#acts of service as love language

Being flatmates with Malfoy was nothing like Harry expected. They were friends already, so the soft conversations over tea at three in the morning were no surprise, and neither was the grumbling over coffee not enough hours later. The quips, and Malfoy’s smell on every jumper he owned, the excessive eye-rolls and funny little squeals of excitement, all of that was familiar enough. Things he could handle. It was when he went to the kitchen one morning to find the cupboards chock-full of the biscuits he liked, that he raised an eyebrow. (“What? They were on sale” his arse.)

There was more. When he came back from Ron’s stag do to discover his bedsheets changed and his room tidied (“Merlin’s sake, I just had some free time” is apparently an explanation?). The following week, when Harry had been complaining, and suddenly the busiest black barber in town just happened to have a free appointment. (“I suppose you do get lucky after all” – yeah, not really.)

It didn’t end there. Harry’s bed was always made (“It’s called magic, look it up”) and his shirts were always ironed (“Can’t have you looking like that in front of Mother”) and his glasses always cleaned (“Just say ta and shut up, Potter”). Harry had no idea what it all meant. If it was some sort of delayed guilt reaction, or Malfoy’s way of self-fulfillment, or worse, self-punishment. Or if it was nothing at all, meant nothing. The most devastating part was how deeply ingrained Malfoy had already made himself in Harry’s life—how much he already needed him, wanted him, cared for him. Was driven absolutely mental by him—

It took a random encounter and two hours online before Harry understood the term ‘love language’. By that evening he’d cleaned up the flat, washed and hung all of Malfoy’s clothes, and restocked the fridge full of his fancy oat drink.

Then messed up the perfectly-starched bedsheets in Malfoy’s room by lying in them, bare to his boxers with his heart rampant in his throat—but when Malfoy got back from work, he didn’t seem to care. He kissed him just as fervently as he’d washed the dishes the day before: deeply, full of intent.

Being flatmates with Malfoy wasn’t quite what Harry expected; this went so wildly beyond what he could ever have hoped for. Love language, then. He couldn’t wait to become fluent.