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“Come on, just tell me. I promise I won’t laugh.”
Draco raised one sleek eyebrow in barely hidden disbelief.
“Well not that hard anyway.” Harry conceded. The blond just huffed and walked off.
Harry grabbed his arm in a desperate attempt to keep the peace. After all they had only just started...well, whatever this was between them. He wasn’t sure that their pre-sex relationship was strong enough to survive a blow up argument.
“Hey, I was only kidding. If you don’t want to tell me you really don’t have to. I promise I won’t pester you about it.” Draco nodded and took Harry’s hand again their steps soon fell into a slow time with each other.
“Seriously though what is it?”
‘Fuck this’, Draco thought, storming off in the other direction, ‘I’m going to go have a drink at the three broomsticks.’
***
Harry had spent the past four months trying to work it out. He’d tried spying, he’d tried asking at unexpected moments to surprise the answer out of Draco, he’d tried bribing, god had he tried bribing, he’d even threatened to withhold sex (though that plan had lasted all of about two hours.). He was this close to slipping veratsium into his boyfriend’s pumpkin juice.
Contemplating how best to obtain some veratsium, Harry stared out of the window of his and Draco’s terrace house. If it was a clear day they could see right over onto the fields. It was almost a shame that the fog liked to roll across the park most days blocking the view. Just in the line of sight there was a disturbance in the grey morning sky.
As the shape drew closer he saw it was two animals, it wasn’t an unusual sight this time of year, the birds of prey had just moved back to the area and the larger ones often picked fights with rabbits and other large rodents that, unimpressed with having been picked up by a feather brained bastard, turned on the bird to attack them with a vengeance.
The duelling duo swooped straight passed the window causing Harry to jump back in alarm. He’d managed to get a look. He didn’t know what the bird was, but its prey was a snow white ferret, small and juvenile looking, the kind of animal that one might find in a pet store with a pink bow on its head. Harry had no clue what it was but it strongly reminded Harry of one it’d seen before.
Poor thing probably wasn’t going to win this fight though; he could already see that its shoulder was pretty badly mauled. That was the balance of nature he supposed. Not wanting to look at it further he walked towards the kitchen, but he was interrupted by Draco who apperated into the hall then collapsed breathless onto the floor. Harry felt sick, not his Draco, these were supposed to be the good times, the times where bad things weren’t supposed to happen.
He was failing to keep the hysteria out of his voice. “Are you ok? Who was it? What did they do?”
“Harry, shh love. It’s ok I just got into a stupid fight with someone bigger than me, it’s nothing serious.”
Harry wasn’t so convinced as he saw the blood of the man he loved stain the wall he was leaning against. Harry got to work quickly patching up the small scratches, stemming the flow of blood and putting salve on some of the deeper wounds before trying to heal them. They both sat in silence. Harry didn’t know what to say; seeing Draco come in like that made Harry the most scared he’d been since the war.
Suddenly something clicked. He knew why he recognised that animal. There was no way to put the question but bluntly.
“You’re a ferret?”
Draco said nothing, though a delightful flush of pink made itself apparent on his face.
“It’s ok.” Said Harry admiring the beautiful blond, “Ferrets are cute, they make brilliant pets too.” He stroked his thumb along Draco’s cheekbone. “You’ll be my pet won’t you?”
“That was too cheesy for words.”
“Ah, who needs words? Talking means less time for kissing you senseless.”
And that was how Harry spent the rest of his afternoon.