Title: The Day After the War.

Archiving: just ask.

Rating: PG.

Date: April 2004.

Summary: The Day After the War. PG.

Notes: For Patch, who asked for post-war, fluffy H/D. Hee. <3


The war ended on April Fool's Day, so everyone naturally held their breath til the next morning, since no one was more superstitious than wizards. The day after the war ended, Harry Potter woke up in the room he'd been renting from a pair of Muggles outside Edinbergh (who had accepted in baffled but unquestioning silence his strange habit of popping in and out of mid-air at all hours of the day and night), and saw that the sun was streaming invitingly in through his window and flinging itself sensually all over the hilltops.

He got up, cautiously made his bed, left a pot of coffee brewing for his Muggle friends along with the week's rent, and stepped outside.

"Don't move, Potter."

Harry, sizing up the figure at the other end of the wand, aimed at his throat, moved anyway, taking two steps away from the house and latching the door behind him.

"Malfoy," he said exasperatedly, "The war ended yesterday."

Draco Malfoy flushed pink and looked both surprised and embarrassed at this news, but he did not back away. "Nice try, Potter," he said. "But obviously, it hasn't, because you're still here and so am I."

"I'm leaving, though," Harry explained, un-hoisting his knapsack from his shoulder and presenting it as Exhibit A. "See? If the war were still going on I'd be staying put, or apparating where I needed to go, not walking around in broad daylight."

"But that could be a trick. You could have a horde of Order members hiding in wait to ambush me."

Harry pointedly looked around them at the open fields and the absolute lack of places to hide, and rolled his eyes as expressively as possible.

"Or," said Draco confidently, "this could be an April Fool's Joke."

"Malfoy, that was yesterday."

"Oh, said Draco, his tone faltering. His forehead creased and his features slid into a perplexed pout, and Harry, noting his disheveled appearance and the straw clinging stubbornly to his cloak, took pity on him.

"Malfoy," he said gently, "have you been outside waiting for me all night?"

"Of course not," said Draco, looking horrified.

Harry patted his arm. "I don't have to leave just yet, you know," he said. "You could come inside and have some coffee."

"Absolutely not," said Draco indignantly. "Quit trying to distract me."

"I can put a little Irish cream in yours, and a shot of vanilla," said Harry coaxingly, "just the way you like it."

Draco began to look torn. "With cinnamon sprinkles?"

Harry smiled, took off his coat, which was much thicker and warmer than the shabby cloak Draco was wearing, and draped it snugly across Draco's shoulders. "Of course with sprinkles."

This last seemed to be Draco's undoing. Harry took the hand that wasn't holding the wand (now limp and not necessarily pointed at his throat so much as in the general direction of his clavicle), and tugged him toward the house. Draco let him, as the door shut behind them both, Harry reflected that so far, this whole peacetime thing was quite to his liking.

Even though eventually, of course, Draco would have to give Harry back his hand.



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