Secret Admirer

Someone was doing nice things for Harry Potter. It was lovely, it really was, but it was a little...unnerving.

It had started with his broom - he'd gone down to the broomshed to neaten up his broom before the Gryffindor/Hufflepuff match the next week, but it had been perfect. Gleaming, smooth, each twig perfectly trimmed - it looked like a new broom, except that the shining gold Firebolt registration number remained the same.

Harry was baffled - he knew he'd left it a little scratched with a few bent twigs, so someone had to have cleaned it, but who? The house elves never touched the brooms, as it was seen as the players' responsibility to keep their brooms in shape - and Madam Hooch's to look after the school brooms - so it couldn't have been them. It was a mystery.

And it wasn't just the broom, either. His glasses had been smashed numerous times, either due to a well-placed bludger or his own clumsiness - they were easily mended by the wave of a wand, but it seemed like they'd had enough, and kept falling apart at inopportune moments, like in the middle of a Potions lesson into his cauldron.

The morning after this, he found a brand new pair of Oswald the Magi-Optometrist's All-Eyes Spell-Enhanced Super-Strong glasses on his bedside table.

He told Ron and Hermione he'd just ordered them and they must have arrived during the night.

He cornered Dobby later to ask if the house-elves knew anything about it, but he was annoyingly - if typically - vague about it: "They have their orders, Sir. Dobby cannot interfere in what the other house-elves is doing, Sir."

The next thing he noticed was his Potions ingredients. He knew he'd been running low on eye of newt, yet when he opened his set, it was fully stocked up with top quality ingredients.

Harry was starting to feel paranoid now. Who was his mystery benefactor?

He looked round at his fellow 6^th years during a particularly boring Potions lesson, sizing them up.

Ron and Hermione wouldn't do anything this weird - if they wanted to be nice to him, they wouldn't bother being so...subtle about it, or try to hide the fact that it was them. He couldn't see it being any of the other 6^th years.

But - without being bigheaded - he knew he was famous, and it could be anyone in the school with a fangirl type crush on him - or fanboy, he thought wryly, picturing Colin. In fact, he'd prefer it to be fanboy than fangirl...an older, handsome fanboy...but no, he scolded himself, it was probably a girl, and a young one at that.

He scowled as the prickling of the hairs on the back of his neck interrupted his thoughts - he didn't need to turn and see who was looking at him. It would be bloody Malfoy again.

He'd been oddly quiet this year - well, with his beloved father locked up he'd got nothing to brag about - often giving Harry odd, intense glares. Harry could practically feel the murderous intent, and it bugged him. He'd got enough on his plate without Malfoy wishing him bad Karma.

Still, at least his mystery well-wisher could go someway to offset that. Harry smiled inwardly. It may be weird, but knowing there was someone out there who cared about him was oddly comforting.

The broom continued to be kept immaculate, and he noticed that Hedwig looked remarkably well fed.

He'd buggered up a particularly hard potion one lesson, prompting Snape to give him an extra essay - yet as he sat down for dinner that evening, a nondescript school owl had fluttered down in front of his plate, bearing a scroll.

When Harry unrolled the scroll, he found the essay written for him in a fair imitation of his own script, completed and word-perfect.

The match against Hufflepuff came and went, and Harry emerged victorious, if cold, wet, muddy and aching. He was last in the broomshed putting his broom away - which he knew would be gleaming next time he got it out - when he noticed a piece of parchment pinned to the wall where his broom went.

'Prefect's bathroom. Password = watermelon. 7pm.'

Harry stared at the scrap of paper, then at his watch.

It was 10 to 7, so after a little hesitation, Harry quickly put his broom away and hurried up to the prefect's bathroom.

"Watermelon!" he burst out excitedly. Was he finally going to see this mystery person? But when he entered, the place was deserted.

The lights were down and a hundred gently flickering candles stood around the room, giving it an ethereal atmosphere and glinting off the bubbles in the full, steaming bath.

Harry took off his clothes warily and slipped into the bath, where he instantly forgot everything except how glorious the hot water felt on his aching muscles.

He lay limply in the water - which must have some kind of relaxation potion in it, he thought blissfully - until it became far too late to tell Ron and Hermione he'd just forgotten something.

He sighed and raised himself out of the bath, getting dressed quickly.

He deflected Ron and Hermione's questions with some story about having to help Hooch rearrange the broom shed, and decided he would find out who this person was.

But he didn't know how to start.

He was no good at subterfuge - he preferred the forthright approach; but short of asking everyone in the entire school if they were doing nice things for him, he couldn't see a solution. And so things carried on.

The next grand gesture was after the next Gryffindor Quidditch match, this time against Ravenclaw - another victory for Gryffindor, if hard fought. Harry's heart gave a little hop-skip as he saw a square of parchment in his broom's part of the shed. This one simply said -

'Kitchens. 7pm. Ask for Gooby.'

Intrigued, Harry made his way there. The house elves seemed to expect his request - after some shuffling and whispering, a squat, smug-looking house elf came to the fore.

"Gooby welcomes Mister Harry Potter, sir. Follow Gooby, sir."

Harry followed him to a table with an empty plate.

"Sit, sir."

Harry did so, and as he looked at the plate, a rich steak and kidney pie appeared - which, he realised, was exactly what he wanted. He grinned - a plate charmed to give him whatever food he wanted most! Nifty.

He then took a sip of the liquid in the goblet next to his plate, which instantly soothed his aching muscles and smoothed away the headache that had been threatening. He sighed and leant back in his chair happily.

As he ate, he chatted to the house elves.

"So, Gooby," he said mock casually, "who arranged all this for me?"

Gooby looked at him suspiciously.

"Gooby cannot say, sir. Gooby has his orders."

"Oh, come on!" said Harry. "Where's Dobby? He'll tell me..."

At this, Gooby looked smug.

"Dobby does not know, sir. Dobby cannot be trusted with such orders. Dobby is not a honourable house elf."

"Well, cut him some slack," said Harry, annoyed at the way all the other house elves seemed to treat Dobby. "He hardly had a great life with the Malfoys."

Gooby beamed suddenly.

"Malfoy! Master Malfoy is knowing how to treat a house elf properly, sir. He gives us our orders and we follows them, yes sir. No silly talk of wages."

Gooby looked up at Harry and suddenly seemed flustered, as if he'd said something he didn't mean to, and scurried off.

Baffled, Harry finished his meal, and, satiated but scowling at the thought of Malfoy ordering the house elves around for his own nefarious purposes, made his way back up to Gryffindor tower.

As he settled down for the night, an idea struck him - he could play his well-wisher at her - his? - own game, and leave a note of his own!

He did so the next morning, slipping down to the broomshed and pinning a small scrap of parchment to the bit of the wall where he normally picked them up.

It simply read - 'I want to know who you are.'

He spent the next day with baited breath, practically racing down to the pitch for Quidditch practice that evening - where, in the broomshed, was a reciprocal note. Yes! Not quite sure why he was so nervous about the whole thing, Harry unfolded the note with slightly trembling fingers and read:

'This Hogsmeade weekend. In the Hippogriff and Hunter. 1pm.'

The Hippogriff and Hunter, thought Harry frantically to himself - wasn't that an old-fashioned pub that he'd heard Arthur Weasley talking about? One that, he realised with a thrill of delight, only admitted male patronage - which meant his secret admirer was male!

Harry mentally punched the air before telling himself to calm down. It was probably...a prank or...someone like - Colin. Ack, it was probably Colin.

What would he say to him? Oh well - he'd cross that bridge if and when he came to it.

He spent the next week leading up to the Hogsmeade weekend in a perpetual state of nerves, alternately excited and reprimanding himself for getting his hopes up.

When it finally came, he hurriedly excused himself from Ron and Hermione in Honeydukes under the pretext of needing to stock up on his Potions ingredients - he suspected they would be glad of a chance to be alone anyway - and made his way through some dingy back streets to the sombre Hippogriff and Hunter.

He pushed open the door and scanned the dim room anxiously - but there was no one he recognised.

It was mainly populated by rusty looking old warlocks - then suddenly, as he entered the room further, he saw, at a table quite close to the door, bloody Malfoy!

What in the name of Godric was he doing here?

Malfoy lifted his head as Harry passed his table and fixed him with an inscrutable look.

"Piss off, Malfoy! I'm meeting someone here. I don't have time for you," Harry snapped at him.

Malfoy continued to look at him oddly.

"Are you?"

"Yeah," said Harry defiantly, "so bugger off."

Malfoy's face relaxed into that familiar sneer as he stood up from the table with languid grace - Harry tried not to look at the smooth movement of muscles on Malfoy's back under the close-fitting robe.

"Have it your own fucking way, Potter," he bit out, and walked out.

Harry shook his head slightly in confusion, then sat down in Malfoy's vacated seat and waited anxiously.

It was 1pm on the dot - where was he?

Probably on his way.

At ten past, and even at quarter past, Harry could still convince himself that his boy was just having trouble getting away from his friends - but at a quarter to two, Harry reluctantly gave up.

He was melancholy and confused all afternoon, but by the evening he had become angry. You just don't do that to someone! It wasn't fair, or polite!

He stormed down to the broomshed after dinner and left an angry note in the usual spot.

'Where were you? You didn't show up! You could've at least owled me to tell me you couldn't make it, or something!'

He didn't really expect a reply when he went down the next morning, but there it was, a new square of parchment pinned almost defiantly up on the wall.

Let's hear what he's got to say for himself, then, thought Harry, and snatched it off the wall.

He unfolded it.

Four words.

'I was there, Harry.'

Harry's mouth fell open in indignation and he stared, brows furrowed, at the note.

What the...?

He grabbed his quill from his pocket and scribbled furiously "NO YOU WER---"

He stopped midway through a word as a few things slid into place.

Oh.

Oh..

Oh!

Really?

It made an odd sort of sense.

The odd looks, the way he'd been so quiet on the taunting front this year. The way the mystery person had obviously got a good knowledge of Quidditch and how to really care for a broom. No wonder the house elves seemed to like him so much - he'd obviously spent hours doing what they liked best i.e. ordering them about, organising things -- God.

And of course, he'd been there. At the organised time. It should've been obvious. But...Malfoy.

He - he wasn't nice, or thoughtful, or capable of any of this!

Yet Harry realised he didn't really know Malfoy at all - who knew what lay behind the carefully crafted front of arrogance and malice?

Harry wondered why he wasn't feeling horror, revulsion - it was Malfoy! The guy who's been an utter bastard to you from the moment you arrived in the Wizarding World!

He's obviously not that much of a bastard, a small voice in the back of Harry's head whispered. Look at the thoughtfulness, the generosity - the love, that he's capable of.

No, Harry didn't feel horrified at the realisation that it was Draco Malfoy who had been doing all these things for him - who was, possibly, in love with him.

He felt an odd sort of rightness - yes - like he'd...expected it, or, wanted it - Merlin, how could he have been so goddamn blind?

Like he'd wanted it all along.

Slowly, calmly, although his mind felt like it was exploding with all these revelations in quick succession, Harry wrote what he hoped would be the last note -

'This evening, at 7pm. I need to see you. Here.'

The hours in-between both dragged and flew, and as 7 o'clock approached, Harry - fobbing Ron and Hermione off with an invented detention with Snape - didn't know how he made his legs move to walk down to the fated broomshed, where his had all started and tonight, where it would all finish.

No, thought Harry, not finish, just...change.

He couldn't see anyone as he approached the shed, and he half expected to be stood up again - until he reminded himself that he hadn't been stood up the first time.

No - Malfoy -- Draco -- would be there.

He opened the door with trepidation, peering into the gloom, and drawing a sharp intake of breath as the evening sunlight shone in and gleamed on a white blond head.

He and Draco stood just looking at each other for a moment.

"You can hex me, if you like," said Draco, looking resigned.

Harry's mouth dropped open in surprise.

"No! I mean, I - no! I don't want to hex you, M--Draco."

Draco looked slightly surprised at the use of his given name, and opened his mouth as if to speak, but Harry cut him off.

"I just - why? How?"

Draco looked at him.

"How? I don't know. It just happened. Or rather, it'd already happened, and I suddenly saw it - like a light being flicked on. And as to why? Because - you're you. People can't not love you. You're Harry Potter."

Harry felt a little miffed.

"Because I'm a so-called hero? Because I'm The Boy Who Lived?"

"No!" said Draco, a look of genuine contrition flitting over his face. "It's...despite that. You're Harry Potter. But you're also Harry. You're - brave and genuine and - I can't describe you."

Draco broke off and looked away, looking a little flustered. "Look, Ha -- Potter, - just, do something. Say something. I'll stay the hell away from you if you want, I'll--"

Draco was cut off with a muffled "mmmph," as Harry stepped forward and quickly pressed his lips to Draco's.

His glasses dug into Draco's face and their noses bumped together awkwardly.

Harry, acutely embarrassed, made as if to pull away, but Draco's hand slid - oh, so warm! - up his neck to tangle in his hair, and -- Ah. There it was.

Harry's mouth found a rhythm and he could hardly believe how warm and soft Draco's mouth was. Draco's cool, controlled exterior belied the passion that Harry could feel under the surface.

Harry's hands slid up Draco's back to dig helplessly into his shoulders, and Harry tried desperately not to moan as Draco slipped a hot tongue into his mouth.

Ah yes, thought Harry dizzily - he could get used to this...