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“Professor Potter! Professor Potter! Professor Potter!”
Harry sighs and drops his quill onto the stack of books he’s been leaning on. The scroll he’s been working on grading rolls up without preamble. Misty Rias’ clattering footsteps out in the stone hallway draw inevitably closer. He takes off his glasses to rub his eyes and squeeze the headache out through the bridge of his nose.
“Miss Rias,” he says, trying not to visibly roll his eyes. She skids to a halt framed in the archway at the back of his classroom. For a second, her gaze darts to the rows of desks between them, and Harry thinks she’ll actually sit in one of them and put her hand up instead of coming up to his desk.
She’s a mousy little thing who doesn’t look like she’ll hit a growth spurt until her seventh year, but her enthusiasm -- while often misplaced -- is infectious on occasion. Many a time she’s brightened his classroom.
“Professor Potter,” she huffs out now, stumbling up an aisle. “I just saw…” She clutches her side for a second, then stands up straight and tries again. “I just saw another professor with a student!”
This could go in any number of directions, so Harry doesn’t immediately feel red alarms going off in his head -- especially considering the source.
“Alright, Misty, calm down. Can you elaborate some more?”
“Sorry, sir, I just...”
Harry absently tips his wand towards a chair behind the first row of desks, and it squeals across the floor. Misty Rias falls back into it with a deep, whooping breath.
“Okay.” She clenches her fists in preparation for her tale, and Harry settles back into his own chair to listen.
“So I was on my way back from dinner, and I saw Damsin Dystress and Professor Malfoy behind the one-eyed witch statue together!” She wails and for a second Harry thinks she’s about to burst into tears, like she can’t handle the gravity of her discovery. The volume of her voice seems to rise with each of her sentences as well, and he’s slightly regretting putting the chair so close to his desk.
Harry can’t stop the exasperated sigh that huffs out through his nose before he replies, “And what were they doing, Miss Rias.”
“They were quite obviously flirting, Professor Potter!” Misty sobs hysterically, her hand reaching out and clutching at the edge of his desk so hard the wood creaks.
“I highly doubt that. I’m quite certain you’ve got entirely the wrong end of the stick here.” And he is. Not a single shiver of doubt makes him pause. He can sense the situation will turn comical soon. He’s getting too old for this.
“What if I brought you proof, sir?” Misty tips her chin down and stares him in the eye sincerely.
“Proof, eh? I suppose that would give credit to your argument, but really I can assure you there’s really no point.”
“I’ll find you proof! Damsin Dystress may be a sixth year, but she still needs protecting from such a weak-willed sexual predator!”
She’s gone from his classroom before he can process what she’s said. As such, he doesn’t attempt and stop the snort of laughter when it tries to escape.
“Apparently you’re a weak-willed predator,” Harry says when his bedroom door swings smoothly open that night. Harry is in bed reading, his back against the solid oak headboard.
Draco glances up, only half listening really, and nods along. “Am I?”
“Mmmm.” Harry smiles as he tosses his book carelessly onto the bedside table. “You were seen today canoodling behind the one-eyed witch statue.”
“Was I now?” Draco chuckles as he removes his outer robes. “Whom have I managed to seduce?”
“Damsin Dystress, or so I’m told.”
“Ugh, who in Circe’s name thinks up these idiotic lunacies.” Draco drops down onto the foot of the bed. He kicks off his boots, then leans back. His hand falls on Harry’s ankle through the covers and he absently starts massaging it.
“I’ll give you one free guess.”
“It’s that little Gryffindor girl, isn’t it? Rose? Rise? Whatever her name is. I knew she was odd when she couldn’t smell pepper-up pepping.”
“Rias. Don’t be too harsh on her. Although she is going to come after you for evidence to present to her dear head of house soon.”
“Would it be cruel to make this into a game?”
“Yes.”
“Can we anyway?”
“No, I shan’t participate.”
“Spoilsport.” But he’s smiling as he pats Harry’s leg, then heads for their en suite to get ready for bed.
It takes Misty Rias nearly two weeks to obtain evidence she is satisfied with. She comes to find Harry the Saturday evening a week before the end of term. He charming baubles to twirl a metre or so from the ceiling when she appears at his side and scares the life out of him.
"Miss Rias," he says, unable to quite take all the frostiness from his tone while his heart still clatters about in his chest.
"Sir," she says gravely. Her hair is wispy around her ears like she's been flying, and Harry notes the absence of her socks...?
"Miss Rias, what happened to your socks? You seem to have forgotten them somewhere."
"Oh." She busies herself reaching into the ragged satchel swinging at her hips while she answers. "No, they're in the owlery."
"Of course," Harry murmurs," where else would they be?"
It's at moments like this that Harry remembers why most of the faculty have a soft spot for her; she reminds them so much of Luna. He hopes he can witness a conversation between the two of them at some point in his life.
"Well, I might put them in the kitchens if the fires weren't up to par, but the owls need them more at the moment. It can get quite drafty up there you know, sir."
"I'd imagine so." Harry nods along, like all of this is sensible, and continues charming his decorations. He only half pays attention when she shoves a moving picture under his nose and begins her rambling explanation.
It's in black and white, displaying a rather blurred rendition of Draco Malfoy correcting Damsin Dystress' wrist action as she stirs some form of dark grey potion that sparks at every six o'clock swirl -- although Harry can't be sure whether that is the camera or the potion.
"..and then!" Misty exclaims, the very voice of reason and righteous justice, "he said: 'My dear Miss Dystress, please do keep your wrist flexible lest you turn us all into lusty, slobbering imbeciles.’ He said exactly that, with exactly that emphasis. You can ask anyone, there are plenty of witnesses to corroborate my story."
Harry tries to keep a straight face, really he does, but her impersonation of Draco is really so spot on. A little high-pitched but otherwise uncanny.
As for her evidence...Harry glances back at the photo she's brandishing like it contains the secrets of her final exam results. Ah, yes, there he is: Romeo Lovelorn hanging into the photo on the left side and wavering, trance-like, as if he's about to be silently and subtly ill.
Right there, he decides this has to stop. Misty Rias is a well-known year round resident of Hogwarts, and he won't stand for her interrupting the quiet castle holiday he and Draco have planned for themselves -- nevermind that none of the students know there's anything to interrupt. (He's fairly sure no one knows they both reside on the fourth floor, let alone that they share an apartment there.)
"Well, Miss Rias," he says, gently, "I'll be sure to discuss this in person with Professor Malfoy. You leave it with me." He puts on his helpful, dependable face and whisks the photo from her clutching fingers before she can protest.
"Oh, Sir! I knew it, I knew I could depend on you! And the others all said you'd be too biased when I told them what I'd seen! They laughed and told me you'd just brush me off." And that's exactly what he had done, wasn't it? Maybe not in the same cruel, teasing way as her classmates, but... She has grateful tears welling in her eyes now, and Harry feels a guilty stirring in his gut. She's completely wrong about the whole thing, but he can't think of a way to resolve the situation without telling her a little white lie.
Instead, he addresses something else she's said to avoid that issue altogether. "Just because we had a rivalry in school it doesn't mean I'll be biased either way," he reassures, slipping his wand into his robes and deciding now is the time to be making an escape.
"Oh, no, sir. Not because of that. Because you're in love with him." Then she seems to realise what she's said, and that it's probably some form of entire student body-wide secret she's blabbed.
They stare at each other in shocked silence for a moment. And then Harry realises she's handed him the perfect solution. Draco has wanted to come clean with the school for a long time now, so they can make it more official. It's been in the works for over a year, permission from committee members and signed assurances and joint contracts -- the whole shebang.
"Can I tell you a secret, Miss Rias," he asks, aware that it will have spread around all four houses before he can finish putting up his string of sparkling faerie-dusted lights around the windows.
She nods her head eagerly, messy fringe spilling over he wet eyes and cheeks.
"I do love Professor Malfoy very much, you're right. I've been worried about these accusations you brought to me, though. It put me in a very awkward position. You see they just aren't true. And I know that because Professor Malfoy loves me very much too."
Her mouth hangs open gormlessly for a moment while she gathers her words, then: "Oh."
Harry thinks, as he watches her race back the way she came, that Misty Rias might be the only student surprised by this revelation. For most people it will be more like a confirmation.
Draco finds him just before Harry's about to leave his freshly decorated classroom to go down to dinner. Scare Professor Potter seems to be the Hogwarts hobby for today.
"Apparently," he says, examining his nails while Harry startles and whirls to face him. A blush immediately makes Harry's cheeks hot. Draco coughs, looks up at him, and starts again. "Apparently, I'm in love with you." One of his eyebrows raises slowly towards his loose fringe of hair, and Harry feels something in his chest tighten cautiously. "That's a rather bold assertion to make on your own, isn't it?"
Harry knows Draco is teasing him. The ring hanging from a gold chain under his robes is proof enough of that, but his heart still stutters in panic in his chest. Maybe he misjudged this. Secretly he'd thought Draco would find this all utterly charming, he's a closet romantic anyway. Perhaps...
"You're lucky it's true, I guess, or you'd have started some very inconvenient rumours today." There's a wickedly sharp smile curling on Draco's lips, and and a cruel, teasing sparkle in his pale eyes. Even these things, though, Harry wouldn't change about him should the opportunity ever arise.
"Yeah, just lucky, I guess," he murmurs self-deprecatingly when Draco gets close enough to hear.
"What are you going to do next," Draco whispers against his lips, "kneel before me at breakfast with a pair of binding bracelets?"
Instead of answering, Harry kisses him under his shimmering faerie-dusted lights, and the starlight trickling in through the steamy windows.