"Somehow, without noticing I had slipped into his life with the same ease with which he had slipped into mine. I came to expect his messages, his invitations – days without seeing him were growing more and more rare. He was everywhere I was, and I was everywhere he was. His presence in my life became routine. My friends started asking after him, and his after me.

Once I realised this, my biggest wish was to go back to being oblivious. Because now that I knew, another realisation had become startlingly obvious and I feared I couldn't hide it – neither from myself, nor him, or let alone other people.

Against my better judgement, against all logic and reason, I was beginning to fall in love."

– Apples and Oranges by Francis Gallagher

_____

Harry is doing his best to paint Parvati's nails while Hermione, Luna and Ginny are ransacking his closet. An ancient Weird Sisters cassette is playing in the background on Ginny's borrowed radio.

"Why do you have nothing to wear?" Ginny groans, frustrated.

"I have many things to wear."

'Mione snorts. "Yeah, but nothing nice."

"I have many nice things."

"Not date-nice," 'Mione replies. Harry doesn't miss the look all the girls around him exchanged.

"We're just going to Gold – we've been there a thousand times."

"Yeah," Parvati agrees as he finishes her left hand. She shakes it for the polish to dry. "But not with Malfoy. We have to make you all pretty for your lover boy."

Harry rolls his eyes and closes the nail polish. "We're literally just friends. There is no lover-anything going on."

"But you'd like there to be," Ginny says, materialising over his shoulder. He startles. Glares at her. Before he can say anything though, she drops a beige tank top over his head.

"This isn't mine."

"It's Seamus's," 'Mione says. "We asked to borrow some things before they left to... do their last-minute preparations."

"Can they be any more annoying?" Ginny says. "Their anniversary is not for another month."

"Be grateful," Parvati says, tossing the nail polish at her. "We're getting a free party out of this."

"Yeah, okay, true," Ginny agrees with a shrug. Harry opens the tank top – it's tiny. And tight. "And! We get to see Harry's face when Malfoy is around – that should be amazing."

"It's amazing when he talks about him," Luna says from the other side of the room. Ginny grins at her.

"You sure you're not going with us, Moon-moon?"

"No," Luna shakes her head. "I'll go in August – celebrating something before it happens can be considered bad luck. Besides... I haven't seen Little Rose in a while; it'll be nice to spend some time with a blooming mind."

"I still think you're out of your mind for letting George take care of your kid, Hermione," Ginny says when 'Mione passes her two pairs of Harry's trousers. She chooses tight, light blue jeans and tosses them at Harry.

"Luna will be there," Hermione says and tosses a dark green loosely knitted cardigan at Harry herself. Upon further inspection, Harry sees it's short-sleeved. "It'll be fine. Put those on Harry, would you?"

"Yes, do it," Parvati also tells him, jumping from the bed. "You know Dean and Seamus – it'll be all ABBA, ABBA, ABBA, tonight and you, Potter, will be our dancing queen."

_____

The karaoke place they're all going to is technically not a karaoke place at all. It definitely wasn't Harry's first choice when it came to fulfilling that particular date requirement for his and Draco's... challenge. But Gold is owned by Dean's cousin and they're sort of regulars – especially Dean and Seamus – and Harry would never say no to home-field advantage.

Draco agreed to apparate to Harry's and from there they all apparate to the bar to meet Ron, Dean and Seamus. The whole thing is as chaotic as usual, so Harry barely has time to say hello to Draco, and he definitely doesn't have time to notice that he apparently also decided to wear something nice. Something date-nice.

It's only after they're all squeezed into their usual booth closer to the stage and drinking juice vodkas – to lubricate those vocal cords, boys and girls, as Dean said – that Harry has time to stare at the light reflecting off of Draco's collarbones where his silky dark short-sleeved shirt with some red flowers all over is unbuttoned two, three buttons down.

He catches himself staring. Or rather, 'Mione nudges him to stop. He looks up to meet Draco's eyes and the man is smiling slightly, so Harry can't bring himself to feel bad about the staring. Draco's lips are shiny and tinted. He's wearing lip-gloss.

"How are you?" he asks over the table. Draco is sitting right in front of him. Right in the middle of the table. Everyone else is congregated around the two of them.

"I'm good," Draco says with a nod. Harry watches his mouth move. The music is already on. The blended chatter of the Friday night crowd spreads over the whole room. Two people are singing on stage – something new that Harry has never heard; most of his muggle music knowledge is at least a couple of years old.

The moment stays suspended above the table. Draco on one side. Harry on the other. He is intensely aware of every single pair of eyes glued to the two of them. He feels like he's performing already and the night has only started. It's almost like this is a test. He's not sure if he and Draco are more likely to pass or fail.

The song in the background ends. Seamus jumps out of his seat at the edge of the booth. Everyone turns to look after him even though it's a predictable move – Seamus always goes first, always chooses the same song, and always sets a "good example".

Harry lets his shoulders relax. He slumps further in his seat, takes another sip of his drink. His foot grazes against someone else's. Draco bites his lip and pushes back. Feet touching feet, they catch eyes again. It seems surreal – they're playing footsy and it doesn't seem weird at all. He can still feel the pressure of everyone's attention, and barely minds.

On stage Seamus is starting his traditional rendition of Just the Two of Us – his and Dean's first dance song – and the silence around the table remains until he gets some way into the song. Ginny leans her elbow on the table and stares at Draco right in the face, with a small smirk.

"So, Malfoy," she begins, and just like that, dread slowly starts to pool in Harry's stomach. He moves his foot and hits her leg. She glares at him but remains undeterred. "Are you in love with Harry?"

Draco freezes. Harry can see the exact second he stops breathing. He can see him blink. He stops breathing too. He hits Ginny again and is just about to jump in when Draco tosses his head back and laughs.

"Oh Weasley," he drawls, mimicking her posture. "I've been in love with Potter for years. I'm absolutely besotted with him."

Harry's heart stutters. At face value, the words are... nothing less than a shock. But Draco is smirking and leaning into Ginny's space in a dramatic, conspiratorial way that can't be anything but a joke. The sarcasm is obvious.

Harry can see Ginny exchange glances with Hermione. "Really? Do tell..."

"Oh, I can't get enough of his face." Draco sighs and then leans back in his seat. He looks at the ceiling and pats his chest with his hand once. "And his personality? Who wouldn't be absolutely and undyingly in love with him? I'd marry him right here and now if he agreed..."

Draco looks at him. Everyone looks at him.

"Gin..." Harry mutters but it's too late for any damage control. She's latched onto this... pretence Draco has concocted, and the rest of his friends seem just as amused.

"Alas!" Draco exclaims as Seamus bounds back to his table. "Unlike this lucky, lucky man –" he squeezes Seamus's arm " l – I am doomed to have my heart broken by my one and only love!"

"Oh yes," Ginny agrees immediately, sharing a smile with Draco that Harry doesn't like at all, "Harry is so cold and unapproachable and cruel."

"That he is," Draco nods gravely. "I feel as if he doesn't even notice me."

"Perhaps you should... serenade him?" Parvati suggests. Harry watches helplessly as Draco grins at that idea. Draco glances at him again but if he notices that Harry doesn't find this funny at all, he doesn't do anything about it. Harry takes a large gulp of his drink and resigns himself to whatever the fuck is happening.

"That's a wonderful idea, Patil," he says and makes his way to the mic. He messes around with the karaoke machine and then, a second later, the unmistakable intro of Lay All Your Love On Me starts blasting from the speakers. Draco starts dancing with the microphone stand, twisting around it, his rhythm perfectly in synch with the music, and when he starts singing, Harry stops knowing how to think.

His voice is deep and sultry and he has eyes only for Harry. With the stage light over him, he appears to be glowing. Harry keeps the eye-contact because there's nothing else he can do. Their entire booth is turned to him. He's breathtaking. An absolute attention seeker and yet Harry can't fault him at all.

If he leans over the edge of the booth and ignores everyone around him, he can pretend that this is not a joke. That Draco really is here to win him over with ABBA. He lets himself sink into that reality. Watches the fluid movements of Draco's body, the way he curls his arms around the stand and around his chest, the way his hair flicks when he moves his head, the ever-encompassing desire clear in his eyes.

And then Ginny wolf-whistles and the smile on Draco's face turns back into a smirk and the illusion is broken.

Harry turns away as the last of the chorus fades away and Draco's voice is replaced by someone else's. Draco returns to the table and takes a deep sip of his drink. His face is flushed. He's panting. For a second, when their eyes meet, Harry almost feels like they're back to their simple one-on-one wavelength. But only for a second.

"Are you gonna respond to the heartbreaker slander, mate?" Ron asks from his left and Harry barely catches his words.

"Oh, it's not slander if it's true!" Ginny says. "He's a playboy and it's time we all said it!"

Hermione loses her fight with laughter and soon half the table is laughing. Harry brings himself to smile awkwardly. Ron takes him by the shoulders and shakes him to loosen up. He smiles for real then.

"Oh, Harry!" Dean calls from the corner. "I think I know exactly the song for you. Let me out –"

He stands in line for choosing the songs and after a couple of minutes of small talk, he comes back to drag Harry to the stage. Harry lets himself be dragged because he knows what happens to people who "don't feel like singing" during one of Dean and Seamus's karaoke nights.

"What am I singing?" he asks, half-heartedly. Dean grins at him.

He shoves the mic into Harry's hands. Harry takes a breath to ask again – plead for mercy maybe – when the familiar guitar chords start echoing around him. He looks up, misses half the first line when he sees both Hermione and Ron were dragged right in front of him, but catches up at "a good friend of mine."

"But lately something's changed –"

"Sing "Ron"!" Dean yells from the booth and Harry rolls his eyes but obliges.

"Ron's got himself a girl and I want to make her mine," he sings. He's not really a singer and he never feels like singing but Hermione is laughing loudly and Ron appears to be somewhere between shock and amusement, so he kinda gets into it eventually, half-chuckling half-singing. Jesse's Girl is a fun song after all – if slightly ridiculous.

"'Cause she's watching him with those eyes," he croons and his eyes turn to the booth. Draco is watching him. "And she's loving him with that body, I just –" he laughs without ending the line.

"And he's holding her in his arms late, late at night." He watches Ron hug Hermione to this side. Draco is shaking his head with a disbelieving smile in the booth.

The chorus is easy, his thoughts run away from him. "Where can I find a woman like that?" He keeps watching Draco and kind of wishes he was closer and kinda wishes they were here on their own, but not here, but in some other anonymous karaoke club where they could fool around and croon and swoon without Harry's head taking him all kinds of places. But this is fine too, in a way. At least Draco is smiling. At least he's having a good time.

He finishes the song on autopilot and then hands over the mic before joining Ron and Hermione.

"Don't go stealing my girl, Potter," Ron says, squinting at him cooly. Harry squints at him too, taking one of Hermione's hands while Ron has the other.

"And what if I do, Weasley?" he says, but can't keep the farce. They burst out laughing and Harry feels lighter as Ron hugs him and pats him on the back. The three of them go to return to the booth together just to be intercepted by Ginny and Parvati. They steal Hermione from them without a single word. Ginny flips them off when he and Ron start to protest. Hermione laughs again.

Shaking his head, Harry sits back down. The booth is now half empty. Without thinking too much about it, he sits down next to Draco. The girls begin their – astonishingly good – rendition of Spice Girls's Wannabe.

"Granger is a surprise," Draco comments quietly. Harry leans closer to hear him.

"Oh don't let her responsible-adult persona fool you," Harry says back with a small smile. "She's the worst of all of us."

Draco hums. Their shoulders are pressed together – Harry can feel the minuscule movements of his breath. Suddenly, they're back to being just the two of them and their little bubble. He finishes his drink.

"You're not half bad either," he says, "You have a good voice."

Draco turns to look at him. Harry doesn't know if it was the wrong thing to say. He feels like he doesn't know anything at all anymore.

"Want another?" he says instead motioning to Draco's glass, just as empty as his own.

"Sure," Draco nods and they slip out of the booth and make their way to the bar. "Are we getting more of these? Or trying something else for variety? Maybe a gin and tonic?"

Harry shudders. "Don't joke about such things." He turns to Patrick – who's minding the bar as usual in this shift – and orders two rum and cokes. He glances back at Draco. "Don't tell me you don't have a sweet tooth. I will call you out on it."

"I didn't say anything," Draco says, holding up his hands in surrender. Harry snickers. He doesn't know why he was so unsettled by Draco's performance earlier. The way they're talking now is just as easy and just as natural as it has been since they first reconnected. He lets any doubts about the state of their friendship drain away from his mind.

"You're a good singer too," Draco says eventually, when their drinks arrive. He's looking at the stage – Ron is up, prepping everything for his performance equally as traditional as Dean and Seamus's – but Harry is acutely aware of his presence next to him.

"Nah," he murmurs, leaning back against the end of the bar. His arm brushes Draco's. They both lean in, the tiniest bit of an inch. "I've just been coerced into doing it enough times that it's not a total disaster. And the liquid courage sure helps."

"No need to be humble, Boy-Saviour," Draco mutters, grinning at him. Harry takes a deep breath but it does nothing for the lump in his throat. He takes a gulp of his drink. He refocuses on Ron in the middle of Boys Don't Cry.

"What did Weasley do that he needs to grovel?" Draco asks. They glance at each other again.

"Nothing really," Harry shrugs. His knit drags across Draco's arm. He sees goosebumps spread over pale, warm skin. He looks away. "Ron likes the cheesy sad ones. So he invents some grand transgression and begs 'Mione to take him back. She thinks it's cute."

"That's so disgustingly romantic," Draco sighs and takes a large swallow of his drink. Harry mirrors him.

"I'm stuck being surrounded by disgustingly romantic things," he admits with another shrug. "I don't know who's worse – perpetually in the honeymoon phase Dean and Seamus or married but forever courting each other Ron and Hermione. Thank god for Ginny's serial and active singleness or I would probably drown in self-pity."

"Yeah, you do sound like a self-pity kind of guy," Draco mutters. Harry frowns.

"What does that mean?"

Draco looks at him again. Their eyes meet again. They slump against each other more. "I don't really know... I'm just saying words. These drinks are surprisingly strong for a bar."

"We all pitch in for bottles so they give us as much as we want 'cause you know... we already bought the whole bottle anyway."

"I didn't pitch in," Draco replies with a small frown. He looks down at his drink. Harry has the strangest urge to press his thumb between his eyes and smooth out the skin.

"My treat," he says instead.

"Thank you," Draco whispers and Harry more sees it on his lips than hears it. They stay quiet for a bit. The song changes once, twice and then Ginny is strutting back to the microphone. She salutes to their booth as Gimme Gimme Gimme starts. She's let down her hair.

"What's wrong with disgustingly romantic?" Draco asks out of nowhere. His glass is empty again but Harry is reluctant to move from this position to go and get more drinks.

"What?"

"What's wrong with disgustingly romantic?"

"Nothing, I guess," Harry says, still kind of lost about what's going on. "It's just... it's been a while since I had the chance to be all disgustingly romantic myself, you know... Watching all my friends settle down and get married and all that. It bums you out sometimes. It's not like it's always a concern – I'm not like... going out of my way to worry about that whole thing."

"But?"

"But some situations bring it out. We can't all be Ginny. I feel too old for one night stands."

"You're twenty-eight."

"I feel sixty-eight."

Draco snorts. "Give yourself some credit – I'm sure we can get you rejuvenated yet."

"Yeah, good luck with that," Harry mutters and downs his drink. "If it wasn't for you, I'd probably be sulking here until someone drags me to sing, feel nice for three and a half minutes, get slightly buzzed and go back to sulking. So... I'm glad you're here."

Draco just hums and gives him a small smile. There are still hints of a frown on his face but Harry pays it no mind, deciding to focus on the smile. They both turn to put the empty glasses on the bar. Their point of contact disappears for half a second and Harry feels its absence like Draco disappeared from his vicinity entirely.

"You've been disgustingly romantic with me," Draco says when they turn back to the stage – sides pressed together again. "We've been disgustingly romantic with each other. Haven't we?"

Harry's stomach cartwheels. Gimme Gimme Gimme turns to Take a Chance on Me. Ron is swaying to the rhythm and leaning forward to sing directly at Hermione, who's standing at the front of the stage.

"I think our... challenge required it," Harry says, finally. His head is at once filled with the dismissive tone with which Draco had talked about them before. All his doubts are right back at the front of his mind.

Draco sighs and bites his lip. Harry looks at the floor.

"I guess," Draco says and looks at the floor too. He leans sideways to prop his head on his hand. The touch that Harry hoped to be unquestionable up to this moment is gone. The small slip of air between their bodies is ice-cold.

"You okay?" he asks tentatively just as Parvati starts Careless Whisper of all songs.

"Slightly bored," Draco shrugs. "Why?"

"No reason... just thought you looked a bit – down." Harry shrugs too. "I'm sorry if –"

"Come on!" Ginny appears in front of his face. "Look alive, Harry!" She grabs Harry's hand and yanks him to the stage before he has a chance to say a single word neither to her nor Draco. She grabs Dean on the way too and changes the song in seconds.

"I come home in the morning light," she starts as soon as the music starts blasting through the speakers. "My mother says –" she shoves the mic into Dean's face and he picks up on the lyric seamlessly.

She elbows Harry with a smile on her face and he rolls his eyes before singing "girls just wanna have fun" with all of them. They sound pretty good together, but Harry's eyes keep straying to the bar just as they strayed to the booth when he was on this stage earlier.

Draco is looking at him with an inscrutable expression, sprawled against the bar, in semi-darkness. He looks like an apparition. Harry wants to go back to him. To touch him again. To talk to him and see why the sudden coldness between them seemed so insurmountable before Harry was dragged away.

As the song nears the end, 'Mione joins Draco at the bar and they strike up a conversation. Harry wishes he could hear them talk. He wishes he could be there between them and see Draco's eyes light up the way they do every time he speaks to someone intelligent and just as inclined to involve themselves in academic debates of dubious moral substance as he is.

But he's too far to hear anything, or even to see Draco's face now that he's turned to Hermione. He doesn't know if Draco would even want him there next to him if he were to come closer.

The song ends and all four of them leave the stage just as Ron jumps back up – Harry can already hear Dean complaining about people complaining about them filling up half the night with their sub-par singing – and starts I was born to love you.

They walk in the direction of the bar and Harry's heart skips a beat when Draco notices them and looks at him specifically, but just as he's about to open his mouth to greet him Dean and Ginny hook their arms around him and pull him past Hermione, Draco and now Parvati.

"Wait – Where are we going?" he asks, turning back to watch Draco frown at the three of them. He tries to struggle out of their grip, but they're determined to get him away.

"Smoke break," Dean says.

"I don't feel like it – I want to –"

"Flirt with Malfoy, we know," Ginny says as they reach the back door and spill into the back alley behind Gold. "But we want to talk to you about Malfoy."

"There's nothing to talk about!" Harry takes Dean's offered cigarette and lights both his and his own without a word. "We're just friends. And you made him uncomfortable earlier with all that love talk – what's wrong with you?"

Ginny raises her eyebrows. "He looked pretty comfortable to me. And what's wrong with me? What's wrong with you?! That man has it so bad for you and you're just standing there not doing anything about it!"

"He doesn't have it bad for me; that was a joke, that was sarcasm –"

"Yeah," Ginny rolls her eyes and plucks the cigarette from Harry's fingers to take a drag. "To cover up how he really feels. It's so obvious, Harry."

"It's not –"

"It really is, mate," Dean tells him, patting him on the back. Harry gives them both a glare.

"We're just friends. Nothing more."

"You're dating," Ginny says.

"We are going on fake dates to prove that Draco's book doesn't make sense."

"You're dating," she repeats.

"It's all fake. It's all a joke," Harry insists. His heart is in his throat and his head hurts and he wants to get away from all of this. He should have known that mixing Draco and his stupid friends was a bad idea. "It's all a joke," he says again, then adds, in the tiniest voice, "to him."

Ginny's enthusiasm drains from her face. Harry feels awful suddenly, for bringing this up – for ruining what was probably a fun interlude to her night. She slumps against the wall behind her. Dean does the same, biting his lip.

"But not to you, yeah?" he says looking at Harry with too much pity for Harry's comfort.

The cold air has cleared his head enough that he just feels miserable now. All the confusion and whiplash from the music and the alcohol and Draco's presence is gone and he is now as clear-headed as he can be. Maybe Draco really was right – he is the guy for self-pity.

"I don't know if it is to me," he says then, quietly admitting something that's been brewing in his head for days. "I like him. He's funny and smart and I feel like I could spend hours with him without getting tired of him."

"And he's hot," Ginny adds.

"And he's hot," Harry agrees with a nod. "But it's not about the hot. I mean if it was, it'd just sleep with him again and be done with it, the stupid bet be damned –"

"Wait, I'm lost," Dean interrupts him with a shake of his head. "What do you mean sleep with him again?"

Harry sighs. He takes the cigarette back from Ginny and takes his time finishing it under the pretence of gathering his thoughts. In truth, his thoughts are gathered. He feels doomed to this sorry existence.

Back when this all started he thought it might be a bad idea because it's Malfoy and what if they kill each other. But he couldn't have guessed that this might have been a bad idea because he might do the one thing he set out not to do, the one thing that would lose him the bet if he admitted it – start liking Malfoy more than is advisable.

He thought it would be fine. Sure they're going on dates, but they're not dating. He knows what it looks like – he's aware that the way Ginny and Dean and the rest of his friends inside see him and Draco is not so groundbreaking. On the outside, it looks like he and Draco have completely accidentally stumbled into the first phase of establishing a romantic relationship.

But Harry knows better. He knows better because the way Draco is acting and talking makes it clear that what they're doing is as far from genuine as you can get. Sure they're friends and they enjoy spending time together but there's nothing romantic about it. It's not dating if neither of them has any intention of ever achieving the emotional connection implied by such a name.

Except Harry has without meaning to, unintentionally, broken the silent agreement not to catch feelings.

Soul-searching has never been his thing. He is and always has been an ignore-it-until-Hermione-makes-you-talk-about-it kind of guy. But this? It's too obvious. It's too on the nose.

He thought that being aware that he thinks Draco is objectively attractive – the guy looks like sex on legs, let's be real for a second – is going to save him from confusing any such attraction with feelings.

He didn't realise though that the feelings would come all on their own and they will be so truly unmistakable for anything else that denying them would be impossible.

He doesn't voice any of it though, even though Ginny and Dean are looking at him expectantly. He just drops the cigarette butt and puts it out with his heel before saying, "We slept together after NEWTS – we were very drunk. He's made it abundantly clear that he does not wish a repeat performance."

"Bit hypocritical of him then," Dean murmurs and then shrugs when Harry frowns at him. "He's been staring at you the whole night."

"That's what I'm saying," Ginny nods quickly. "There weren't five seconds where he wasn't searching for you in the crowd. And when you were at the bar together? That was probably one of the best examples of vertical cuddling I've ever seen!"

"Yeah and then he got all cold and distant for no reason!" Harry says, dragging his hands through his hair. He closes his eyes and tries to calm down. This wasn't a big deal. He's known from the start that whatever the fuck he and Draco are doing isn't going to end with them together. That's the whole point. He has no right to be disappointed that the whole point of this whole thing is coming true.

"He just shunned you for no reason?" Dean asks.

"We were saying how good you and Seamus and Ron and Hermione look together and I said that you're all very romantic and whatever and then he said that we – he and I – are romantic with each other and then I said that yeah, 'cause the bet is like asking us to and then he pulled away and I don't get what I did wrong."

Ginny stares at him in disbelief and then groans. She shakes her head. "Harry, you're such an idiot."

"What?!"

"The guy compares you to two happily married couples and you say it's all for show," Dean explains with a snort. "He probably thinks that you think this is all just a game. You have to make the first move."

Harry tries to process this and fails. It makes sense when they say it like that, but Dean and Ginny don't know Draco like he does. There's no way that that line was anything remotely similar to admitting romantic feelings. There's absolutely no way.

"I can't make the first move," he says, "I'll lose the bet."

"What did you bet on?" Dean asks. "Exactly?"

"I said that there's no way the leads in his book fall in love in ten dates because they do them in a span of ten days and that's not enough time. And he said that we should bet on it."

"And what did you bet on?" Dean asks again. "What are the stakes?"

"Oh," Harry blinks. "I... I don't think we agreed on anything."

"You're betting on nothing?" Ginny shakes her head again. "You're not going to make a move on a guy you clearly like – a lot if I may say – because you would lose a bet with no stakes?"

"He would get bragging rights!" Harry argues. "He'd never let me live it down."

"I will never let you live it down if you lose your chance to get with Malfoy because you're a stupid idiot!" Ginny yells at him and then opens the back door and goes back inside. Harry stares after her.

Dean puts a hand on his shoulder and guides him inside too. "She's right – even though her approach to sharing her opinions is..."

"Vicious?"

"I was gonna say intense, but vicious works too." They both laugh, Harry somewhat reluctantly. They walk back to the bar but the group from before has dispersed. Draco is nowhere to be found, as is Parvati, but Hermione is on the stage finishing I Wanna Dance With Somebody. She seems to be having a good time.

Dean wanders away to find Seamus – "I think it's time for another duet" – so Harry stays alone at the bar – as alone as he'd predicted to be when he was here last. Without Draco, all that he has left to do really is just sulk at the bar and wait until someone comes to accost him to sing. He orders a shot, downs it, and then collapses on one of the stools with a torn leather seat.

He catches a glimpse of blonde hair in the crowd. Dean and Seamus start their passionate cover of I Want It That Way. Harry sees Ginny and Parvati with Draco in the middle of a small impromptu dance party that has congregated in front of the stage.

He leans on the bar. "Can I get a sparkling water, please?" Patrick looks at him like he's lost his mind. Maybe he has. He's spent more of this night feeling like he has lost his mind than not.

He focuses on the bubbles popping in his mouth – the strange tingly sensation of soda with none of the flavour. He watches Draco throw his head back laughing at something Parvati said. Ginny leans on him. He looks away.

He can't tell if his hands are wet from the condensation or sweat. He wipes them on his jeans. His head is both buzzing and as clear as ever. His chest is a gaping, aching, void of hurt – disappointment. He feels miserable and desperate and sort of angry at himself for feeling this way.

An arm is draped over his shoulder. He glances to his left. Ron is watching him quietly – looking mostly sober.

"Don't tell me you're sulking over Malfoy."

Harry shrugs and leans into his best friend more. Ron sighs but doesn't comment further. He looks at Harry's glass, and then, after a moment of consideration, he takes it from him and takes a sip.

Her sputters as he swallows. Harry snorts.

"I saw your glass and thought, Merlin – he must be really bad if he's ordering gin and tonic without anyone forcing him," Ron says wide-eyed, "but sparkling water? You're wrecked, aren't you?"

Harry just hums.

"You know he's into you, right?" Ron continues in the same conspiratorial whisper. "You could walk up to him and snog him senseless and we would have to drag you home to stop you from undressing on the dance floor."

"It's not about sex," Harry mutters. Ron doesn't react for a breath and then he sighs even louder than before and slumps over him. He downs Harry's sparkling water and grimaces.

"Well I'll be damned," he murmurs. "Merlin help us all..."

"Don't mock me."

"I'm not mocking you, mate. I'm trying to muster the strength to wish you luck – this is you and Malfoy we're talking about. You can't get more complicated than that."

"It is complicated," Harry agrees.

"But you can do it," Ron replies, "I'm sure. You just have to... start simple."

Harry raises his eyebrows at him. He's tired. And sick of himself and everything about this conversation.

"You know what you should do?"

"What?"

"Sing him a song."

Harry rolls his eyes and groans. He pushes Ron's arm off himself.

"No, Ron."

"Yes, Harry, yes – it's perfect."

"I'm not singing him a song."

"There's nothing more romantic than singing a song," Ron whines and takes his hand to drag him to the stage. "Come on, it'll be so perfect. So romantic."

We've been disgustingly romantic to each other, haven't we? Harry's breath stutters as the sentence plays on loop in his head. Ron shoves the microphone in his hand.

"Pick a song," he says, "Something good."

Harry hesitates and then scrolls through the options. Nothing feels right. Nothing feels good. Nothing feels like he's ready to risk it all with one song. He stops at the L's. Love this, love that. He makes a choice.

"You had to kill the conversation," he starts, voice wavering, "You always had the upper hand. Got caught in love and –" The music stops. Harry looks at Ron.

"Mate," Ron says. His arms are crossed and he's looking at Harry like he's an idiot. He feels like an idiot. All of this feels stupid. "That's not something good."

"It's a good song," Harry argues, not daring to look away from Ron. He feels like every single pair of eyes in the whole bar is turned to them.

"Context matters," Ron replies and climbs onto the stage with him. He shields the machine with his body while he chooses the song and then takes the second microphone singing, "Can anybody find me somebody to love?"

He looks up at Harry and Harry begs him with his eyes to stop this before it's even started but all Ron does is turn off the second microphone and leave Harry on stage alone. He takes a deep breath, turns to the rest of the bar and starts singing without looking up.

"Each morning I get up, I die a little," he sings dutifully, trying not to laugh or cry or think too much about all of this – about any of this, "Can barely stand on my feet. Take a look in the mirror and cry – Lord, what you're doing to me?"

He takes a chance and looks up. Ron is back at the booth already, with Hermione. He shoots him a thumbs up. He doesn't dare look at the dance floor.

"I have spent all my years in believing you, but I just can't get no relief, Lord," he continues, "Somebody, ooh, somebody – Can anybody find me somebody to love?"

His voice gives out on the long note and he lowers the microphone for the instrumental. He looks up. He finds Draco's eyes in a blink of a second.

"I work hard every day of my life. I work 'til I ache in my bones. At the end, I take home my hard-earned pay all on my own."

Draco is watching him, and only him, and Harry can't look away. Now that he's found him, that's it. There's nowhere else his eyes are willing to look. He is vaguely aware of Ginny and Parvati leaving Draco alone. He barely notices the change. His attention has always been just for Draco anyway.

His voice is straining through the middle of the song. He can feel that his breathing is all wrong. His sentences are choppy and half-sung. It's probably the worst performance he's ever done but he doesn't care. He doesn't have it in him to care when Draco's attention is on him.

"But everybody wants to put me down – they say I'm going crazy." His breath hitches in the middle of a phrase. He feels his eyes burning. The guitar solo comes on and he grips the mic harder in fear he will drop it.

"Got no feel, I got no rhythm – I just keep losing my beat," he speaks because singing feels too hard. His skin feels fit to bursting. He is ready to spill all over the stage with nothing left to give. "Someday I'm gonna be free. Lord!"

He is panting. He's half bent over. He puts the mic back into the stand and leans against it. The metal feet strain against his weight, but he doesn't hear it over the blood rushing in his ears.

"Find me somebody to love," he starts, whispering, repeating, "Find me somebody to love. Find me somebody to love. Find me somebody to love. Find me somebody to love. Find me somebody to love."

The beat speeds up. His heart speeds up. His voice is cracking. He feels a tear slide down his cheek and ignores it. He doesn't remember when he last blinked.

"Can anybody find me – somebody to – love?" He puts everything he can into it. He croons. Yells it. The whole world feels shaky. Draco smiles at him. Draco lifts his glass to him. Draco takes a sip, glancing away for the tiniest of seconds.

Harry finishes the song in a daze.

He leaves the mic where he is - doesn't even turn to stop the song from repeating. He walks forward, to the edge of the stage. He stumbles from it.

Arms catch him. He knows those forearms – forearms that got covered in goosebumps when his knit had dragged across skin. He looks up at Draco. Draco licks his lips but doesn't say anything.

He hears his friends gathering around the stage behind him – it's late, probably time for Dean's little love song for Seamus (not unlike his own just now) – but he doesn't look away from grey-blue eyes piercing his soul.

He could make the first move now. He can imagine it so easily. It's the easiest thing in the world. He'd barely have to move.

His hand would slide from where he's gripping Draco's forearm, up, up, across a shoulder, to the neck, into the soft, soft blonde hair. He'd lean his chest closer to the heart he can feel beating through Draco's skin.

Closer, just a bit closer. And he'd lean his head back. Lift his chin. And Draco would lean into him, with Harry's hand in his hair. And they'd kiss.

Lips against lips, breath against breath. It would be the simplest thing they'd ever done. They've done this before. They've done this before – they know how to kiss each other.

He could do it.

Draco is looking at him like he's half expecting him to do it.

Harry is half expecting himself to do it.

But he doesn't. He bites his lips, takes a deep breath and lets go of one of Draco's hands. He tangles their fingers together on the other. They walk back to the booth in silence, shoulders brushing shoulders.

The booth is empty. Their friends are providing back-vocals for Dean's The Longest Time as they usually do. Harry and Draco squeeze themselves into the corner, sitting as close as possible regardless. This feels closer than Harry could have imagined them being. This feels better than a kiss. He shifts slightly – barely a movement at all, and the side of his head is lightly touching Draco's. They stay like that for a while. For what feels like a lifetime in itself.

Dean finishes the song and him and Seamus kiss. Harry watches it happen with the same detachment one watches something happen in a different country. To some other people. In some other sort of circumstances.

The bar has slowly emptied over the last hour – it's closer to morning than midnight. The only people still shuffling around the mic are all his friends.

He squeezes Draco's hand harder.

His friends choose a song. The last one – it's always the last one after Dean. Don't go breaking my heart feels too fast and too cheerful for Harry to comprehend its existence. The microphones are perfunctory. His friends are singing it in a chorus. He feels like he's looking into someone's house.

Draco shifts next to him. Harry looks at him. Draco looks softer than he ever remembers him looking. His eyes are half-lidded, and his mouth open just a touch. Harry could kiss him now too. He doesn't do it this time either.

Draco seems to catch something in his expression because he sighs and drops his head, so his forehead rests against Harry's shoulder. His breath ghosts over Harry's collarbone.

Harry wants to bury his hand in his hair. He settles for putting it on Draco's forearm – that's familiar territory.

"Don't go breaking his heart!" Ginny sings in his face out of nowhere. He startles. Looks up at her. Draco sits back up.

Ginny wiggles her eyebrows at them and then goes back to dancing with the rest of them. Harry scoffs. He can see from the way she's moving that she's long since passed tipsy.

He and Draco exchange a look but don't comment. They don't go back to practically cuddling either. They let go of each other's hands.

The song is finished and the machine is turned off. His friends come back to the booth to collect them and then they all head out.

"You coming with us, Malfoy?" Ron asks from the back of the group. Hermione is leaning against him so hard he's practically carrying her.

"Where? It's almost four in the morning..."

Ron huffs a laugh. "Don't worry – we're not insane. To my parent's place. We all usually crash there, mum makes breakfast – she likes to fuss. There's room if you want to join."

"Thank you, Weasley, but –"

"You should come," Harry says softly. Draco looks at him and their hands brush together but don't catch.

"I... I don't want to be an imposition," Draco says quickly, "this wasn't planned –"

"I forgot to tell you about it but it was kind of implied? To me. To all of us?"

"Come on, Malfoy," Ginny says, only slurring the tiniest bit. "My parents've been wanting to interrogate you anyway."

Draco goes to protest but she hooks her arm into his and yanks him away to the apparition point before he manages to stop her.

_____

Harry wakes up on the floor of Ron's old room, dazed and sort of confused. At least he didn't have a headache. Ron and Hermione are still asleep in Ron's bed but Draco's sleeping bag is empty.

Harry waits a bit – maybe five minutes – to see if he's just gone to the bathroom but when he doesn't come back, he stands up as quietly as possible and goes downstairs.

The scent of tea slowly reaches him as he descends the staircase. Soft murmuring voices are coming from the kitchen.

He steps in and the whole room is bathed in the soft pale yellow light.

"Harry, dear," Mrs Weasley greets him immediately with a smile on her face. "Come, come, join us – I'll pour you a cup."

Draco turns to look at him. His hair is rumpled and the pyjamas Ron borrowed him yesterday in a half-asleep tumble are a bit too big for him – he's rolled up the sleeves to his elbows. He's cradling a cup of tea.

"Morning," he says, as softly as he looks.

"Hey," Harry says back and sits down. Mrs Weasley hands him a cup too. He takes a sip – it's perfect: sweet and milky and warming him up from the inside. He curls his feet against the floor.

"Draco here was just telling me about his herb garden," she says after taking a sip of her own. "You know the soil here is barely good for lavender let alone anything else."

"You have an herb garden?" Harry asks Draco, who shrugs.

"Among other things," Draco says, playing with his cup. "I have the space. You've seen my backyard."

Harry nods with a hum. He takes another sip of his tea and leans back in his chair, letting the continued conversation wash over him. Peace stretches between them like honey.

[click on the external link on this chapter to find the extras post for this chapter which also has the link to the playlist for this chapter!]