Come up to meet you
Tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are

***

Taking utmost care to move silently, Draco finally reached the seventh-year Gryffindor boys� bedchamber. He was only marginally surprised to see a spiky-haired silhouette blackening one of the windows.

Seeing Harry there, Draco�s heart stopped. His lungs seized in his chest. But no, nothing that violent, he simply ceased to be, for a moment, feeling only his feet rooted to the floor.

He had come here to tell Harry everything: what happened in the club with Blaise, what it really meant, what Harry really meant to him... and now he was unable to do it.

As he turned to leave, a voice, just barely above a whisper, cut through the darkness.

***

I had to find you
Tell you I need you
Tell you I set you apart

***

�What are you doing here, Draco? Haven�t you done enough tonight?�

At the sound of Harry�s voice, Draco�s heart gave another rough squeeze inside his ribcage. He had expected to be berated, or perhaps to receive another impassioned plea like the one he had heard in Hogsmeade earlier that evening. He was thus completely unprepared for the flat, lifeless sound of the words.

A million opening phrases danced in Draco�s head and disappeared, not a single one finding its way to his lips. Oh, Harry, you don�t know the half of it.

Harry spoke again, with slightly more emotion this time: �I don�t have the energy for you anymore, Malfoy. You�ve taken it all. So speak your peace or leave. I have nothing left to give.�

This gave Draco an idea. He whispered �Accio� under his breath, picturing an object at the back of his second wardrobe.

Draco now raised his voice slightly: �Perhaps not, Harry. But I have something to give you.� Seconds later, he felt it arrive in his hand.

***

Tell me your secrets
And ask me your questions
Oh let's go back to the start

***

Harry turned to face Draco, his face becoming completely obscured by shadow, but not before Draco could notice the tiniest glimmer of curiosity. The question, however, came laced with suspicion. �What is it?�

�A peace offering. I made this to remind me of the happiest day of my life. But I don�t really need help remembering. It�s yours if you want it.�

Draco held his breath as he unwrapped his fingers, revealing the tiny glass bottle. If Harry didn�t understand, if he didn�t want to understand -

�It�s a ship in a bottle,� Harry�s voice remained flat. �Dudley had one once. Of course, he destroyed it when he realized he couldn�t get the ship out. And then Uncle Vernon bought him another one, and he destroyed that -�

�No, Harry,� Draco interrupted. �This is no ship.� He held the bottle higher so it caught the moonlight. There was a boat in the bottle, true. Being a magical creation, the boat floated on enchanted water, lapped by continuous ripples.

But this boat had no sails, no masts, no decks. Just a seat across the middle and a pair of oars. In the bottom were arrayed the remains of an unusual picnic, and a single cloak.

***

Running in circles
Coming up tails
Heads on a silence apart

***

Harry finally raised his eyes to meet Draco�s. �It�s a rowboat. Our rowboat.� He paused, looking vaguely ill, his breath coming in quiet shudders. �Draco, I�m too tired for this. You�re confusing me, and I just don�t need it right now.�

Another vice clamp around Draco�s bruised heart. But he also heard the question in Harry�s words. Draco was terrified to speak, because the only possible next step, the only way to save this moment, was to let Harry in where no one had been allowed before. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He opened his eyes again to see Harry still staring at him.

Merlin, here goes nothing.

�Harry, I�ve made so many mistakes. I�ve been so afraid. I - I�m sorry.�

The silence in the room thickened, hardened, and with it hardened the tone of Harry�s response: �Malfoy. What, exactly, are you trying to tell me?�

Draco drew in a quick gasp, quickly realizing that this conversation was not proceeding the way he had hoped. He plowed ahead, regardless, fixing Harry with his most direct stare.

�I�m trying to tell you, Harry, that I love you, too. I have loved you ever since that day.�

Harry�s green eyes flashed poison in the darkness. �Get out.�

***

Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard

Oh take me back to the start

***

The wry, detached sense of humor in the back of Draco�s brain chuckled: Well, you certainly deserved that! Draco�s stomach, meanwhile, made several slow rolls. He almost did run from the room, to be violently sick in the nearest convenient receptacle. But he drew on seventeen years of iron-clad self-discipline, and wielded his well-honed stubbornness.

�I�m not going anywhere, Harry. You kissed me that day. I failed to kiss you back and treated you like dirt for the next several days -�

�Actually, it was at least a few weeks -�

�Be that as it may,� Draco cut off Harry�s protest, while still managing to keep his voice low enough not to disturb the sleeping Gryffindors. �You told me you love me tonight, and I acted like a total prat. I left you standing outside the club while I marched back inside and lashed out at you by snogging Zabini in front of everyone -�

�You WHAT?!�

Seamus broke off mid-snore and began to mumble in his sleep. Draco and Harry both held their breath for a minute until the congested rumblings resumed.

***

I was just guessing
At numbers and figures
Pulling your puzzles apart

***

Saying it out loud, Draco actually felt sheepish. �Yeah, I can�t believe I did that either. I think it�s the first time in my life I�ve ever truly lost control of my own actions.�

The temperature of the room actually seemed to drop as Harry�s voice arrived at a new level of iciness. �Draco Malfoy. You are the most hateful bastard ever to grace this earth. I never want to see you again.�

�Oh, stop it, Harry. Of course I�m a hateful bastard - well, at least I�ll admit to the hateful part, since I�ve already explained to you about being able to prove my legitimacy. That�s what I was trying to tell you. I�ve been terrible. I don�t deserve you. Except that I do. And you deserve me.�

***

Questions of science
Science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart

***

A few degrees colder and frost would start forming on the window-glass. �How do you figure that, exactly?�

Draco had to fight the irrational urge to duck away from the razor-sharp edges of Harry�s words.

�Because I love you. And you love me. And neither of us has ever had anything like this before, and we�ve both always wanted it so much.

�Don�t you see, Harry? I�ve been terrified, ever since you kissed me by the lake that day. I hadn�t really thought about why I was flirting with you, because, well, I usually just do what I want. I thought it was harmless because you would never respond. And when you did, I suddenly realized what this could be. Only I didn�t know what you really wanted, whether I could really have this.�

�So you pushed me away, rather than take a chance?�

�Of course I did, Harry, don�t be daft. When, exactly, in my life have I had the experience of someone simply loving me for who I am? Why should I assume that you wanted more than a little adolescent experimentation? Which would have been fun, except that it would have been more for me, and I couldn�t take that risk.� Draco was skirting dangerously close to self-pity, but he didn�t know how else to explain himself. He would have, no he had scoffed when similar arguments had been made to him. But he knew Harry was a better person.

***

Tell me you love me
Come back and haunt me
Oh and I rush to the start

***

Harry looked thoughtful for a moment. Draco clenched the fist that wasn�t holding the bottle, willing himself not to reach out and run his fingertips over the moonlit porcelain of his beloved�s cheekbone. �In that case - and I�m not saying I forgive you for the way you made me feel after that fiasco - how do you explain tonight?�

Draco swallowed once, nervously, grateful that he had at least this slim chance of redemption. �Harry, you and I are so much alike. How have you ever reacted when something you wanted so much was suddenly offered up to you on a silver platter?�

�You�re a Malfoy, you�ve had plenty of things offered to you, quite literally, on silver platters.� Harry was still arguing, but an element of jest had crept into his protest.

�Literal things, yes. The pure heart of the most loving, perfect person I�ve ever met - this was a first.�

Harry�s eyes met Draco�s again, jade melding into mercury in the moonlight. Sensing the opportunity, Draco reached his hand to Harry�s bedside table, gently placing the memento onto the wooden surface. He never took his eyes off the other boy�s.

Nor did either of them break eye contact even for a second as they moved closer and closer to each other. Nor did either of them close his eyes when that sweet moment finally arrived, two perfect pairs of lips brushing together and locking there.

***

Running in circles
Chasing our tails
Coming back as we are

***

Draco drank deeply from Harry�s eyes, simultaneously pouring every ounce of himself into the gaze. He felt as though a literal passageway had opened, pupil to pupil, through which could pass every wish he had ever denied himself, every impulse of love he felt for the other boy.

As their lips moved over each other, parting slightly to allow the first tentative connection of tongues, Draco felt Harry�s love flow back through their still-unbroken gaze. Neither of them could seem to blink; neither could seem to breathe. As their tongues began to venture more boldly, Draco was reminded of that night in Hogsmeade, Harry staring at him from across the room while taking advantage of the little Weasley�s affections. But this time there was no vengeance, no bitterness in his lover�s regard. For now, forever, there existed only the wish that there never exist anything more.

This moment, this window-ledge, this moonbeam was all the world that either boy needed.

Except, of course, that these were seventeen-year-old boys, and even the most perfect soul-kiss could not satisfy all of their desires.

Draco felt the blood leaving his brain, the heat rising in his face and in more southern destinations. Every nerve ending in every square millimeter of his skin prickled. His breath started to come in gasps, and he drew back, still staring deep into Harry�s eyes.

***

Nobody said it was easy
Oh it's such a shame for us to part

***

�No,� moaned Harry, �don�t go.�

Draco smirked gently, taking Harry�s hand in his and leading him toward the bed. �I wouldn�t dream of it.�

Still unblinking - had Draco ever looked at anything besides Harry�s eyes? he couldn�t remember a time - the boys seated themselves on the bed, drew up their legs, and closed the hangings.

�Silencio,� murmured Draco, and then �Lumos.� The tip of his wand began to glow, continuing even when Draco placed it upright in a corner of the bed. �So I can see how beautiful you are.�

Harry smiled with his whole face, his whole self. He is beautiful, thought Draco. Lovely. Draco leaned toward the love of his life, and with gentle pressure to the front of his shoulder, lay him back onto the bed. Planting a knee on either side of Harry�s hips, Draco gazed down at this perfect being who had happened into his life. Then he bent forward, finally closing his eyes.

This time, Draco explored Harry with his remaining senses: the light, rough-smooth touch of Harry�s lips and tongue under Draco�s own. The smell of soap as Draco moved his face across Harry�s cheek and into his hair. The taste of salt on Harry�s neck. The sound of soft moans as Draco nipped lightly behind his ear.

Losing patience now, Draco brought his hands to the buttons of Harry�s pajama top, releasing the fabric from its bounds as he bit and sucked at Harry�s collar bones.

�Draco -�

�Sh.�

Draco�s tongue darted over Harry�s nipples like a small fish playing hide-and-go-seek. He worked his way down Harry�s torso, peppering Harry�s washboard abdomen with the lightest of feathery kisses. As Draco blew softly on the thin trail of down that lead south from his lover�s navel, Harry moaned softly and arched his hips upward. Draco could now easily slide his fingers under the waistband of Harry�s pajama bottoms, drawing the last garment away to reveal exactly what he had been missing all this time.

Two storm-gray pools widened imperceptibly, then narrowed as the boy fixed his most seductive stare up through his touseled platinum strands. He playfully mocked his own aristocratic tone:

�Goodness me, Potter, I had no idea.�

Harry chuckled breathlessly, as Draco lowered his head to demonstrate just exactly how contrite he was at his previous bad behaviour.

***

Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard

***

In no time at all, Draco�s t-shirt and jeans had become but a distant memory. Porcelain skin on porcelain skin, raven locks intertwining with silver, eyes of moonlight and of the deepest forest, every facet of the two seekers� bodies connected and explored each other. There was nothing left to hide from each other, and nowhere left to hide it. Even as the moonlight waned and the first rays of sunlight danced across the ceiling, Draco and Harry had not yet tired of inventing new ways to enjoy their mutual adoration.

Finally beginning to feel that they had sated the most urgent of their cravings for each other, the two boys lay side by side on the bed, Harry wrapped in Draco�s arms.

�I love you, Harry.�

�I know you do. I know that now.�

�You will never have reason to doubt again. I promise.�

Harry lifted his head from Draco�s chest to peer searchingly into his eyes. And as Harry smiled and lay his head back down, Draco knew that he was forgiven.

***

I'm going back to the start