Exceptional love

Chapter 20

"Harry, are you sure you're alright? You're not sick, are you?" Draco inquired, his brow furrowed in worry.

Harry frowned. "You know, I actually miss people asking me if I were insane. I much prefer that now."

The blond's lips quirked. "You've been depressed lately. You've been quiet and standoffish..." Harry turned, looking surprised at Draco's observation. The blond rolled his eyes. "I like to think we're good enough friends that we can both recognize oddities in each others behaviors."

This had Harry smiling. "That's nice to know. And I'm fine."

"That may be true, but you don't look alright. You're pale as death."

"I'm fine, Drake. Just tired, I guess. Here, help me start packing this away," he said, indicating a batch of fudge off to the side.

Draco shook his head. "Let's have a break first. You've just finished that batch," he went on in a rush seeing Harry was going to decline, "which means you have time to sit down and relax."

"Fine... just a few minutes." When he was sitting, Harry's gaze went to the large stack of parchments making up the orders he hadn't even gotten to yet. "Don't know why there's suddenly an influx of orders."

Draco smirked. "That's easy. I took out several adverts in several well known papers. We've also had raving reviews from some of our communities strictest dessert critics recently. We've blown up, Potter! M.R's isn't only famous amongst certain circles anymore. Your creations are famous everywhere!"

Harry blinked owlishly at him. "And when," he started after pulling himself out of his shock, "did you decide to do all that, Drake?" The blond flinched under the narrowed glare and hissed words. "I thought this was a partnership."

"It is, Harry, but we needed marketing! We can't expect our business to prevail on simply word of mouth! I just... I thought I was in charge of everything aside from all the baking!"

"You are!" Harry shouted as he shot from the stool. "But it would have been nice to know! I could have maybe prepared for more orders instead of now feeling completely overwhelmed! I definitely need to be in the know when it affects me personally! I need to be ready. What if I'm not ready for this yet? Did you even think about how this would affect me at all?"

"I'm sorry!" the blond exclaimed, knowing instantly that Harry was right and it wouldn't do either of them any good for him to deny or continue to argue about it.

"That doesn't really help me now," Harry muttered as he turned his back and went back to the stove.

Draco watched his back a moment before looking over at the stack of orders and wincing. It would take Harry forever to finish those and that pile was the immediate pile. "Can I help?" he asked softly. "I could help you bake."

Harry turned, looking over his shoulder at him, and saw how serious he was being. Draco had the most earnest face on him that Harry had ever seen. The brunet finally smiled and shook his head. "No thanks, Draco. Spoiled wanker. You're horrible at baking, or anything to do with the kitchen actually. I'll get Tally to help me... and probably look to recruit two more elves. Tally's very good with following my recipes. She's already helped me make batches of fudge, and she made the soufflé your mother ordered last week... your mother sent a raving review back about that."

"But I want to do something to help."

"Do what you've been doing? Pack the made desserts into their respective boxes."

"The house elves could do this as well," the blond muttered, but when Harry shot him a glare, Draco quickly nodded and hurried to start the chore. Several minutes later, he suddenly snickered and looked at Harry with bright eyes. "Actually, that soufflé was for Severus. He had Father have Mother order it for him."