Emotion and Squashy Armchairs

It was over.

Completely. Totally. Draco Malfoy was done with Harry Potter. He refused to let their ardent, secretive relationship carry on a moment longer.

He was dusting his hands of the whole thing and walking away, never to look back. Even the best Malfoy had a few skeletons in their closets - Potter was his. No need to revisit that particular closet ever again, even in his memories. They were finished, and he was never, ever going to think about him again.

He was through remembering the way he looked at night, with blue-silver moonlight tracing the curves of his face, his black robes encasing him like shadows turned liquid. How he laid on his stomach in the grass, head resting on folded hands, eyes thoughtful, intent, a half-smile curling his lips.

He was through remembering his lively green eyes and the way they curved into crescents when he grinned. How they could be large and serious one moment, and the wild and reckless the next. How his lashes curled, how he tilted his head back and his eyes fluttered when he liked the things that Draco did.

He was through thinking about his peach-tan skin and the way he sort of . . . stretched, in the mornings, and how he would turn his head to the side, his cheek against the pillows, and his hair would flop adorably across his forehead, and . . .

Draco slumped, disconsolate. Harry was perfect. They were perfect. But of course, he'd had to go and mess things up -

No! Fortunately, in times of distress, Draco's pride always saved him. You did not mess things up. Harry messed things up! It's his fault.

That was more like it.

Slightly cheered, Draco poked his Potions ingredients with vigor. Why carry a great load of guilt about when he could blame it on someone else? It was Harry's fault. He was a great sodding git, anyway.

He would end things between them tonight. They were meeting in the Astronomy Tower, the way that all good lovers did. Once there, he'd tell him. "Things between us are finished. No more sneaking, no more meetings, no more snogging and having sex in abandoned classrooms - we're through. Goodbye, Potter, have a nice life."

Draco stopped poking his Potions ingredient as it abruptly poked him back.

A little voice in the back of his head whispered suddenly, Surely you're allowed to think about him until then, aren't you?

Draco gave it his most intimidating scowl, the one that used to make Harry's eyes narrow back when they did things like narrow their eyes at each other. I am proving that I have no need of him and can spend an entire day without daydreaming about him. So I don't need to mutter snide little comments at myself.

The voice snorted it's opinion of Draco's chances of success, but fell silent.

Satisfied, Draco looked up - only to catch Blaise Zabini watching him wryly. Reality rushed back with a vengeance. He'd almost forgotten that he was surrounded by talking, working, and occasionally snogging students.

"What?" he snapped, shooting glances over his shoulders.

Blaise leaned back in his chair, amused. "If you keep this up, Malfoy," he drawled, sounding remarkably like Draco himself, "then even Snape is going to have to take points."

Puzzled, Draco glanced around the classroom, less furtively - everyone was working on their potions. His ingredient lied before him, untouched.

Swearing, he got to work.

Blaise chuckled and ignored his own potion, resting his arm on Draco's desk and kicking the legs of his chair. "So, what's bothering you?"

Draco shot Blaise a very suspicious expression. He wasn't at all sure about Blaise. Yeah, he slept in the boys' dorm, and he was wearing the boys' uniform beneath his robes, but . . . No one was certain about Blaise. He didn't belong to either of the Slytherin, gender-divided cliques, and had the weirdest habit of never doing anything even remotely noticeable. Too, Draco had never seen him in the boys' bathroom, even after six years of association. Though to be entirely fair, Pansy had never seen him in the girls' bathroom, either.

"Nothing," Draco grumbled. "Nothing's bothering me."

Blaise grinned and started kicking the table leg, too. "Thinking about Potter?"

Draco sent him a sharp look. He knew about the rumors, of course - most people just had the sense to keep them far away from him. But Blaise was loonier than Luna Lovegood, and that was saying something.

"Maybe," Draco hedged, and then remembered he wasn't supposed to think about Potter at all. "No."

Blaise scoffed. "Sure, Draco. What happened, the two of you fight? I'm surprised. I'd have thought you got that out of your systems years ago."

Draco gritted his teeth and resolved not to utter a word of his dilemma to Blaise.

A few minutes later, he was finishing his tale, his potion completely neglected, with Blaise staring at him in rapt interest. ". . . and I told him I loved him and then he didn't say anything at all! Just . . . sat there like a great stupid prat, looking at me, and then went on snogging me like nothing happened."

Of course, that wasn't entirely fair. Draco was certain that Harry's expression had been deeply meaningful - but he was simply terrible at deciphering peoples emotions.

"Maybe he has trouble expressing his true feelings," Blaise said.

Draco gave him a look.

Blaise shrugged. "Worth a try. Maybe he thinks of you as a casual fuck-buddy, and you frightened him with your display of emotion."

Draco slumped, eyes widening. "D'you think?"

"Oh, no. No. Of course not." Blaise reached over and poured Draco's ingredients into his cauldron, starting the potion to simmer. "He's shy, isn't he? That's probably it."

It was a remarkably true thing to say. Draco mused, and then shrugged, taking over the potion-making.

"Maybe," he said, watching the powdered flea dissolve. "But either way, I'm tired of him. We're over."

Blaise nodded knowingly and turned back to his own potion. "Sure thing, Draco."

It was much later that night. Draco, in a fit of cosmic distress, had stormed from the Slytherin common room after discovering that vast amounts of green reminded him impossibly of Harry's eyes. Pacing nervously in the hallway was no better - students kept passing by, shooting him glances and leaning in to gossip with their friends.

Impatient, Draco went up to the Astronomy Tower three hours early. He expected it to be empty - was looking forward to it, actually - and found Harry there, sitting and staring out a window.

Scowling like a child caught stealing from the cookie jar, Draco shuffled his feet and nearly tripped over a rug. "What're you doing here, Harry?"

Harry turned to glance at him in surprise. "You're early."

"So are you."

"I just came up here to think." Harry turned back to the window, staring up at the sky.

Put off by the fact that Harry was, for all intents and purposes, ignoring him, Draco sat on a desk and stared past his head. His unusually rumpled head. Why did he have to fall in love with the owner of messiest hair in the school? Couldn't he get someone who'd at least heard of gel? Or a brush?

As Draco stared at him, he could feel his irritation grow. And why was Harry ignoring him? Okay, so Draco had come up here with every intention of breaking up with him. But Harry didn't know that.

About to storm angrily from the room, maybe knocking over a few telescopes for effect, Draco got to his feet. At that instant, Harry glanced back at him and Draco, somewhat ashamed, realized that roughly thirty seconds had passed since their last moment of eye contact. "Would you come here?"

It was a rare day when Draco refused an opportunity to be close to Harry. Still a bit piqued, he joined him at the window, perching uneasily on the sill. It was very cold and hard. Harry, however, looked very comfortable - he had mastered the technique of summoning plushy furniture from nowhere, although it had a tendency to be either red or gold or, on some horrible occasions, both.

Harry watched him for a moment, green eyes inscrutable. Once again, Draco wondered what he was thinking. He wished suddenly that he could read minds like Dumbledore. Who technically couldn't, but no one who'd ever tried to lie to the man actually bought that routine.

Draco managed to look away, staring down at his hands. "I'm going to break up with you," he said.

He saw Harry tense, saw him straighten in his squashy chair. At least he has a squashy chair, Draco thought resentfully, and then felt bad. Harry was about to have his heart broken, after all.

"Why?" Harry asked. He sounded suddenly years younger. Draco knew that if he looked up, he would be paralyzed by Harry's Pleady Eyes.

"Because," Draco said, feeling stupid when he realized he didn't want to give the real reason why. "Because you don't pay enough attention to me." A brief moment of silence followed this statement, as both of them thought about the sheer amount of time Harry spent sneaking around to meet Draco in empty classrooms. "And you're mean to me." An even briefer silence as they both struggled to remember a single occasion to prove this true, and came up blank. "And you . . ." He stopped.

Harry leaned forward, twining their hands together. His fingers were slightly cold, shaking. His wrists were warm. Draco could feel the heat emanating from his body as if it was a weapon that Harry had pointed at him.

"And I what?" Harry asked.

Draco bit his lip, and forced himself to lift his eyes. As he'd guessed, Harry was fully immersed in Pleady Phase. But his hands were trembling with fear, and Draco felt his heart break, just a little. You're not supposed to care.

But then, he'd said 'it' first.

"And . . ." Draco could not say it, not again, so he leaned forward, fully intending to kiss Harry and leave. But the minute their lips touched, and Harry's cold hand touched the back of his neck, he felt lost, hurt, like Harry was the one leaving him. And then Harry pushed his mouth open and sucked his tongue and Draco felt his brain turn to mush and dribble out of his ears.

Panting, he managed to pull slightly away. Harry watched him, face pale.

Suddenly, the cold window-sill was far away and Draco was in Harry's lap, straddling him in the plush red armchair. It was a bit difficult, because it was so squishy that his knees sank deeply into the cushion, but it was divinely comfortable, and Harry was so perfectly warm.

They kissed again, hotly, Draco running his hands over Harry's throat and down his chest, over that slick, hot skin, leaving them to rest on Harry's hips. Their tongues met, fought for dominance - one hand tangled in his hair, another ran along his spine, and Draco felt his resolve break away. Harry tilted his head up as Draco rocked against him, licking every corner of his mouth, and tore his lips away to kiss his throat.

Suddenly, he remembered what he was supposed to be doing. Panting, he sat up, ignoring the extremely pleasurable way this caused them to grind together.

Harry's mouth was a startled 'o'. "Draco, what --"

"I'm breaking up with you!" Draco snapped. His put his hands on Harry's shoulders -- purely out of a desire to shake him. "Doesn't this mean anything to you other than sex?"

Harry blinked at him, supremely startled, for several minutes. And then, rather choked, he pointed out, "You kissed me."

"And that makes it all okay? I expected more moralizing out of you, you're a Gryffindor!"

Draco couldn't have said why he was upset, but he was vaguely certain that it had something to do with the fact that Harry wasn't. There was an unreadable expression on his face - a little bit like he was trying not to smile - and this made Draco even more mad.

Shaking his head, Harry said, "All right, fine - then what're you going on about? One minute you said you were breaking up with me, the next minute you were snogging me."

Draco took his hands back. "I'm -- I -- You don't -- I -- ARGH!"

Harry jumped. They both shuddered from the contact, and then Harry put his hands on Draco's knees, clearly trying to find some sort of level ground. "Okay. Just . . . tell me what . . . happened? I mean, something did happen, right . . .? Never mind, just -- okay, whatever. I have no idea." Harry's face was very flushed. "Could we change positions? This isn't exactly conductive to, er . . . conversation. Or thought."

"No," Draco said, stubborn. He was better at control then Harry. "I'm angry. I want you to suffer." He could last. He wouldn't give in. No matter how good it would feel.

Harry looked at him silently. At first, this was okay, but then the silence stretched and stretched and Draco felt unease trickle into his stomach. And then Harry reached up and touched his cheek, and there wasn't as much emphasis on grinding thing, and more on the disquieting look in his eyes.

Draco flicked his eyes to the side. Harry stroked his cheek very gently and said, "Draco, tell me what happened."

Draco felt his jaw clench. "I just broke up with you," he said. "And you didn't even care."

He felt Harry sigh. "Of course I cared!"

Draco turned to glare at him defiantly. "No! You didn't! You didn't care at all!"

"I did too!" Harry put both his hands on Draco's face so that he couldn't look away. "I cared very much! Hence the worried, confused, and probably frightened expression!"

Draco was crestfallen. "I'm terrible with expressions."

Harry stared at him. "You are?"

Shamed, he nodded.

They were quiet for a moment as Harry processed this new information. Draco could feel the draft from the window.

Then, Harry said, "Why are you breaking up with me?"

Draco felt a little panicky, because Harry was suddenly treating the break-up option like a viable thing, and . . . he really, really didn't want him to.

But he still couldn't tell him why.

"Because I am," he mumbled. He crossed his arms over his chest. "So there."

Harry snorted softly, then pulled him down for a soft, tender kiss. The sort of kiss that always left Draco feeling warm and comfortable. The sort of kiss that didn't involve tongues but was every bit as nice as if it did - warm and wet and tentative.

Harry broke away, and forced Draco to look at him. "What does my expression say now?" he asked.

It was the same expression he'd had earlier, that he usually wore when he looked at Draco in quiet moments, the one where he was sort of amused, but serious at the same time. Even a little surprised?

"I don't know," Draco grumbled. "I don't do expression."

Harry laughed, tugging him close and cuddling him. He planted a kiss on the curve of his neck, the hollow of his jaw, the shell of his hear.

"It means," he murmured into his ear, "that I love you."

Draco blinked. He pulled to look at Harry, their foreheads touching. "It does?" He felt his face color. "Really?"

Rather than waste time with saying anything else, Harry kissed him again, and again, until they were both drunk on the feeling, and neither of them needed words at all.