Terminology

Terminology

During his seventh year at Hogwarts, Draco Malfoy discovered sex. Specifically, the opposite one. And, following in the flamboyant footsteps of his forefathers, he made a big song and dance of it. Though, to be perfectly frank, singing and dancing were about the only two arts he didn't devote to sex, opposite or various imaginative combinations of that and the same. Instead, he turned to poetry, prose, impromptu play-acting, and pictures, all with nipple-heavy porn as alliterative spice.

Draco had been aware of sex before, of course. But during his seventh year, he discovered it. In short, he made sure people knew that he, Draco Malfoy, had discovered sex, and lots of it.

There wasn't a clean joke in his repertoire. He had pointed conversations with surrounding bosoms. Any potions he discussed weren't just potent but sexually so. He kept a ranking list of every girl in the school and was more than willing to let any female present know where she stood, and whether she was likely to remain standing and morally upright. He got caught in the girls' locker-room twice. He confused every class with Anatomy - of the opposite sex - and took graphic notes accordingly.

Snape was most vexed when Draco quite carelessly left an anatomically optimistic illustration on his desk as the Potions master made his rounds. But not even Gryffindor sniggering could make Draco repent, or even blush.

He was on a mission, charting the newfound realm of sex, like some pornographic Christopher Columbus. (Though it should perhaps be noted that Columbus was quite convinced he'd discovered India.)

~~~*~~~

Sexual explorer Draco Malfoy ran into rough waters when he tried to negotiate a copulative treaty with the tribe of Weasley, through its youngest fire-haired member. Offering the family jewels while exploring the girl's natural resources didn't sit well with the natives. Thus, this hapless missionary of corporeal love was pulled into the depths of a disused hallway to face the wrath of Potter, the explosive protector of the Weasley clan, whose hair had burned to hard coals long before.

Harry pushed Draco up against the wall while the latter took a moment to reconsider his missionary vocation.

'Don't ever treat Ginny like that again!' growled Potter the Protector. 'Go - go be compulsively heterosexual somewhere else!' He spit the words with so much venom, Draco made a mental note to check for available serums.

'I,' said Draco. That was always a good start. 'I,' he continued. Repetition, however, wasn't a good continuation. 'I'm not compulsive!' he sputtered. 'And I'm certainly not heterosexual!' he added, for good measure, glaring defiantly.

Harry drew back, left eyebrow quirking. Something in his perplexed posture told Draco this was not the work of his Glare of Death. 'What?' He appeared to have stolen the words straight from Potter's lips.

It wasn't an image he cared to dwell on.

'What?!' he added, pointedly not dwelling.

'You're not,' said Harry, slowly, 'heterosexual?'

'No,' said Draco, sticking his nose up.

Harry's face twitched. 'Bisexual?' he ventured.

Draco snorted. 'Your insane Muggle insults don't bite on me, Potter.'

Harry face brightened, a smile peeked out. 'You just don't know what it means, do you?'

'Of course I do!' Maybe the Glare would work this time.

'Idiot,' sniggered Harry.

'Heterosexual!' growled Draco.

'No, actually,' said Harry, pausing briefly for internal debate. 'Homosexual.'

Draco blinked. Then his forefinger rocketed towards Harry's face. 'AHA!', he cried, making Harry jump backwards for fear of being brutally nose-picked to death. 'I know that one! Homo! I know homo! Muggles call humans homo sapiens!' He beamed, smugly. 'So, you were trying to say I'm some sort of inhuman freak, you - you freak! Well, I'm - I'm homosexual too!' Draco bounced on the spot.

Harry backed away. 'Ehm. I think I'm going to - leave now.'

'You do that,' Draco smirked, 'you het-hero-sexual freak!'

And Harry did. Grinning all the way to Gryffindor Tower.

Meanwhile, Draco pondered terminology.

And about possibly having made a fool of himself.

He had some research to do.

But he would have to be subtle.

Very subtle.

~~~*~~~

There was nothing subtle about the crossword perched on Draco's knees as he half-lay on his common room couch, prominently displaying the words The Worldly Wizard's Advanced Crosswords for the benefit of anyone passing by. Which at this particular moment happened to be Pansy Parkinson. Which meant that everything was proceeding according to plan.

'Ehm, Pansy?' said Draco in his most casual tone of voice. 'A synonym for homosexual?'

Pansy had developed a worrying fascination for Muggles, in much the same way a tiger is fascinated by chubby, morsel-sized housecats. She would know what the word meant. No doubt about it. Draco punctured a smug smile by biting into his pencil.

'Gay?' said Pansy, searching through the mess that was their post-party coffee table for some lost treasure, presumably of a perishable nature considering the apparent urgency.

Gay? Potter didn't exactly seem the compulsively cheerful sort.

'No, that can't be it,' muttered Draco. 'Doesn't fit.'

'How many letters?' wheezed Pansy, curiously draped across an overturned armchair.

'Eh,' said Draco, trying to come up with a likely number. Four. There were lots of four letter words. He knew. And so did Pansy, for that matter. 'Four.'

'Queer?' issued forth from somewhere beneath the sofa.

Strange? Well, it certainly fit. But it hardly seemed something Potter would admit to freely. And while queer uncle Vera certainly seemed happy enough, the one was hardly a requirement for the presence of the other. Besides

'Queer isn't four letters!'

'Oh, right,' said Pansy, dusting herself off while appearing doubtful as to the flavour of the added crunch in her salvaged chocolate cake. 'Bent, then.' And then she left, possibly to find some left-over wine with which to wash down the larger pieces of crunch.

Draco frowned. No, this wouldn't do. This wouldn't do at all. He couldn't sort out the puzzle. Gay? Queer? Bent? All he could come up with was some sort of madly cheerful hunchback. And while Potter may have been many things, he certainly wasn't a madly cheerful hunchback. More a morose hunk-in-black.

Draco filled in six voluptuous breasts for "Famous Eighth Century wizard", in case anyone should happen upon him.

After all, one had to keep up appearances, as Mother always said.

~~~*~~~

Help came in the form of some chap named Collins, a dictionary, and a thesaurus checked out from the Muggle shelves in the library. Though Draco's loudly proclaiming that he needed to find some additional synonyms for copulate and breasts nearly put a stop to his linguistic enlightenment at the prudish hands of Madame Pince.

Not until late at night did Draco dare to explore homosexual and its etymological siblings. Because Draco Malfoy did not make a fool of himself. Not if he could help it.

It was all there: Gay, bent, queer, even poofy poofters and ponces. There was the definition of the term, but more importantly, there was a condensed history of the condition in the associated slang and derogatory terms.

Draco learned a lot that night. He learned that homosexuality was not a condition confined to his uncle Vera, or even his partially very peculiar family. He learned that male homosexuals were often associated with high-ranking female royalty, for reasons he could guess at but would never admit to. He learned that straight was clearly considered superior to bent, for apparently ungeometrical reasons. He learned that many now embraced their strangeness, and he could appreciate this in an elitist, eccentrically posh sort of way.

He learned to be very grateful for having put off publicly proclaiming himself homosexual in defiance of Potter.

Potter, the homosexual.

~~~*~~~

'Heterosexual,' hissed Malfoy. Harry rolled his eyes. It was the third time that day the obnoxiously well-groomed Slytherin had sneaked past him with that same stupid whisper on his curiously pouty lips. And the umpteenth time that week.

It was perfectly ridiculous. He could deal with Draco calling him an idiot in a thousand different ways, but being repeatedly accused of heterosexuality was just - surreal. He knew that to Draco it was just a meaningless insult, a way of getting back at Harry for telling him off, but he couldn't seem to shake the closet-case connotation, couldn't help being constantly reminded of the fact that everyone, even his closest friends, still had him pegged as heterosexual, without giving it a second thought.

Somehow, Malfoy must have noticed that he'd found a sore spot with the unfamiliar term. And Draco Malfoy wouldn't kick a fallen man. He'd stomp on him. The bastard.

And now, the bastard upped the stakes, without even knowing it.

'Potter claims to be a homosexual,' said the bastard.

'Whu?' said the bastard's bumbling henchman.

'A homosexual,' repeated Malfoy, in a voice that carried clear across the Potions dungeon. Heads turned. Slytherin mouths smirked. Gryffindor mouths growled. With a few notable exceptions on both sides. But Harry would have to analyse that later. The growl beside him, of Weasley origin, spelled imminent doom. But not, as it were, for Harry. Because Harry wasn't gay. It had, however, been often hinted by the growling best friend in question that Malfoy might well be. Though that particular, and disturbing, venue of poorly-veiled insults had been firmly closed when Malfoy turned into a compulsive heterosexual.

'But,' drawled Malfoy, still in that loud, posturing voice, 'I don't believe him.' For once, Harry was grateful for Malfoy's inclination to disbelieve his every word. 'If anything, he's hero-sexual.'

Ah. The punch-line. The mixed Potions class sniggered. Unanimously.

Great.

Harry caught Ron glancing at him in a most peculiar manner.

This clearly had to be dealt with.

~~~*~~~

'Heteroseh—'

'Words in private. Now. Or I'll hex your privates.' And then Potter just kept walking while Draco stumbled to a halt, blinking in befuddlement. Crabbe and Goyle turned as one.

'Wha'd'e say?' asked Goyle.

'Ehm,' said Draco. 'Just some - random insult, really. I'll just,' Draco sought an excuse to follow Potter on his own - and realised who he was speaking to, 'go and be random in return.' He poured an unhealthy amount of venom into the pointless phrase.

Crabbe and Goyle nodded smugly. It was all about how you said things. Not what you said. That was how the Malfoys had always come out on top, alive, and richer than before, as generals and lords.

'Wan' us t'elp?' asked Crabbe.

Draco put on an indulgent smile. 'I'll manage.'

Randomness was, after all and unfortunately, a speciality of his.

Though he'd never in a million years admit it.

~~~*~~~

'Stop.'

'What?'

'Calling me heterosexual.'

'Why?'

The disused corridor hadn't seen so much drama since Dobby the house-elf had decided to streak through the school to make some point or other about house-elves and clothing.

'Because,' hissed Harry, 'it annoys me.'

Malfoy smirked, and Harry realised he was going about this in quite the wrong way. 'Because,' Harry said, 'it makes you look stupid.' That should do it. Malfoy hated looking stupid. And the fact that he had kept this new insult as private as he had was evidence enough that he was unsure about exactly what he was accusing Harry of.

But Malfoy still smirked. 'Think I'd fall for that one, Potter?'

Harry gritted his teeth and glowered, reverting to the rhetoric of his Neanderthal ancestors. One more failed attempt at reasoning and he was likely to bring closure to the argument the old-fashioned way, if only he could find a large enough club.

Malfoy quirked an eyebrow. 'Is that all you have to say? That I shouldn't call you heterosexual because it'll make me look stupid and, of course, me looking stupid annoys and aggrieves you?'

Harry quirked an eyebrow in pointless retaliation. Malfoy seemed to feel awfully confident all of a sudden. He was never remotely clever, nor eloquent, otherwise. 'I'm not.'

'Not what? Not saying that? I just heard you—'

'Not heterosexual.'

'Ah, that's right,' said Malfoy, a splendid if not particularly convincing display of surprise on his face, 'you're, what was that word again, homosexual, right?'

'Right,' said Harry, wondering whether this counted as a coming out, and why, if it did, he was coming out to Malfoy of all people.

'Prove it.'

Harry goggled. 'What?'

'Prove that you're - homosexual. And I might consider calling you dimwit instead of heterosexual.'

'But,' spluttered Harry, 'but I can't prove it! I just - I just—' And then Harry gave up trying to avoid a malignant evolution in Malfoy, from bully to gay-basher. 'I could explain it—'

'No, you have to prove it, Potter. Read my lips: Prove it!'

'I CAN'T!' cried Harry, and a Neanderthal conclusion stomped closer by the second.

'Of course you can,' smirked Malfoy. 'Read my lips, Potter: Kiss them.'

'What?' said Harry, glancing down the empty hallway. 'Who?'

'My lips, you nitwit. Kiss me. I promise to be good.' Malfoy leered. 'Very good.'

Harry's heart stuttered. His mind clouded, and yet it was all so clear now. 'You know,' he growled, apparently practicing for the part of small, scruffy storm-cloud. 'You've found out what homosexual means,' he spoke slowly, deliberately not shouting, 'and now you want to humiliate the poofter, tell the whole school that Potter tried to kiss you. Well, guess what, I'd rather kiss a ferret.'

'And how would that prove your homosexuality?' said Malfoy, whilst Harry tried to forget the concept of Freudian slips. 'If you kiss me, I won't even call you homosexual.'

'No one would believe you anyway,' said Harry. 'No one that matters.' Because it was so comforting to think that anyone who took Malfoy's bigoted word for it wouldn't matter in the long run, even if they'd once been Harry's friends.

For while there's hope, there's delusion.

'Why won't you kiss me?' said Malfoy, and the pout on his lips seemed less planned than before.

'I'm not in the habit of kissing compulsive heterosexuals, Malfoy,' said Harry, wondering why he hadn't just said 'because it's you, you prat.'

Malfoy sniggered. 'I've already told you: I'm homosexual, Potter.'

Inside Harry's stormy head, the datastreams failed to synchronise. 'But - but you're disgustingly heterosexual! You tried to - to molest Ginny!'

'Yes,' said Malfoy, looking thoughtful, 'that was rather disgusting, wasn't it? But,' he grimaced in a rough approximation of apology, 'it was such a safe bet, after all.'

Harry goggled some more. If he kept it up, he was going to have to chase his runaway eyes down the dirty hallway. 'A what?'

'Safe bet. Basic rule of warfare: Diversionary assaults at impossible targets. And misleading propaganda.'

'I don't believe you,' said Harry, sticking to tradition in the face of an unfathomable future.

'Kiss me. Then you'll believe me.'

'I don't WANT to believe you!'

'Why?'

'I just - I don't - I,' sputtered Harry, going from storm cloud to small kettle, 'I don't kiss—'

'But I'm NOT heterosexual!'

'Closet-cases! I don't kiss closet-cases.'

'I'm not a closet-case!' huffed Malfoy.

'You're an overcompensating closet-case! A compulsive overcompensating closet-case! A complete—'

'Yes, YES! I get the point, Potter!' Harry's cloud of agitation seemed to have spread to Malfoy, darkening his features. 'Stop prattling.'

'So you can take your kiss and—'

'I'll come out.'

'- shove— Wha?' Harry blinked.

'I'll come out.'

'You'll what?' said Harry, nose twitching. 'Where?'

'Out of the closet, you dimwit.'

'No, no. I meant - meant,' stammered Harry, awaiting the reopening of his mental faculties. He took a deep breath, possibly to air out the large empty space between his ears. 'Who? To who?'

'Whom, Potter,' muttered Malfoy. 'And what do you mean, to whom?'

'Well,' said Harry, speaking slowly and feeling that he now had regained the quasi-intellectual upper hand, 'you just came out to me. So, who would you come out to next? A toad?'

'Do you expect to turn into one?'

'With your lips in the mix, who knows?'

'Aha!' cried Malfoy. 'You will kiss me!'

'Don't change the subject,' said Harry, anxious to change this one. 'Who would you come out to?'

Malfoy's eyebrows rose in unison. 'Do you expect me to do it in stages? I'm a Malfoy! It's all or nothing!'

'You'd come out to the entire school?' said Harry, seeing Possibilities emerge before his clouded inner eye.

Malfoy's hesitation was barely noticeable. 'Yes,' he said, absently biting his lower lip, 'but only if you come out too. To the whole school.'

Harry frowned. His mental faculties exchanged notes. If Malfoy were to come out, he would position himself as part of a minority, and possibly lose some of the power his name had earned him within Slytherin. If he came out, he would notice that it was, in fact, the Muggleborns who were least likely to look upon homosexuals through Victorian glasses with Renaissance eyes. If he came out, he would stop posturing as a compulsive heterosexual. If he came out, he might even stop posturing as the perfect pureblood. One posture implied others, after all.

If he came out kissing Harry Potter, it could prove the perfect subversion of Slytherin/Gryffindor relations.

And when his brain had filtered his faculties' findings into digestible tidbits, Harry said: 'Would you kiss me in the Great Hall, in front of everyone?'

Malfoy's eyelids were the only part of him that moved for some time, and quickly at that. 'Well,' he squeaked, at last, 'you'd have to kiss me first. Now.'

'Well,' said Harry, clearing his throat, 'if - if - I do, how will I know you - will kiss me - in the Great Hall?' Somewhere along the way, Harry's argumentative mind had lost touch with reality. Kiss Malfoy? Malfoy kiss him? In the Hall?

Best to think of it as an intellectual exercise. Or a stupid one, in any case.

'You have my word!' exclaimed Malfoy, clearly offended. 'The word of a Malfoy!'

Harry sighed. Malfoy sounded as though he believed himself, and that would have to be good enough.

'But,' said Malfoy, 'if I do - kiss you in the Hall, you'll have to let me kiss you again. After that.'

Harry stared, dumbfounded.

Malfoy shrugged. 'I have needs.'

Harry swallowed back an exclamation of disgust as he realised: 'You're asking me to - to be your - boyfriend?'

'What? No!'

'Okay. I should just service your needs then?'

'Er,' said Malfoy, which rather spoiled the haughty look that followed. 'Yes.'

'Will you pay me?'

'What? No!'

'So, you want me to be your unpaid prostitute?' concluded Harry, face clouding. 'I don't think so, Malfoy.'

'Do you,' Malfoy's haughty pose fell into a fair approximation of flabbergasted, 'want to be my boyfriend?'

'What? No!' exclaimed Harry, feeling like a particularly daft echo. 'I don't even like you!' he added, absently noting the absence of 'hate', or even 'dislike', in this utterance.

'Well, I don't like you!' huffed Draco. 'But I might like your lips.'

Harry snorted. 'It's a package deal, Malfoy. I need them, you know.'

'I need them!' cried Malfoy, composure crackling. 'I have needs! Liking is - irrelevant! Irrational!' He sucked in roughly a cubic metre of air through his nose, eyes bulging. 'Irritating! Like you!'

'I won't be your - rent-boy, Malfoy!'

'Your wha—?'

'So any snogging arrangement'll have to include your admitting - publicly - to being my boyfriend!' Harry smiled, smugly, picturing the foundations of Hogwart's pettiest pureblood bully being demolished by socially unacceptable Boy-Who-Lived boyfriend.

Malfoy looked aghast. 'I'm nobody's boyfriend! If anything, you'll be my boyfriend!'

'Can't have the cake and eat it.'

'I want kisses, not cakes!' cried Malfoy, punishing the floor for Harry's impudence. 'And what if your kisses don't live up to my standards, eh, Potter? Then I'll be saddled with everyone thinking I'm your - that you're my boyfriend - without it being of any bloody use to me whatsoever! I'll have you know I have very specific and delicate needs and—'

And then Harry Potter kissed Draco Malfoy. Without there being anything delicate whatsoever about it.

Soon forgetting about any intent to persuade and ensnare Malfoy, Harry crumbled quivering into the deepening, rapturous, rough kiss. Cramped together at the back of his mind, his mental faculties explored the possible precursors of this curious new era of Harry Potter-dom.

For a long time, Harry's dislike for Malfoy had been heightened by the fact that the utterly unbearable, unbelievably prejudiced little git had turned him on. Malfoy had been sickeningly hot, in a pointy, prattish, pretty sort of way. He had made it much too difficult for Harry to accept his suddenly obvious sexuality. And Harry had hated him for it.

Well, almost. Malfoy was too stupidly over-the-top to warrant serious hate.

And now, Harry was kissing him. Kissing Malfoy, pointy, rough, warm, sweaty, smooth. Malfoy moaned.

Harry broke contact, stepped back, steeled himself. Resisted the urge to leap back into an even longer kiss.

Breathing heavily, he smiled, perhaps not very convincingly, eyebrows rising suggestively. 'That's what you'll get in return for outing yourself as my boyfriend in front of the whole school.'

Malfoy inhaled, exhaled, swallowed, blinked, and said, 'okay.'

'But,' said Harry, old suspicion lingering, 'I won't - I won't kiss you until - until you take my hand and tell everyone you're gay and that I'm your - boyfriend.'

Malfoy blinked. His nose twitched. 'But - but what if you— you can't just— you'll have to promise to— you have to stay my boyfriend - for as long as I want you.' He bit his lip. A shade of red crept up his neck.

Harry gaped. 'I - I can't promise that! That's just - that's... What if I don't want you, you selfish little git!' Storm clouds were gathering anew. Malfoy reddened.

'Ehm. I just,' he stammered, 'I just.' He drew a deep breath and shut his eyes. 'You know I'll be an outcast in my House. I won't stand all alone—' His eyes flew open. 'I mean - I mean - I won't be without - without lips to satisfy my needs during my - tragic exile.' He stuck out his chin. 'So, you'll have to promise to be around - for kissing and - and kissing - at least - at least until,' he seemed to be calculating his chances, 'Christmas.' In the absence of a quick answer, he added 'Then you can dump me,' by way of redundant but pleasantly distracting clarification.

Harry inhaled, exhaled, swallowed, blinked, and said, 'okay.'

~~~*~~~

Christmas came. Harry didn't, in any sense of the word.

He wasn't there. He clearly wasn't coming. Draco slumped back in his armchair - one that was his in a way that those he'd once claimed in the Slytherin common room had never been. All his, his alone. Alone, without Harry. His voluntary exile had never felt so lonely. So dreary, dull, and lifeless. And on Christmas Day, of all times.

Still, it was his own fault. He'd set the date. He'd set the date when Harry could set himself free, from a boyfriend who inspired as much fighting as snogging.

But the snogging had been good. Oh, so very good. Intoxicating, invigorating, indispensable. Draco was well and truly addicted. The Boy-Who-Lived had made Draco feel alive. He couldn't imagine a future without Harry, even with all the heated disagreements. Those were just - added spice. And for a while, he'd hoped - thought, even - that Harry felt the same.

He'd obviously been wrong.

They'd argued over tailored contraceptives against Muggle-borns five days before Christmas day. It had turned ugly. Draco hadn't seen Harry since.

And now, there was a medium-sized dumpster in front of his incredibly pretty, impressively expensive Christmas tree. It was bound with red string. That told Draco the argument had festered, become infested, sickened. A sick joke. He hadn't expected it of Harry. He'd feared being dumped, but not like this.

Not like this.

Damn. His fingers dug into the armrests. The red string untied itself, fluttered to the floor. The top of the dumpster edged upwards. Draco frowned. He hadn't thought things could get worse at this point. For a Death Eater's son, how stupid was that? He sighed.

He'd have liked to be anywhere but Hogwarts this Christmas. He'd planned to be. But his plans never worked. Not even the one to snog Harry senseless enough to agree to be his boyfriend. And the plan to be elsewhere had failed because he'd been ordered to stay put, or he was likely to get killed. To be killed. He was Potter's boyfriend. His home was closed to him. His father's friends would use him to get to Harry. He had to stay.

But he wanted to escape. To not have to face unfiltered rejection. An Owl would have been so much easier to deal with. An Owl couldn't see you cry. An owl could, but who cared about stupid animals, anyway?

The dumpster had been a very cruel Owl, a fat and ugly owl, but intrinsically Owl nonetheless. Now Harry's tousled hair rose above the edge, and Draco was grateful for one thing only: He hadn't yet let tears fall. Maybe he could bottle them for as long as it took Harry to deliver his message and get out of Draco's life, forever.

Maybe. But his plans never worked, did they?

Harry's face was rigid as he rose slowly, slowly. And if looks really could kill, Draco felt he would have been an inappropriate pile of dust in his expensive leather armchair.

A white t-shirt hugged the shoulders Draco had hoped, foolishly, to caress for Christmas, clothing removed.

Block-letter writing appeared above the edge of the dumpster.

"Dumper" it said. Oh, would the cruelty never end? Had he truly been such an awful boyfriend? Muggle-borns were a problem, Draco couldn't pretend otherwise. Shouldn't a proper relationship be based on truth, not lies? That's what Harry had said, in any case. Draco wouldn't know; he'd never had a proper relationship. With anyone.

Maybe not even with Harry. Maybe it had all been an illusion. Maybe Harry had just wanted to destroy Draco by first turning his old friends against him, then dumping him - and ridiculing him in front of the whole school.

He'd have to leave Hogwarts. Go far, far away.

"on extended holiday" the t-shirt continued. Harry's mouth quirked.

Draco blinked, brain cells skidding against his speech centre, temporarily unhinged. His hypothesis about the word that became a sentence had been proven wrong, somehow. The negotiation for meaning had been thrown off balance, as had he.

"of sexual tourism" popped up, as did Harry's grin. And Draco thought things were, shockingly, looking up.

"in Slytherin." Draco found it a delightfully equivocal statement. And he smiled, a little.

Then the t-shirt ended. And there were no pants to follow, nor underwear. Yet Draco didn't seem to notice. He shot to his feet, trembling with relieved anxiety and suppressed anger.

'You,' he said, breathing erratically, 'are evil. Lord Voldemort must have transferred more than parseltongue when he tried to kill you.'

Harry, now fully erect in the dumpster, smirked, glanced down at Draco's snake pendant, and hissed.

'Oh, really?' stammered Draco as Harry climbed out of the dumpster. 'How - er - interesting.'

Harry sauntered towards Draco, smoothly, sexily, snake-like, murmuring sweet, sensual sibilants, tongue flicking, licking his full lips. Draco felt weak. There was nudity. There was bobbing. There was smooth sliding up against his tensing body.

Harry hissed. Harry kissed. Draco's heart missed a beat.

~~~*~~~

On that merry Christmas morn, Draco Malfoy wasn't dumped.

Though the same could not be said of his gay apparel.

Deck the Hall with bows of holly

'Tis the Season to be

gay = brave, merry, cheerful, queer, colourful, festive, joyous, gala, homo, jocund, jolly

~fin~