get together? We always thought that you two hated each other." Dean says in an almost confused tone, as, ever since their first year, Draco and Harry have done nothing but fight when the two of them have seen one another.
"Get together? What do you mean?" Harry asks, growing more and more confused by the second, eyes darting between Hermione and Ron while they contemplate whether they should tell him or not. "What?" He asks, knowing that there's something that the two of them aren't telling him.
"Now that you guys, are, uh, not calling each other by the others last name, and have effectively replaced the last name with pet names, everyone at school thinks that you two are dating." Hermione blurts, not wanting to keep this from her friend anymore, even though she's surprised that no one else has talked to him about this yet, as their entire year thinks it, and so does the majority of the rest of the school.
"What?" Harry asks, as he thought that it was obvious that they two of them were joking about using the pet names, he didn't expect anyone to take them seriously. "Oh you've gotta be kidding me." He says with a sigh as he runs a hand down his face, now connecting the dots of why some girl, that he'd never met before, came up to him a few days ago and told him that she supported him. "Why didn't anyone tell me this sooner?" He adds, inwardly panicking as he doesn't want anyone to know his true feelings towards the blonde Slytherin, as the only people who know are Ron and Hermione and, while they are supportive, he hates talking to them about it because he doesn't want to disappoint them because of who he's attracted to.
"Here comes the devil." Hermione says, loud enough for Ron and Harry to hear her but not the person that she's talking about, who is walking towards their table as if he's on a mission.
"Hey, Harry?" Draco says, almost sounding nervous as he places his hand on Harry's shoulder, which causing the Gryffindor to turn around and look up at the other boy.
"What's up?" Harry asks, not wanting to start a fight as he assumes that it will draw more attention than usual now that people think that the two of them are actually together.
"Meet me in the abandoned Charms classroom at eight thirty tonight." Draco says before a grin spreads across his face before he looks around and sees that all eyes are on him and Harry, and he decides to milk the situation for what it's worth. "See you then, Romeo." He adds before he places a quick kiss onto Harry's cheek before he saunters back over to the Slytherin table with a sly and confident grin plastered onto his face as Harry's cheeks and ears turn scarlet red, resembling the colors bore by his house.
"Good luck with that, mate." Ron says with a scoff, as he knows how Harry truly feels about Draco, before he continues to eat his dinner, as do the rest of the Gryffindor's at their table, while Harry's face remains the
~*~
"What in the hell was that?" Harry yells as soon as Draco saunters in to the abandoned Charms classroom, as he decided to get there five minutes early so he could have time to think about what he wanted to say and how he was going to say it.
"Oh calm down, I had to put on a show for the kids." Draco says, familiar smirk returning to his face as he takes a few more steps closer to Harry as Harry takes a few more steps back, not wanting to be closer to the other boy than necessary. "I assume that Granger and Weasley told you what everyone's talking about." He adds, still not wanting to refer to Hermione or Ron by first name, as he feels as though referring to Harry by anything other than his last name is over doing it.
"Yeah, they did, so, I want to stop with all of this nickname bullshit." Harry says, as he doesn't need anymore extra attention, as all he wants to do is to graduate and to become an Auror, not deal with some petty rumors that shouldn't even be happening.
"Oh, really? I was just starting to get used to it." Draco says, surprised that Harry want's to call it quits on the nicknames, as Harry has never quit doing anything before, or not to his knowledge anyways. "When does the 'Great Harry Potter' ever quit at something?" He says with a bit of a laugh, but Harry can tell that it's completely fake, which is different than what it would have been a few years ago.
"When it involves stupid and baseless rumors." Harry says, sounding more harsh then he intended to, but he doesn't care, he just wants to get this little meeting over with so he can go to sleep and hopefully no one will bring up him and Draco together in a sentence again until he graduates. "Why did you want me to come here anyways?" He asks, cutting to the chase sooner than Draco would have hoped.
"I was hoping that you would want to make those rumors true." Draco says, and it takes a few seconds but then it dawns on Harry what the other boy is implying, which makes him instantly confused.
"I would like that, but, would you?" Harry asks, hoping that Draco isn't pulling some sort of prank on him, not after he just confessed to wanting to be in a relationship with the other boy, and, somehow without Harry even realizing Draco has almost cornered him against a wall in the classroom, he isn't intimidated, just, confused and in anticipation for what he hopes the other boy will do.
"I don't know, does this answer that for you?" Draco says before he leans in and kisses Harry, placing his hands onto the other boys hips to pull him closer as Harry wraps his arms around Draco's shoulders, one his hands going into the other boys hair, which gains him a noise of pleasure in the kiss.
~*~
"So you two are actually together now?" Hermione asks Harry the next day at breakfast, who is currently preoccupied looking over at Draco, who is sitting at the Slytherin table with Blaise and Pansy, with goo goo eyes that almost make everyone in the great hall want to throw up. "Harry. Harry!" She adds before she snaps her fingers in front of the Harry's face, which gets him out of his daydream.
"What? Sorry." Harry says, guiltily looking down at the table as his ears and cheeks go red from the embarrassment of being caught staring at Draco. "How obvious was it?" He adds, wanting to know whether or not he looked like a complete idiot.
"I would have to be blind to not have noticed it." Ron says with a quick laugh before he digs back into his breakfast, which causes both Harry and Hermione to roll their eyes, as he has been the same way ever since the three met in their first year.
"Crap." Harry says before him, Hermione and Ron all erupt into laughter, him joining in even though it's at his expense. "Sorry." He adds after the three of them have calmed down, his eyes locking with a certain blonde Slytherins, which causes a genuine grin to cross both boys faces, which causes their friends to roll their eyes and shake their heads in almost perfect unison at their friends who are so clearly whipped for one another.
"Looks like your plan worked." Professor Sprout says with a beaming Headmistress McGonagall, both looking on at the boys who now have gone back to hopelessly staring at one another from across the room.
"Yes, I guess it has." Professor McGonagall says with a proud smile on her face, happy that the two students who have 'hated' each other since they first met have finally come to terms with their mutual feelings for one another "It has." She adds, repeating herself with a nod as she takes a sip of her daily cup of coffee that she has to get ready for the oncoming day that will no doubt be filled with either stress or relief, and on rare occasions both.