Sectumsempra

15

"Are you ever going to sleep, you know, in your bed? In your room, someday?" Ron asked him the next day at night, when Harry was getting ready to once again – as he had done every day thus far since the getting back to Hogwarts two weeks ago – to sneak out of Gryffindor Tower and into Slytherin House room to sleep in Draco's room. "I might as well use your bed to keep my clothes instead of in the trunk."

Harry shrugged, "You might," and put his invisibility cloak around his body and disappeared. He took profit of him and Ron being alone in the room to get covered already and head out before their roommates came from the common room. Not that Seamus, Neville and Dean didn't noticed Harry wasn't in the room during the nights, but they were in a kind of "don't ask, don't tell" policy. They never directly mentioned Harry's absence, so Harry never directly mentioned in front of them that he was leaving Gryffindor Tower after curfew. Much less that he was to be entering Slytherin House. But they all connected the dots, even if subconsciously. They would never even try to get into Harry's way for lots of reasons. One of them was that they were a tiny bit afraid of Harry; you don't go crossing the path of the only person on Earth who was able to defeat Voldemort, and what was more, defeat him many times. It was that kind of fear that comes actually from respect; Harry's classmates had a huge respect for him and there was a sort of feeling of letting him do whatever he wanted, since he saved all of their lives and that's a debt they would never be able to pay. That feeling of respect worked wonders for Harry, even if he was unaware of it. Harry was very humble, never thought much of himself and tended to be oblivious to things in his surroundings, so he didn't really realize people felt that way toward him. He also didn't realize that his relationship with Draco was no longer a secret; people noticed it and the word spread. And people were okay with it. Harry (and Draco for that matter) still had their fears about how things would be if they disclosed their relationship publicly. They would discover they needn't have.

Noticing Harry and Draco were together was no hard task. That had been one of the first things they discussed in their nightly meetings. They had come to the conclusion that they could take things easy and see how it turned out. They wouldn't, of course, announce it, but they also wouldn't particularly hide anything, if that made any sense. What happened was that they were clearly not enemies anymore – constantly they would meet in the hallways and people were surprise to see that there was no showdown of insults between the two. People were further surprised to see the two greeting each other friendly as they passed each other on their way to classes. Draco was certainly one of the most popular kids amongst the Slytherins; and Harry was Harry, of course, so the combination of these two was more than anyone would dare confront, so at first no one went to them to ask what was going on. But when they started forming duos for activities in classes, that was too much and a few bolder Slytherins couldn't keep out of it anymore.

"So, what's the deal with the both of you?" a Slytherin girl asked one time after the group had arranged itself in duos and the teacher was away grabbing some materials in another room. Harry and Draco had formed a duo, naturally.

"What's the deal with the both of us?" Harry asked her in the same tone she asked them.

She didn't seem pleased with the rebuke. "So Harry is your little boyfriend now, is he, Draco?"

Draco was super unsure at first when the girl first approached them, but Harry's relaxed way of dealing with it made him calmer. He knew what she was doing, too. She would look for whoever was the easiest target; Harry already showed himself to not be the one, so she now turned to Draco. He wouldn't give her the pleasure. Draco opened a pleased grin, like she had just told him a joke.

"I don't know," he said, then turning to Harry, "Are you?"

Harry shrugged. "I might."

Draco turned back to the girl. "He says he might."

"So you're his owl then, are you?" the girl tried once again.

Draco turned to Harry once again. "Am I?"

Harry, turning to Draco, "Oh, no, of course not."

Draco turned back to the girl, "He says I'm not."

The girl was even more displeased to see that she wasn't being able to get under their skins. On top of that, the rest of the class had, of course, heard the exchange and was now all looking at them and giggling at the rebukes. Fury started to build up on her face and she was opening her mouth to speak when other girl spoke from where she was sitting.

"Just mind your own business, Julie, why don't you?" This sitting girl said through a giggle. The girl who was standing in front of Harry and Draco – Julie – seemed about to let smoke out of her ears. Before she could decide whether she'd go on in this exchange or not, the professor came back and she strode away to her seat, which, surprisingly enough, was with the girl who stood up for Harry and Draco. They heard the other girl saying – still giggling – "I told you not to go there, just mind your own business, it's really not that hard."

"Fuck off, Astoria," they heard the Julie girl say, in a low voice so that the professor, who was still arranging thing on his desk, wouldn't hear. "You're supposed to have my back, not go siding with a Gryffindor."

"I had your back," Astoria answered. "When I told you not to go there. You were asking for it," she finished and giggled a bit more. The professor stood up and started talking with the class, making the two girl stop their conversation. Harry, who had been listening to their exchange smiled satisfied and grateful for the Astoria girl. It was really heartwarming to see Slytherins being nice.

*

On the days that followed, the two were getting more and more comfortable being together in public. They had gone from – before the War – insulting each other in every encounter in the hallways to – after the War – not insulting each other and actually greeting each other. From discreet Hi's and Hello's they went to casual chitchat, to conversations... to holding hands.

By the end of the first month of the school year it was out and clear that Harry and Draco were together. They were out and proud homosexuals and extremely happy to be homosexuals together. It was so liberating to spend time in their free time, to go for walks, to stay for hours lying in the grass together, eventually stealing one or two kisses.

Harry inflicted a reasonable respect in the students in general, especially in Gryffindors, and Ravenclaws seemed to not have anything against him. Hufflepuffs in general were just really appreciative of their courage and seemed happy to see them happy. And Draco's former reputation inside Slytherin seemed to still stand at some level, because the Slytherins in general didn't bother him and when one tried, the scene with Julie was the usual result, so they were quick to realize that trying was most certainly embarrassing themselves and gave up.

With this scenario, one could suppose it was safe to say that Harry and Draco were the Power Couple of Hogwarts.