"So, planning something terrible, was he?" Ron asked sarcastically, one eyebrow raised. When Harry and Draco had first approached Ron and Hermione in the library, his blue eyes had fallen straight to their entwined hands, only lifting to look Harry in the eye long enough to give him a sardonic stare.

It had been four days—four lovely, wonderful days since Harry and Draco had cleared up their misunderstandings. Four days of heated looks across crowded rooms, sneaking away at mealtimes and during free periods, only to return with clothes rumpled and hair disheveled. Four days of waking up every morning with a smile. And after four excellent days, they were both decided to no longer keep their relationship a secret, consequences and public opinion be damned.

And so here they were, four days later, walking into the library with their hands clasped tightly together and twin glints of defiance in their eyes. Ron and Hermione had been easy enough to find, seated predictably at Hermione's usual table, the usual amount of heavy involved-looking books spread in an expanding ripple of text before her. Ron sat to her right, taking up much less room at the table and frowning down at his notes with a sullen expression when his blue eyes flicked up to notice Harry and Draco approaching.

The same blue eyes were still staring at Harry, almost with fond exasperation as the redhead continued speaking in a nudging tone, "Up to something evil then, eh? Someone warned me it might even be worse than last time."

At Ron's words, Draco raised an eyebrow at Harry, who flushed and shrugged helplessly at Ron. "Turns out his dot wasn't evil, after all," he explained awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck in a self-conscious gesture.

The other three stared at him strangely, Ron opening his mouth several times before taking a deep breath. "Well, all right, then," he nodded firmly. "Just as long as his dot isn't evil." Turning back to his notes, he began frowning at them once again.

"Wait, that's it?" Harry asked in confusion. Where was the yelling about Malfoy's past? The argument about who he was and what he had once stood for? Why weren't they bringing up their younger days and shoving their history into their faces? Where was the guilt and the betrayed looks? Why weren't they mentioning the Manor or any of the thousands of past altercations the two had gotten into? Why the hell wasn't Ron saying anything?

But it was Hermione who answered, giving the brunet a pitying stare. "Harry, nobody is surprised by this," she said slowly, as though explaining a basic, well-known fact to someone simple.

"Yeah, mate, honestly," Ron guffawed. "Following him around, obsessing over him all these years, suspecting him of the most ridiculous shit? I mean honestly, Harry, evil dots and Dark schemes?" Harry flushed as Draco chuckled softly.

"And you," Ron continued, swinging his blue gaze to lock onto Malfoy and pointing a finger at the blond. "You picked a fight with him every time the two of you were in the same fucking room. Couldn't go ten minutes without you needing his attention."

It was Malfoy's turn to flush as Harry grinned and Hermione coughed a laugh.

"Absurd," Draco sputtered. "His mere presence provoked me, is all."

"Yeah, provoked you to flirt with him," Ron muttered, causing Malfoy to darken further.

"And provoked Harry to flirt back," Hermione added, not bothering to hide an uncharacteristic smirk she traded with Ron.

"Oh, like I was the only one who flirted with him, Hermione," Harry blushed. Draco was bloody gorgeous, for Merlin's sake. It was hardly Harry's fault if he had wanted the attention of someone as beautiful as the blond, even if he hadn't realized the reasons behind the desire when he was younger. They had figured it out eventually.

Glancing to his right, he was startled to see Draco giving him a heated look, one eyebrow raised as he raked a possessive gaze over Harry.

"No, no," Ron interrupted loudly, snapping both boy's attentions back to the two Gryffindors sitting across the table from them. "None of that now, not here, in decent public places, in front of decent innocent people who would like to be able to sleep at night instead of lying permanently awake in both incurable horror and the pain of having to gouge my own eyeballs out at the sight of my best friend snogging the sodding Ferret, m'k?" The speech was ended with a pointed stare.

"Fine for now, Weasel," Malfoy replied, eyes glittering with annoyed amusement. "There will be countless opportunities for you to see plenty in the future." He bent closer toward him, leaning over the table to speak his next words in a low, soft voice. "It could happen anywhere, at any time. You could be walking along a corridor, any corridor, thinking about something trivial, nothing at all, really, you're not paying attention, when you turn a corner and BAM!"—and with that word Malfoy slapped a palm down sharply against the wood of the table, smirking as Ron jumped—"Harry and I are there, snogging." Ron winced and recoiled, face paling. "Possibly even groping," Draco whispered loudly, shooting theatrical looks around himself.

Ron made a noise of distress and turned to Hermione as Harry laughed. "Have I not suffered enough, Hermione?" he demanded, throwing a dark look at a smug Malfoy. "Have we not been through enough without the added risk of constant heart failure? I make it through the whole bloody war just to be killed off from shock and horror at the sight of these two bloody groping each other in a bloody corridor." He shuddered and turned pleading eyes to the brunet across from him. "I'm your best mate, right, Harry?" he asked, sounding desperate. "You wouldn't want any harm to come to me, yeah?" Harry grinned and shrugged, shaking his head. "Well, I promise that if I am ever witness to either of you fondling the other, it may just be enough to guarantee my painful untimely death," Ron vowed, his voice taking on a hint of a whine. "Don't be the cause of my death, Harry."

"Oh honestly, Ronald," Hermione scoffed, lips twitching. "Don't be so dramatic. They're rather sweet together, aren't they?" Her words included a gesture and Ron followed it to the two boys sitting across from him, only to turn horrified eyes back to her, shaking his head profusely.

"Not how I would describe them," he said weakly as Harry shifted his chair closer to Malfoy and the blond pressed a lingering kiss to his cheek.

"If this was really so inevitable and all of you really saw it coming, it shouldn't be such a shock," Harry pointed out. "You should've had plenty of time to prepare for this."

"Trust me, Harry," Ron shook his head. "Nothing could prepare me for the sight of you cuddling up to Malfoy, I don't care how obvious the two of you have been over the years. I mean, imagine me suddenly announcing I was shagging Goyle."

At his words, all four of them blanched, Draco recovering enough to direct a glare at Ron. "As if," he sneered. "Even Greg has better taste than that. Er, no offense, Granger," he added quickly, flushing sheepishly.

"That's fine, Malfoy," Hermione snickered, leveling Ron with a pointed stare.

"Er, yeah, maybe that was a bad example," he relented, raking a hand through his coppery hair. "But still, think of that image, and know a fraction of my current suffering at the thought of the two of you."

Harry rolled his eyes as he played with the nearly silvery strands of hair at Draco's nape. "Hermione's right, Ron," he said, "don't be so dramatic."

"Oh, I'm the dramatic one?" Ron raised an eyebrow. "Remind us again what evil scheme Malfoy was up to this week? Because I feel like it's something different every few days."

"Yes, just how evil am I, Potter?" Draco asked coyly, running one pale finger along Harry's jaw and down the side of his neck. "I sound rather wicked, don't I?" Holding Harry's chin in one firm hand, he bent forward to kiss the brunet deeply, and Harry wasn't sure if the passion was driven more out of a desire to make Ron uncomfortable or if Malfoy was attempting to express his full villainy through the smoldering heat of the kiss. Quickly deciding it didn't matter, Harry sighed into the touch, but they broke apart to frown at the gagging and retching noises coming from the seat across from them.

Ron was gripping the edge of the table tightly with both hands, knuckles white and eyes squeezed shut. Air was being dragged heavily into his lungs and he seemed to be struggling for words. "Don't bloody. Fucking. Do that," he finally muttered, eyes refusing to open. "Bloody—fucking—Merlin, fucking ponces everywhere I turn, can't even fucking warn a poor bloke, my bleeding heart, though, honestly…" his voice trailed off into mumbled profanities, something Hermione responded to by swatting his arm sharply. Draco snickered.

"I found out about that potion for you, Harry," Hermione said suddenly, changing the subject in what Harry had a feeling was an attempt to either stop Ron from swearing, stop Malfoy from responding to him, or stop them from kissing again. Probably a combination of all three, Harry decided.

"Oh, right, the potion," he said weakly. He had completely forgotten that he had asked Hermione to look into that, and, never having explained the reasons or details behind the question, she was now bringing it up in front of Draco, who raised a silver eyebrow at him.

"Yes, I found out quite a while ago, but Ron and I have hardly seen you these last few days," she commented dryly, staring between Harry and Draco with an amused expression.

"Yes, we wonder where you've been, Harry?" Ron added in a loud voice, attempting to keep his expression stern despite his twitching lips. "How many innocent, hardworking students have you given heart failure to by them walking into the sight of the two of you eating each other's faces off in various corridors around the school?"

"Only the ones lucky enough to see," Draco smirked, raking a hand through Harry's hair.

"So the potion," Hermione interrupted before Ron could respond. "It was rather difficult to get a straight answer on the side effects of the potion, since such things depend a lot of the time on what stage it was currently in, as well as the fact that many of the books on the subject were destroyed last year and I haven't had very much to go off of." Her tone took on a sad, angry timbre, as though the destruction of books was somehow the worst thing that Voldemort had done in the war. "But I wrote to Astolpho Scriven—the top Potions master in Britain, Harry," she sighed and added at his blank look, receiving an amused head shake from Draco as well. "He wrote back and informed me that it was more or less similar to the effects of alcohol, though depending on the stage it was in at the time the severity of the inebriation would be affected. He said that it was mostly a temporary lowering of inhibitions, really."

"Hmm, and what potion is this, Potter?" Harry glanced up to find Draco gazing at him, an unreadable look in his eyes.

"Oh, er, Retention Potion," he mumbled. "I was just…curious?" Draco snorted and shook his head at the words.

"Scriven also made it a point to inform me, Harry," Hermione said, glancing between the two of them suspiciously, "that the Retention Potion is banned in situations such as N.E.W.T.'s. It's banned in regards to all school testing, in fact." She directed her gaze at Malfoy, who shrugged, pointedly not looking at Harry.

"Yes, well, we wouldn't want to allow any students any unfair advantages," the blond sniffed. "Even though it's incredibly fucking difficult to make and sometimes stupid Gryffindors interrupt you halfway through to accuse you of appallingly outlandish things, endangering your poor, misunderstood well-being."

"Misunderstood? Outlandish?" Harry snorted. "Draco, you were brewing an illegal potion in the locked office of a dead professor well after curfew."

"The potion itself is legal, Harry," Malfoy argued. "The only thing that was illegal was my, you know, intentions for it," he finished sheepishly before straightening and shrugging defiantly at the three Gryffindors. "Evil Dot, remember?" he said, pointing to himself. "I can hardly be blamed for following my nature."

"He's got a point, Harry," Ron grinned. "Just let him follow his nature. His evil nature, sneaking around, brewing evil things. It's what Evil Dots do."

Harry sent an exasperated look in Ron's direction, succeeding only in widening the smile already stretching the freckled features of the other teen. Turning to Draco, he found him smirking as well.

"You really are evil, aren't you?" Harry asked fondly, shaking his head.

"Sweet, lovely Harry," Draco murmured, leaning forward to press a kiss to his lips. "Whoever told you I wasn't?"

oOo

A/N: Aaand The End! Sorry the epilogue ended up being so short. But fear not, my Evil Dots, I am already mentally sorting through possibilities for a sequel!