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Draco Malfoy asks Harry out on a date in late November.
There is a wet dusting of snow that ruins Harry's hair on the way to collect his lunch, and he slips on the supposedly health and safety approved ice path charm in the main hallway of the auror department. He drops his soup all down his auror robes as a result and then promptly burns an ugly hole when he tries to clean them. An hour later, sitting behind his desk in plain clothes, his coffee succumbs to the same fate.
So when Draco Malfoy, Head Complaint Charmer of the auror's public relations office, taps on his door an hour before Harry is due to leave for the night, the last thing he expects is a polite invitation to dinner.
"Of the first date variety," Malfoy clarifies.
Harry can't help the little disbelieving giggle that escapes. They have a pretty decent working relationship at this point, but Harry has never gotten the impression that Malfoy wanted to spend time with him socially, let alone romantically.
They don't run into each other at the pub -- Harry has heard the PR folk like the Dancing Unicorn, whereas he usually tags along with the other aurors to the Warm Hearth. The only other social occasion they might coincidentally meet outside of work would be the office parties -- those agonising events that happen several times a year either for charity, some grand political event or the seasonal monstrosity that is fast approaching next month. Harry likes to do a quick round of small talk and then subtly head for the exit. He might say three sentences maximum to Malfoy per event.
That is not to say he is particularly avoiding Malfoy on any of these occasions. He just never has a reason to socialise with him. They work well together, but run in different circles.
So, sitting in his little office in late November looking like he's been out in the field all day when actually life has just defeated him today, Harry thinks it is perfectly understandable that he is a little thrown.
"I'm not joking," Malfoy says, somehow managing to sound confident and vulnerable at the same time.
Looking back, Harry thinks he panicked. He tends to do that in social situations. Hermione tells him it's a throwback to his upbringing. Harry tells her to stop psychoanalysing him thanks.
He says 'yes' with only a slight stutter.
And that's how it starts.
Harry maintains that he never actively meant to lie to his friends. People -- by this he means the Prophet and general public at large -- seem to think he and his friends come attached at the hip. That they tell each other everything. But he wasn't in attendance when they were house hunting or at their engagement dinner. They have a perfectly normal, close friendship.
Having said that, even he can admit that thirteen months of dating later and his friends still not knowing about it is rather odd. Deceitful even. Years later, when people ask, he tells them he lost control of the situation quickly.
It was all unintentional though.
To begin with, it is on purpose.
Their first date goes well. Unbelievably well. So well in fact that Harry is convinced life will smack him in the face soon enough.
And it seems only natural to keep it quiet. Considering their pasts and all the baggage the public has decided that entails, it's better for their saviour -- no matter how he avoids the public eye and keeps his head down working an honest job, that's what he'll always be -- to not be seen dating a death eater who has to work under a pseudonym at the Ministry or no complainers will deal with him.
It's tentative and new and fragile. And Harry doesn't want to get his hopes up. Telling someone about it feels like tempting fate.
Then it becomes exciting. It goes unspoken but Harry feels like there is something forbidden about their relationship -- although he knows they aren't doing anything wrong. It becomes an adventure. He makes a rule for himself that he is never allowed to outright lie to anyone; he doesn't even like twisting the truth. It never even occurs to Hermione and Ron that he might be doing things with someone else, though, which is when the secrecy begins to close in around him.
His friends trust him so much they can't even comprehend him keeping something so important from them. He isn't particularly secretive by nature and his antisocial habits play in his favour; they don't question when he says he's going somewhere without them and they assume it will be alone.
Their first Yuletide, Harry spends the majority of the day with the Weasley's as usual. Ron and Hermione host them in their new home. Perhaps he should have told them then. Told them that he was looking forward to leaving for the night to go and see his partner of a month so it didn't feel like he was sneaking from their home behind their backs.
But he doesn't because he sees his family together sitting by the warm fire and knows it will cause an argument. He may have been cordial with Malfoy for over half a year now, but Ron has had no such experience.
Near midnight, Draco shows him how to set the tree alight with harmless magical blue fire as Purebloods like to do to burn away their grievances for the year. Draco lets him throw the first handful of cinnamon into the flames (for luck) and shows him how to place the sprigs of heather around the bottom (to welcome protection and safety into the family).
"We'll shrink it down," Draco murmurs in his ear while they snuggle on the sofa afterwards. "It needs to burn into the new year. Then we each make a wish for the coming year as the fire burns out. It's usually more for children, but we'll do it anyway."
Harry fetches them hot chocolate in the early hours of the morning and asks, "Did any of your wishes ever come true as a child?"
Draco tilts his head, lightly perplexed and surprised. "Oh, my family never did that," he says, as if it should be obvious. "My father wasn't the sort to believe in that sort of thing. We only burned the tree because it's tradition."
Harry thinks of small innocent Draco wanting to make a wish like the Weasley children probably got to, and the small little burning thing Mrs Weasley always used to have in the kitchen with her during the holidays that he never knew was significant.
He thinks Draco and he might not have been that different all along.
"They didn't have one this year. At Ron and Hermione's."
Draco slurps thoughtfully at his drink, stroking a thumb across the sappy Christmas message on the side. "It's probably at the Burrow. Families don't normally do more than one."
They sleep close together that night. Harry tries not to feel guilty.
In the new year they talk about telling their nearest and dearest, but there is always something that allows them to procrastinate -- a serial killer taking up all of Harry's time, not wanting to stress Hermione when her mother falls ill and so on. Then in early February, Draco and Ron have a stupidly overdramatic blow out in the middle of the Ministry -- Harry tries not to take sides which only makes Ron madder about the whole thing because he doesn't understand why.
They tactically decide then isn't the right time either.
By this point, Harry is ashamed that he's kept it from his closest friends for so long. A bubbling guilt stirs in his gut. It builds every time he sees them until he is so consumed by it that the thought of telling them makes his heartbeat irregular and sweat bead on his brow.
Before he knows it Spring is already gone and, to his absolute horror, their friendship groups are merging of their own accord. Draco, the utter twat, finds the ensuing panic highly amusing. Apparently, he and his friends don’t have any qualms about keeping things from one another, but he is worried on Harry’s behalf.
"Maybe," Harry whispers lowly as if the outside world can hear them when they talk in bed at night, "we just shouldn’t act like we're not."
Draco takes a moment to think this over, probably digesting the double negative and intention behind Harry’s words. His fingers play absently with Harry's sweaty hair. He hums against the top of Harry's head.
"Neither of us particularly like displaying affection in public anyway," he agrees. This has always been another reason it's been so infuriatingly easy to hide themselves.
"If we just..." Harry shrugs. Shame burns inside him again but things have gone too far now.
"Don't pretend not to be together, but also don't tell them," Draco finishes.
"They'll figure it out eventually. Maybe it would be gentler this way too."
Harry feels more confident for a while. They go to the pub together after work. He chats amicably with Blaise Zabini and enjoys Pansy Parkinson's blunt, sarcastic humour. He sits next to Draco and doesn't hide when he thinks a joke is funny. He hugs him when they leave as seperate groups at the end of the night and even goes so far as to leave with him a few times, and still no one suspects anything. Even Hermione, with her watchful eyes and knack for noticing body language doesn't so much as glance at them too long.
"Perhaps they already figured it out?" Draco asks, clearly not believing a word he's saying, as they cook dinner together a month and a half later. A scene of perfect domestic bliss.
"I feel like Ron would have said something. Or made a stupid joke if he was feeling more comfortable with it."
And just like that, they have a new game. Gone are the days when the excitement of sneaking around together was their entertainment. Now, with the bonds of friendship growing -- even between Ron and Draco, tentative though it is -- they agree to invest in a new game.
A touch to the thigh when they happen to be getting the next round in at the bar. A laugh slightly too flirtatious to be proper at a crude joke. Stealing a sip of the others drink. Harry even plucks up the courage to hold his hand one night, albeit under the table.
The most annoying thing is that doing these things out in the open doesn't come naturally to them. Harry feels slightly uncomfortable sometimes even.
And people still don't notice!
He starts to get suspicious. July is merging into August and honestly Harry's starting to get impatient.
"What if we're all playing one big game? What if they've known for ages and they don't want to confront us. They want to make us confess!"
Draco stares at him over his steaming coffee and morning newspaper. "I think you're being a little paranoid."
"We can't lose," Harry states.
Draco frowns at him like he has gone mad. Maybe he has. "I think they just don't know. We're not the most obvious couple."
"What if we were more obvious?"
"With the intent of them actually really finding out? Not, you know, like we've been doing?" Draco considers him. "What happened to all that shame and guilt you've been carrying around?"
Harry dumps two plates of eggs and bacon down on the table with gusto. "This is really stupid," Harry conceeds. "Honestly, I've recently been thinking if they haven't figured it out by now when we're trying to be obvious, then it's their own fault."
In September, he tells Hermione he went on a date recently. She must assume whomever it was with wasn't going to last because she replies, "Would you like me to help set you up with anyone?"
In October, when he is over at the Burrow for a Sunday roast, he tells the family at large that he and Draco are going away on holiday for a weekend.
Ron smiles at him happily, and Molly gushes, " Oh, that's wonderful Harry, dear. It's so lovely that you're making such good friends with other people."
In November -- with a reluctantly amused Draco in tow -- Harry organises a date for them at a restaurant in Diagon Alley that Prophet reporters like to frequent.
The article that follows is salacious and melodramatic and vaguely insulting, but not overly horrific.
Harry can't help but gape when Ron tuts the next time they see each other and says judgmentally, "Just like the bloody Prophet. Taking something as innocent as your friendship with Malfoy and twisting it like that." He shoves his copy of the offending article in a bin as they pass through the Ministry's atrium. It promptly bursts into flame. "Don't worry, mate, it'll blow over soon enough."
By December, Harry has all but given up.
"They're going to win," he groans, casting another unbreakable charm on a box of Draco's potion equipment. "We're literally moving in together and they still don't know! How obvious do they want me to be!?"
Draco lifts a jar of clear liquid up to the light and murmurs, "You could always just tell them."
"I give up!" Harry yowls as if Draco had never spoken. "At this rate we'll have to shag on the Christmas lunch table for them to notice."
"Might be sticky." Draco vanishes the liquid and moves on to inspect a vial. Harry’s laugh echoes through the basement as he trudges upstairs with his full box to add to their stack for moving.
He emerges back at the top of the stairs serious, his smile gone.
“Come with me!” he says, sprinting back down into the basement. His excitement makes him breathless. “Come with me Christmas day.”
Draco lets out a snort. “And be surrounded by a Weasley hoard who doesn’t want me there? No thanks.”
“It’ll be just the four of us.” Harry sidles up to him. His fingers brush across Draco’s shoulders and he tries for a coy smile. “The rest of the family is in Romania and Hermione’s seeing her family at New Years instead.” He leans in conspiratorially. “I think she’s pregnant and doesn’t want to travel.”
“Just the four of us? Like two couples being adults?” His eyes follow Harry’s hand as it slides down his arm and takes his free hand.
“We’re all friends now anyway.” Harry bites his lip. “Even if they don’t realise we’re together, I want to spend it with you.”
“The holidays bring out your sappiness, has anyone ever told you that?” But Draco squeezes his hand as he switches out his vial again. “If that’s what you want, we’ll go together.”
He tells his friends Draco is coming, of course, but they don’t react like it’s odd news.
“Oh, of course, his mother moved, right?”
“To France,” Harry replies.
“Of course he should come here then.” And that’s the end of it.
They turn up in the early afternoon and the day goes as it usually does every year when Harry goes to the Weasley’s for Christmas. Everything is loud and boisterous, but comfortable and warm like family. Ron almost starts a food fight with Draco while they’re cooking lunch together and Harry knocks over the Christmas tree standing innocently in the corner of the dining room while he is setting the table.
“It’s basically tradition,” Hermione murmurs to Draco while she fixes every mess with precise flicks of her wand.
Draco doesn’t seem out of place and Harry can’t remember laughing so much in a long time. He doesn’t feel paranoid everytime he touches Draco, whether it’s on his shoulder or thigh or the back of his hand on the table. No one takes any notice.
In the end, it’s all rather anticlimactic.
Harry asks where the cinnamon lives around nine that evening and Ron seems vaguely surprised he knows how the tradition works.
“I did it last year with Draco,” Harry calls over his shoulder as he heads back to the dining room. He joins Draco and Hermione by the tree where Draco is showing her how to braid the heather properly.
“I think families do it differently, this might not be how Ron’s does it,” he tells her as he directs her dainty fingers. It reminds Harry of where he was exactly a year ago and makes warmth flood in his chest.
“So that’s where you rushed off to last year,” Ron teases him as he follows him in. “ We wondered. Mum asked if you were ill the next morning.”
Harry laughs as they inspect the work that’s been done so far. “As if the Great Molly Weasley’s cooking could give me food poisoning.” He takes Draco’s hand once they’ve finished. “Ready to start?” he asks the room.
Once the tree is burning bright and Harry has basked in the sparks that crackle with the cinnamon and the heather is happily smoldering away, Hermione says gently, “So...that’s new.” She glances down at their clasped hands meaningfully. There’s no judgement in her voice and Ron doesn’t startle beside her either.
“Not really,” he says back, trying not to grin.
“Oh.” It’s more an exhale of breath.
“That explains a lot,” Ron mutters from her other side.
“Told you you were being paranoid,” Draco whispers into his ear before kissing him on the cheek.