𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆

To Have

Harry had hoped that dinner with Hermione and Ron would be a simple affair. Which was foolish, because ‘simple’ and ‘making Draco interact with people in a fashion resembling normalcy’ would just never go in the same sentence.

In the days leading up to the dinner, which had to be planned almost a week in advance so all parties could brace themselves accordingly, both Hermione and Draco had seen fit to discuss, insultingly and at great length, how Harry could possibly think it would work. Harry had thought it would be easy- there would be lots of preparations to preoccupy Hermione, lots of food to put in Draco’s mouth to keep him from talking, and lots of wine to keep everyone adequately sedate. Apparently he was alone in this sort of crazed optimism.

“There wouldn’t be enough details in the Queen’s wedding to keep Granger from nagging.”

“There isn’t an object on Earth big enough to sufficiently cork up Malfoy.”

Hermione had immediately demanded to know what to cook, and Draco had immediately demanded to know what to wear. Since the two of them clearly had their priorities sorted, that left Ron and Harry to speculate on the likelihood of anyone surviving the meal.

“It will literally be the last supper,” Ron said wistfully, “I really hope there’s cake.”

They were standing in the middle of the Auror Arena, which Malfoy fondly referred to as the Circle of Death, and they were preparing for...something that involved a lot of padding. Harry had once again become distracted by Draco’s endless chatter. The class had studied suspect identification the day before, which left Malfoy to ponder all the interesting tattoos he could acquire on the more scandalous parts of his body. He had been contemplating how the words “Slytherin Prince” would look draped in cursive across his hipbones, and Harry had gotten distracted by thinking about other words he wanted written on Draco’s hipbones...and then just Draco’s hipbones in general...

And then he’d gotten on to thinking about getting on his knees in front of Draco, and sucking and licking at that particular surface, and marking him with his teeth. Maybe he could make that permanent, maybe he could make it so that Draco thought of Harry’s mouth every time he looked at his hips, or saw them in a mirror......

.....and now he was putting on shin guards for some unknown reason.

He really needed to work on this.

Draco had wandered off to talk to the instructor about something, so Harry was left with Ron, who looked equally baffled by the proper placement of a mouth guard. Ron had been muttering darkly about their dinner that evening since its inception, and seemed to have finally accepted it as an inevitable and fatalistic truth.

“But Harry, I honestly doubt that there is enough whiskey in Ireland to make this dinner go well. I’ve been thinking I may use ear plugs. Hermione says that they’re for when you’re trying to fall asleep when something is too noisy, but I’m of the mind that Malfoy breathing is too noisy, which makes them appropriate dinnertime wear when Malfoy is present.”

Harry was only half-listening anyway, what with the fact that Malfoy had now patently gone missing and the alternative of not knowing what the hell was going on.

Finally, he turned to Ron, “Why are we padding up, again?”

Ron looked at him as though he were crazy, which was funny considering that Ron had just attempted to put a shoulder pad on as footwear.

“Dark spells practical. Harry, they’ve had this on the calendar for months.”

Ah, right. The practical. The test that was legend around incoming Aurors because it pitted classmates against one another, made them use Dark spells, and generally ended in someone getting badly hurt. They were also known for being of a peculiar kind of mind-screw, more often than not you were automatically placed in the ring with the person the trainers thought you would have the most difficult time fighting. Someone you really didn’t want to injure. And for anyone in the class with both a best friend and lover for the trainers to pick from, the test was cause for concern.