Snow Angel

Harry sighed. "What is it?" He raised his head from the Christmas holiday report he was writing for the Ministry to find a grinning Draco Malfoy leaning over him. His heart did a little flip in his chest, as it always did when Draco was this close, but he carefully masked his emotions. Draco was his friend, nothing more. Yeah, his mind mocked him, your friend that you happen to be madly in love with!

"Come and see." The ex-Slytherin's smile widened, and he beckoned Harry towards the back door to their shared house. Harry sighed again. After Hogwarts, Draco had become adorably eccentric, constantly coming up with new schemes to surprise his ex-Gryffindor roommate. Now, he was holding out Harry's winter coat insistently, his glance straying to the back door, his impatience barely masked.

Harry followed the blond outside, drawing in his breath sharply at what he saw. Draco had decorated the house. It was a good job they lived in a Wizarding village, as dancing Fairies and live ice sculptures were hardly the sort of thing one could pick up in a Muggle hardware store, but Harry wasn't interested in the magical decorations. Over in one corner of the garden, Draco had set up a little grotto, decorated with Muggle fairy lights and little snowman statues. He felt a smile spread over his face - he knew where the idea had come from.

Last Christmas, he and Draco had been talking about what decorations to put up, and Harry had mentioned a Santa's Grotto of his childhood - it had been in a Muggle supermarket, and his Aunt Petunia had taken Dudley to see the 'Father Christmas' inside. Five-year-old Harry had gazed, wide-eyed, at the pretty lights and the happy snowmen surrounding the bearded old man with the basket of presents. Before his Aunt had been able to pull him away, the 'Santa' had asked his name and what he wanted for Christmas. Little Harry had never been given a Christmas present before, and he was stunned. What should he ask for? In the end, he had cautiously asked for one of the snowman statues in the grotto, and had beamed ecstatically when 'Santa' bent down and chose him one. He had held it tightly all the way home, keeping it out of Dudley's reach, but his Aunt had taken it from him whilst he slept and though he had cried, and waited eagerly for Santa to bring it back on Christmas Eve, he never saw it again.

Draco was watching him carefully. Harry sent the blond a questioning glance.

"Do you like it?" asked Draco, cautiously.

Harry smiled delightedly at him. "I love it," he said. "Can I go in?" Draco nodded, grinning at Harry's enthusiasm, and followed the dark-haired boy under the arch that formed the grotto's roof. Harry sat gazing serenely at the magical decorations all over the garden, snug in his little Muggle hidey-hole. He turned to face Draco and caught his breath on a gasp - the grey-eyed boy was watching him with such an intense emotion on his face - he couldn't define it... He murmured, "What?" not wanting to dispel the moment, but sure that, given another minute of that intense gaze, his self-control would break and he would be forced to tell Draco everything.

The blond boy was uncharacteristically tongue-tied. "I, uh, I was just wondering - I mean, if you know - there's this person -" Harry's heart sank. "Harry, how do you tell someone you're in love with them?"

Harry looked away, his face carefully neutral as he replied, "It depends..."

"On what?" Draco sounded like he was restraining some kind of violent emotion only through great self-control.

"On how long you've known them, what they are to you already, and who they are - what they're like as a person," replied Harry, feeling masochistically curious. Who was it that had taken Draco from him? Not that you had him in the first place...

Draco was silent. Harry chanced a look at him and found that he was deep in thought, his silvery hair falling unchecked over his eyes as he contemplated his boots. Harry had to resist the urge to reach out and move the silky strands off his face so that he could see Draco's eyes - he wanted to know what he was thinking.

At last, Draco broke the silence. "I've known them for a long time - since first year at Hogwarts, actually," he said, carefully. "As for what they are to me already, that's hard to define. I see them pretty often - practically every day -" someone at work, then, thought Harry. Perhaps Pansy? Or Hannah? "- and we're close, really close." Draco smiled. "He makes me feel so much more alive than I've ever felt before - I just can't help loving him..." A guy? Then maybe it's Terry Boot, or even (please no) Crabbe or Goyle. No. More likely to be Justin or Blaise - they're more his type. If he even has a type.

Draco paused. "What's he like as a person?" asked Harry, desperately jealous, but concealing it almost perfectly behind feigned enthusiasm. Whoever this guy was, he'd certainly made an impression on Draco.

"He's... well, he's an odd mixture, really," murmured Draco, a soft smile gracing his features as he contemplated how to answer. "Happy one minute, grumpy the next - never any indication which one I'll be faced with when I walk in the door. I can handle him though - always have been able to get a reaction!" He grinned as though at some inner joke. "But he's even cute when he's being moody, so I don't mind." Here he glanced out of the corner of his eye at Harry, who was still trying hard to seem detached. Apparently he had succeeded, because Draco dropped his eyes and lost his smile.

"It's not just that, though, that defines him," he proceeded. "He's strong for his friends and enemies alike - holds them up when they're falling - shows everyone the face they want to see. Except for me. I see past all that, and I think he lets me, but there's sometimes this wall between us and whenever I try to get closer he just pushes me away." He sounded dejected, but he smiled a rueful half-smile when he looked up at Harry.

Harry listened to all this with a growing ache in his heart. Clearly this wasn't a superficial attraction. He swallowed his anguish. He had to support Draco, no matter how much pain it caused him - and he knew that, deep inside, the pain wouldn't be easy to ignore. He smiled gently back, hiding his sadness at the loss he was going to suffer when Draco left him. "Do you think he feels the same?" he asked, prompting Draco to utter an astonished laugh.

"Gods, no!" Harry could hear the distress behind that admission as surely as if it were his own heart that was breaking. It was, but Draco didn't need to know that. "No," Draco repeated, more quietly. "He doesn't feel the same. But I have to tell him, all the same. I've lived with it for too long - it's eating away at my life and I need to let him know how I feel, even though he can't feel the same." He swallowed, and Harry saw that his eyes were wet with unshed tears.

"I understand," he whispered softly, watching as a group of fairies played hide-and-seek in the hedges. "But why ask me?"

Draco took a deep breath. "Because I don't know how to tell someone that sort of thing - you can't just go up to someone who's been everything to you for so long, and blow it all by saying 'oh, yeah, by the way, I'm in love with you', can you?" He smirked. "I can just imagine what he'd say to that." Harry couldn't imagine anyone saying no to Draco. "So I was wondering if you had any ideas - you know, of how to say it."

Harry almost broke. Here was the one person in the world that he loved without reservation, asking him for advice on how to tell someone else he was in love with them. Gathering his self-control, he turned a carefully nonchalant face to meet Draco's eyes. He would help, dammit! He wasn't going to let Draco be unhappy, too. "What do you want me to do?"

"Well..." Draco thought for a moment, then his eyes widened and he said, "Say what you would say. To me."

"What?!" Harry was sure he'd misheard.

"Pretend you've been in love with me for ages and ages," said Draco, waving his hand airily but still looking oddly tense, "and tell me so. Like you would if you really meant it."

Harry gulped. He couldn't refuse. And it would be his chance - his only chance - to tell Draco how he felt, even if Draco never knew it was real. Alright, I'll do it. But you owe me for this. "Okay..." he agreed, hesitantly. He gazed at his boots as though they were the most enthralling things on the planet, resolutely ignoring the voice that told him that the most enthralling thing on the planet was actually sitting right beside him.

"You have to look at me, Harry - you're not professing your love to the floor, are you?" Draco mocked. Harry noticed a tremor in his voice. Was he really that uncertain? The ex-Gryffindor decided to rid him of that uncertainty, at least for a moment.

He took a deep breath and looked up, locking eyes with Draco. "Hi." He smiled, shyly.

"Hi," whispered Draco.

"I don't really know how to put this, so I'll just bumble through it in my own sweet time." The corners of Harry's lips turned up in a rueful smile. He paused, contemplating how to express what he'd kept inside for so long.

Eventually, he began, his voice husky with suppressed emotion. "Isn't it ironic how once, a long time ago, I couldn't look at you because I hated you so much, and now I can't look at you again for the opposite reason? I can't even meet your eyes across the table at breakfast because I get lost - lost in you. Everything I've done, I've done for you, you know. Everything. Did you know that you're the only person I've ever let my guard down for? Probably not. But it's true. You know me - you see me like no one else ever has - and I love that about you." Harry forgot he was supposed to be pretending. He laughed quietly. "I love that more, even, than I love the way you smile at me when you've got some new crazy idea to try out - although that's pretty hard to beat."

He reached out and ran a finger over Draco's cheek, sucking in his breath sharply at the contact. Draco just watched him, wide-eyed and strangely vulnerable. "I think it's the look in your eyes, more than anything, that I love. When you look at me, it's like the world stops turning, and I'm the only one that matters."

There was a long silence, then Harry continued speaking. "Do you know when I first realised I was in love with you? No, of course you don't. It was about three years ago - at Christmas, funnily enough - when we went for that walk out to the common and you decided to make snow angels." Harry smiled reminiscently at the memory. "I remember you were lying there in your fourth or fifth attempt, just watching as it started snowing again... and then you got up and made me run around with you - no destination, just running for the hell of it. You were catching snowflakes on your tongue, and laughing, and that was when I knew. We trampled all the snow-angels you'd made, but I've always thought they never even came close to being as beautiful as you." He blushed. "I've always thought of you as a snow angel, ever since that day. My snow angel." Draco flushed, but held his gaze. There was silence.

Harry looked away first, dropping his eyes to regard his boots again. "I know you wish you'd never asked now, but it's too late. I've told you. And now you know why I hide all the time, why I can't meet your eyes, why I always run to you at the first sign of snowfall just to see your face..." He broke off. "I can't do this anymore," he whispered, getting up and striding towards the house. He didn't stop there - instead, he grabbed his wand from the coffee table and Apparated to the first destination he could think of.

He opened his eyes and laughed mirthlessly. It was Draco's snow angel spot on the common. He leaned against the same tree he had leant against the first time, smiling at the memories it evoked. He shut his eyes, and could almost imagine it was three years ago, and Draco was a few feet away, pouting adorably as he realised he had ruined another snow angel.

***

Draco found him there some time later, leaning against the tree with a sad smile on his face as he watched Draco approach. Before he could say a word, Harry said, "I'm sorry - I shouldn't have put you on the spot like that. It wasn't fair."

"Fair?" Draco repeated, looking angry. "I'll tell you what wasn't fair, Harry! What wasn't fair, was you running off before I could say anything!"

Harry sighed. "It's alright - I know. Nothing's changed, we can still be friends, blah blah blah -"

"That's not what I wanted to say," interrupted Draco.

"It wasn't?" Harry asked, heart sinking. Then Draco didn't even want friendship from him anymore. He should have expected that.

"No," confirmed Draco. "I wanted to say this -" he closed the distance between them in an instant, and Harry felt warm, tender lips pressing against his. Without thinking, he yielded to their insistent pressure and sighed softly in acceptance as a gentle tongue slid into his mouth. Draco was kissing him passionately - it seemed like he was trying to say everything that has ever been left unsaid between them in that one kiss... he gave himself up to the sensation of Draco's lips on his, and Draco's tongue caressing his own. He pulled him closer, and noticed the other boy was shivering.

Harry pulled away, eliciting a frustrated moan from a thoroughly kissed-looking ex-Slytherin. "You came out without a coat on," he said, accusingly.

Draco smiled adoringly. "I love you," he said.

"You are utterly ridiculous," replied Harry, smiling back and leaning in to capture Draco's lips in another gentle kiss. "But I love you, too."

"Will you take me home and shag me senseless now?"

Harry grinned wickedly. "I might... depending on what time Ron and Hermione are coming for dinner," he said.

It was Draco's turn to grin. "Oh, I told them not to come - it's okay."

Harry was surprised for a moment, then smiled in understanding. "Make or break, huh?"

"Make," corrected Draco, trailing kisses down Harry's neck to the top of his shirt. His coat had somehow got unbuttoned.

Harry sighed appreciatively and agreed. "Mmm... definitely make. Come on - much as I like it here, I don't want you freezing to death. Let's go home, Snow Angel."

Draco smiled against Harry's skin. "Okay," he whispered. "But only if you promise not to re-invite Ron and Hermione."

"Promise," murmured Harry, not really paying attention but pretty sure he'd agree to anything Draco asked if he only continued what he was doing to the sensitive spot below his ear.

"You are utterly ridiculous," replied Draco.

"I love you," countered Harry, smirking.

"Shut up and let me kiss you."