ng again. “Let’s find Ron and Hermione before theye back, alright?”

Draco pouts a bit, but then he sees the new wave of peopleing and hastens to agree, cutting a line through the table until they find where Ron, Hermione, and the rest of the Weasleys were sitting.

“Oh, good.” Hermione’s a bit pink in the face, a little breathless, and Harry has to wonder if she had remembered to take her calming drought before she came. Maybe Ron hadn’t managed to talk her into. “They’re about to start the presentation.”

“Presentation?”

“Oh, you know.” Ron leans around Hermione. He seems to have decided to ignore Draco altogether, which Harry is grateful for, because it might be the only good solution they could agree on. Clearly, they aren’t ever going to be friends. “Where we all clap for Kingsley, and everyone thanks us and pretends that they were on our side the whole time.”

Harry snorts. It’s funny, but it’s also not, because it’s been hard to et the days where everyone would sneer at him, where they all thought that he was crazy and heard voices just to cover up the truth, how so many of them hid while he was leading the fight.

“You just have to smile.” There’s a hand in his, peeling back his fingers, pads of his thumbs smoothing over where his nails had dug in, like Draco was trying to make his pain go away. “That’s all you have to do.”

He kept smiling.

He smiled when they said his name, and he smiled when he wove through the tables. He smiled when they reached out to touch him, their fingers brushing his robes, like they all wanted a piece of him, so they could go home and tell their neighbors and their kids and their relatives that they had laid a hand on his skin, like they have a claim to him. He smiled when he shook hands with Kingsley, even though he didn’t smile as his bravery was recounted and he was told he would be epting this token of their gratitude on behalf of all those who had fought in the war, and he smiled all the way back to his seat.

“You did it.” Draco had only stood up to let Harry back into his seat, but for a moment, Harry was overwhelmed with the feeling of gratitude for him. He could not have done this without him. “You’re all done.”

Harry pulled him into a hug, even though everyone was watching, even though he could hear the pops of cameras going in the sidelines, even though he was aware of the rumors it would start. He didn’t care. He could pretend that it was a brotherly hug, even though it was nothing like the kind he would have with Ron. They would all just have to get over it.

It turns out to not be that bad of a night.

He spends a lot of it with Ron by the dessert table, piling their plates high with food, because, as Kinglsey had said, they were saviors and could eat as much cake as they wanted, no matter how much it cost the ministry. He talks to Dean, giving a few exclusivements for his article, and then he dances with Luna while Ginny went to talk to the manager of the Harpies, who she had said were my favorite team ever, Harry, I have to get a good word in, take care of Luna, will you?

Not that Luna needed taken care of, but it was sometimes better for her to stay with friends so she didn’t wander off, so Harry sways back and forth with her in the middle of the dance floor until Draco shows up behind her, tapping her on the shoulder and looking more nervous than Harry had seen him in a while.

“Hey, Luna.” He’s shifting his weight from one foot to another, like all the confidence he gained had been swept away. “Mind if I cut in?”

“Oh, alright.” She’s smiling, like she knows something they don’t. “I need to clear away from the gnargles, anyways.”

Draco looks like he’s going to laugh. He hasn’t quite managed to the art of following a conversation with her yet, even though Harry knows he loves Luna just as much as he does, so he waits until Luna has turned her back to raise an eyebrow, and they both burst out laughing.

“I didn’t need saving.” Harry says, and they are revolving on the spot by now. “She’s a much better dancer than I am. Wasn’t stepping on my feet or anything.”

“Oh, I.” Draco drops his hands with a flutter and then steps away, smoothing invisible wrinkles out from his sleeve. “I wasn’t trying to save you. I just wanted to dance, but.”

Harry doesn’t want to hear the rest of the sentence. “Don’t be stupid.” He grabs him by his expensive suit jacket and pulls him back. “But I should warn you. I’m a really bad dancer.”

Draco gives a little huff of a laugh, but if he says anything else, it gets lost in the music. They stay together for one song and then another, long enough for Harry to learn exactly how much shorter Draco is than him (a fact he keeps etting) and memorize they scent of his cologne, the one he only wears when he is trying to impress. He catches sight of Seamus and Dean together across the room, curved around each other, and when they rotate to face each other again, Harry can see Seamus flashing a thumbs up. He’s not sure if they approve of his choices, but they all seem glad that he’s found a guy, even if that guy is a Slytherin. He only wished Draco would feel the same way.

“You really are good at this.” Harry’s whispering into his ear, afraid of someone overhearing but unwilling to let it go unsaid. “Making people see things your way. Making them see you.”

“It’s the only thing I’m good at.” Draco says, his voice just a murmur. He’s got his hands tucked underneath Harry’s suit jacket, and now there is the only thin fabric of his dress shirt separating their skin. “I used to think that it was important.”

“It was.” Harry swallowed down the other things he wanted to say, about how glad he was that Draco was here, about how beautiful Draco was, about how he would take them home right this minute and just keep dancing, turning around in the living room. “Saved my life tonight.”

“Not as important as you.” Draco was looking up at him from beneath his eyelashes, and Harry had never noticed how long they were before. There were a lot of things he had never noticed, and all of them are suddenly information he can’t believe that he had missed for so long. “They all love you.”

“Not me. They love the boy who lived.” Harry didn’t want to think about that. Tonight was a good night. “They don’t even know who I am.”

“I do.” Draco seems on the verge of something. “I know you. And—” He falters, and Harry can feel his fingers flutter, just a tiny shake against his shirt, like the beating of a butterfly. “You’re important to me. You know that, right?”

Harry thinks this an apology. A way to say sorry. A way for Draco to say that he loves him without actually saying it, but Harry doesn’t care. He can wait. In the meantime, he would take this.

“Yeah, Draco. I know.” He presses a kiss down to the top of his head, and then steps away, because the song is ending and if they stay together for another, it would draw more stares than they were already getting. It’s almost with an afterthought that Harry bends down and kisses him on the cheek, so close to the corner of his mouth that it is almost on his lips, like this is just another thing where he would press the boundaries until it breaks, ruin this, too, with his recklessness. Harry doesn’t want that, but he wants more, and it’s almost worth the risk.

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