I Keep My Conscience On A Tight Leash

𝘔𝘢𝘭𝘧𝘰𝘺 𝘴𝘶𝘥𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘦𝘹𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘗𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘰 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩: 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯'𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭. 𝘏𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘮. 𝘏𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺, 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩.
𝘖𝘩, 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘜𝘕𝘍𝘈𝘐𝘙. ⋆

In which Draco becomes overly aware of his own crush in year 4, and realizes it's essentially the reason behind his constant crankiness... and Harry decides that might be worth taking care of, a decision that may or may not also have something to do with him falling face-first into reciprocating said crush.
The only problem is, neither are willing to be so open about how they actually like the other - eugh, gross. Their solution? To only act on it exclusively when they're alone. Easy! Because surely THAT won't have any consequences or lasting repercussions.

➤ A/N:
• This fic is PG-13ish. Teenage crush aka baby gay things, but a fair amount of swearing.
• Further A/Ns in comments!

UPDATE NOV 13 2023
I'm normally obsessive about my lore and getting details right, but when I started writing this I was burned out from massive detailed projects and just wanted something stress-free, deciding not to brush up on my canon... aaaand then the research bug got me. I realized I had my order of events all wrong and couldn't live with that LOL so rewrite ahoy! I rearranged the existing scenes and added more chapters of context, etc.

NOV 16 2023
PARTS 1-7 ARE NOW FULLY DONE! Sorry for any confusion while the story was going through reshuffling and edits. Part 8 coming soon!!