Queer & There

Chapter Five
Making Moves

Draco hadn't responded to Harry's owl, but had instead decided that really the best thing to do was try his best not to look enormously gorgeous when they went out together, which Draco knew would be very hard but he was willing to try. He was certain Harry would probably be very sad, and on the rebound, and the obvious assumption for Draco to make was that Harry would want him. And there could be none of that, so Draco would just have to try his best to be friendly, but not sexy.

Not trying to be sexy was an unusual school of thought for Draco, but it was nothing compared to what happened on Tuesday night, when he was in the middle of packing away some shirts that he didn't even know he still had, and trying to desperately find the ones that he knew were around somewhere.

The unusual thing that happened was that Hermione Granger came round to his apartment. Of course, Draco didn't know that this was who it was until he had opened the door, still holding a very festive green and red shirt that he wished he didn't have, and recoiled from the slap that was delivered to his cheek.

"Now that that's done-" Hermione said as though nothing more dramatic than shaking Draco's hand had taken place, and she adjusted the hem of her jacket sleeve a bit before giving him a very forced smile that almost didn't exist. "I think we need to have a chat."

Draco was tired of people telling him that they needed to have a chat with him, because a chat usually amounted to a very long lecture about something he had done wrong, and there was not a single reason that Draco could think of as to why he might have done something to offend Hermione Granger. Well, except for the incident when he had been shopping, but he was certain that Hermione should be used to that sort of thing by now, having a boyfriend like Ron.

Glancing down at Hermione now (she was quite a bit shorter than him), Draco gave a little sigh and asked impatiently, "Okay, first of all, Granger - that was very uncalled for. Second of all, we don't need to have any sort of chat."

Hermione didn't seem to agree. "We do need to, I want to talk about Harry."

"Ah, well you see that's where our vast number of similarities ends," Draco retorted sarcastically with a frown, "because I have absolutely no desire to talk about that. I'm a very busy man."

Draco could tell that Hermione was growing impatient, and as a testament to this, she put one hand on her hip and said shortly, "Can I come in, Draco? If I didn't think it was important, I wouldn't be here, would I? It's not like I even like you in the slightest-"

"You're not doing a very good job of winning me over, Granger," Draco said now, still frowning despite a very slight desire to smirk. "I would ask how you managed to ensnare Weasley, but I think that's completely obvious."

Heaving a sigh, Hermione moved her hand so as to fold her arms across her chest, and Draco couldn't help but look because, well, he was a man and there was blood still running through his veins. She really was very beautiful; clearly still using magic to correct her teeth, but the rest of Hermione was all natural, and all attractive. Draco found it most disturbing.

She was speaking now, and so Draco shifted his eyes back up to her face reluctantly. "I have no desire to win you over, Draco- what do you mean it's obvious? What's obvious?"

The fact that Draco had hit some sort of sensitive spot made him smile slightly, one side of his lips curving up before he replied, which seemed to irritate Hermione further. "It's obvious that if Weasley got a chance to - and please pardon my complete lack of sensitivity- do you, then he would be crazy to say no. You are far too good for him, and you know it."

"That's not even remotely funny, or true, Draco," Hermione snapped, looking extremely upset, but Draco was sure she appreciated the compliment despite herself. He had seen enough women react positively to flattery to recognise it, and it wasn't as though Hermione was hiding it well. "You're a complete-"

Looking down at her still, Draco's voice went a bit lower than usual as he muttered, biting one lip briefly, and unsure if he was doing so to wind her up even more, or if it was something else altogether. "What am I, Granger? A complete what?"

Hermione looked away, her expression insulted once again as she found she couldn't finish her sentence, or at least, that she wouldn't. "Forget it, Draco. I can tell you're not going to co-operate, so I'll just leave."

"As you wish." Draco leaned against the door frame now, smirking still as he let his eyes crawl over Hermione again. It wasn't subtle, and so Hermione shifted, clearly very uncomfortable once. "Tell Ron I said hello, won't you?"

Instead of replying, Hermione shot him a look, and walked away quickly, arms still folded and head down. Draco couldn't help but watch her leave, before walking into his apartment and closing the door behind him, and then decidedly going for a long, cold shower.

* * *

Draco had decided that Wednesday was as good a day as any to go job hunting in Diagon Alley, even if it was only as a bartender in a club or a shop assistant. It was something to do, after all, and Draco was becoming more and more bored as the days went by, although packing had made the time move far quicker than it had been previously.

There was very little in the way of work though, and Draco decided at about half past one to stop and grab a bite to eat in a café called Finnigans that he had taken a liking to over the past few months. He was well aware that the owner was Seamus Finnigan, and had managed to so far successfully avoid being kicked out on sight, which Draco found quietly flattering in a way.

The thing that bothered Draco about Finnigans was that a lot of Gryffindors tended to go in there, most notably Dean Thomas, who was still clinging to the other boy's side like a barnacle. Draco was certain there was something going on there, and as he flipped through the Daily Prophet, he had to wonder if everybody in the whole of wizarding London was gay.

First there had been Harry, which hadn't come as much of a surprise, seeing as the boy had literally grown up in the closet and had hardly had parental figures that would encourage relationships with women. Draco had assumed they would be far too ignorant to even consider that Harry could be gay and not remotely interested in relationships with women, although he hadn't necessarily assumed the other boy was indeed gay. However, it hadn't been a shock when Draco had read about Harry in the newspapers only a year or so ago.

Then there was Dom Willick, who was not only gay, but was an arsehole (irrelevant, but a thought that Draco couldn't help but strike up once again), and Harry's boyfriend. Or rather, he had been Harry's boyfriend, until that Sunday night when Draco had received Harry's owl.

He had been surprised, to say the least, when Hedwig had flown through the window that he always left open for owl post, and had doubted for a moment that it was actually her. But of course, Draco knew Harry would never have given the owl up - they had had a strangely close sort of kinship in school, and seeing as owls lived a fairly long time, Draco had always just assumed that Hedwig would remain his owl for as long as she was still alive.

Draco hadn't even been all that shocked when he had read the note, because he obviously already knew that Dom was a second or even third rate sort of person who was probably well accustomed to doing bastardly things such as dumping your boyfriend for no reason, or acting far too smarmy when serving clients.

What had kept Draco thinking was that Harry hadn't really seemed all that upset, except to call Draco a twat, but that was fairly commonplace anyway, and Harry hadn't even bothered to cancel their night out, which Draco would have generally thought he might. This had played on his mind for the best part of the past two days, despite himself, and was becoming one of his more serious thoughts.

Much to his own annoyance, he was also having fairly serious thoughts about Hermione Granger, most of them involving some sort of argument and then very exciting angry sex, which Draco had always thought was the very best sort of sex, but it wasn't supposed to be with Hermione Granger, because she was a Muggle born, and an annoying one at that. But a very, very sexy one.

Draco had never thought of Hermione as sexy in Hogwarts, mostly because she just hadn't been. She had cleaned up in her last two years, having discovered straightening charms for her hair that lasted a bit longer than the one she had used temporarily for the fourth year Yule Ball, and Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil had introduced her to the wonder that was makeup. From then on, Hermione had started looking presentable, at least, but was still very annoying and intelligent and just a bit of a general smart arse.

She had changed though, Draco could tell just from the three brief meetings they had had in the last week or so. He had seen her around before that night in Wizzards, but never known it was her, and had never really felt like chatting up a strange woman in the middle of Diagon Alley. She had turned his head, that was all, and he was still surprised that he hadn't worked out who she was before now.

Well, he supposed it wasn't worth thinking about. Just because she'd got a bit prettier, and curvier, and had a bit more of an attitude didn't mean she was any less of a Gryffindor. She was with Ron Weasley, anyway, which said very, very little for her taste, and a hell of a lot about his luck.

Finishing off his sandwich after a good twenty minutes of pondering, Draco paid for his lunch, stood up and went home to do some more packing. He only had three more days before Moving Day, and he had a lot left to do.

He didn't see Harry sitting on the other side of the café, watching him.

* * *

Draco was allowed to move his things into 21 Park Place on Friday, and after his very brief meeting with Dom Willick, which was abrupt and awkward to say the least, Draco started preparing to put things in his fireplace, having decided to Floo them over to the new apartment, which was the easiest way to go about it so long as nothing set on fire.

The hardest job done (placing his designer wardrobe into the green flames - Draco had almost cried when they disappeared, unsure if they had been transported or had just evaporated), Draco then Floo-ed himself over and looked around at the mess of things that the new place had thoughtfully moved around a bit for Draco, although not very neatly.

Standing in the middle of the mess was Harry, who had a smile on his face.

"Need any help?"

Draco couldn't help but not be very surprised to see him there; Harry Potter turning up in places that he wasn't to be expected was starting to become, well, expected, really. Draco couldn't say he minded, exactly, but it did seem fairly convenient. It was either fate, or Harry was stalking him. Somehow, Draco didn't quite think it was the last one, because as annoying as Harry could be, he wasn't really the psychotic obsessive type.

"Yeah, I wouldn't mind," Draco said now, picking up a box labelled 'Books', only to have an array of cutlery fall out of the bottom and hit his shoes. "Fuck - damnit, yes. Help would be very welcome."

Harry grinned, took the box from Draco's arms and sat it on the floor. "Right- do you have any boxes that have any of the right things in them?"

Draco paused. "Probably not."

"That doesn't make life very easy, does it?"

"Not really, no." Draco looked around at the large space, which was filled with many, many boxes, and loose items of clothing. To the outside, it would appear that he didn't believe in suitcases, but this wasn't true - he just hadn't thought about them until now, when it seemed like they would have been a very good idea. "Well, I can put my clothes away, that'll be easy."

He looked at Harry proudly, as though he had just worked out some great mystery, and the other boy just shook his head in slight disbelief. "Okay, you do that then, and I'll - I'll try and make sense of your crazy packing system."

Draco frowned a little bit at this, and paused again. "I was supposed to have a system?"

"It might have helped." Harry grinned again, and then proceeded to open a box with 'Weird Things That I Didn't Know I Had' written across it in big black marker ink. This box happened to be labelled correctly, although it was probably the only one that was, and was filled with a various assortment of Christmas cracker prizes, notebooks half-filled purely with mindless doodles (a great deal of which were semi-pornographic) and things that Harry couldn't even identify.

This led him to ask the question, "Why do you have this box?" when Draco re-emerged from trying to squash his clothes into what he had decided was a far-too small closet, and had used his wand to correct.

Draco looked over at the box, shrugged, and replied, "Dunno. I just keep all the bollocks that I can't be bothered to throw away."

"A pink thong, Draco, really?" Harry laughed, and Draco snatched said item of clothing from his hands. "Is this yours?"

"If you mean, is this mine as is in, do I wear it on a regular basis," Draco retorted, "then no. If you mean, is it mine as in, did it belong to a very sexy girl I once shagged - well, probably, but I don't remember. There might be more in there, actually."

Indeed, in the next half hour spent rooting through the box, which was another thing that Draco had clearly magically enhanced to make bigger, he and Harry found another sixteen thongs in varying colours, although most were pink, purple or just clean white. One had a Gryffindor lion on it, which made Harry grin and raise his eyebrows as though to ask who on Earth it belonged to.

"You don't want to know," was all Draco said shortly.

Harry pressed on, however, suddenly very curious. "Yes, I do. Whose is it?"

"I'm not telling you-"

"Oh, please. I won't tell anybody, I promise."

Draco snorted. "That doesn't really mean very much, you're hardly very trustworthy, Potter."

Looking offended, Harry furrowed his brow and put the thong back in the box of junk, looking into it for something else more interesting as though he didn't actually care. Five minutes of silence passed, and then he looked up again. "Oh, come on, I promise I won't say a word to anyone. I won't laugh at you, or make fun, or anything."

"You will most definitely laugh, which is why I can't tell you," Draco replied, sifting through a box of 'Magazines' - which actually contained various bottles of alcohol, giving a good explanation as to why Draco was looking in it.

There was another short pause, and then, "Please. Please, please, please. Please." Harry laughed a bit, and added, "I can do this all day, you know," and then as another example, he said again, "Please?"

"You are insufferable, Potter, do you know that?" Draco said, clearly softening, much to Harry's delight, before he finally gave a deep sigh and said in a quiet voice, "It was Lavender Brown, and it was one very short drunken night, and it was mostly only because she wouldn't shut up. That, and I'd just had my hair cut, and she said it looked very nice."

Harry was clearly trying not to laugh, and Draco rolled his eyes a bit. "Let it out, Potter. I knew you'd laugh." And so Harry did laugh, starting out just quietly snickering, and then amounting to genuine, very obvious laughter. Draco joined in after a moment, but his laughter was much less evident, probably because he was embarrassed, to say the very least.

"You slept with Lavender Brown?" Harry managed now, his face disbelieving as he picked up the Gryffindor underwear and looked at it again with vast interest. "I don't know what's funnier - that or the fact that she has Gryffindor underwear. That's so-"

"-tacky?" Draco finished for him, and he laughed again. "You don't have to tell me, Potter."

Harry smirked. "So why sleep with her?"

This gave Draco pause for a moment, but it was really only for effect than to think about it. "Well, I don't know, she had all the right parts, and I'd had lots of martinis. It seemed like a good idea at a time."

"If I had a pound for every time I thought that..." Harry said now, causing Draco to turn up his nose and look thoroughly disgusted. "What?"

Draco shrugged. "Just.. you and pounding. Not something I want to think about." He frowned again, had another mental image and couldn't help but shudder.

"Fuck off, Malfoy. That's not what I meant, and you know it." As offended as he may have sounded, Harry was grinning again.

"I do not know that, Potter."

"Shut up and put your thongs away."

* * *

When Draco and Harry had finished unpacking all of Draco's things, finally worked out Draco's system (put things wherever there was space) and finished off a bottle of lambrusco that had been just lying around, Draco went back to the other apartment, which looked very empty indeed.

It had been a good day, a very nice day indeed. Draco hadn't found a job, but had picked up a few application forms for a few bars in The Alley, which was the nickname given to the clubbing section of Diagon Alley by the younger wizards and had just stuck somehow. He had been particularly interested in a new club that was opening, called Weavers and owned by the same corporation that ran GoldWeave's. This might actually keep his mother happy for a change, and anything that achieved this kept Draco happy too.

He decided it would be a good idea to have a nice, long shower, which he did, and then to sit down and watch something in the fireplace. It took about fifteen minutes to persuade it to work (the apartment was not happy about this being Draco's last day, clearly), and Draco finally settled down to watch the news. Most young wizards and witches tended not to bother watching, especially now that there was no danger of Voldemort returning, but Draco liked to keep an eye on what was going on, purely out of interest.

There were some interesting news shows about, including Hot Off The Spot (a predictable title for the latest in wizarding news), Oooh... Stuff!, which was a news show dedicated to being as random as possible - you could generally find out anything about nothing on there. Draco's firm fascination was, however, Muggle, a channel with a simple title that was fairly self explanatory.

Draco couldn't help but find Muggles worthy of note now, despite his behaviour when he had been young. He had decided that his actions had been, well, ignorant to say the least, and now he tried to take at least some interest in what was happening in the world that really was right on his doorstep, despite seeming a million miles away.

After all, he knew people who had grown up Muggle, or at least been brought up by them, now, and he had never really been able to claim that in a positive way before. There was Harry, who had been raised by them (not that those particular examples were anything to boast about, Draco mused). Hermione was a Muggle born, and still remained very loyal. She lived in a Muggle neighbourhood when she wasn't staying at Ron's house, and dressed, talked and lived Muggle. Draco found this quite endearing in an annoying sort of way.

Ron, on the other hand, was very much all wizard, aside from the fact that he wasn't a particularly good one, in Draco's opinion. He didn't have time for Ron Weasley, but what he did know was that the results of his N.E.W.T's had been very average, nothing at all impressive, and that he had a very average, unimpressive job with the Ministry. Draco was sure this had been Arthur Weasley's doing, and had found that very pathetic, having conveniently forgotten how he had originally attained his job at D.E.A.T.H until he had lost it.

After watching enough news to make him feel well educated (although there was nothing interesting to speak of), Draco filled out the application form for Weavers very carefully in his best handwriting, with some of his most charming and tasteful puns subtly inserted here and there. If all went down well, he would have an interview, and if that was successful, Draco would officially be a barman in a brand new club. This was appealing, far more so than office work, and Draco was actually quite looking forward to it.

Draco couldn't help but feel a little bit smug.