Knowing

~~~
“Potter, do really believe that?” the voice asked, heavy with exasperation.

“Well, yeah. I know you play the game of cold arrogance well. I also know you don’t put much stock in sentimentality, but don’t you think so too? Deep down.”

Draco just looked at the boy in front of him. Despite all the things that he had seen and done, all the things that had been done to him, the boy in front of him still possessed an innocence of youth and a deep conviction in the goodness of the human nature. Draco suddenly smiled. Yes, Harry Potter was still young and still naive, but that was the reason that he made Draco’s very much jaded heart constrict with emotion. That was why, even as he cursed Potter for his gullibility, he fell more in love with him everyday.

But how was he to answer the question. For his boyfriend was very much waiting for a response.

Draco sighed. “No, I don’t. I- I want to. I know that you do. But no, I don’t *know* that.”

Harry just smiled. He leaned over the bench a little so he could press his lips to Draco’s ever-soft ones. Before Draco could pull him in closer to deepen it, Harry drew back slightly.

Harry’s voice was soft and husky when he spoke. “Yes you do. You do believe in us. You *know* that as long as we hold on to each other we can face anything. You know that we’ll love each other through anything. School friends, and enemies. Through loudmouthed sneaky reporters. Through annoying potion masters and angered godfathers. Through family bigotry and close-mindedness. Through death eaters and evil lords. You do believe we can make it. You believe in *us*.”

Finally taking a moment to breathe from his, rather impassioned, whispered speech, he finished “You’re just scared that you do.” Harry pulled back to reclaim his seat on the hard bench.

Draco just blinked, too overwhelmed to say anything resembling one of his normal cocky remarks in the face of Harry’s intense emotions. Shifting slightly on the bench seat his gray gaze settled on the Ravenclaw stands across the pitch, but Draco’s thoughts were turned inward.

Yes, Draco did know. He had always known. Being loved by the Boy Who Lived was a heady sensation, but not something one took lightly. He knew that even though they were young, only seventeen years of knowledge in their ripening bodies, he knew that they loved with a fierceness few would ever know. But it *did* scare him. Nothing in his life had ever prepared him for something as simple as love, despite all its complications, could win the day. Not that he had had too much experience with said emotion, but still. It frightened him that it was so innocent. How naive was it to say that as long as they loved each other nothing could part them? He almost snorted at its simplicity. There was an evil Dark Lord that wanted to kill Harry. And Draco’s own father worked for him, for Merlin’s sake!

But sitting there, looking in Harry’s deep green eyes, he knew. He knew he would love this boy and nothing would stop that.

“See, told ya so.” Harry said smiled smugly. He had never wondered how Harry could read him so well. No one else could. Not from the moment he had started to mature and understood that keeping his thoughts and emotions concealed were very important actions. Harry could read them. No one else, just Harry. And that felt right.

Rolling his eyes, Draco laughed. “Yes, all right. I believe. Fine.”

He stood up and poised dramatically, with one hand over his heart and one hand out beseechingly, “Oh, Harry Potter, I love thee. I believe that our love, surely made from the heavens and blessed by the angels, will endure anything this cruel terrible world will - hmpgh-.” Draco was cute short when Harry lunged at him bringing the towheaded figure into his lap. Harry planted his laughing lips on Draco’s grinning ones. Soon the kiss became heated rather than playful. The boys forgot everything around them as they held each other in the Quidditch stands, high above the school grounds.

Neither noticed the forgotten copy of The Daily Prophet as it fluttered to the down to the pitch so far below, its front page flashing with the title “Boy Who Lived in Torrid Affair With Son of Rumored Death-Eater.”
~~~~~