Dad Says (Harry X Draco)

Chapter 10

Blaise,
8 pm, tonight. The Italian restaurant off Diagon Alley. You're paying.
Harry

Dear Harry,
You are so charmingly brusque! Like a lumberjack. Makes me shiver all over,
A plus tard,
Blaise

Blaise was fifteen minutes late.

"You're late," said Harry.

"Am I? My hair was being uncooperative. But I cowed it into submission. It looks lovely now, doesn't it?"

It did.

Blaise ordered for both of them in Italian without consulting Harry.

"I hope you like mussels," he said. Harry swallowed uncomfortably.

Blaise continued to make sexual innuendoes and smirk at Harry until their food arrived. Then he became abruptly earnest again.

"Did Draco mention me?" he asked.

"Er... a bit?"

"What did he say?"

"Not much, really."

Blaise seemed to take this in. He put his chin in his hand.

"I was very much in love with Draco Malfoy," he said.

"Oh," said Harry blankly. "Were you... was it serious?"

Blaise stirred his drink idly with his straw.

"I asked him to marry me."

"What??"

"In seventh year," said Blaise, twisting his mouth into a strained smile. "He said yes. I hope you won't think me conceited if I tell you that he was in love with me, too."

"So... what happened?"

Blaise raised his eyebrows.

"You, Harry. You defeated the Dark Lord, and I no longer thought it wise to associate myself with a Death Eater."

"So you just dumped him?" asked Harry, suddenly finding Blaise considerably less attractive.

Blaise shrugged self-consciously.

"I had to think of myself."

"But you loved him."

"Oh, yes. I loved him."

Harry frowned. Blaise was looking at him with an intense, hard look in his dark brown eyes, as if during Harry to ask more. He was clearly still hung up on Draco, and frankly, that wasn't a can of worms Harry was interested in opening.

"So... when did he marry Astoria?"

"He fell into bed with her on a rebound, knocked her up, and married her to preserve her honour. Oh-I know what you're thinking. But we pureblood families are so particular, you know. It would have been more disreputable for her to have a child out of wedlock than for her to have an imprisoned war criminal as a husband."

That hadn't been what Harry was thinking, in fact. He had been thinking that Malfoy had never been in love with Astoria, which gave him a peculiar feeling behind the ribs,

"Draco's really never told you all this?"

"We don't talk about the war much," said Harry.

"Ah," said Blaise. "Well, I must say that that is unexpectedly generous of him."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, does he know you're here with me?"

"Yes. He said we'd probably get on."