"Oh, how comforting denial can be! Like the warmest blanket on the coldest night! Denial and hope and delusion all twisted in a tangle of comfort that's so easy to get lost in. And yet, denial and hope and delusion have limits too. And yet, there comes a time when you can no longer ignore the inevitable. And yet, in any story there is a point of no return – you've done what you've done and the outcome is not going to change no matter how much you try to compensate for your wrong decisions.

It was clear to me then that even though I would have done whatever it took to keep him, whatever it took was not going to be enough."

– Apples and Oranges by Francis Gallagher

_____

Draco insisted to side-along them to Malfoy Manor on Saturday but Harry couldn't tell if it was because he didn't want Harry to have even the slightest chance of being alone with his mother or because they were pretending like Harry had never been there before.

Either way, they arrived together, a unified front prepared for everything, and Harry kept wondering if he should brace himself for some overdue interrogation about his intentions, but so far there hasn't been anything of the sort.

Draco had masterfully sidestepped entering the Manor itself and had instead led them down a pathway half hidden by overgrown cypress trees to a patio in the back. Narcissa was already waiting for them.

Draco goes to her first. He gives her a short hug and kisses her cheek and then he motions for Harry to come closer.

"Mother," he says, hesitantly, "This is Harry Potter. My friend."

"We've met, Draco," she says with a small smile and pats Draco's arm. She stands up.

"It's nice to meet you, ma'am," Harry says and then Narcissa rolls her eyes.

"We've met, Mr Potter," she repeats in the same tone she used for her son. She takes Harry's hand into hers. "It's no use pretending otherwise. I've grown to appreciate honesty since we have last seen each other."

Harry blinks at her, not knowing what to say. Narcissa pats his hand and then lets go. Harry nods quickly, absently, and then says, "Honesty is good."

Draco doesn't manage to stop himself from snorting, but Narcissa is better than that. Her lips barely twitch as she sits back down.

Draco pours them tea – three perfectly made cups of Darjeeling, with half a teaspoon of sugar and only a dash of milk each. They bask in a surprisingly crisp morning. Even with the sun slowly dragging itself over the clear horizon and spilling over the south-facing patio, it's not hot.

Harry sips his tea. Narcissa does the same. Draco keeps flitting glances between the two of them.

His and Harry's eyes meet suddenly and Harry lifts his eyebrows. Draco doesn't say anything and he looks away, shifting his gaze to the faraway grove on his left.

"So, Mr Potter, you are interested in astronomy?" Narcissa asks after a while. Her teacup clanks loudly against the saucer making the silence that follows incredibly loud.

Harry steals a glance at Draco who is clearly trying not to look panicked but it's barely working. His eyes look ready to pop out of their sockets and his jaw is clenched so hard it must hurt.

"I, er, well, it's not precisely my area," Harry manages to mutter, hiding behind sips of tea. Narcissa raises a single inquisitive eyebrow.

"No?" Her voice is as delicate as the floral pattern on the porcelain set they're drinking from. "I thought you wished to use the grounds for stargazing tonight."

"Well, yes, but Draco and I –" Harry glances at Draco again who is glaring at him "– Draco likes astronomy. And I enjoy Draco's company."

Narcissa keeps looking at him with neutral patience but when she realises the silence that dawned over them is not an attempt to gather his thoughts, and he's actually finished his answer, she picks up her cup again and takes a pointed sip.

"I see," she says, and Harry has no idea what she sees. He wonders if she sees his heart on his sleeve, his feelings for her son on his face, or his desperation to not screw up the very last date. He doesn't know if he's obvious about any of it. To him, all of it is as bright and as clear as the sky above them, but Draco hasn't commented on it even once, and Narcissa doesn't seem to be willing to offer any insight either.

She studies her cup of tea for a moment longer and then puts it back down. She looks back up and holds Harry's gaze steadily until he can feel nervousness coiling in his gut.

At last, she gives him a small, comforting smile. "I hope the two of you have a nice evening."

_____

They go to Andromeda's for lunch and stay the afternoon to supervise Teddy's newly discovered interest in quidditch. Between the two of them, they're pretty good at spreading the seeker propaganda, though Draco makes a nice, lukewarm case for being a chaser too. They end up doing drills for both and Teddy seems happy enough to just be on a broom so they take it as a success.

Dinner is spent in a Thai restaurant near Harry and Luna's apartment where they meet with Luna and Neville – who finally gets to see the new and improved Draco Malfoy after promising to be on his best behaviour. It's a good time entirely facilitated by Luna's endless well of conversation topics, and before they know it, the sun has been down for hours and it's time to go back to Malfoy Manor.

Draco takes them down the same cypress-overgrown pathway and even though Harry has a clear memory of this part of the ground from only hours ago, here, in the dark, it looks like an entirely different place. He glances up and the sky is more stars than darkness. It's breathtaking.

They move away from the patio – in the direction of the grove in the distance but not really in any way close to it – and at a random point that Draco deems satisfactory they spread three blankets, creating an island in the middle of waving wildflowers.

Draco casts a spell Harry doesn't catch but a shimmering dome flashes above the blankets for a moment before it disappears so he assumes it's something about climate and warding and maybe about keeping out the bugs.

They sit down and then lay down, shoulder to shoulder, wordlessly.

The sky stretches and stretches above them and Harry understands Draco's wonder. His awe. His obsession with the pinpricks of light scattered around the tiniest slip of the moon. The sky in Surrey never looked like this, and the sky in Hogwarts always seemed too far away to focus on.

It is hard to take it all in. Harry's eyes blur with the magnitude of it.

"I get it," he whispers, somehow fearful that speaking louder would scare away this quiet moment. "I get it now."

"What do you get?" Draco whispers back. Harry smiles at this. They are lying about a foot apart, very pointedly not touching, but this – Draco whispering, makes Harry feel as close to him as he had while they'd danced (even though that's not the closest they can go. They can always go closer until their lips touch skin.)

"I get why you love astronomy," Harry replies. "Not that I didn't believe you before... but I get it now."

Draco hums. Harry's hand twitches with the need to grab Draco's but he stays put. He watches the sky above him – crystal clear and dazzling. He knows Draco can probably play connect the dots with the stars without even thinking about it, but Harry's not worried about his glaring inadequacy in this area – there is beauty in unorganised chaos too. In this curtain of glittering starlight. In the stars just being stars.

"I look up at the sky and this overwhelming peace falls across my shoulders," Draco whispers into the dark out of nowhere after ages and ages. Harry barely hears it – the words melting into the night.

Draco sighs. He turns his head and looks at Harry. His eyes sparkle in pale moonlight. "Time stops when I trace the patterns my mum told me about," Draco continues, just as quietly as before, maybe quieter still. "Back when she was still my mum and not Mother and not lost and not lonely." Each word felt like a confession – secret, a touch painful, relevant, and nearly sacred. Said to the stars and the moon and the night. And to Harry.

Draco turns to lie on his back again – face to the sky, to the universe. "The stars haven't changed even though I did," he murmurs. "I sometimes wonder if they would shift as a response to all the ways I'm different from before. I feel as if, on some level, I don't deserve to see the same sky as I did when I was five," he admits. Harry can't help himself anymore. He grabs Draco's hand and tangles their fingers together. He wants to pull and pull until their whole bodies are tangled together and some of Draco's grief spills into him to make it easier to bear.

Draco squeezes his hand but doesn't look at him.

"Maybe the sky should be a touch more distorted and my vision a bit more blurry," he says, tilting his head. "But it isn't. For the sky, I'm the same as I've always been and always will be. As worthy and as deserving as an excited child. What are we to the sky? Specs of dust. Curious strangers. And one day I'll be up there watching some child point in the entirely wrong direction and say Vega is Polaris and Cygnus is Virgo." A short laugh bursts from Draco's lips, and Harry doesn't even mind that he barely knows the difference himself. He can imagine Draco's eyes tracing patterns across the sky above them. He squeezes Draco's hand again.

"But it won't matter if they get it wrong. Because they're just a child. And the stars are the stars. And one day we'll be stars too. I've got my spot already reserved and everything. Right there." Draco's hand twitches in Harry's hand and then Draco shifts closer on their blankets. His shoulder presses against Harry's and Draco lifts their joint hands and points up above them – a mirror of the same action back at the planetarium. "That's Draco. That's my place. Just waiting for me as patient as ever while I take my time."

Harry squints and follows their hands to the clusters of stars that are waiting to be read. Eventually, he thinks he sees it. Above Vega, curling around Ursa minor. He sees Draco the constellation. And when he moves his head, he sees Draco the man. They're equally as dazzling but he doesn't say it out loud no matter how long the thought stays in his head.

"I should have paid more attention to Astronomy at Hogwarts," he murmurs and Draco snorts. He drops Harry's hand and crosses his arms over his chest and the movement creates space between their shoulders where a second ago there was none. It's nowhere near as distant as before but it's still space. A lack of touch Harry is so desperately aching for.

"Maybe," Draco replies with an attempt at a shrug. His shoulder drags across the blanket and it bunches up between the two of them. "But you had other things to worry about at Hogwarts."

This admittance is more gracious than Harry would have put it but he takes it. More often than not, the general public likes to disregard the true conditions he'd been forced to endure during his education – it's easier than admitting that you'd put all your hopes on a child. He doesn't know why he's surprised that Draco is not among that crowd, but really, he shouldn't be – it's Draco. If anyone aside from his friends is aware of his Hogwarts shenanigans it's Draco.

"Nah," he chuckles and then looks at Draco with the joke clear in his eyes even in the dark. "Hogwarts was a breeze!"

Draco snorts. "Of course, Mr. Chosen One – I hadn't doubted it for a second."

They fall silent again and time passes somewhere beyond Harry's notice. After a while, he feels like he's melted into the ground below him. He feels small and distant from everything outside the blankets, from everyone besides Draco.

He takes a deep breath and ignores the way thinking about things is making his ribs hurt. He sighs again and then says, "I'm sorry about –"

"Don't." Draco cuts him off. Harry turns his head to look at him.

"What?"

It's hard to tell in the dark, but it looks like Draco rolls his eyes. Draco turns too and their eyes meet.

"Don't apologise for Hogwarts," Draco says, "because then I'll start apologising for Hogwarts and we'll lose the entire night on it." He turns back to the sky. Harry stares at the side of his face, pale in the moonlight. "It's in the past," Draco continues after a quick glance at Harry. "We're even. I thought we agreed on it."

Harry licks his lips. "Okay," he nods. "Okay. We can agree on it. We're a clean slate."

Harry keeps looking at Draco even though he's not looking back. Moments pass and tension rises between them. Harry is starting to wonder if he said the wrong thing. Finally, Draco uncrosses his arms and lets them fall to his sides. Their elbows brush but they don't acknowledge it.

"A clear slate with some two months worth of record on it," Draco says with another glance between them. There is a small smile on his lips. (Harry's been wanting to kiss him the entire day.)

"It's only been two months?" he whispers and stares into the stars, begging for clarity. It feels like they've been playing this dance for years.

Draco shifts next to him, crossing his legs. "Yes, Pott- Harry," he says. "Almost exactly."

Harry sighs. He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. The sky blurs into swirling light across darkness above him. He puts his glasses back on. "It feels like longer."

Draco snorts. Harry can feel him shift on the blanket again. Draco nudges his shoulder against Harry's. "That happens when you're forced to live in each other's pockets."

"We didn't live in each other's pockets," Harry replies with a frown. For all that it feels like they've been meeting each other for years, it also feels like the gaps between seeing Draco were small eternities – voids of something missing. "And I wasn't forced to do anything. We weren't forced to do anything."

"No." Draco sighs. He glances at Harry again, and nudges their shoulders again – gentler this time. "We weren't."

Harry takes what he can get from this. It's silly to think that he is still seeking some confirmation that Draco was at least ambivalent to the way the last two months had gone – that at least to some degree he'd had fun, or maybe even enjoyed it.

"I didn't lie to your mum," he says into the void, and the void gives it to the man lying next to him. "I've been enjoying our time together."

Draco takes a moment to answer. "It was nice. I enjoyed it too," he admits eventually, and it does sound like a confession. So many of their conversations have been feeling like confessions lately – like every word spoken between them carries more weight than ever before. "It's been a nice break in the routine."

Harry huffs a laugh. His stomach flips painfully and he allows himself only a single look at Draco before he asks, in a tone that he hopes implies levity he doesn't feel, "A break in the routine? Is that all I am for you?"

Draco's hesitance is glaringly obvious when he next speaks. "I... It's been a nice experience."

Something about that word catches on every bruised part of Harry's heart. Experience. It's been a nice experience. And he doesn't know why it bothers him. It's true. He can't say that this word doesn't fit it – doesn't fit them. It has been a nice experience. And yet, his thoughts trip over it and he can't help it.

But what else would they call this? What else would they call them?

A dalliance? A fling? A summer romance? They've kissed once and barely touched since.

A friendship? Connection? Unexpected burst of intimacy marred by things that don't fit the definition they've carved out for themselves?

He gets why Draco likes the stars. The stars have no use for definitions or distinctions or synonyms that mean something slightly different and never truly fit. To the stars,, they're the same as they've always been and always will be.

"Whatever it is," he replies when he manages to move away from the mess his heart has made in his head, "it's been one of the best summers I've ever had."

Draco turns to look at him and he's frowning and smiling at the same time. "It sounds sad when you say it like that."

Harry snorts. "Most things sound sad when I say them." He sighs and looks away from Draco. He thinks he found Ursa Major in the sky. He keeps his eyes glued to it. "I'm trying to... enjoy things as they come, though, rather than... tainting them with things in the past."

Draco chuckles and then sighs. He glances at Harry again and Harry stops himself from looking back.

"A lofty feat," Draco mutters and it brings out a smile to Harry's face. A tiny one, but a smile nonetheless.

"It's only sometimes successful," he says even though he knows it's probably unnecessary. He knows Draco enough that he can tell that the man understands what he means in this case. Not in all cases, but in this one, he can be certain.

"Nothing is successful all the time," Draco says. He intertwines his fingers and lets his hands rest on his belly. He looks peaceful. "Doing your best is enough."

Harry bites his lip and sighs. "Doesn't feel like it."

"I know," Draco agrees as their eyes meet. "But it is." They look back up at the same time and then Draco adds, "I'm still trying to believe that myself."

Harry's shoulders slump even though he's barely noticed how tense he'd been so far. The blanket is warm beneath him. The crickets are loud but comforting. The air smells like summer and earth and grass speckled with as many wildflowers as the stars that speckle the sky.

"In the end, belief is all we have," Harry says, a thought plucked from the night hugging them.

"I wish we had a cocktail to toast to that," Draco replies and Harry can hear the smile in his voice.

"Toast to belief? In yourself, others or the world?"

"All three. To belief that good things do happen. Sometimes" Draco's words echo across the meadow even though they're barely audible. The sentiment echoes. The wonder of it.

Harry's breath hitches as the next realisation hits him. As bright as Polaris, as striking at the waning crescent cutting the sky. "You're a good thing to me."

Harry hears Draco's breath hitch. He's too much of a coward to look to his left and check Draco's expression. He waits, impatiently. And prays that this was not too much.

After one of the longest moments they've ever shared, Draco snorts and says, "Happy to be of service."

Harry clenches his jaw and bites his lip to keep himself from saying anything else. Anything else would be too much, clearly, would be as unwelcome as this admission of fondness.

He doesn't know how he's still alive. He's feeling ten thousand things in a breath. And it numbs him. It washes over him and a second later it's like he's never said anything at all. His heart beats acceptance long overdue.

The world melts away from him. He forgets about the blanket and the ground. And he wishes he could forget about Draco and his heart beating in his chest, and the air he breathes. But he can't. So he tries to ignore it. The stars sparkle brighter – he wishes they would blind him of all the things he knows to be true and hopes – still, despite everything – might yet change.

"It's a wonderful night," he whispers and it's more for the stars than for himself or for Draco or the earth beneath them. The stage lights are slowly turning off, he can feel the curtain closing in on them.

"Yes, it is," Draco whispers back and Harry clings onto the last strung-up vestiges of companionship they've managed to salvage from this hurricane of a relationship – a storm both quiet and disastrous (for him, anyway).

"Thank you for bringing me here," he says, even though he wants to say thank you for hanging out with me, for putting up with me, for kissing me that one time, for keeping me company even though it meant more to me than it ever did to you.

"Thank my mother," Draco replies. "And the book."

"Thank you for writing the book." Harry knows that him of two months ago wouldn't have believed that he'd ever say this, but it's true. He's grateful for the book.

"Ah, it was for selfish purposes," Draco mutters under his breath. He tilts his head and Harry can imagine the constellations shifting with his changed point of view and wishes that the view of their relationship could be changed with a tilt of a head. Draco sighs. "It used to have a different prologue, you know. It used to be so much more sad."

"I like it like this, I like it happier."

Draco clicks his tongue. "It's more optimistic."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

Harry frowns when Draco hisses as if burned. "It's... like hope."

"Hope is good," Harry says quickly, turning to Draco and staring at him in bewilderment.

Draco sighs and turns his head to stare back. "Hope is... a potential character flaw."

Harry rolls his eyes and uses it as an excuse to look away. "You don't really think that!"

Draco sighs again and turns away too. He crosses his arms over his chest again and Harry wonders if he's cold.

"I think..." Draco starts, "that it's easier to think like that."

Harry opens his mouth to answer but closes it. He drags his fingers through his hair and then says, softly, guiltily, "Yeah. But I sometimes wonder if it's worth it."

"Worth what?"

"It's either hope or regret," Harry says with a shrug. He can feel the bumps of the earth against his back.

Draco shrugs too. "Regret is unavoidable. Heartbreak isn't."

"You'd rather be regretful than heartbroken?"

Draco's eyes find his again. "Wouldn't you?" he asks and Harry keeps his mouth shut because he's very much aware that his fear of confessing his feelings boils down to this exact thing. And that Draco is right. He is choosing regret over heartbreak. Even though it's a big regret. The heartbreak, he thinks, would have been even greater.

"Either way," Draco continues, "it's served me well so far."

Harry doesn't say anything for a while, focusing back on the stars above them and the cold air around them, and the night enveloping them. Cut away from the world, everything said on this blanket feels unreal.

"So what would it take to bring your hope back?" he asks eventually, without truly meaning to even though his heart aches for an answer with the same fierceness it aches for favour.

Draco doesn't look at him as he snorts. He sighs before saying, in the worst tone Harry has heard tonight, "Nothing short of a miracle."

Harry glances at Draco but the man is refusing to look at him. And just as he looks back up at the stars – quiet, indifferent – he swears he catches a split-second of a star sparkling across the sky, glinting as it falls.

He's not one for wishful thinking, but just this once, he allows himself to hope for a miracle and whispers the wish for the star that blinked out of view as quickly as it glided in.

_____

The days after the night at Malfoy Manner pass quickly and Harry barely notices them blending into each other. It's over. It's done. They've reached the end and the life beyond it is... boring.

They haven't talked about it ending or the outcome or the winner – they haven't uttered the word bet in each other's company lately. Which isn't such big of a feat – they haven't been in each other's company since Saturday.

Sunday passed, Monday too, and Draco slipped out of Harry's life without a whisper. And the thing is, these wordless, empty days were no different than their occasional silences between the non-dates. But at least before there existed the expectation of further contact – the agreement that eventually they would reconnect for the next stage of the game.

But now there was nothing. They've reached the final level and beyond the empty podium of uncrowned players laid nothing at all.

Tuesday is the last straw. Not because anything happens, but because Harry used up the last ounces of patience he had in his body. He's in love with Draco. He misses Draco. He doesn't want Draco to just be gone all of a sudden.

Even if he can't have him in all the ways that he wants him, at least he can do his best to keep him as a friend.

He sends a letter – well, more of a note really judging by its brevity – and gets a reply and spends half of his lunch break pushing his stir fry around his plate. Babylonian does lunches and he wanted to treat Draco to lunch, but Draco is late and Harry is getting a terrible feeling that he's being stood up.

Eventually, he gives in and eats his lunch in sullen silence. He's almost done when the doors of the bistro burst open. Draco enters in a whirlwind. His hair is curly and his shirt is wrinkled and his eyes are wide and panicked.

"Merlin, I'm so sorry for being late," he says while trying to catch his breath. He sits down. "Cocoa got stuck in a blackberry bush and I had to take her to the vet and she was so grumpy – Cocoa, not the vet – and I had to leave her at Kate's because she kept tearing off her bandages and I can't bear to put her in the plastic cone thing and Kate's flat is on the other side of London in this weird, strangely open-spaced area and I couldn't find the place to apparate from, and I'm so sorry!"

Harry doesn't even have time to reply because a waitress comes to the table to take Draco's order – orange juice and double espresso – and he's left trying to process all of this.

Nothing in Draco's tale sounds like a lie. Harry believes him. He feels bad about Cocoa and he feels bad about Draco's frazzled state, but the dark oozy part of his brain feels irked that he spent almost forty-five minutes swinging from concerned about Draco's wellbeing to resentful about being stood up.

Draco's drinks come and they get stuck in a looping thread of small talk that lasts them for some twenty minutes before Draco has to get going if he doesn't want to be late for work (too).

Harry gets back to the Ministry later than planned, but he bets it's the look on his face that keeps everyone from commenting. He shuts himself into his office after making a strong cup of tea, and for reasons best not examined, has one of the most productive afternoons in a while.