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Chapter Text

It begins, as it always does, with a glance. That’s how Harry remembers it, anyway. 

An ill-timed meeting of the eyes, met with open hostility. A misplaced moment of recognition and a wayward wand, spelling trouble for everyone within a twenty foot radius. Unfinished potions and broken glass scattered across the floor as students skitter off to the edges of the classroom, waiting for the bright flashes of light and scuffling of shoes to stop. It lasts all of two minutes. 

Except, it doesn’t. It lasts months.

This is how it starts.

***

Harry is glad to be back.

Really, he is. The familiar faces surrounding him in the dining hall, the warm light of the candles floating above them, and the food, of course. Everything is as it should be. He’s mildly surprised to see as many faces in the Great Hall as he does, though the room is noticeably less dense than previous years. Hermione figures parents are holding off on allowing their children to stay at Hogwarts, considering… well. She thinks it’ll only last a year. Harry isn’t so sure.

Harry counts backwards in his head from one hundred until the sorting ceremony is over. A total of nineteen new students are sorted this evening, and the obligation to welcome all five new Gryffindors into their house weighs heavy on him for some reason.

The Eighth Years sit at the far end of the table anyway, and Harry is keen on getting through the night and into bed before being cornered by the masses. He can’t bear to be the Chosen One tonight. His mouth turns sour at the thought of it. 

“In all my years,” Ron says, with a scrunched look about him, “I don’t think I’ve ever had anything this disgusting served at Hogwarts. Has my tongue been hexed?”

Harry, who had simply been stirring the stew with his spoon and breaking off bits of bread to eat, sniffs the bowl before him.

“Really, Ron. There’s no need to be vile,” Hermione responds. She spoons a bit from his bowl and takes a sip. Her nose scrunches up. “Oh, this is vile.” 

“Don’t eat it, then,” Harry says, staring into his bowl and eating more bits of bread.

Ron and Hermione exchange glances. They eat in silence for a few minutes, sparing the occasional look at Harry, before turning to nearby conversations. 

Harry is glad to be back. 

He is, really. He reminds himself as often as he can. 

The war is over, and everyone who gave him grief over the years is gone. Voldemort is gone. Snape, for all that he did, is gone also. Even Malfoy has the decency not to return for their Eighth Year. Harry knows this, as he scanned the Slytherin table three times at the top of the evening, on the off chance that the git had dyed his hair or something to throw him off. The Slytherin table itself is sparse. It was inferred that many students were taking a gap year, a historical first for Hogwarts. 

The sugar in the bread is soothing, and it goes down easy. 

The war is over, and Harry is glad.

Harry’s leg bounces under the table. He’s the first to get up once dinner is over. He makes his way to the end of the Great Hall before a hand wraps around his wrist. 

“Harry?”

He turns at the sound of Ginny’s voice.

“Ginny,” he startles, suddenly rooted to his spot.

“Are you alright?” she asks.

He doesn’t even know where to start. 

“Um, yeah. Yeah, I’m alright. How… how have you been?”

Ginny gives him a concerned look, and a picture of Molly Weasley flies into his head. He winces at the mental mind map he’s created.

“Listen, Harry,” Ginny starts, sliding her hand to hold Harry’s. “I know we haven’t really talked about… this. I get if you’re not ready to. But whenever you are, let’s go flying together sometime, yeah?” 

Her smile is charming in that distinct Weasley way, and Harry feels all the better for it. He squeezes her warm hand and manages to return a smile.

“I’d like that, Gin.”

“Good,” she says, before turning his palm over and plopping half a sandwich into his hand. “And if you’re gonna eat bread, eat something in the middle too. Don’t want you collapsing onto the pitch from malnutrition.” 

Ginny gives him a strong pat on the back before heading out of the Great Hall. He watches her catch up with some friends, interlinking arms and brushing cheeks. He smiles down at the sandwich, and takes a full bite of corned beef before heading off to Gryffindor Tower. 

***

Ron is usually the first person to know when Harry is having a restless night. Since First Year, he’s been witness to Harry’s nightmares, rustling of sheets, and middle-of-the-night plans to sneak around the school grounds. Being woken up from one of his nightmares by Ron was perhaps the first time Harry felt he had a brother. 

As he stares up at the canopy, an overwhelming wave of gratitude washes over him. It makes his eyes water. Because tonight–and for several nights before this one–Harry cannot sleep. And as Ron snores softly in the bed next to him, Harry gets the sense that Ron is the last person he can tell. 

Harry casts a Silencing charm and rolls out of bed. His knitted socks with an ‘HP’ stitched into them pad softly  across the floor as he makes his way out of the room. He considers returning for his cloak, but decides if he gets caught by Filch, what can he really do? They’ve been through a war, after all. 

Harry travels the halls that he remembers seeing in ruins. Much of the damage has already been repaired, stones transfigured and stitched back together in a semblance of structure. He slides his hand across the walls, stone scraping against the pads of his fingers. It’s unnerving for him to see the halls back to normal. Like nothing ever happened to them. To the indifferent eye, the reconstructed walls appear as they did before the war ever touched the grounds. But as Harry’s hand smooths over the rocks, he also feels the thrumming of unkempt magic, the violent surge of power that broke these walls in the first place. The scars are still there. 

Before Harry can venture towards the kitchens, he hears two voices speaking. He silently curses himself for not bringing the cloak and quickly ducks into an alcove before anyone sees him. 

“Well, there’s certainly room to discuss it, Horace.” McGonagall, Harry realizes. “Ms. Granger has taken on quite the project, and I see no harm in running her tests.”

Harry’s brows furrow in thought. Hermione has a new project? He’ll have to ask her about it in the morning.

“Yes, well, that’s all good and right, of course. But must the boy stay in my class? Isn’t there another way?” Slughorn insists.

“Do you expect him to be homeschooled?”

“Several families seem to think that’s the correct approach these days,” he says noncommittally.

McGonagall stops briefly in the hallway. 

“His case is not the same, Horace, you understand that.” She huffs. “After this quarter, I will not only be the Headmaster, but the sole Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. I cannot and will not tolerate another headache.”

“Yes, but–”

“Need I remind you that you are a professor and his Head of House. And an adult, for that matter. I trust you can handle it.”

Harry listens to McGonagall’s sharp footsteps walking away, then Slughorn’s timid gait in the opposite direction. He waits another minute before stepping out of the alcove, letting out a breath. He checks over his shoulder as he stalks towards the kitchens. It’s already well past midnight, so the usual heat from the ovens have dispersed. All the dishes and silverware are piled neatly, ready to be used in the morning. The elves are nowhere to be found. Probably getting the school ready for the start of classes tomorrow, Harry figures. He’s about to leave when his eyes land on a solitary plate on one of the tables. 

Three small treacle tarts lay on the plate, lightly sprinkled in lemon zest. A card with scratchy handwriting sits next to the platter. Harry picks it up and reads: For Mr. Potter. Welcome back. He smiles warmly, glad that at least one of the elves remembers his late night dessert escapades. He eats one treacle tart before pocketing the other two, nibbling on them as he slowly makes his way back to the tower. 

***

“Harry. Harry. Wake up, mate.”

A groan escapes Harry. A pillow lands square on his head, and he jolts out of bed from the impact.

“You slept through breakfast and if you don’t get ready in the next five minutes, you’ll be late to first class,” Ron says with hands on his hips. Harry squints at him blearily. The thought that couples really do rub off on each other popped into his head. He runs his hands through his hair as he gets up, swaying slightly. Ron steps toward him, arms raised. “You olright, Harry?”

He must look dead on his feet, if Ron is preparing for him to fall over. Harry waves him off, putting on his glasses.

“‘m fine. Thanks for waking me.”

Harry starts getting ready, changing out his sleep clothes and into his robes. He can hear Ron’s foot tapping impatiently behind him. Harry has the distinct impression that he’s not moving fast enough. 

“You okay?” he asks. Ron looks nervous.

“‘Mione’ll have my head if I’m not on time for our first day back,” Ron says. “We share first class.”

“Go on without me,” Harry says, gathering his books. “I’ve Slughorn first. He won’t mind if I’m late.”

“Thanks, mate,” Ron nods. He’s one foot out the door before he calls out, “I’ll see you at lunch. Oh, and there’s a bit of toast and an egg for you on your desk.”

The door shuts behind him before Harry can say thanks. He takes his time getting ready. He tries to get his hair under control, but at this length, his hair starts to curl around his ears and he’s never been very good at maintaining it. He storms out of the bathroom before he starts pointing his wand at his head. Never a good idea.

Slughorn is in the middle of introducing the core curriculum for this year when Harry walks in, half an egg still in hand. All eyes turn to him. 

“Ah, welcome in, Harry!” Slughorn interrupts himself. “Good to see you, as always. Please take a seat.”

Harry smiles, rolling his eyes internally. Slughorn fawning over him has annoyed him to no end. Harry takes the seat closest to him, towards the back of the room. All the other desks are filled up. As Slughorn slugs on with the syllabus, Harry lays out his books, quill, cauldron, and wand. He’s somewhat glad to have the space to himself. A few students keep looking his way, whispering to one another. He’d rather not have to talk to them, if he’s being honest.

“The brewing of Veritaserum,” Slughorn says, pacing the front of the room, “and its subsequent antidote, is an arduous process, but no more difficult than what you have already learned in Sixth form. Skipping any step in the process is, as you know, a detriment to the quality and integrity of the potion, and will be grounds for subtracted points. Now, can anyone tell me… Mr. Malfoy, you’re late.”

Harry snaps his head up. He can’t be here. Harry would know .

Malfoy–and it is indeed Malfoy–stands in the doorway, hair disheveled and books in tow.

“Apologies, Professor,” Malfoy says, gritting his teeth. “I–”

“No excuses,” Slughorn huffs. Harry can tell he’s trying to appear confident. It isn’t working. “Don’t be late again, or that’ll be points away from Slytherin.”

Harry’s mind runs a mile a minute. Is Malfoy who Slughorn was talking about last night?

“Ah,” says Slughorn, “you can take a seat next to Harry, at the back of the class.”

Blood drains from Harry’s face. He’s about to look back down at his desk when Malfoy’s eyes dart quickly to his. His eyes widen slightly and Harry looks away. There’s a rock in his stomach. He feels it growing. 

His pulse drums alarmingly as a blond head of hair stalks his periphery, making his way to the back of the classroom. Harry doesn’t turn to look at him. He suddenly feels seven-years-old again, walking through the Dursley house in the middle of the night to fetch a glass of water, refusing to turn his head and look down the dark corridor for fear of seeing a monster. The seat next to him creaks. He holds his breath.

“Are you going to move your things, or were you planning on leaving a mess?” Malfoy whispers, annoyance dripping from his voice.

Harry’s temper spikes, and it takes everything in him to calmly gather his belongings and push them to his side of the desk. Slughorn resumes speaking, but the ringing in his ears is far too distracting to pay attention. 

He’s back. Harry thinks. Why is he back? How can he come back here? After everything?

Harry absentmindedly goes through the motions of preparing a wound-cleaning potion. He chops roots and minces ingredients as static noise takes over his senses. He keeps checking the time. Thirty ‘till. Twenty five ‘till. Twenty three ‘till. Malfoy moves quickly in the corner of his eye. Twenty ‘till. Harry practically vibrates in his seat with the need to get up and leave. 

They reach the point of the brewing process that Harry deems the Sit-and-Wait period. Students around him are chatting as the time passes. He checks the time again. Seventeen minutes left. In another minute he’ll need to add the dried nettles. Harry searches his desk. No nettles. The rock in his stomach grows heavier. He really doesn’t want to ask Malfoy for his, but he doesn’t want to mess up on the first day either. Harry takes a deep breath and turns to his deskmate.

“Can I use some–” Harry pauses.

Malfoy stares into his cauldron. His eyes are wet. Harry’s mouth goes dry.

“Are you…?”

Malfoy looks up at Harry like a frightened animal. 

And this is how it starts. 

Harry sees the split second decision being made right before Malfoy shoves him off his chair. He hits the floor hard. The whole class turns to the back of the room, mouths agape. Harry scrambles to sit upright.

“Are you mental? ” Harry seethes. 

Malfoy sneers. That’s all it takes before Harry lunges for his wand and shoots off a hex in Malfoy’s direction. Malfoy dodges it and grabs his own wand, knocking over his cauldron. High pitched screams erupt in the classroom. Harry repels a hex just in time, but another slices across his cheek in red hot pain, knocking off his glasses. Malfoy grins, hunched over and ready to send another volley of spells. Harry fumes at his callousness, his cockiness. Picking a fight on the first day? After everything he’d done? Malfoy is meant to be rotting away in his manor, not here, acting normal and shoving people and crying. Everything is backwards. Harry tosses his wand to the side. Malfoy’s face pinches in confusion and his body language relaxes. 

“That’s quite enough, I think–” Slughorn says as Harry charges at Malfoy, knocking him bodily to the floor. In their struggle, Harry lands a solid punch across his jaw. 

It feels…  

Malfoy barks in pain and shoots off random hexes, sparks of light flying across the room. The students flee the classroom with squeals of terror, none of them wanting to get hit by a stray hex. Harry tries to snatch the wand out of his hand.

“Get the bloody hell away from me, Potter,” Malfoy spits. Harry grabs him by the collar, and as he raises his fist, his whole body turns to stone. To his astonishment, Malfoy is frozen too. 

A familiar sigh is let out above them. Even if Harry could, he wouldn’t need to turn around to know it was McGonagall. A cold chill runs through his body.

“You two are quite impressive,” she says coldly. “Thirty points from Gryffindor and Slytherin.” McGonagall releases the charm and Harry falls to the floor. The two boys sit up, groaning from their injuries. Harry feels around for his glasses. They sit crooked on his nose when he retrieves them.

“I don’t expect this to happen again,” McGonagall says with a note of finality. 

She turns around, gives Slughorn a depreciating look, and walks out the room. Slughorn looks between his two students, dumbfounded. Harry sees a few students poking their heads back into the classroom. His face burns with embarrassment.

“Well, then,” Slughorn clears his throat, “We can pick this up next class. Dismissed.”

Malfoy is fast to stand up and grab his things, storming out of the room without daring to look back. Harry watches it all from the floor. 

***

“Ow, ow.”

“Well it would’ve hurt a lot less if you had come in right away, young man,” Madame Pomfrey tuts. “There’s no need to wait until lunch.”

Right. As if he’d want to spend another second around Malfoy’s arrogant arse. The infirmary is probably the first place he went after the fight. The bloody baby.

Pomfrey pours the rest of the wound-cleaning potion over Harry’s cheekbone, then covers it with a bandage. She smooths the tape over his cheek and gives him a gentle pat. He hops off the bed.

“Off you pop, dear. And be sure to get that shirt cleaned properly. Olright?”

Harry looks down at the white collar sticking out of his jumper, spotted with blood. He finds he doesn’t really mind it.

“Olright.”

“Good. You know your way out, then.”

Harry gives her a small nod before leaving the infirmary. He’s had several hours to go over what happened in Potions. What happened with Malfoy. And why was he crying? His mind has provided him little else to think about. Yet he doesn’t understand what came over him. Harry reminds himself: the war is over, and he’s got his breathing techniques now, and there’s no more reason to fight with anyone, and people are meant to be fixing things, not breaking them. Just like Malfoy to go and muck things up.

Harry debates going for lunch, but figures he barely has enough time to eat before his next class. Muggle Studies with Ron.

Merlin. 

Harry isn’t looking forward to it. He already knows how Ron will react.

“Blimey, Harry, what happened to you?!” Ron would say, eyes blown wide.

“Got into it with Malfoy in Potions,” Harry would respond. And neglect to add context.

“Good on you, mate! Getting into a boxing match on the first day.”

***

Harry is only 80% accurate in his prediction. He forgot to imagine Ron laughing before asking what happened to his face.

***

The Great Hall is swimming in chatter, laughter from crude jokes, and occasional singing from the odd Hufflepuff. Dinner and empty plates fly off the tables and are replaced by platters of pies, fruit, and coffee. The initial excitement of the first day is still in swing; the only witch at dinner currently worrying about the quarter is Hermione, flipping through her notes on Transfiguration. 

Harry can’t stomach the noise. He can’t stomach food, either, it seems. Dinner had already put him off when he walked into the Great Hall and couldn’t find Malfoy in the crowds. Sod him. It was best he stayed in his dorm anyway. (He double checked, of course. In case he missed him.) He reaches for a cup of coffee, taking a sip. He grimaces as the bitter black goes down his throat. Whoever brewed this had severely burned it. 

“Ugh,” Hermione groans, swatting away her notes. “I don’t know why she would keep the following text from us, when I could be reading it now. There’s no sense in it.”

“You’ll get through the text faster than she can set the book down in front of you,” Ron rolls his eyes, but he means it as an assurance. “What there’s no sense in is Harry drinking coffee at eight past.”

“What? It’s decaf, probably.” 

Ron pats his shoulder.

“As long as you aren’t bouncing from wall to wall while I’m trying to sleep,” he says.

“Going to bed early, old man?” Ginny pops into the conversation, half a strawberry tart in her mouth. “You won’t be up with the rest of your house? Celebrating life and all its virtues?”

“Bloody hell, it’s not even the weekend, Ginny,” Ron says.

“You’re incorrigible,” Hermione says affectionately.

“Someone has to keep the Gryffindor reputation alive. Innit right, Harry?” Ginny asks.

Harry smiles above the rim of his rancid cup of coffee.

“Is that meant to be me, then?” he replies dryly.

“He’s already gotten into a fight today, that should be enough to prove his house allegiance for the rest of the week,” Ron retorts, trying to save his friend from a dreadful night of drowning his head in liquor.

“Thanks, mate,” Harry says. 

Their conversation peters out after a while. Students begin to file out of the hall, returning to their common rooms. He spares another look at them, in case a head of light blond hair attempts to slither through the crowds unnoticed. For Malfoy to miss dinner twice? He had to be up to something.

“What are you looking for?” Hermione asks him. 

Harry looks down at his friend. Her big brown eyes blink at him. She’s gotten older since the war, but her eyes are still young and bright. He wonders if he looks the same. 

“I don’t know.”

***

It is half past eleven, and Harry is wide awake.

Not to say that it’s the fault of the party downstairs. The Silencing Charm cast in the room has allowed Ron and Neville to sleep right through it. Harry simply cannot fall asleep. He’s tried counting thestrals, and he figures if four hundred and thirty five thestrals didn’t do the trick, neither would four hundred and thirty six. 

A gurgling sound erupts from his stomach. He could really go for some tea. And a biscuit. Or two. 

He swings the covers off and grabs his cloak. He’d really not like to be seen leaving the common room in the middle of a party. He’d be asked to stay and mingle and drink and not now . His heart isn’t in it. He also can’t be bothered to put on trousers, for that matter. The gingham pants will have to do. 

Fat Bottomed Girls is transitioning into The Boy with the Thorn in His Side when Harry creeps into the common room, sidestepping a couple dancing drunkenly. Ginny, with her tie wrapped around her head, sings into her wand with a few of her friends. He sees a few people from other houses have snuck out to join in, drinks in hand and wands with glowing tips waving above their heads. The room sings loud and offkey. The noise threatens to blow through the ceiling.

Harry always finds it amusing when wizards discover Muggle music that has been out for well over a decade. 

He sticks close to the walls, distancing himself from the partygoers and house crashers. He spots Luna in the corner with a small smile as she nods along to the music. She looks through the room and lands on Harry. He freezes. Her smile grows wider. She sends him a little wave. He waves back, utterly confused but too preoccupied to get that question answered. 

He gets to the front of the room and quickly makes his escape while the music transitions into Bowie’s Heroes. 

The cold seeps into Harry’s bones as he closes the painting door behind him. It’s a comfort after being around a mess of bodies all day. Yes, there are less people at Hogwarts this year. But Harry feels there are still entirely too many for him to handle.

He heads for the kitchens.

One of the lights is still on when he arrives, and a lone elf points her wand at the last stack of dishes, levitating them neatly into the end counter. Harry takes off his cloak before stepping into the kitchens, letting his footsteps announce himself.

“Hello,” he says, not sure of how to start.

The elf croaks, almost dropping the plates.

“Oh! Mr. Potter! How very good to see you,” the elf says, righting the plates and hopping off her step stool to skip over to Harry. “We’re all so glad, we are. So glad you decided to come back to Hogwarts. So very glad, Mr. Potter.”

“Thank you, um…?”

“Peechy, sir. I’m Peechy,” she says.

“Thank you, Peechy,” Harry says. “If it’s not too much trouble–”

“Oh! Whatever you’d like, Mr. Potter. But I’ll save you the trouble, I will. We made these just for you,” Peechy says, running off to the pantry and returning with a small plate of pumpkin pasties. The golden brown crust still has heat coming off it. His mouth waters.

“They smell wonderful,” he says. 

Harry takes a bite and instantly wishes he hadn’t. The salt. Merlin’s beard, the salt. He forces himself to swallow the bite in front of Peechy. He manages a weak smile.

“Delicious,” he squeaks.

“We had a helping hand too. Miss Granger has some good ideas, doesn’t she, Mr. Potter?”

Of course, Harry thinks. He had forgotten to ask Hermione about her project. 

“Yes, she does,” Harry replies. He mentally reminds himself to bring it up with her in the morning. “Could I have some tea before I go?”

“Oh yes, Mr. Potter. Just you wait a minute. Sit down, Mr. Potter, sit, sit,” she says as she ushers him to the table.

“You can call me Harry. All my friends call me Harry.”

“H-Harry. Yes. I’ll call you Harry, shall I?”

“Yes, I think that’d be fine,” he says with a smile. Peechy nods and turns to one of the stoves.

He nibbles on the crust of the pasties–the only edible part–as Peechy prepares the tea. The clinking of cup and tea kettle settles in Harry’s chest. For the first time all day, his mind is quiet.

***

Harry sleeps through breakfast again. A cheese and cucumber sandwich lies on his desk waiting for him. 

Well, there goes talking to Hermione, he thinks. 

He stumbles into the bathroom and peels the bandage off his cheek, looking in the mirror. The cut has scarred over into a silvery line across his cheekbone. It stands out against his tan skin. Harry sighs. Pomfrey said the scar would (probably) go away in a few days, but it doesn’t sting any less to have a visual reminder of what Malfoy did to him on his face. But then, Harry had left him scars too, hadn’t he? And that wound was much, much worse and…

Harry splashes water on his face.

By the time he’s arrived at Slughorn’s, his sandwich has been eaten, his tie has been shoddily knotted, his hair has been run in a few times by his wand, and he’s ten minutes late. He wipes the crumbs off the side of his mouth and enters.

A few students spare him a look then return to their cauldrons.

“Harry!” Slughorn says, “just in time to pick up where we left off yesterday. Take a seat, my boy, wherever you feel most comfortable.”

Harry surveys the room, and lo and behold, the only seat available is still the one beside Malfoy. Who is… on time today. And staring into his cauldron. Harry senses his professor shifting closer to him.

“I’m really not one to get in the middle,” Slughorn whispers. “Let’s keep things civil, shall we?”

Harry nods and bites his tongue from saying something rude.

“Whatever you say, Professor.”

Malfoy doesn’t lift his head for a single moment as Harry stalks to the back of the room. Harry would venture that Malfoy gets highly involved in his schoolwork, if it weren’t for the obvious fact that Malfoy is doing everything in his power to keep Harry out of his line of sight. It’s utterly infuriating. Harry doesn’t bother saying hello. He sits down and does his best to catch up on the progress of yesterday’s potion. Today he hasn’t forgotten the nettles.

It is, however, difficult to concentrate when you are sitting next to a live wire that is hell bent on not brushing elbows with you. Harry chances a look every few minutes. Frustratingly enough, Malfoy’s black robes are ironed and his hair is neatly combed back, unlike the rumpled state he was in yesterday. His jaw is slightly bruised, though. Harry almost smiles at the sight of it.

He stirs the potion counterclockwise until it turns a soft red. 

He can’t help but wonder what it was that made Malfoy cry. He’s seriously doubting he even saw him cry. But what else would explain him getting mercilessly shoved off his stool? What was there for the git to be sad about? Well… probably quite a lot of things, but Harry doesn’t let himself think about them. 

“Stop staring at me,” Malfoy grits out. 

Harry makes a small choking sound. Malfoy tops off the vial with potion, corks it, and gets up to leave all in one swift motion. He hands the vial to Slughorn wordlessly, then promptly exits the classroom. Harry stares at the doorway, as if any second Malfoy will change his mind, walk back in, and tear his head off. But he doesn’t. 

The potion in front of Harry begins to bubble.

“Uh, oh.”

***

Lunch cannot come soon enough. Harry’s curiosity has been eating away at him since last night. 

Over the summer after the final battle, Harry and Ron had spent time helping the Ministry find dozens of Death Eaters that were attempting to escape their trials. They’d almost been too busy with the job to celebrate Harry’s birthday. He’d been told he had a knack for it, and that he should consider becoming an Auror after graduating. Hermione, on the other hand, had other plans after the war. Unfortunately, Harry was too busy helping the Ministry to find out what she was up to.

When Harry sees his friend on her way to the Great Hall, he jogs to catch up with her.

“Hermione!”

She turns around and lets him catch up with her. She has her hair in two messy plaits, with a few butterfly clips attached here and there. Harry smirks and points at her hair in question. She rolls her eyes.

“I let some of the First Years braid it while I got some work done,” she explains.

“That’s kind of you,” he says. He can’t stop grinning. He’s never seen her this… whimsical. 

“It is, isn’t it? And by the way, why weren’t you at breakfast again?” she asks, her tone changing rapidly. “Ron was eating enough for the both of you. You know how he gets when he’s nervous.”

“Is he worried about me?” Harry asks, suddenly forgetting what he came to ask her.

“Should he be?”

They stop before the tall entrance doors, light pouring into the dark corridor. Students filter in and out of the Hall. 

“I was sleeping, Hermione. There’s nothing to worry about. I’m just having a rough time falling asleep on time, then when I do, I get up late.”

“Have you tried a sleeping draught?”

“No, but–”

“It’s worth a try,” she says, leading them into the Great Hall. 

Harry sighs. He’s getting off track.

“Hermione, I meant to ask,” Harry starts as they sit at an unoccupied area of the table, “I overheard McGonagall talking about a project you had. And last night, I visited the kitchens and one of the elves mentioned it again.”

“Oh, Harry,” she groans. She loads mash and pot roast onto her plate. “That’s why you’re not sleeping. You’re up wandering the halls again, aren’t you? Honestly. You’ve got to manage your wandering time better.” 

Harry frowns.

“I don’t need to hear this from someone who literally wound back time to take more classes.”

Hermione squints at him. 

“It was going just fine until you boys showed up.”

“‘Mione. Your project?”

“Right, yes, of course.” She takes a breath. “Over the last few months, in helping rebuild Hogwarts, I’ve had a lot of time to think about the future of the school and specifically, the future of the elves at Hogwarts. We lost… a lot of people, including elves. That’s why I’m reestablishing S.P.E.W. and working with McGonagall to negotiate funding from the Ministry to pay the elves a proper wage.”

“Brilliant,” Harry says.

“But that still leaves the problem of the elves we’re missing now.” Hermione stops to take a sip of pumpkin juice. 

“One of the elves mentioned that they had someone helping in the kitchens now,” he adds.

“To help make up for the labor shortage. I figured, what better way to cultivate understanding and compassion than through working alongside one another? People don’t care about elf rights because they don’t see all the work they put in to make our lives easier. This might be a way to help bridge that gap.”

Harry nods in understanding.

“But who–” he says before a loud conversation interrupts them. 

They turn around to see Ron with a hand on Seamus’ shoulder as they argue with Zabini and… of course. Malfoy is also there. Sitting at the Slytherin table and refusing to look up at the argument happening around him. They can’t quite hear what they’re saying but Harry’s striding over to the Slytherin table before he can think clearly. 

“...balance. The idiot probably tripped over his own shoe laces,” he hears Zabini say. 

As Harry gets closer, he can see food all over the front of Seamus’ jumper.

“My balance is perfectly fine,” Seamus barks, his face entirely red in anger. “I know it was one of you. As soon as I look over, the lot of you are laughing. Except for Malfoy. Bloody psychopath.”

“So you admit it’s funny then?” Zabini retorts. 

Ron holds Seamus back.

“Let it go, mate. It’s not worth it,” he says, eyes shooting daggers at the snickering Slytherins.

Harry stares at Malfoy, urging him to look up.

“Shoving people again, are we Malfoy?”

And that gets Malfoy to face him. He narrows his eyes at Harry and smirks.

“Collecting scars, are we Potter?” he snarks. Harry balls his hands up into fists. “Careful, two more and you get one on the house.”

“Harry,” Ron warns, putting a hand on his upper arm.

“Listen to the Weasel, Potter,” Malfoy says, enjoying the way steam is blowing out of Harry’s ears. “It’s rare for him to have more sense than you.”

He doesn’t hesitate. Harry lunges and grabs Malfoy by the collar of his jumper, dragging him up and throwing him to the ground. Shouts of shock ring out. Malfoy’s eyes blow wide as he watches Harry follow him to the floor, withdrawing his wand. Before Malfoy can shoot out a hex, Harry strikes him across the face. Pain blooms across his knuckles.

“Harry!” Ron yells, trying to pull him off the Slytherin.

Harry pushes Ron away, and Malfoy takes the opportunity to knee Harry in the gut. Harry grabs his robes and slams him against the hard stone floor. Their wands are scattered somewhere in the brawl. The Great Hall has become a ruckus of shouting and jeering as people crowd around, watching Ron and Zabini try to break up the fight. They land hit after hit against each other, and Harry almost knocks a fist into Ron’s eye. He tastes blood. 

“Harry!” he hears Hermione call out from the crowd.

“Stop it, mate, it’s over!” Ron yells over the noise, grabbing Harry around the waist and lugging him off the floor while Zabini drags Malfoy away.

“The hell it isn’t,” Harry bellows, struggling against Ron’s hold. “He bloody deserves it!”

Malfoy doesn’t say anything. Harry seethes as the other roughed up boy gets on his feet and stares him down. A small bruise threatens to blossom over his cheekbone. Harry grips Ron’s arm tightly. 

A grumble of disappointment from the crowd signals the end of the excitement. Harry is still catching his breath when the crowd disperses, and Headmistress McGonagall is standing silently in their midst, watching them. Harry’s eyes dart to Malfoy, then McGonagall, then to the floor.

“My office,” she says, voice booming through the Great Hall. “Now.”

She walks away. A heavy silence follows her exit. 

Ron loosens his hold. 

“Are you–”

“‘m fine, Ron,” Harry spits. He leaves the Hall without another word. He doesn’t look behind him to see if Malfoy follows him.

***

The clock ticks. 

Harry can feel McGonagall’s cat-like eyes on him from behind her desk. She hasn’t said a word to him or Malfoy since they arrived two minutes ago. He knows she’s probably using the time to formulate what to say to them, but the ticking of the clockhands and the silence feels like psychological torture. He shifts in his seat.

“I’m sorry, Profess–”

“No,” she stops him, raising a hand. “I’m afraid we are past apologies, Mr. Potter.”

“But I–”

“That isn’t to say that your apology is insincere, or unnecessary for that matter. Rather that we are at a point in our community where words are simply not enough. I think you’ll both agree with that sentiment,” she says.

Harry glances at Malfoy, then at his clothed forearm. The war hangs heavy in the room. It hangs everywhere.

“I understand there is history between the two of you,” McGonagall says. Harry feels an aura of resentment radiating from the boy next to him. She pauses for a moment to think before saying, “You’re both adults now, old enough to work through your affairs in whatever manner you see fit. However, for the sake of Inter-House unity, you cannot allow this to threaten to divide Hogwarts again.”

In retrospect, Harry knows it was stupid to start a brawl in the middle of the Great Hall. He’s angry at himself for getting angry enough in the first place. But, if he could, he would probably bash in Malfoy’s face all over again. So instead of saying that, Harry nods. 

McGonagall looks at them skeptically.

“I would give you both detention if I thought it would do any good.”

“I think we’re past that, Professor,” Harry smiles, hoping to steer the conversation into lighter territory. She doesn’t smile back.

“Don’t be so sure,” she says. “Besides, your classmates’ disappointment for putting them in the negatives on the second day will be punishment enough.”

Harry blanks. He didn’t know that was possible. 

The Headmistress looks at the two boys for a moment longer. As if debating throwing them into detention instead of letting them go.

“Potter, you may go,” she says finally. 

Harry blinks. He turns to Malfoy, his top lip curled up in annoyance. He doesn’t bother to return the look.

“Is–”

“Mr. Malfoy and I have matters to discuss,” she explains.

“But he–”

“That will be all.”

Harry’s mouth snaps shut. Right.

It feels mechanical, getting out of his chair. Like he has to command every limb to do the arduous work of standing up and walking out of the room. Every bone in his body is telling him to turn back around and ask Malfoy what the bloody hell is wrong with him. Ask him why he was crying in Potions. Ask him why he’s so damn punchable and why do Harry’s fists ache when they look at each other. 

Harry looks over his shoulder at the two, then shuts the door behind him. He stays put, leaning into the door to eavesdrop. Instead, he hears the telltale static of the Silencing Charm being cast. His fingers bite crescents into his palm.

***

For the hour that Harry sleeps, he dreams.

Black and white blurs of movement. Purple-green contusions and beauty marks on a chin. The smell of earth, copper, bile. It’s less concrete than his usual nightmares. Yet when Harry is thrust into consciousness, he can still hear thunder. 

He takes a moment to catch his breath. His shirt sticks to his chest uncomfortably. He strips himself of it, sweat and stink clinging to his skin. The motion makes his side ache, and he feels the bruise on his lower abdomen. He digs his fingers into the tender spot, hissing at the pain. Damnit, Malfoy. The skinny git was strong when he wanted to be. Harry pulls his shirt back on. 

The need for fresh air and food leads him out of the tower to roam the halls again. He had skipped dinner, wanting to avoid seeing Malfoy at all costs. He regrets it now as his stomach grumbles painfully. Ron and Hermione could chastise him about it later.

Harry lets his mind wander. Quidditch. Rain on the pitch. Malfoy. He doesn't dwell on anything difficult for too long. He’d like to go back to sleep soon, after all.

A plate of shortbread biscuits and a glass of milk is waiting for him in the kitchens when he arrives. He’s a little disappointed to see that he missed Peechy. He silently casts a warming charm on the milk and takes the food with him. He settles in an alcove with a window seat on a staircase leading up to the tower. It overlooks the lake and the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest. 

Harry looks over his shoulder before opening up the window. The crisp September air blows into Harry’s face, biting his nose red. He sinks into the seat and eats his shortbread, dunking them into the warm milk. They don’t taste bad, he thinks, but someone must’ve altered the kitchen’s recipe. 

Harry’s mind goes pleasantly numb as the air chills his skin and the milk warms his body. He spends all of thirty minutes sitting there before dozing off. It’s three in the morning when Ron shakes him awake.

“Oy, Harry, wake up,” he whispers loudly. 

“What?” Harry gasps, eyes wide.

“Blimey, your skin is freezing. What are you doing out here?” Ron asks, before summoning a blanket. Harry sees the Marauders’ Map in his pocket.

“I was just…” he looks at the empty plate and glass on the bench next to him. Ron follows his gaze. “Getting some air.”

“Lets… let’s go upstairs. Olright?”

The blanket flies over to them, and Ron wraps it around Harry’s shoulders, giving him a squeeze before leading them up to the tower. 

Harry collapses onto his bed face first. He listens as Ron paces in the room for a moment, getting into bed. He can tell that Ron is sitting up on his bed, thinking of something to say. Harry stays still, eyes shut and hoping to drift off soon. His breathing steadies. After several long minutes, Ron whispers into the empty air.

“Harry… Do you need to talk?”

Harry doesn’t move. Keeps his breath steady. Eyes closed. 

Ron sighs. Harry hears him tuck in for bed, twisting and turning under the covers. He peaks an eye open and sees his friend’s back. Guilt pangs in his chest.

He doesn’t dwell on it.

***

Breakfast is served with a headache. 

Harry rubs his hands over his face after almost sinking into a bowl of oats. The dreams returned in increments over the night. There wasn’t a full hour of uninterrupted sleep to be had, and Harry feels like a Dementor put him through the ringer.

He’s thankful that Ron and Hermione are too worried about upsetting him to talk to him about his sleeping–or lack of sleeping–situation. And what explanation could he give anyway? What was there to say?

“You’re getting oats in your hair,” Ginny says, sliding into the seat next to him. Harry looks up and grins.

“Thought I’d try something new,” he quips.

“You should try eating it.”

“Hah!” Ron laughs. “It’s better off in his hair. They taste awful.”

“It’s true,” Harry says, letting the sloppy porridge fall off his spoon.

“Then eat something else. Honestly, you two will find an excuse for anything,” Hermione says. 

“Oy! I’m eating, aren’t I?” Ron defends.

Harry lets them bicker. It’s comforting to be around, they’re family after all, but he simply doesn’t have the energy to engage beyond two sentences. Instead, he lets his gaze drift off into the distance, landing on the Slytherin table. He doesn’t realize he’s looking for something until Ginny nudges his shoulder. 

“You alright?” she asks quietly.

“Yeah, Gin. I couldn’t sleep much last night but I’ll be fine,” he says, leaning on his crossed arms. She smiles gently.

“Let’s go flying today. After classes,” she says. And it’s more of a demand than a request. 

Harry nods, sensing a minutiae of impatience on her end. She smiles wider now. 

“Looking forward to it,” he bites out, gaze drifting again.

***

Potions proves to be as difficult as the day before. Harry cannot stop bouncing his leg as they take notes and work on their potions. Malfoy is eerily still in comparison. Students turn and gossip under their breaths, sneaking glances at the two wizards at the back of the class. They had made quite the scene yesterday. Harry glares right back at them, forcing them to turn back around and pay attention to their bloody potion. But neither the students’ nor Harry’s presence deter Malfoy’s concentration, as he diligently goes through his work.

It frustrates Harry to no end. Is he not having the same reaction to sitting next to the boy who bashed him only yesterday? Harry feels like a match waiting to be struck. 

He studies Malfoy’s profile as discreetly as possible. The first bruise on his jaw is healing green and yellow, but the new one on the opposite cheek is fresh. He feels oddly proud of them. His stomach goes funny when he wonders if Malfoy feels the same way about the bruise on his side. 

Malfoy sighs next to him.

“What do you want, Potter,” he says, not lifting his head from his work.

Harry snaps his head forward. Caught, again.

“I wasn’t–”

“Right,” Malfoy says. 

He continues his work. Harry tries to do the same, but the resentment is building in his chest. He shakes his head.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Harry says, vitriol in his voice. He grips the edges of his stool. He doesn’t care about the potion anymore. Ever since the first day they met, Malfoy has only caused him and his friends problems. It didn’t matter that Harry went out of his way to defend Malfoy at his trial. Or, at least, that’s what he tells himself.

“Maybe not,” Malfoy says. Harry looks at him suddenly, not expecting that response. Malfoy returns the look. “But I am. What are you going to do about it?”

Harry gapes. What was he going to do?

Malfoy stands up and takes his cauldron to the back shelf, letting it rest for tomorrow. Harry watches the back of his head with a bitter intensity. If the fighting and the bullying and the history didn’t bother Harry, the fact that Malfoy was an actually competent student and an exceptionally skilled wizard did, in fact, bother him quite a lot. He was glad to be best friends with the one person who would always outrank Malfoy’s intelligence.

Malfoy’s robes whip around as he leaves class early. Harry returns his scrutiny to his own failing potion. 

“You’ve almost had it, Harry,” Slughorn says over his shoulder. 

“Thanks, Professor,” he mutters. The encouragement only irritates him further. 

***

Harry blows through his classes for the day, his patience short and his fuse shorter. The incessant tapping of his wand and death glares warded off any interactions he would’ve otherwise had to deal with. Somehow, his professors knew not to call on him to answer questions. His notes for the day are sparse and unorganized. Hermione would have a fit. He can’t bring himself to care. 

He leaves his last class early, loosening his tie. Divination. Bloody useless class. He’s storming out when something metallic cracks against the side of his head. 

“Dammit,” he shouts, rubbing his temple. He whips around to the source of the errant toy. Two fourth years run toward Harry, waving their hands in apology. 

“Sorry, Harry! Didn’t look where I was throwing, hah,” one of them says, chuckling lightly.

Something in Harry starts bubbling up to the surface. He snatches the toy off the ground. It appears to be a modified silver snitch with slightly thicker wings. Made for a simple game of catch rather than Quidditch. Harry curls his fingers around it, squeezing tight until his knuckles turn white.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he grinds out. 

The fourth years stop in their tracks, eyes going wide.

“You could seriously hurt someone with this thing,” Harry says, voice growing louder in frustration. It echoes off the stone walls. “You can’t just…”

Harry loses his voice as he sees Malfoy at the end of the hall, leaning against the wall, staring him down. His eyes are dark and the bruises on his face harden his appearance. Harry feels his fists shake. The rock in his stomach has returned.

Malfoy nods at him. His eyes bore into Harry’s. And all at once, he knows.

Harry looks back down at the petrified fourth years. He clenches his jaw, returning the toy snitch.

“Just... be more careful,” he says, training his tone into a gentler one.

“We will, Harry. Promise!” one of them says.

Harry looks over them again, and sees Malfoy return his gaze before walking out the hall. He pushes past the kids and follows. His mind is strangely blank as he trails after the other boy, staying several meters behind. Somehow, he knows instinctively where they’re going, where Malfoy is leading them. 

Students start to filter into the hallways, and Harry has to weave through and keep an eye on the pale blond hair steering them out of the school. Not once does Malfoy look back. The air blows through Harry as he steps out onto the grass, whipping his hair around wildly. The sky above is grey and threatening to spill. Malfoy is a billowing black speck in the distance. Harry follows with a calm confidence into the edges of the Forbidden Forest. He doesn’t question himself. He knows he’s pursuing Malfoy like a curious dog, but the rock in his stomach is pulling him forward. 

He knows what they’re coming here for. 

Malfoy doesn’t look behind as he snakes through the trees. Harry keeps on his trail. A sudden dread hangs over his head as he sees Malfoy reach a clearing, and take out his wand. He finally turns around. 

Harry waits in the darkness of the surrounding forest. He grips his wand tightly. For the first time, he’s hesitating. Malfoy searches the copse of trees. His nose flares.

“Don’t be a coward, Potter. I know you followed me,” he says. 

If anything works on Harry, it’s Malfoy taunting him. He emerges from the trees, letting the light fall onto his shoulders. They lock eyes. A thrum of turbulent energy surrounds them. Harry can sense the waves of magic rolling off Malfoy; it feels dark and vicious. He feels like he’s just stumbled across a wild animal.

Harry’s eyes dart to Malfoy’s wand, and that’s when Malfoy draws. 

“Expelliarmus!” Harry shoots before Malfoy can get the words out. He blocks it just in time and blasts a series of hexes at Harry, but he’s already halfway to Malfoy and the hexes miss their target. Harry grabs his arm, knocking the wand out of his hand. He abandons his own wand. His fist swings into Malfoy’s stomach. He doubles over with a gasp, then wraps his arms around Harry’s middle, tackling him to the ground. Harry’s head smacks against the hard soil and he groans. He punches at Malfoy’s side, drawing grunts of pain from the boy struggling against him. Malfoy scrambles to his feet, panting. His hair is tousled, and the light from the clearing above makes all his edges bright. Harry pauses at the view. Malfoy kicks him in the stomach, aiming for the same spot he bruised the day before.

“Agh!” Harry shouts in agony, rolling away and getting to his feet.

Malfoy’s eyes look feral. Harry thinks he must look the same way, hunched over and hair wild. He bares his teeth and bolts. Malfoy tries to dodge but he’s too slow, and Harry punches him in the face, hard. His knuckles ache delightfully as Malfoy stumbles away, hands coming up to his nose. He makes a noise like an angry beast, throaty and fierce. But he doesn’t let up. His hands drop as he grabs Harry’s jumper, and for a moment he’s too distracted by Malfoy’s bleeding nose to see him pulling a fist back and striking him across the mouth.

“Hah,” Malfoy pants as Harry faces him with a cut lip. 

Harry grits his teeth and grabs Malfoy by his robes, twisting him into a headlock. Harry lets the static calm invade his mind, letting the brutality and violence work its way through his bloodstream. His mouth throbs. His stomach hurts pressed up against Malfoy’s squirming body. He feels alive. 

Malfoy kicks Harry’s leg out from under him, and they both crash into the floor with a grunt. Harry watches him gasp for air, feeling strangely victorious. He’s clearly exhausted. Harry raises a fist and immediately falls onto his back when Malfoy kicks him in the chest with a growl, effectively knocking the wind out of him. He struggles for breath. There are no Dementors around, but it’s terrifying.

It’s thrilling. 

The two boys lay there, fighting to fill their lungs with air. The wind blows leaves onto the ground around them. Dark grey clouds hang heavy in the sky.

Harry smiles.

This is how it starts.

Chapter Text

Draco can’t remember the last time he felt pain on his own terms. 

Pain was easy to seek out when Potter was around. It was easy, being cruel, and getting cruelty in return. He remembers the fights he started, the hexes they threw in each other’s faces, the merciless insults and degradation. He remembers throwing out one last taunt and getting punched in the face. He remembers warmth seeping out his body as he bled out on wet bathroom tiles, Potter screaming for help. 

But that was a war ago. A lifetime of terror lived between then and now. The near distant memories of the Cruciatus curse still cling to Draco’s skin. His father’s cold eyes turned away at the sight. 

The hypocrisy of it all.

Draco laughs, but it turns into a cough. He tastes blood as he gazes into the sky. Adrenaline rushes out of his body. His head sinks into the damp earth. The pain across his body is familiar, and all too welcome. It was on his terms, after all.

He turns his head to look at the boy laying a few feet away, groaning in the dirt. Potter’s knees are covered in dirt and his face is flush with life. 

The Boy Who Lived. And Kept On Kicking, Draco thinks with a grimace. 

As the ache in his side grows, Draco curses himself for making enemies with someone who insisted on putting his nose into places it didn’t belong. Harry could never go long without following after Draco anyway. He recalls bitterly the events of his trial at the Wizengamot. The mix of gratitude and shame that came with Potter’s defense. He remembers the determination beset in his features, the confidence in Draco’s case. He remembers thanking him distantly, staring at his nose instead of those unsettling green eyes. 

He groans at the memory. He’d just been pleasantly exchanging blows, why did he have to think about this now?

Draco drags his body up, wincing as he clutches at his side. He immediately vanishes away the dirt in his hair and robes, though he knows he’ll be washing for a long time when he gets back to his quarters. He shudders at the thin layer of grit he knows is stuck on him. 

Potter stirs near him. Draco can’t help but stare.

The frenzy that had come over them was intoxicating. Is intoxicating. Draco knows this as he watches Potter’s prone form, the lingering desire to grab hold and cut and bruise and jab leaves his fingertips buzzing. He stares at his hands and the splotches of red on his knuckles. The dirt under his nails. He hadn’t even used his wand. Something in Potter draws it out of him, the visceral need for conflict, the rawness of tension. He balls his fists tightly.

Draco gets to his feet with a slight hunch and retrieves his wand near the root of a tree. He hears Potter sit up quickly in the foliage.

“Are you–”

“Don’t,” Draco interrupts. He knows what he would see if he turns around. Pity is the last thing he needs.

“I needed this,” Draco says. “And so did you.”

He walks out of the clearing, gripping his side, and forcing himself not to look back.

***

“The good thing is purple really brings out your eyes,” Pansy says, applying a salve to Draco’s bruised cheekbone. He can’t tell if she’s being passive aggressive or genuinely reassuring. He knows he looks hideous. Yet she shows no signs of disgust as she moves wet hair out of his face. “You poor wretched thing.”

Draco is sick to death of Pansy’s fussing. He’d barely gotten out of the shower before being hounded by Pansy and her scrupulousness. Luckily, she does him the courtesy of not asking about it. Pansy puts things together fast, he figures. She probably already knows what happened. Draco swats her hands away.

“Let it go, Pans. I haven’t got time for this,” he huffs. He stands up and straightens his clean robes. 

“Alright,” she says, settling back into the couch and crossing her arms. She waves him off, suddenly very interested in her nails. “Go do… whatever it is you’re keeping to yourself.” 

Draco rolls his eyes. She pretends like she isn’t the nosiest person he’s ever met. Well, second nosiest.

He hears her mutter ‘arsehole’ under her breath as he shuts the common room door behind him. The crisp air of the dungeons chills the salve against his face. He feels cold and wet and uncomfortable. 

Draco had grown used to cold, desolate spaces. There was a time before his home was a prison, before… Him, when he could run through the halls and lie in a heap next to the fireplace. When his mother would play games with him, and comb his hair neatly. During the war, the dungeons of the Slytherin House became home. A home he had betrayed. 

Draco sucks in a breath. Not the time, he thinks. He presses on.

The distance between the dungeons and the kitchens is unacceptable. He’d said so himself on the first day. Several times. The complaint had fallen on unsympathetic ears. Hall after hall, corridor after corridor, Draco checks both ways for straggling students before continuing on his path. He wishes desperately that he had Potter’s invisibility cloak. With a strong intake of breath, he turns the final corner into the bustling kitchen.

A cloud of hot air warms Draco’s face. He pulls his robes and jumper off, hanging it up on a hook by the entrance. The kitchens are a mess of food, flying platters, and elves in disarray. At least, that’s how it appeared to Draco at first. He’d stepped on several toes, and gotten a wooden spoon to the shins in return. After his second dinner, he’d only just begun to understand the controlled chaos that kept the kitchens functioning day after day. Still, he doesn’t know how McGonagall expects him to function within this extremely fraught ecosystem.

“Blasted bugger!”

Malfoy ducks at the shout as a mush of peas and carrots flies over his head. He stands at attention and shoots daggers at the shouting elf.

“Mista Malfoy,” calls the Head Elf, clad in a blue apron and standing on a stool by the end counter. He looks Draco over and grins. “Fightin’ again, are ya, boy?”

Draco grimaces and says, “I thought if I maimed myself enough I’d be let off kitchens for the night. How’s about it?”

For a moment, Draco thinks he’s pushed the wrong button. Luckily for him, the Head Elf gets over it quickly.

“Ya can join Peechy in peelin’ pota’oes. Hurry up, mind ya ‘ead.” 

Draco bristles. The embarrassment of taking orders from elves is a fresher wound than the ones Potter inflicted on him. 

He transfigures a nearby rag into an apron and pulls it on. He traipses over to the corner of the kitchen where Peechy is peeling potatoes by hand and with magic, potatoes and peelers floating in the air around her. After the skin is peeled, they drop into an enormous pot of water over an open flame. Peechy jumps at the sight of Malfoy, her ears flopping in turn.

“Oh! Nice to see you again, Mr. Malfoy, sir!”

“I suppose it’s nice to see you too, Peechy,” Draco says exasperatedly. He doesn’t know what he did to give her the impression that they were friendly. He hadn’t been overtly kind, not even once. And here she is, excited to see him. Not even mentioning the new bruises he’s sporting. It’s unnerving.

“We’re making shepherd's pie today, we are,” she says, handing Draco a peeler. “Gryffindors love shepherd’s pie. Especially Miss Lavender Brown and Mister Ron Weasley, yes. They’re quite fond of it, they are.”

“Wonderful,” Draco mutters. He starts peeling aggressively. “Just what I dreamed of doing every night. Peeling potatoes for Gryffindors.”

“You should roll your sleeves up, Mr. Malfoy, sir. You’ll get skins on ‘em. You don’t want that, do you, Mr. Malfoy?” Peechy says.

Draco pauses. Stares at his shirt sleeves.

“Mr. Malfoy, sir, we’re not afraid, sir,” she says and pats his arm. “We already know you’re here to help, we do, h-honest.”

He looks at her quickly, not managing eye contact. It was difficult enough, working in the kitchens. The humiliation. Rushing to get to class on time. But as he works alongside Peechy and the rest of the elves, he inadvertently remembers the abuse his family inflicted on Dobby and Kreacher. He carries the guilt with him out of the kitchens every night. And here he was, being told that he didn’t need to cover up his Dark Mark. What was he meant to do with that?

Peechy pats him again and smiles. Draco’s mouth forms a thin line. He hesitates, then rolls his sleeves up. The tattoo stands out grotesquely against his skin. He forces himself to look at it.

“Very good, Mr. Malfoy, sir. Very good, indeed,” she says, and continues on with her work.

Draco steels his nerves.

With a wave of his wand, five other potatoes float up and peel themselves in unison around him. Peechy talks to him occasionally, showing him the proper way to use the peeler. He reluctantly follows her advice, but not without displaying as much annoyance in the task as he can muster.

After half an hour, Draco lets the noise and the heat blanket him. Plates clatter, stews stir themselves, fires roar. His movements become automatic and unconscious. In all its chaos, the kitchen makes his mind placid. Relaxed. Even now, he feels a strange resistance to the comfort of its warmth. 

“Had enough yet, Mista Malfoy?” Draco turns to the Head Elf standing beside him. He bites back a retort.

“Just about,” he says instead, keeping his composure.

“Once these is done cookin’,” says the Head Elf, “Ya can drain the water an mash them right up. Got it?”

“Got it,” Draco says bitterly.

“Good. Peechy, come an ‘elp me witha cobbler.”

Peechy hops down from her stool and gives Draco a wave before departing. Draco studies the heaping piles of boiling potatoes. He points his wand at the fire, raising the heat incrementally to speed up the process. He doesn’t want to spend his entire night in this kitchen when he could be sulking in his dorm room, finishing classwork, or thinking about how to get back at Potter. 

His impatience grows as he stares at the roiling bubbles in the pot. The steam is making his hair stick to his forehead and his skin is balmy. He vanishes the water with a flick of his wand. They should be ready by now. And sod it if they aren’t. 

Draco summons a large wooden spoon and commits to the arduous task of mashing undercooked potatoes. His arms grow tired from jabbing into the pot over and over and over, and suddenly he’s thinking about Potter again. The jolts of pain, the fisting of clothes, back breaking against ground. Draco’s muscles ache. His side aches. Sweat drips from his temples as he crushes the lumps of potato. Sodding Potter. Damned lout. He keeps jabbing.

Eventually, the pot is taken away by a few elves to pile on to individual servings of pie. Draco is left alone, panting in his sweat-damp uniform. He sits on a stool, brushes an arm over his forehead, then carefully tugs his sleeve down. The elves work tirelessly around him. Platters of food fly through the air, and piping hot dishes topped with lids are sent out to the dining hall. 

“Did you want to join your friends tonight, Mr. Malfoy?” Peechy says, walking up to him meekly. Draco snorts. 

“No, definitely not,” he mutters. He strips off his apron, making his way out of the kitchens. 

“Mr. Malfoy! Wait, sir! Just one moment, sir.” 

Draco watches as Peechy scuttles off in one direction, then hurries back with a lidded ceramic dish and spoon in tow. She hands over the shepherd’s pie, patting his hand gently as she does.

“Take this with you, Mr. Malfoy. You helped make it, you did. Best to try it while it’s hot, don’t you think?” she says. 

Draco grips the dish tightly, letting it warm his hands. Something seizes in his chest. He sets the dish down, and wraps a dish towel around it.

“Thank you, Peechy,” he says, imbuing his thanks with every ounce of Malfoy respectability that he can. She smiles brightly in return.

He leaves the kitchens, pie and robes in hand. 

By the time he makes it back to the dungeons, dinner is already halfway through. He expects to see a few Slytherins make their way back to the common room in fifteen minutes, so he curls up on one of the couches to eat his dinner in peace. Merlin knows he couldn’t stand to eat with the rest of the school after the day he’s had.

Breakfast rush with the elves, gritting his teeth through Potions as Potter stares at him. (Seriously, what was wrong with him?) Then hexes were thrown at him in the hallways by a few overly confident Ravenclaws, vowing to make his life hell. He rolls his eyes at the thought. Really, if they wanted to put him through hell, they would’ve gotten to know him better. He’d received a few stinging hexes to the leg before he could escape. He doesn’t know why exactly, but Draco has no intentions of fighting back. The vague notion of being expelled looms in his mind. Potter was really the only person he could fight with and trust that he wouldn’t be thrown out of school; McGonagall had made that abundantly clear.

To make matters worse, he’d received an owl from his mother today.

My dearest Draco, it read. I hope your return to school has not been in vain. Although I may not agree with the sentence your Headmaster has given you, I believe this may be a way to restore a semblance of dignity to the Malfoy name. Be patient with yourself. There is opportunity here, if you only take the chance to see it.

Your father has yet to return my owls– Draco stopped there. He had read enough.

Then, there was Potter. Crazy, stupid Potter, who looked like he would clobber a few fourth years if he didn’t find a way to let off steam. There’s something about him now that… that had always … Draco shakes the thought.  

And now, at the end of the day, Draco has a moment of peace. But the mash on his shepherd’s pie is hard and lumpy, and it ruins his appetite. 

He vanishes the pie and escapes to his room. 

***

Fridays are the only weekdays Draco is granted freedom from kitchen duty. The proposition suggests that he would have three day weekends, but with the amount of time he dedicates to his classwork, Draco knows his weekends will be spent doing just as much work as kitchen duty. All that to say, Draco drags himself out of bed before the crack of dawn to catch up on his studies.

He’s careful getting ready. Although Zabini and Nott sleep heavier than rocks, Goyle is surprisingly easy to wake up. Draco tiptoes around the room, creaking open the bathroom door painfully slowly.

As he showers, Draco lets the hot water roam over his bruises. The steam in the shower makes his muscles throb dully, until they feel fresh, as if he had just received the blows. He digs his fingers into his side and bites his lip to hold in a gasp. 

Of all the ugly things the war has left in its wake, Draco’s own body is one of the hardest things he’s had to reckon with. The silvery scars that stretch across the planes of his chest. The Dark Mark that mars his skin. The levels of adrenaline that course through his body when he feels threatened, scared. The war is there, alive. Refusing to separate itself from his flesh. And he cannot look at his own body without thinking he did it to himself.

He spends an inordinate amount of time fixing his hair into a sleek finish. He gets dressed. He avoids the mirror.

***

Draco should have known not to study in the library. There’s a reason he has avoided it for all the years he’s been at Hogwarts. And that reason is sitting at a table several feet away from him, studying her notes as her boyfriend gabs away. 

Draco had abandoned his own table to find the supplemental materials Flitwick had recommended for the year, and paused before returning when he heard Granger and the Weasel talking nearby. 

“Usually he’s tossing and kicking in his sleep. He was so… still,” Weasley hisses under his breath.

“He must’ve taken the sleeping draught like I told him to,” Granger whispers back. She pauses. “You… did check if he was breathing, right?”

A sudden spike of anxiety shoots through Draco.

“Hermione. I would know if my best friend was dead. He was definitely breathing,” Weasley says. Draco lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “But I’m telling you, it was right creepy, Hermione. If I knew any better, I’d say he was pretending to sleep.”

Draco presses himself against the bookshelf, trying to hear their conversation better.

“Oh, Ron, please,” she laughs. “He probably tired himself out flying with Ginny last night. He must’ve turned in early and slept like a baby.”

“He was out with Ginny?”

Draco smirks to himself. 

No, he certainly was not out with the Weaslette. Potter was out in the Forbidden Forest, trading blows and bruises with Draco. If only Potter’s friends knew how little of a Golden Child he really was.

“Yes. She told me that they would be talking about their… well, their relationship,” Granger responds. “Honestly, Ron. She’s your sister. You should know these things.”

“For your information, Little Miss Only Child, little sisters are incredibly secretive. Especially when it comes to dating their brother’s best friend,” Weasley says with an air of disgust.

Granger laughs. “Anyway, that’s probably why he’s sleeping so well,” she says.

Draco feels a dull ache in his ribcage. 

They’d made it official, had they? Wonderful. Terrific, even. Good for Potter. He wins the war, gets the girl. He gets to be happy, while Draco is…

Draco notices he’s white knuckling his textbooks and slowly unclenches. He leaves the library in the opposite direction.

***

Draco is grateful to have the morning away from the kitchens. He does, however, think about Peechy as he eats his apple tart. 

The other Slytherins had most likely been cornered by Pansy and told not to ask Draco any questions about the bruises. They avoid eye contact with him at the table. As though he were sick. He feels queasy at the thought.

Zabini had given him a look when they first arrived at the Great Hall. A look that said When you’re ready to talk about it, you know where I’ll be. Draco had nodded in appreciation. Slytherins possess an amazing skill for having conversations through looks alone. Goyle is royally ungifted in this area of communicative expertise.

“What happened to your face?” Goyle asks, mouth half full of toast and tomato.

Draco drops his fork. It clatters loudly against his plate.

“Goyle,” Pansy says through gritted teeth. “Take whatever tiny bit of tact you might have left and stick it up your nose, you indiscreet–”

“Pansy,” Draco cuts her off with a glare that could cut glass.

She looks at him. He ignores how endearing her frown is. Pansy herself has no tact, especially in the face of controversy or tragedy. Goyle, brutish and large though he may seem, had receded into himself after Crabbe’s death. Draco had been there with him, and there really hadn’t been a chance to sit down and talk with him about Crabbe. 

No one had even mentioned his name since they returned to Hogwarts. No one mentions the deceased in Slytherin.

“Did I say something wrong?” Goyle asks, shrinking visibly in his seat. 

Draco gives him a sympathetic look but continues eating his breakfast. He considers–for the first time in years–opening up. He considers telling them what happened the day before. With Potter. He considers telling them everything. But the humiliation would be too great. He could endure it alone. Merlin knows the secrets he’s kept to himself over the years, eating him up until he couldn’t sleep at night. What were a few more?

The thought of sleep makes him think of the conversation he heard earlier in the library. Draco chances a look over his shoulder toward the Gryffindor table, and finds green eyes staring at him across the expanse of students. The Weaslette is next to him, talking to him. Well, talking at him, it seems. Draco raises an eyebrow at Potter, and he startles, turning back to focus on his girlfriend. 

Right.

Draco finishes his last bite and gets up to leave. Potions would be starting soon, and he is not looking forward to it.

***

The thing about Harry Potter is that he’s not as discreet as he likes to think he is. 

Potter had been on Draco’s tail since before Sixth Year even started. If the broken nose was anything to go by, his stalking skills had needed dire work. As Potter stares at him from the corner of his periphery, Draco thinks he could teach him something about the art of subtlety.

The thing about Draco Malfoy is that he’s not as discreet as he likes to think he is either.

Draco angrily stirs a few spoonfuls of powdered moonstone into his cauldron, drops of potion water splashing out onto the table. He resolutely does not look at Potter as he fumbles with his own potion. If the idiot had any sense of discipline, he would be able to focus long enough to complete his work properly. Draco’s face is warm. He takes the potion off the heat and lets it cool down.

He leans back and crosses his arms across his chest, letting out a huff. At the sound, Potter glances at him, then returns to his work. Draco doesn’t know where his sudden annoyance stems from, but he can feel irrational heat traveling up his chest and an ache in his ribcage again. 

Potter’s eyes dart over to him again. Draco doesn’t bother looking away this time. His gaze lands on the cut on Potter’s lower lip. It’s scabbed over and slightly swollen, and the surrounding skin is red. Draco wants nothing more than to split it open all over again. He wants to see red. Blood and teeth and lips parted. He’s struck with the burst of madness that had overcome them the day before, the urge to push and pull until someone snaps edges into his fingertips. 

Draco clenches his robes tightly. He can’t pick a fight. Not here, not now. He has too much on the line to risk it on the likes of Harry Potter. Besides, what is there to fight about? 

“Malfoy?” Potter says.

Draco snaps out of his train of thought. Potter looks… concerned. Draco realizes his face has contorted into an ugly expression. The memory of his first day back resurfaces; Potter facing him as he tears up from frustration, from embarrassment, shame. The anger that arose after being seen. He packs it down.

“Piss off, Potter” he bites out.

“I–” Potter snaps his mouth shut. His expression twists into one of annoyance, then he returns to his potion. “Whatever.” 

Draco smirks.

“Just as I thought,” he says smugly.

Potter’s fist slams down against the table, immediately turning a few heads. Draco sees the tension in the line of his shoulders. He smiles to himself with a sick pride over the effect he still has on the Savior of the Wizarding World.

Draco smooths down his robes and stands, taking his cauldron over to the back shelves. He returns to their table, then places a firm hand on Potter’s shoulder. Potter instinctively goes for his wand. Draco’s reflexes have his hand wrapped around Potter’s wrist in an instant, holding with a threateningly tight grip. 

Potter tenses underneath him as he leans over and whispers, “Keep your hands to yourself, or you might end up failing Potions.”

He lets go of Potter, relishing in the angry red flush that covers his face. It brings out the cut on his lip. He leaves class before Potter has the opportunity to change his mind and send a flurry of hexes at his back.

***

In an empty corridor, Draco is on his way to Transfiguration when his feet become glued to the ground. There’s barely a second to think before a stinging hex hits him square in the back. The momentum almost topples him over, and he lets out a string of curses.

“When will you realize you shouldn’t be here,” a voice says behind him. 

Several footsteps accompany the voice, and Draco knows he can’t do anything but stand his ground. Physically and emotionally. He squares his shoulders as four younger Gryffindors walk around to face him. Self-righteous pieces of filth. Poison fills his mouth, waiting to be let out. Before an insult can escape his lips, he’s hit with a jelly legs jinx. He collapses to the ground in a disgraceful heap. Draco groans, and he hates himself for allowing noise to come out.

The leader of these brazen Gryffindors steps over him, rolling Draco onto his back with his foot. Draco shoves his foot away with as much force as he can.

“There’s no room for Death Eaters at Hogwarts,” the boy says, and then–without a second thought–spits on Draco.

“You– You utter waste of space,” Draco snarls, fury roiling through his limbs with every movement. He reaches for his wand. Damn McGonagall, damn Granger, damn interhouse unity, it was never going to work. He was never going to fit in at Hogwart again. Damn it all. He raises his wand.

“Oy!” 

The Gryffindors turn around. Draco curses to himself again.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Potter demands. Draco watches him at the end of the corridor, hair wild and eyes wilder. Somehow, his frustration grows at the sight of him. Potter has no right to involve himself in this. 

“Hiya, Harry,” one of the boys say. “We were just–”

“You were just getting to class,” Potter says. It’s not a suggestion, and the younger Gryffindors get the message. They scurry away, looking back a few times before turning a corner. 

After they’re gone, Potter looks down at Draco. Humiliation burns throughout his whole body. He watches as Potter wordlessly undoes the jinx and feeling returns to his legs. 

Then, Potter nods at him. 

Draco lets his legs carry him up and down the corridor, pursuing the wild head of hair. The familiar buzzing returns to his fingertips as he silently follows Potter down hallway after hallway. He’s faintly aware that he’ll be missing class, but he can’t bring himself to care. He needs this. 

Potter leads them out onto the open grass lawn. The wind picks up as they reach the edge of the Forbidden Forest. The trees blow violently against one another, sending whorls of leaves and branches through the air. Draco feels like a ticking time bomb. There’s an open flame in his hand and he’ll burn down the whole forest if he’s not careful. He forces himself to be patient.

Finally, they reach the clearing again. He watches as Potter throws off his robes and rolls up his sleeves. He does the same, catching the moment Potter sees the Dark Mark. Electricity is in the air. Draco feels the storm coming as the hairs on his neck stand on end. He clenches and unclenches his fists. 

He’d be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t itching to put his hands on… on something. 

Potter’s foot shifts in the dirt and Draco bolts. He goes for Potter’s middle, tackling and pushing him into the tree behind him. His head knocks back into the wood.

“Agh!” Potter gasps. 

He slams his elbow down into Draco’s shoulder and shoves him off. But Draco doesn’t relent. He returns with twice the vigor, wrapping an arm around Potter’s back and punching him in the stomach, once, twice before his head whips to the side from a blow. His teeth cut against his cheek and his mouth fills with blood.

“Bloody fuck,” Draco slurs, holding his cheek. 

He doesn’t get a moment to breathe before Potter slams him to the ground. He winces as he lands on the sizable welt on his back. They struggle to land a hit against the other, the madness running them ragged. Draco’s vision goes blurry, and he’s not sure if it’s because of Potter hitting him, or the anger clouding his sight. He decides he shouldn’t be the only one seeing double, so he aims a fist at Potter’s glasses, knocking them clean off his face.

For several long minutes, Draco’s body takes over. For several long minutes, he doesn’t think about the idiot students who hex him in between classes. He doesn’t think about the kitchens, or missing meals with his friends. He doesn’t think about his mother. He doesn’t think about his father, rotting away in Azkaban and refusing to speak to them. He doesn’t think about the Dark Lord. He doesn’t think about any of it. 

He thinks only of his body. The ugly, living mechanism of blood and muscle and bone he has to live with, and the pain it is feeling. He feels every single one of Potter’s touches, every kiss of pain against his skin. 

There’s something comforting about it. Something he can’t quite name.

He doesn’t think about it.

Chapter Text

Bloody Malfoy. 

Bloody, stupid, tosser Malfoy.  

Can’t keep himself out of trouble. Can’t keep his hands to himself. Can’t last one day without controlling himself. Gets in everyone’s bloody way. 

Harry’s stomach turns. Blood pulses dully under his bruises, the aching faint as his arms and legs take over. His ribs feel… wrong. But he doesn’t have the patience to care. The feeling in his face and limbs goes numb.

Instead, he lets himself feel the other agonies. With every strike to Malfoy’s body, with every blow he receives in turn, he feels the death of friends and loved ones. Sirius, Remus, and Fred. Dumbledore. Dobby and Hedwig. His parents. Bitter anger wedges into every crevice of his memories of those he lost to the war. 

Malfoy catches him off guard with a punch to the face, and the now familiar taste of copper spills into his mouth. With every hit, Malfoy sinks into his thoughts. Pale grey eyes staring down at him on the train before kicking him in the face. Malfoy, spewing vitriolic abuse. Malfoy, on the Astronomy Tower, a wand shaking violently in his hand. A flash of bright blond hair in a dark room, opening the Vanishing Cabinet. Letting an army into Hogwarts. The memories of betrayal spur Harry on. 

All the inner work Harry had done over the summer to forgive Malfoy, to no longer see him as a Death Eater… only to be forgotten at the sight of him. The sight of the Dark Mark.

Harry can’t stand the sight of him.

He’s holding Malfoy’s tie in his hand as he raises a fist, punching down across his dirt mottled cheek. He likes the bruises he’s made along his cheekbone. He likes the brutality of it, the purple splotch against a white canvas. He raises his fist again. Gleaming grey eyes look into his and for a moment, Harry hesitates. He thinks about Malfoy, panic and determination set in his body, throwing him his own wand in the final hour. In that brief moment, Malfoy clips his jaw again, knuckles digging into his cheek. And with it, Harry feels every death, every loss, and everything that comes after disaster. 

“ Gah–” he groans as the side of his face hits the hard ground beneath him. He spits blood out onto the ground.

Thunder cracks in the clouds, a loud rumbling overhead.

The energy begins to sap out of Harry’s body. Like a river running dry. He forces himself up onto his knees, and sees Malfoy trying to do the same. As he feels the first few drops of rain come down, he watches blood slowly drip out of Malfoy’s mouth onto the earth below him. 

The dirt of the Forbidden Forest consumes whatever it is given. It drinks the rain up gladly, as it is used to receiving such weather. It eats up the leaves as they brown and turn to mulch, feeding the millions of roots and insects that live in it. It bathes in dappled light, both sun and moon. And today, as blood is shed over the soil, it feeds on something darker, burrowing deeper and deeper into the earth until it can no longer see light. Harry senses the pull of the earth–if only for a second–and struggles to his feet. 

Harry stumbles over to Malfoy, who looks up at him with gritted teeth. 

“Still going, eh Potter?” Malfoy pants, voice like sandpaper. 

Raindrops cling to Malfoy’s hair. Harry studies the water dripping, and the bruising along his jaw, nose, and cheekbone. His eyes are sunken into his face. Harry’s stomach sinks.

“No.”

Harry turns to the spot they entered the clearing from, limping from jolts of pain in his hip, and retrieves his wand from his robes. His fingers stretch reflexively. He limps back, and–to his own surprise–raises his wand before Malfoy can get to his feet. He blinks at the wand in his face. Harry wonders what exactly is going through Malfoy’s mind, but the boy’s poker face leaves everything to the imagination. 

He casts an advanced spell he learned from Hermione a few years back, when they were on the run and having far too many close calls to not have a few healing charms under their belt. 

“ Ensalvo glacidium,"  he recites, lightly tapping his wand on the darkest bruises of Malfoy’s face. 

Malfoy flinches as the bruising over his features recedes. Harry recalls the numb, tingly feeling that spreads over the wounded area as the spell is cast. With a small gasp, Malfoy brings a hand up to his cheekbone, fingertips fluttering over the yellowing bruise. He shoots a confused look at Harry.

“What are you doing?” he demands. 

Harry thinks briefly that he looks like an angry wet cat. 

“Well I thought I was casting a bat-bogey hex, but I reckon I healed you instead,” Harry replies with a roll of his eyes. 

Malfoy stands and gets in Harry’s face, eyes turning to narrow grey slits. He’s attempting to intimidate him. Hah. As if it had ever worked before.

“What exactly are you playing at, Potter?” He starts sharply, pointing a finger at Harry. “You were just using me as your personal punching bag, and now you’re… No. No, what is your game here?”

“Oh, please. You gave as good as you got.”

Malfoy bristles and turns around. The spraying mist gets heavier. Harry clenches his fists, feeling the shallow wounds along his knuckles. Why did this have to be so difficult?

“Malfoy, we can’t do this,” Harry says. Malfoy looks at him over his shoulder. “Not everyday, at least.”

“Heh,” Malfoy smirks. “Knew you couldn’t keep up.”

A tiny spark reignites in Harry’s stomach. He resists the urge to give the tosser a black eye, and begins to count to ten. One… two… three… four… fi–

“I feel bad for the girl Weasel,” Malfoy taunts. And really, Harry should’ve seen it coming. “She should’ve gone for someone with more stamina.”

Harry’s fist quickly becomes reacquainted with Malfoy’s nose. 

“ AGH,” he shouts, hands snapping over his face. Harry huffs out a breath and almost smiles at the sight of dark red streaking down Malfoy’s nose and mouth. 

“Are you done?” Harry asks.

Malfoy laughs sadistically, wiping his sleeve over his mouth.

“Struck a nerve, have I?” 

Harry ignores the taunting now that he got one last punch out of his system. He shakes his sore hand and raises his wand. Before he can cast the healing charm again, Malfoy swats the wand away with a cold expression.

“Answer my question before you point your wand at me again, Potter.”

“We can’t just go around banged up every day. Nor can we go to Pomfrey’s. People will notice,” Harry explains, lowering his wand. “I’m not risking my last year at Hogwarts for your sorry arse. Now let me fix your face.”

Malfoy’s frown doesn’t change. Harry’s had about enough. 

“Fine. Walk around with a bloody fucked up nose. See if I care. Accio glasses.”

His wretchedly bent glasses zip into his hand. He begins to storm off, ready to limp his miserable, soggy arse back to Gryffindor Tower. 

“What do you mean, every day? ” Malfoy asks.

Harry freezes. It is a good question. And not one he wants to think too much about. However, Malfoy is the one asking the question, so it cannot go unanswered for long.

“Do you expect–”

“No,” Harry snaps. He thinks about Ron and Hermione, sharing concerned looks over dinner but not saying a word. And Ginny: angry, confused, and hurt. He faces Malfoy. “No. This ends today.”

Malfoy glowers at him. Harry’s gaze travels down to the boy’s left hand, which trembles like a leaf. He looks at Malfoy, waiting for him to… well, he’s not sure what he’s waiting for. Malfoy doesn’t say a word. 

Sod it.

Harry turns, grabs his robes, and limps out of the clearing. He waits until he’s out of Malfoy’s range of sight before casting healing spells on himself, and a quick reparo for his glasses. Though he’s able to slightly numb the bruised areas on his face and ribs, he can’t get rid of the sharp pains sprouting from the place where his left leg meets his pelvis. He reckons he’ll wait it out until it gets better. 

With each aching step, his frustration with Malfoy simmers. He wants to be cross with him, really, he does. He wants to direct his pain at the one who gave it to him. He wouldn’t have missed his talk with Ginny if it weren’t for Malfoy. But Harry knows he’s just as much at fault for these… meetings as Malfoy is. 

Why do I let him get under my skin? Harry contemplates. 

He’s still mulling over Malfoy and his return to Hogwarts as he reaches the edge of the forest. The rain finally breaks and comes spilling out of the clouds. He gets too caught up in his thoughts to cast a water repellant charm. Instead, Harry holds his robe over his head and dashes across the open lawn as fast as he can manage. By the time he’s reached the front steps, he’s completely doused in water, his slacks and trainers mud soaked. He hastily vanishes the mud and water away, though it doesn’t do a very thorough job. He’s shaking water out of his hair when the soft voice of Luna Lovegood pipes up behind him.

“Were you fishing for plimpies, Harry?”

He turns to the short girl wearing a length of beaded bracelets on both wrists. Her blonde hair and silvery grey eyes are familiar, and Harry remembers startlingly that she and Malfoy are cousins. She looks him over inquisitively.

“They tend not to come out of the lake when it’s raining. You’ll have better luck in the Spring I imagine,” she says.

“Er, thanks, Luna,” Harry says rather awkwardly. He scratches the back of his head. “Can you– Would you mind not telling anyone I was… in the lake?”

“Don’t worry, Harry. People will think you’re a bit mad, regardless of your hobbies.”

“That’s… that’s reassuring, I guess.” 

Luna removes her wand from atop her ear and casts a drying spell, turning the mud on Harry’s slacks into dried dirt, making it easier to vanish off the cloth. He gives her a grateful smile.

“It’s nice being out in the rain,” Luna says, peering out at the storm clouds. “Makes you feel… connected, doesn’t it?”

In her strange little ways, Luna induces a calmness in Harry, like he doesn’t need to try too hard around her. He’s always felt that way with her. He recalls Luna creating a diversion after he defeated Voldemort, allowing him a moment to himself to process what had just happened without hoards of people swathing around him. He stares out at the rain, and regrets not making an effort to spend more time with her. Then he thinks about all his other friends, whom he’s barely seen since he returned. He catches himself scanning the edge of the forest for a blond head of hair. Guilt creeps into his chest. He looks away.

“Yeah, it does.”

“Harry?”

Harry returns her gaze. She smiles fondly.

“Be nice to yourself, if you can help it,” she says. 

“Heh, easier said than done,” he replies half-heartedly. “I should go wash up, but I’ll see you around?”

“Maybe I’ll see you around,” Luna says with a mischievous raise of her brow.

Harry remembers the Gryffindor party the other night, when Luna somehow saw him under the invisibility cloak. His mind helpfully connects the memory of Bill’s wedding, when Luna recognized him even as he was disguised with a Polyjuice potion. He laughs.

“Yeah, you probably will,” he grins.

“Bye, Harry,” she waves, making her way down the hall. “Beware of bundimuns stuck to your trousers.”

How someone with Malfoy blood could be so utterly good, Harry will never understand.

Harry watches her go for a moment, then chances another look out at the forest before leaving in the opposite direction. He manages to reach the tower with only a few odd stares. He thinks he should be used to it by now. But the eyes that followed him when he returned to Hogwarts are less an annoying circumstance, and more a dreadful reminder. Of what, he can’t put into concise words.

He spends a short time scrubbing the remaining grime off his skin. A small twig washes out of his tangled hair and falls onto the tile between his feet, surrounded by the swirl of brown-grey water. The cold spray of the shower reminds him of the rain, numbing his injuries. He almost longs to be back in it, back in the forest, roughing it in the dirt. He towels off quickly before he can allow himself to be pulled back into the madness, and the intensity of it. 

Harry collapses onto his bed from exhaustion, and sleeps fitfully through dinner yet again. He nods off to the sound of rain pelting the windows and dreams of floods, bloodshed, and Malfoy. 

***

Tonight is the new moon, and as the undeveloped bottles of Veritaserum in Slughorn’s classroom lay ready to transform over the course of the lunar cycle, a budding magical phenomena is happening simultaneously in the Forbidden Forest. Iron-rich and malice-filled blood, foreign to the soil, branches out through the roots and rocks and sediment. The rain soaks through, and the blood mixes and spreads wider than it would have alone. And beneath it all, an alchemical reaction so miniscule, only the smallest of dirt mites and bundimuns sense the shift in magical energies.

Tonight is the new moon. This is how it well and truly starts.

***

All Harry wants is to sleep in and be left alone for the remainder of the weekend. However–as his drowsy brain reminds him–he rarely gets what he wants. 

He’s rattled awake by Ron: a manic, orange blob in Harry’s sleep-encrusted eyes. 

“Oy, where have you been?” Ron demands. Harry sits up, half-dazed and unsteady from the nightmares he just had.

“Wha–”

“Hermione and I have been worried sick,” he says, brows furrowed and the corners of his mouth turned downward. Harry squints at him. That’s… that’s cross, right?

“Ron–”

“And here I was, thinking you might be out with Ginny. But no–”

“Ron, Ron. Slow down, my brain can’t catch up,” Harry pleads with a single hand up in surrender. He rubs his face and casts a Tempus charm as Ron keeps talking.

“No, you’re out Merlin knows where–” Oh Christ it’s not even ten at night. “–and Ginny won’t tell me why, but she’s upset over something – ” Couldn’t this wait till morning? “–and my best mate won’t hang out with me long enough to tell me what’s happened.”

Before he can think better of it, Harry snaps.

“It’s really none of your business.”

All of the air is suddenly sucked out of the room. Ron’s eye contact is severe, daring Harry to look away. Harry has the slight feeling that he overstepped.

“ Of course it’s my business. I need to know you’re not being a prick to my sister,” Ron says. A guilty panic rises in Harry’s throat.

“Jesus, Ron. I– I missed a talk that we had planned,” he stutters out defensively. “We arranged to go flying and… figure out where we stood. It slipped my mind and she got upset.”

A lie. Harry hates how easy it comes to him. 

Ron studies him carefully, with arms crossed over his chest. Harry feels acutely vulnerable having this conversation while he’s still in bed. 

“So… you’re not back together?”

“I– No, I mean. I’m not sure,” Harry says.

“How can you not be sure?”

“Because she–!” Harry groans. He tangles a hand through his hair and tugs in frustration. “We spoke. After, I mean. Yesterday morning, we talked and…”

He winces at the memory. Ginny had sat down next to him and the rush of remembering something important you had forgotten had hit him like a hex. A stream of apologies had come out and Ginny was quick to tell him to knock it off. 

“I don’t understand. It looked like you two had made up,” Ron says, sitting on the end of Harry’s bed. Harry shakes his head.

“Ginny was upset,” Harry admits. “But… she said she wasn’t surprised either? Said I’d done similar things before.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.”

“Is that all?”

Harry remembers her saying things along the lines of wanting security. He could understand that. But as his gaze travelled across the room, his mind wandering with it, he wondered if he could be that for her. He had caught Malfoy’s eye at that moment, and thought about the animosity that overtakes him whenever the Slytherin is around. He couldn’t be like that around her. 

Ginny had had to snap him out of his thoughts and remind him that they were having a conversation. Not one of his proudest moments.

“No, she said she would wait until I was ready. But she wouldn’t wait forever,” Harry says.  

Another long silence fills the room.

“So what do you want?” Ron finally asks.

“What?”

“Harry,” he says with a stern look. “Do you want to be with her?”

“Can we not talk about this?” Harry grimaces.

“Listen,” Ron starts with a sigh, “It’s uncomfortable for me too. She’s my little sister. But aside from Hermione, you two are the most important people in my life. As much as it pains me to say it, I want you to be happy.”

Harry rolls his eyes at the sarcasm.

“I dunno, Ron. Dating is the last thing I want to think about right now.” Another lie. There are several things Harry would categorize as worse to think about than dating. At this point, dating is barely on his radar. 

“Right. I’ll lay off it, then,” Ron says.

“Thanks,” Harry responds, glad to be free of the conversation. He lies back down and tugs the covers over his shoulders. “Would you mind if I go to sleep now?”

“Fine, but–” Ron cuts himself off. 

Harry squeezes his eyes shut under the cover of his blankets. He doesn’t want to have another uncomfortable talk with Ron–not about anything serious, that is. He’s tired, his body aches all over, and he just wants to sleep.

He can feel Ron thinking. It’s a rather noisy affair, Harry’s learned. After a minute, the weight at the end of his bed disappears and walks off to the other side of the dorm. Ron climbs into his bed, sheets rustling, and closes the curtains around the poster. 

Something unpleasant stirs in Harry’s stomach. It keeps him up for a while longer before he falls back asleep. This time, he dreams of flying, and crashing, and Ginny.

***

Harry wakes up far, far earlier than he had intended to. It’s still dark out when his body drags him from slumber, and the disorientation of waking up to darkness twice within the last eight hours is a wallop to his senses. He rolls out of bed and rubs his face miserably. 

The last night he had a decent night’s sleep was–weirdly–the day he and Malfoy first met in the Forbidden Forest. The static calm that accompanied fighting Malfoy was…satisfying. Alluring. Freeing. It was the first night in months he had slept and dreamt of nothing at all. Harry thought it was a miracle, frankly. So yesterday, when new students crowded him in the halls for questions, when Ginny confronted him, when Malfoy pushed all the wrong buttons, when things became all too much… Harry sought him out anyway. 

Punching each other’s bloody lights out had not, in fact, cured Harry of his sleeping troubles. He curses himself for thinking otherwise. 

Harry gets dressed, being careful not to put too much weight on his leg. He takes his books with him, leaving his robes behind. He doesn’t bother with his hair, since he figures it’s too early for anyone else to see the wild nest atop his head. He pauses with one foot out the door. He accio’s his invisibility cloak to him, in case he has to avoid Filch or any of the other professors. 

Harry spares one last look at Ron, fast asleep in his bed. The guilt he had not felt the night before makes itself clear now. Ron had clearly wanted to talk about Harry, and Harry doesn’t feel like owning up to being a shite friend at this particular moment in time. Ron would just have to deal with it until Harry got whatever… this is under control. The lack of sleep, the anger, the fighting. Malfoy. He has to get it out of his system, get through the year, and maybe afterwards everything will feel normal. Or close to normal. Besides, Ron has Hermione to keep him company, right? 

The boy walks down empty corridors, alone, hours before the light of day will reach its crest over the horizon.

The library is closed when he arrives. Harry sighs. Should’ve expected that, he thinks to himself. Harry wanders around the halls for a bit before leading himself back to the kitchens. The doors were always open anyway.

A few candles are lit in the kitchen when Harry steps foot inside. The dishes are all cleaned and piled away, and the room smells vaguely citrusy. He’s somewhat surprised to see that he’s alone. But elves need sleep just as much as humans do, he reminds himself. 

Harry settles in at one of the tables, spreading out his books and quill. He had needed to get started on his Transfiguration paper, as it’s due on Monday. His quill hits the page, ready to be used. He stares at the parchment, leg bouncing under the table.

A minute goes by.

He scribbles a sentence on the page. Scratches it out. Harry was never good at opening lines. He takes another minute to write another sentence, and it’s marginally better than his first attempt. He sighs in accomplishment.

“That’s a start,” he says to himself. 

He pushes the parchment away and pulls his wand out of his pocket. He levitates a plate over to the table, setting it gently down before him. With a flick of his wand, he transfigures the plate into a ceramic stag. A smile spreads across Harry’s features as he charms the stag to gallop around the table. Its hooves click against the wood cheerily. 

Harry wonders why he decided to go back to Hogwarts, only to sit and write twelve inches on magical theory, when he had been in a war only months ago. He had more than proven his abilities, to himself and to the rest of the Wizarding World. Even before the war, he had been an exemplary student. Nowhere close to Hermione, of course, but his grades spoke for themselves. What else was there for him to learn?

He waves his wand again, and the stag turns into a phoenix. It flaps its ceramic wings, feathers clinking against one another. As Harry watches the bird flutter in front of him, he thinks of the previous Headmaster of Hogwarts. Before the thought can grow, he transfigures the phoenix into a snitch. Harry’s eyes follow as it zig zags through the kitchen, a little white bell zipping through the air. It flies towards the entrance and stops right in front of Malfoy’s alarmed, and slightly bruised face.

Harry’s smile falters. The snitch drops suddenly and shatters with a loud crash. Malfoy doesn’t spare the broken ceramic a glance. He’s carrying books and parchment with him, and his hair is slicked back, still wet. They study one another, too frozen in place to do anything else. 

“What are you doing here?” Malfoy asks finally.

“Studying,” Harry snarls. 

“Clearly.”

They both look down at the shattered snitch. Harry’s annoyance grows. He snaps at Malfoy again.

“What are you doing here?” 

Probably the same thing you’re doing here, Harry thinks, pointing a figurative finger at himself. He catches Malfoy’s nostrils flaring.

“I was just leaving,” he says, then strolls out the way he came.

Harry stares at the empty space in the doorway, tapping his wand against the table. The feeling of relief is clouded by his curiosity. Why would Malfoy come all the way to the kitchens to study? Did he not have anywhere better to take his pointy arse?

A thought pops into his head. And this is the kind of thought Harry’s sort of helpless to stop. He quickly shrinks his books and stuffs them into his pocket, retrieving the cloak in place of them. Harry casts Muffliato on himself and throws the cloak over his head. Before he can think twice about it, he skirts out the kitchen and finds Malfoy storming down the halls. He follows several meters behind, far enough away for safety and close enough to hear Malfoy muttering angrily to himself.

“...ruins everything…” Malfoy mumbles, and Harry catches a few syllables, “...bloody Chosen One…be alone…”

Malfoy’s shoulders are hunched up to his ears. Harry, yet again, notices the hand that isn’t carrying his books is shaking. He wonders if Malfoy even knows he’s doing it. He inches closer.

He follows Malfoy out to a courtyard, the chill instantly piercing through the fabric of the cloak. Harry sucks in a breath, regretting that he didn’t bring his robes. 

“No lamps… fossil of an institution,” Malfoy groans inwardly. He then casts a few Lumos into the air and the square fills with floating balls of light, illuminating the surrounding statues of great wizards of old. Harry marvels at the towering statues and the little white flowers that are scattered amongst the grass below them. 

When he looks up, Malfoy has sat down on a stone bench at the opposite end of the courtyard and has begun to spread out his books. Harry sits on the bench nearest to him, pulling his legs up and wrapping his arms around them. He watches Malfoy awkwardly rearrange himself on the bench, bending one leg and letting the other stay planted on the floor as he leans over his work, scrawling on parchment. 

See? Harry thinks to himself. He’s just studying.

The voice in the back of Harry’s mind usually speaks common sense. However, Harry has a stubborn gut that–for the most part–is almost never wrong. There’s something up with Malfoy and Harry needs to know what. Something dangerous, probably, because why else would he return to Hogwarts? Doesn’t he know the entire school hates him? Harry saw firsthand what the other students thought of him, what they would do to him without interference. 

And then there was the fighting. Harry still doesn’t know what to make of it. But as he stares at Malfoy and the sharpened angles on his profile from the lighting, he thinks back to what Malfoy said to him on that first day.

“I needed this. And so did you.”

Harry hadn’t known how to respond. His mouth had fallen open and stayed that way until Malfoy left his sight. 

The worst part of it all? It wasn’t the fighting, or the bruises or bloodied noses. It wasn’t the pain that followed after either. No, the worst part was that Malfoy had been right. Harry had needed it. He was itching for it. And Malfoy knew it. He recognized it, better than anyone else could because he was the same way. He and Malfoy were the same and oh…

His stomach sinks. That is not a thought Harry wants to entertain. 

He stomps the idea out as quickly as it came. He and Malfoy are absolutely not the same, and no amount of unspoken conversations and matching bruises would change that. 

Harry snaps out of his thoughts when Malfoy brings up his hand holding a quill, scratching the nape of his neck. Unbeknownst to him, the quill leaves a black ink stain against the side of his neck. His eyes dart from the parchment to the textbook before he reaches down to keep writing. A short surge of envy bubbles up in Harry’s stomach as he watches Malfoy complete his work without distraction. It’s the same envy he felt when he first met Hermione. He’d gotten over that, but he and Hermione were friends. This is different. He lets the envy bubble. Former Death Eaters shouldn’t be allowed to be good at things, Harry thinks rather irrationally.

He watches Malfoy study for approximately eight minutes before he asks himself what he’s still doing there. Harry gets up to make the long walk back to Gryffindor Tower when he hears wings flapping in the wind. He watches as an owl swoops down and flutters its wings until it lands on the edge of Malfoy’s bench, blowing a few pages from his textbook around. A letter is attached to its leg, a grey wax seal over the front. Malfoy detaches the letter carefully and sends the owl on its way.

Harry’s curiosity piques. He walks slowly across the courtyard, trying his best to be quiet since he doesn’t know if the Muffliato has expired and doesn’t want to risk casting another one. Malfoy opens the letter and scans it quickly. He sets it down in his lap, a pained expression on his face. Harry creeps closer, hoping to catch a glimpse of the letter. Malfoy reads it again, fingers crumpling the edges of the paper. 

There’s a short window of time in between Malfoy setting the letter on fire and Malfoy swinging his wand at Harry’s face. In that window, Harry just manages to side step the fiery blast that blows a statue into large chunks of stone. The fear that runs down his spine at such a close call riles Harry up. He’s about to yell at Malfoy for trying to explode his head when he notices Malfoy staring at the remains of the statue, looking right through Harry, chest heaving. He runs a hand through his hair. His grey eyes water.

Oh.

Guilt creeps in. Harry… shouldn’t be here. He knows that, instinctively. He takes a step back, regretting following Malfoy at all. 

Then, Malfoy raises his wand again. Harry watches–with equal parts disbelief and curiosity–as Malfoy levitates the pieces of stone, fusing them back together as seamlessly as magically possible. Harry sees the look of concentration on Malfoy’s face. And beneath it, beneath the facade of ego and ambition and pride… there was regret. 

Finally all the pieces are merged, and Harry doesn’t see any discrepancies in the fixed statue. Then again, he hadn’t really studied the statue before it got blown to bits. But it looks alright, from what he could guess. When he turns to look at Malfoy, he’s already gone. Harry spins on his heel, searching the courtyard, but Malfoy and his books are nowhere to be found. 

After a moment by himself, Harry slides the cloak off his head, wrapping it tightly around his body to keep the cold out. He treads up to the statue, studying the granite up close. He runs his fingertips over the rough stone, and he can feel the current of turbulent energy running through it. It was Malfoy’s magic, blowing the statue to pieces and molding it back together. It was alive and swimming furiously throughout the statue. 

Harry rests his palm against the stone for a long moment. When he finally pulls away, a tiny bit of that swirling magic clings to his fingertips, unwilling to let go.

Chapter Text

My dearest son,

In absence of your response, I have concluded that your writing ability has been rendered inoperative, and have yet to find a suitable scribe to help you write back to your mother. I should hope that you find one soon, so that you may properly communicate as the adult I know you are.

I understand your frustrations, even if you cannot find the words to tell me them. I find myself desolate in the manor. The few times I have ventured into the village alone since your absence, I am no longer met with the cold considerations of respect. Not even letters from my husband or son do I have to keep me company. 

Yet, my resolve has always been strong, as has yours. The Blacks are a notoriously resilient people, for better or worse. 

Please understand, Draco. Your father is a man bound by honor and duty to a higher authority. He may, in the present time, see your return to Hogwarts as a sign of weakness, a succumbing to the forces he had worked tirelessly against. He may see betrayal where there is in fact growth. I reassure you, my dear son, he loves you still. Anger is temporary. Love will never fade.

Write me soon, and greetings to the new scribe.

With love, your Mother.

Love.

Love. What a laughable thing. Draco had almost burst into hysterics at the letter if fury hadn’t overpowered the impulse. 

Exploding the statue of Paracelsus had been satisfying. The combustion of stone and dust in a fiery display of Draco’s magical abilities felt impressive and vainglorious, but the emptiness that followed soon after clung to his insides. He’d stared at the chunk of rock that made up half of Paracelsus’ head and couldn’t stomach what he’d done. No, broken things shouldn’t be left broken.

The tempest whirling inside Draco reduced to a calm mist with each piece he’d melted back together. He had sighed at the completed statue, and left before he could think much of what he had done.

***

The weekend passes before Draco has a moment to breathe. He buries himself in classwork, preparing ahead for the upcoming week so as not to fall behind. Catching up on next week’s curriculum is also a good excuse to avoid members of his House. Pansy and Zabini try to rope him into some study group he knows is a shitty excuse for a gossip circle. He has enough personal drama to deal with as it is, and not a single nosy Slytherin would pry that out of him. Goyle hangs around like a lingering spirit. Draco avoids him, guilt chipping away at his conscience with each look he evades. He senses the walls between him and those he considers friends, but he doesn’t know who put them up in the first place. He doesn’t allow it to get to him. If he wants to get through the year, he can’t allow it. He got through two years of hell on his own, and he could do it again if he needs to.

Draco hops from corners of the library to the kitchens to desolate courtyards to holing up in his dorm to read. When he studies in the kitchens, Peechy is more than happy to provide Draco with snacks. She zips around the table with sampler plates of that day’s meal. He thanks her for the support with an air of embarrassment, not having intended to be waited on when he first came in to study. By the time Sunday rolls into the early hours of Monday, Draco has completed fourteen inches of his Arithmancy paper, eight inches for Transfiguration, has prepared the ingredients for next week’s swelling potion, and swept through all upcoming readings for the next three days. 

Draco is bone tired. 

He hasn’t looked in a mirror long enough to see what he looks like, but he knows. He knows it when Pansy talks to him, even when she avoids mentioning his appearance. He knows it when Potter stares at him across the dining hall with rife ambivalence. And he knows it when Headmistress McGonagall traipses into the kitchens on Monday morning while Draco’s carrying a large bowl of boiled eggs. 

What is it now? he thinks, setting the bowl down at the end table.

McGonagall nods hello to the Head Elf before striding up to Draco. 

“Good morning, Headmistress,” he says, maintaining eye contact. He wipes the sweat off his forehead and tugs his sleeve down instinctively. She catches the movement, but he can’t tell if she’s put off by the sight the way most people are.

“Good morning, Mr. Malfoy,” she says. “I’d like to speak with you following your afternoon classes, if that would be amenable to you.”

Adrenaline courses through his body. He thinks back to their last conversation, how she had warned him against taking actions that would jeopardize his future:

“Need I remind you how close you were to facing time in Azkaban?” she said.

“No, Professor,” he said through gritted teeth. “I think about it well enough as is. I don’t need you OR Potter reminding me, or- or holding it over my head.”

“No one is holding it over you, Draco. You’re a very talented wizard, but you’ve been on the wrong path before.” He faced her, and her gaze was unwavering. “You don’t need reminding about that either, do you?”

Draco steels his nerves.

“Yes,” he says. “I’ll be there.”

McGonagall nods. Lifting her wand, she levitates an egg from the bowl and into her hand. With a nod goodbye, she floats through the kitchens, just barely missing the flying wad of baked beans as she exits the room. It splats against the sauce-stained wall in a way that makes Draco’s insides turn.

***

Draco makes it to Potions on time. He’s still trying to vanish away a tomato juice stain on his shirt sleeve as he walks in and sits at his table. He can’t even be cross, really, it had been his own bloody fault for sticking his hand where it shouldn’t be. 

When Potter arrogantly strolls into the room—seventeen minutes late, mind you—Draco tugs his robe sleeve down over the stain. He doesn’t know why he bothers. As Merlin’s Gift to All Wizard-Kind plops down into the seat next to him with a groan, black hair a tangled mess and robes askew, Draco feels much less self-conscious about a tiny orange spot on his sleeve. He smirks.

“Do you make it a habit of walking through tornadoes, Potter?” He really can’t help himself.

Draco’s smirk drops when Potter shoots him a nasty look, but pointedly does not respond to the remark. The lines under his eyes usually give him a rough-hewn look, one that gives people the impression that the boy is more mature than he actually is. But today, as Draco notices, it ages him. His green eyes are muddy and hard. Draco has seen this look before.

Potter looks away, prepping his potion with a late start. No snarky comeback, no quip. Nothing. Draco tries again.

“You look terrible,” Draco says. He wishes he could come up with something more original, but it’s the truth. It’s almost concerning how tired Potter looks. Does Draco look like that too? 

Potter’s nostrils flare, but that is all he gives away. He continues preparing his cauldron. Draco rolls his eyes with a snort. What a prick. He doesn’t like being ignored, not when he tries so hard to be infuriating. Draco vaguely senses the buzzing growing in his fingertips as his annoyance builds with the unresponsive object of his disaffection.

“Trouble in paradise?” he suggests. 

Potter’s jaw clenches and color rises to his cheeks, blanketing the slight yellow of a long-gone bruise. There it is.

“I thought I made it clear,” Potter says with a low, hard voice, “that mentioning Ginny would result in you getting punched in the face.”

“I don’t recall mentioning anyone by that name,” Draco responds, stirring the contents of his cauldron with practiced efficiency. He had already gone over the potion-making process yesterday, thoroughly. But it doesn’t stop that buzzing feeling. A traitorous thought suggests there’s another reason why Potter may have been losing sleep, and ‘trouble in paradise’ would be entirely antithetical to that reason. Draco’s disgusted by the intrusive image that brings. He puts his wand down as the desire to break something overcomes him. He feels like a horde of wasps trapped in a wet, cardboard box. He clears his throat. “I could be talking about Granger. Or the Weasel, for that matter.

“Why?” Potter bites out. “Why do you insist on riling me up?”

The words slam into Draco’s mind before he has a chance to think for himself: It’s the only thing that feels normal these days.

Oh. 

He sits with the thought, uncaring of the eyes boring into the side of his face.

When it’s clear Draco doesn’t have a clever counter, Potter shakes his head and turns back to his cauldron. Draco’s limbs automatically go through the steps of completing the swelling-potion. He doesn’t think about the final solution being a shade off-color, and he resolutely does not think about normalcy and how his body associates that with comfort.

***

“Good afternoon, Mr. Malfoy,” McGonagall says as she looks up from the documents on her desk. Her pointed hat hangs on the back of her wooden chair. She appears much less commanding without it, but her presence is still difficult to ignore. “It’s good to see you without any new injuries.”

Draco avoids her eyes as he slumps down into the chair across from her. He thinks about Potter’s magic reaching out and touching the bridge of his nose and the curve of his cheekbone. How it had left a tingly sensation underneath his skin. 

Best not to tell her why it looks like he has no new bruises.

“How have your classes been?” she asks, straightening the papers against the table with a clack clack . Draco doesn’t pick up on the earnesty in her voice.

“I find myself unable to produce any complaints, Headmistress,” he replies.

Her expression hardens. She slides the stack of papers away and interlinks her fingers.

“I assure you, Mr. Malfoy, cheek will not get you far with me. I get enough of it from Mr. Potter as it is.”

Draco bites down on the inside of his cheek. Bloody Potter.

“I’ll try to tone it down.”

“That will be much appreciated,” she says with a grimace. “Now, I understand the amount of stress students in their final year undergo to complete their NEWTs. Considering the year we’ve had, I’ll do what I can to ease that stress while still moving forward as an institution.”

“Right,” Draco says. “What does that have to do with me?”

McGonagall palms a thick binder off to her left, filled with colored sticky tabs and dividers.

“Ms. Granger’s plans for elven integration into wizarding society are incredibly well thought out,” she says. 

And Draco knows exactly how extensive those plans are. He’d read from the binder himself only a few weeks ago, and was amazed–though not surprised–at the meticulousness and cunning of Potter’s little friend. Draco had thought she would have made a brilliant Slytherin, if not for her lineage. But then, he had batted the thought away. He was not his father, and he was no longer a Death Eater, and he would refuse to think like one. Even if it took a bit of practice.

“She’ll be living hell to many at the Ministry in a few years,” McGonagall continues, “and I wish her all the best in doing so. Your place in all this will greatly improve the lives of elves. But as the headmistress of this school, and as a teacher, I am still responsible for you and your success as a student.” She sighs quietly. “If the workload has become too much, I would like to offer to reduce your service with the elves to only mornings. Or nights, if you prefer.”

Draco cocks his head, brows furrowing in thought. He rolls her words over in his head.

“You’re suggesting I work in the kitchens less,” he says. 

“If it will allow you to stay caught up on your work, yes.”

“I’ve barely been doing it for a week,” Draco says defensively. It can’t be that obvious that he’s struggling this early on. McGonagall doesn’t say anything to that. Draco tries instead, “What if I fall behind either way?”

“I’ve seen your grades, Mr. Malfoy. I doubt you’d let them slip below Outstanding.”

She has a point. He couldn’t flunk out even if he wanted to. He’d have to make an active effort to fall behind. Working amongst the elves wouldn’t put him behind, he simply wouldn’t allow it. He could do both. And he would. Besides, he had grown used to the lull of working in the kitchens amidst the chaos of elven cooking practice. It had become the break in his day, where he could turn his brain off and follow directions. He was good at that. Following directions.

“No,” Draco says.

“No?”

“I appreciate the offer, Headmistress,” he says, then looks down at his hands. “But I’ll have to decline.”

McGonagall watches him carefully. 

“Are you sure?” she asks patiently.

“Quite,” Draco contends. He recalls his mother’s words, and the quiet acceptance from the elves he works with. “There is… an opportunity for growth, here.”

He looks up and sees McGonagall trying to mask a smile. He doesn’t know how to feel about the sudden look of pride on her face. 

“I’m glad to hear it,” she says. And Draco doesn’t think she’s lying. “You’re doing good work, Draco.”

Draco nods, straightening himself in his chair.

***

After all the effort Draco put into avoiding his housemates, he finds himself here: on a couch, squished in between Pansy and some younger girl whose name he never bothered to learn, as they gossip and moan about celebrity wizards.

Slytherin parties, if you could call them that, are a distinctly depressing affair by Gryffindor standards. They normally consist of several dozen underage students passing around an expensive bottle of something or other that was smuggled in by an of-age student boasting the differences between quality and cheap liquor. But a hangover is a hangover, as each Slytherin determined to prove themselves year after year are destined to find out. Pansy usually complains about the lack of good atmosphere, but Muggle music is almost always out of the question.

Tonight, however, barely twenty students litter themselves around the common room. Only thirty-two Slytherins returned to Hogwarts this year, with seven new First Year additions, and somehow, Draco still feels claustrophobic.

“No, listen! Stop!” Pansy cackles, well past tipsy. The girl on Draco’s right shakes her head, eyes wide. She has a mole on her upper lip. Draco’s eyes keep returning to it.  “He’s a wizard! He has to be.”

“Either–” Mole Girl starts, hands up in a pleading gesture, “Either he’s a wizard, or he’s bent.”

Pansy’s laugh echoes like cymbals off the dungeon walls, harsh and brilliant. Draco grips the bottle of… what even is this? He hadn’t read the label before he started drinking it. 

“No, you’re absolutely wrong. Absolutely and terribly incorrect,” Pansy responds, gasping with laughter between sentences. 

“He’s strange… but not in a bad way!” Mole Girl says. It sends Pansy into another fit. 

Draco really wishes he had Potter’s invisibility cloak when he left the kitchens. He’d stayed late to help mop up the mess of hollandaise sauce he’d made. (The spill had been truly spectacular in size.) He could’ve slipped past the party and gone to bed without being corralled into socializing after the dinner rush.

He lets their conversation phase through him, as if he’s the air in between them. The chatter around him is cacophonous, much like Pansy’s laugh. They clash against each other, voices overlapping and building to a crescendo that has Draco’s head spinning more than the alcohol. Though, the alcohol probably doesn’t help.

And what are they even talking about? Quidditch teams? Who snogged each other? What does any of it matter?

Bullshit. All of it. 

“What do you think, Draco?” Pansy asks, shoving his shoulder rougher than he cares for.

“Think about what?” he sneers.

“Seriously?” She squeezes his shoulder playfully and leans towards Mole Girl. “I don’t even know where his head’s at these days. He doesn’t even come to dinner anymore.”

Humiliation rears its ugly head. Pansy—either not involved enough to know, or smart enough to not expose his situation—referencing his absence reminds him of the distance between him and the rest of his class. No one else is slumming it in the kitchens, mashing potatoes and dodging gravy. The instinct to insult her lies on his tongue, but he holds back. It leaves an ugly expression on his face. 

“Do you think he’s gay?” Pansy elaborates, pushing Draco for a response.

“What does it matter?” Draco says over the lip of the bottle. 

“It’s not— Oh, Draco, don’t be a tosser,” she groans, throwing her head back. “It’s just gossip.”

“Why would I care about that?” he snaps.

The pointlessness of it all, the triviality, becomes suddenly tangible in the room around him. Gossip? Is this how they were to spend their time? There was a war on. He wants to scream it at the students around him. A war. Didn’t they understand that? The things he’d done…

He pries himself out from between the two girls and stands up. The room feels like it’s shaking. Or is it just him?

“Where are you going?” Pansy asks. “Come off it, Draco, I haven’t talked to you in ages.”

“I don’t owe you anything, Parkinson.”

It slips out before he can think better of it. There’s a sliver of hurt that reveals itself in Pansy’s face before she conceals it. Well, if she’s already angry, he may as well lean into it, right?

“I don’t owe anyone anything,” Draco says, and he thinks maybe he’s not just talking about his annoying friends. 

His mother’s words, scrawled out neatly despite being riddled with sorrow, itch in his mind. Love. She’d said Father still loves him, despite letting him down. That he needs time before he can forgive the weakness of his own son. Not in so many words, but Draco knows how to read between the lines. 

Everything his father had done to him, to their family… How had that been love? 

The only thought going through Draco’s mind as he smote the Paracelsus statue, was that if this is what love looks like, he doesn’t want it.

“Draco,” Pansy starts, “Are you—?”

His feet carry him out before he can respond, moving on autopilot. As the cold air of the dungeons hits his face, he realizes his eyes are watering. He needs to break something. 

I’ll put it back together after, he thinks distantly. 

The courtyard filled with statues and the newly reconstructed Paracelsus is within his sights. Before he can process the action—and before he notices one angrily pacing Harry Potter in his midst—Draco is hurling the cheap bottle of rum at the statue. It explodes into a million tiny shards, alcohol seeping into the pores of the stone. Potter stops in his tracks, only steps away from the assaulted statue. Draco freezes. It’s too late to turn back. They lock eyes, caught in each other’s headlights. 

Potter’s body is hidden under a hooded jacket and a thick woolen jumper underneath. He’s also got on faded denim and dirty trainers, and Draco thinks he looks absolutely pedestrian. Despite all the layers of Muggle-wear, and the dim lighting of the hanging lanterns, he can see the dark circles pronounced under his eyes. 

Ah, yes. Someone he won’t feel bad firing insults at. And if things get ugly—which they almost always do—he can blame it on the alcohol spurring him on. 

“What—”

“I’m going for a walk,” Potter says quickly.

And he turns and storms away. 

Draco stands dumbfounded at the edge of the courtyard, mad that he wasn’t able to get a word in before the bastard cut him off. It dawns on him a moment later that Potter’s statement is an invitation rather than a dismissal. 

“Heh,” Draco huffs under his breath. “What a hypocrite.”

He lets his anger swell and propel him out of the courtyard and after Potter. He doses himself on thoughts of his friends, of the war, of Father and his love. His love that brought a monster into their home. His love that turned Draco into a coward. He lets all of it bubble and churn inside him, and as they reach the edge of the Forbidden Forest, his fingers are alight with buzzing. 

Potter casts Lumos as they enter the pitch black forest, and it’s all Draco has to light his path. He shivers as a cold wind howls through the trees. He had regrettably left his robes in the warmth of the common room social. Although, he figures he probably won’t need it for what they’ve come to do. 

Draco peers at the back of Potter’s head, at the hair he can only describe as untamed whipping itself in the wind. And all at once he is back in a room where flames are licking at his feet and threatening to ignite his skin, and all he can hear are his own screams and all he can see is Potter’s wild hair as he flies them out of the burning room. He’d been terrified, and grateful, and ashamed for being saved. Could this be the same? Is Potter saving him again? 

The thought infuriates him to unimaginable depths. 

Potter storms into the familiar clearing in the forest. Draco overlooks the small white flowers that have popped up around the edge of the trees, and pointedly stares at the boy pacing in front of him, scratching his head with his wand. Draco clutches his own wand apprehensively. He has no intention of pulling it out of his trouser pocket but the pacing is really making him nervous.

“Dammit— dammit!” Potter hisses, throwing his wand at the ground. His hands reach up and tug his hair. Draco studies the action, wonders if Potter’s constant prodding is the reason his hair looks the way it does. “Why did you follow me?”

Draco feels pinpricks of anger along his skin. The alcohol has long since left his body, so the only thing left keeping him warm is his deep seated contempt for the Boy Who Lived. Despite the cold autumn night, his body is flush with heat. 

“You wanted this, Potter,” he almost shouts. 

There’s absolutely no way Potter is going to spin this around on Draco. He’d practically asked Draco to come. He knows how to read between the lines, after all. Potter wants this the same way Draco does, and after years of being on the wrong side of history, Draco is not going to be painted as the bad guy again. Not here. Not now.

Potter falters to respond. His eyes search Draco, and then dart away.

“I–”

“What?” Draco snaps. His patience is wearing thin.

“You shouldn’t have followed me out here.”

Oh, isn’t this just delightful. Draco can’t tell whether he’s more offended by the comment itself, or the fact that Potter can’t look him in the eye when he says it.

“Are you serious?” Potter says nothing. Draco scoffs, “You’re serious. No— No, you cannot blame this on me. You are just as much at fault for this.”

He urges Potter to look at him, to see the ache in Draco’s body, to witness the small part of him he is too scared to let anyone else see. The ugly, shameful pit that threatens to well up in his throat and spill out like cold blood.

But no one would save Draco Malfoy. Not anymore.

“You’re an idiot,” Draco says. He weaves past the other boy.

“Okay, alright!” Potter panics, and Draco feels something grip his arm, right over his mark. He flinches out of Potter’s grasp. He’s about to reel back and punch his arrogant face, but he sees the apologetic look written in Potter’s brows before he can finish the motion. Potter pulls his hand back.

“...You’re right,” he says after a moment. 

What?

“What?” 

“Don’t make me say it again,” Potter threatens.

“Oh, but I really want to,” Draco grins madly. “You don’t understand how much I want you to say it again.”

“Shut up, Malfoy,” Potter grits his teeth. He lets the tension out of his jaw, shoulders, and fists one by one. It’s a whole process, like clockwork. Draco watches with rapt fascination as the muscles in Potter’s face soften. “You had a point… the other day. We need this.”

“What are you saying, Potter?”

“We can— we can make this… arrangement work,” Potter says, gesturing between the two of them. “If only to get through the year. But we have to be careful.”

Draco doesn’t trust his ears. He can’t be hearing Potter correctly. He wants to continue this senseless violence? Not that Draco has any objections, per say. He’s been itching for a fight all weekend.

“And we don’t talk,” Potter says. “Not before. Not after.”

Draco smirks.

“What, afraid of a little heart-to-heart, Potter?”

“With you? Terrified.”

Draco can’t tell if it’s a joke. He clenches his fists.

“Right. No more talking then.”

Chapter Text

On this small plot of land, where roots hold blood, dirt, and magic together like sinew, two wizards meet and unfurl their perpetual anger like coats, letting them fall to the ground and sink further and further and further. Week after week, they shed new blood. Week after week, the Forest feeds, spreads its tendrils out a little farther. The Forest watches eagerly as the wizards abandon their wands, tear into each other with bare hands; unrelenting and vicious. It watches as they heal their wounds, and limp away from the only place that can satiate their desires. They are hungry, and so is the Forest.

***

Harry goes through the motions. 

Sleep comes and goes, though it mostly goes. He’s lucky to get a solid four hours in the night without dreaming about something terrible. He gets most of his work done on time, half-heartedly but finished nevertheless. He eats intermittently and the food still isn’t great, but he eats enough to get by. Ron and Hermione bicker, but not as much as they used to. Harry stays out of it, but sticks close enough that they don’t worry about him. Ron had tried to force an argument a few weeks back, and Harry had shut it down quickly, annoyed and riled up and doing his best not to take it out on his best friend. He’d stormed out of the common room. He’d said he wanted air, but he knew what he was hoping for. Who he was hoping for. And as if the universe had heard his silent pleading, Malfoy had staggered into the courtyard like an animal looking for something small and weak to sink its teeth into.

Harry had needed an outlet. And he was sure Malfoy wouldn’t refuse him. 

There are no words when it happens. Once or twice a week, when the stress has gotten the worst of them, when they both feel the need for release, there is a nod, an understanding. Sometimes Harry waits on the lawn near the front steps. Other times, he follows after Malfoy, who never waits. They always drop their wands when they reach the clearing, a wordless agreement that they would carry out their actions with their hands and knees and elbows. Though they’ve never spoken about it, in Harry’s mind, it’s a promise that what happened in sixth year will never happen again.

It feels good in the end. When they’re breathless and lying ragged on the ground floor or against some tree trunk. Harry takes account of his injuries; which aches are dull and which are new and piercing. Tonight, the left side of his ribs are bruised, as are his knuckles, jaw, and around his right eye. His back is scraped up badly from when Malfoy shoved him against a tree. Though Harry’s pretty sure he got him back when he pummeled him into the dirt, unleashing Malfoy’s anger tenfold. The prim bastard hates getting his hair dirty. 

Harry watches Malfoy lie on his back, one knee propped up and his breath evening out as he looks up at the sky. Like he’s searching for something. He shifts his leg and lefts out a wince. Harry pushes himself up, finding his wand nearby before walking over and kneeling beside Malfoy. 

This was part of the agreement. Harry would heal any of their major wounds or bruises, so as not to tip off McGonagall or their friends to their arrangement. He dismisses the small cuts and bruises as flying injuries. It buys him time. He knows the conversation is coming, that he can’t avoid it forever.

Malfoy sits up with a small groan. Bright red and purple mottle his cheek and chin, and a cut has formed on his bottom lip. Harry angles his wand at the boy’s face.

“Ensalvo glacidium,” he says, tapping the wand against Malfoy’s skin. 

The bruises recede, but the cut remains. Harry worries his own lip at the sight of it. A quick episkey should fix it, though for some reason, he leaves it be. He moves downward and taps his wand against Malfoy’s rib cage where he kneed him earlier, muttering the incantation again. Harry hears an intake of breath and Malfoy’s chest flutters under his wand. 

Then, Harry moves on to the injuries he knows were there before. He reaches for the hem of Malfoy’s stained white button up. A bony hand clamps down around his wrist.

“What do you think you’re doing,” Malfoy demands. His eyes are hard, narrowed into thin slits. 

Harry realizes his misstep.

Before he could turn the corner, he heard Malfoy’s voice.

“Is there really nothing better to do in your spare time?” The insult came out with a slight waver, a minor alter in his cadence that Harry recognized as apprehension. He readied his wand. 

“You’re pathetic, Malfoy.” Harry knew that voice; it belonged to a sixth year Gryffindor who’d lost his girlfriend in the Battle. He’d overheard Neville consoling the poor kid, but never got around to properly talking to him. There had been a lot going on, and everyone had lost someone, after all. 

Malfoy didn’t say anything. Harry held his breath.

“You’ll never know what it’s like to love someone that much,” the Gryffindor boy spit out venomously. “You only know how to hurt, don’t you? You destroyed everything, and you think you belong here? She belonged here.”

Before Harry had time to react, the boy shouted out a hex. A bright flash of red light shot out of his wand and hit Malfoy just above the hip bone, and he groaned out in pain as he sank to his knees. 

“Expelliarmus! Petrificus totalus!” Harry shot out the spells in quick succession. The Gryffindor boy fell stock still onto his back. Malfoy was curled in on himself, gripping his sides. Two figures appeared in Harry’s periphery just then, and he looked up to see Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini in shock, wands drawn and ready. Harry turned tail and ran the way he came, hearing the echoes of Malfoy’s friends calling his name.

“Draco! Draco…”

Malfoy hadn’t seen him earlier. He hadn’t known Harry was there to witness pain that had been inflicted on him. Harry knew it was most likely the reason Malfoy wanted to fight today. He couldn’t fight back when he wanted to, and Harry could give him that.

Malfoy’s gaze is unrelenting as he waits for him to speak. Harry tears his eyes away from it, nerves suddenly gripping his vocal chords with a vice.

“I don’t think you heard me, Potter,” Malfoy says. “I said, what do you think you’re doing?”

“I heard you,” Harry hisses. 

“Oh, good. Glad to know that at least your mouth is working,” he says, smacking Harry’s hand away.

“I was going to heal you, you ungrateful bastard,” Harry says. “But I can’t tell which spell to use if I don’t see the injury first.”

He reaches for the hem and Malfoy slaps it away again.

“You were there,” he states, eyes glazing over. “You petrified him.”

Harry squeezes his wand, rolling it in his hand. He should have stayed, he thinks, when Parkinson and Zabini showed up. He could have stayed to help Malfoy then, but he was scared. Of what, he doesn’t know. 

“I just want to heal the damage,” Harry explains. When he looks up, Malfoy’s eyes have gone hard again. Impenetrable.

“Well don’t. I never asked you to.”

The utter nerve of him.

“Alright, fine!” Harry barks, standing up with his arms out.

“Fine,” Malfoy says.

“Good.”

Malfoy stares up at him from the floor, his mouth a hard line punctuated by the cut on his lip. Harry fumes. If he didn’t want to be healed, that was quite all right with Harry. He turns around, his anger renewed despite having released so much of it only minutes ago. Where does all of it come from?

As he reaches the edge of the clearing, Malfoy’s voice rings out:

“Wait.”

Harry stops. His eyes roll upwards as his patience is tested for the millionth time by the most stubborn boy he’s ever met.

“What is it, Malfoy?”

A pause. Harry shoots a glance over his shoulder, and sees Malfoy, shoulders tensed and legs all bent askew.

“Teach me the healing spell,” Malfoy says.

Something tugs at Harry’s chest when he says it. There was something vulnerable about being healed, especially by your enemy. The damage had been dealt by him anyway, it was only right that he fix it. He figures Malfoy would probably want to heal himself at some point, but Harry never considered not healing him.

“Yeah, okay.”

He returns and crouches beside the boy with ghosts of bruises on his face. Harry loses himself for a moment in the incredulousness of the situation as he searches Malfoy’s face for insincerity. He finds none. Malfoy really wants Harry to teach him a spell. Harry would never have expected Malfoy’s ego to even think about learning wizardry from someone he considered beneath him. 

“I haven’t got all night, Potter,” he snarls.

Harry bites his cheek to stop the flurry of insults that desperately want to hurl themselves at Malfoy’s smarmy face. He counts to ten, releasing all the tension built up in his body.

“Oh, Merlin, this again,” Malfoy says under his breath, his eyes grazing over Harry’s body in scrutiny.

“I’m really trying not to lose my patience with you, Malfoy,” Harry snaps. “Don’t give me another reason to break your nose.”

“You already did that one. Get a little creative. Wh– hey!”

Harry grabs Malfoy’s shirt and hikes it up before he has the chance to stop him. Malfoy grabs his arms but it’s too late. A large welt with a cut ripping through the center lays above his hip bone, glaring red against pale skin.

“Christ, Malfoy. This could’ve gotten infected,” Harry says. He’s a little ashamed of the worry tinging his voice. Malfoy’s shaking. His hands still clasp around Harry’s forearm but they’re jittery. Harry mutters a charm for disinfecting, then an episkey for the cut. “You wouldn’t happen to have any of that swelling potion we made, do you?”

“In my sack,” Malfoy says, eyes zeroing in on Harry’s movements. “Thought we might need it at some point.”

Harry looks around and finds Malfoy’s bookbag. He rummages through books, parchment, a hawthorn wand, and several expensive looking quills before finding a small corked bottle of purple solution at the bottom of the bag. He withdraws the potion and Malfoy’s wand. The emotional weight of the object is palpable in his hand. He doesn’t look at Malfoy when he returns to his side and hands him his wand, but he’s sure the same train of thoughts are running through both of their minds. 

“Thank you,” Malfoy said, refusing to meet Harry’s eyes. 

Harry thought he looked paler than usual, his cheeks more gaunt and features more tired than any young boy ought to look. Harry knew what went on in Azkaban. With a traitorous pull inside his chest, he wished the Wizengamot had pushed Malfoy’s trial up sooner. Narcissa’s hand laid gently on her son’s shoulder.

“You’re welcome,” Harry said, eyes darting to Narcissa. He was almost certain Malfoy wouldn’t be apologizing if his mother hadn’t forced him to. He remembered the woman leaning over him, feigning to check his breath for signs of life, and asking whether her son was alive or not. 

As mother and son turned to leave, Harry’s heart did a vicious jerk at the sight. 

“Wait,” he called out. 

They paused and looked back at Harry, and his mouth went dry. He didn’t know what he wished to say, but the object in his pocket burned against his thigh, calling at him to remember it. He pulled it out and saw the brief fluttering of eyelids as Malfoy honed in on his wand. Harry took a step closer, holding it out for him.

Malfoy forced his eyes up to Harry’s with a look that said ‘are you sure?’

And he was.

Malfoy deftly wraps his fingers around his wand. Harry’s hand brushes against his as he deposits the potion into his other hand. He watches as Malfoy uncorks the bottle and tips it back into his mouth. The effect is instantaneous. The swelling on his cheek reduces. The welt over his hip bone shrinks to nearly half its size, and it will continue to deswell over the course of the night. 

“Alright, I’ll show you the spell on this, and then you can try it on me,” Harry rushes out. He’s nervous out of nowhere. Malfoy is just going to point his wand and try out a new spell on him. What is there to be nervous about?

“Calm down, Potter,” Malfoy says. “I can’t mess up your face more than I already have.”

“Your face is incredibly punchable, you know that?”

“Just get on with it.”

Harry shakes his head and brushes a hand through his hair to get it off his forehead. He pushes the nerves down.

“You already know the words. Ensalvo glacidium. There’s an emphasis on the first syllable of the root words,” Harry explains. He raises his wand and does a swift circular motion, then taps down against Malfoy’s hip bone. 

“That’s the movement. And it has to make contact. Through cloth is fine, but wand-to-skin contact is more efficient. Ensalvo glacidium,” he says, and the bruising around the welt lightens almost to Malfoy’s normal skin color.

Malfoy focuses on his words and movements intently. It feels… satisfying. To be teaching, that is. To have eyes on him, learning something new from him. He was great at teaching Dumbledore’s Army, and the sense of satisfaction, the sense of achievement in the room had been overwhelming. Even though it was in the middle of a nightmare situation, Harry smiles at the memory.

Malfoy mimics the wand movement.

“Perfect,” Harry says, smiling. The power of positive reinforcement had done wonders for the D.A.

“Don’t look so pleased,” Malfoy remarks, annoyed. “You’re not that good of a teacher, I’m just an excellent student.”

Anger prickles up again. He really knows exactly which buttons to press, doesn’t he? Harry forces a grin, eyes narrowing.

“Your turn,” he grits out.

He sits back on his heels and raises the hem of his jumper up his chest. A long patch of skin along his ribs are aching and marred with Malfoy’s attempt to knee him into the ground. Goosebumps pop up as the night air seeps into his skin. Malfoy simply stares, eyes wide and unblinking. His hair falls so ungracefully over his forehead, he seems so… ruffled compared to his usual elegant composure. Harry almost laughs at the utter bewilderment on Malfoy’s face. 

“Get on with it, Malfoy,” Harry says, mirroring his words back to him. 

Malfoy’s gaze darts up to his face quickly, unsure, then slips back down to the bruises along his side. He sets his jaw and lifts his wand, reciting the words as he circles his wand over the bruised area.

“Ensalvo glacidium,” and the words slide off his tongue. 

The tip of his wand prods in between two rib bones uncomfortably, but the cool, tingly feeling of the spell taking hold spreads from the point of contact. More goosebumps sprout in the area. Harry looks down and sees the contusions fade to yellow and withdraw towards the wand’s tip. For his first try, Malfoy had done excellently. 

“Brilliant.”

“Now put your clothes on,” Malfoy says, mouth twisted in disgust.

Harry laughs, letting his jumper fall back down his torso. He’s surprised—not scared, or even remotely worried for his safety—when Malfoy lifts his wand again, pointing it at his face.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Fixing the rest,” Malfoy exhales, “What does it look like?”

Oh, he thinks absently.

Malfoy recites the spell, tapping his wand against Harry’s jaw and under his right eye. The familiar cold tingle dances through his skin, but it feels different coming from Malfoy’s magic. It wisps against his skin like a breeze, and it lingers. Malfoy has this look of determination Harry isn’t quite acquainted with. As Harry studies the hard line of his brows and the slight press of his lips, he misses when Malfoy takes his hand and heals the bruises and cuts on his knuckles.

“Thanks,” he says quietly. He feels like his voice is coming from a thousand miles away.

Malfoy drops his hands unceremoniously.

“It’s nothing,” he replies.

He stands up and retrieves his robes and bookbag. Harry follows Malfoy’s movements as he puts his robes on, slings the bag over his shoulder and walks out of the clearing without a word. He feels cold all of a sudden, left alone in the middle of the woods. 

Right. No talking.

Harry gets to his feet. He grabs his own belongings in haste and leaves the clearing. He does not notice the blades of grass leaning in his direction, reaching out. 

***

Ron and Hermione are tangled up on the couch in front of the fireplace when Harry rushes into the common room. Their laughter carries throughout the room and fades as they hear him come in. 

“Harry!” Hermione says, poking her head up over the back of the couch. 

“Hi, ‘Mione,” he says with a mild smile. 

He looks over at Ron, who seems put off at the intrusion, and tries not to make eye contact. They hadn’t really made up since their fight. (By now, the entire Gryffindor House knows about the silent grudge between Harry and Ron, even if they don’t know what it’s about. Many younger Gryffindors seem to act as though they were their parents getting divorced. Not that Harry would know. He’s never around long enough to see it.) Harry had made his exit without pretense, leaving Ron to yell at his retreating back about facing his friends. The irony doesn’t escape him. 

“We were just talking about the Holyhead Harpies,” she explains quickly, and he can hear the invitation in her voice. Ron’s face crumples in confusion.

“‘Mione, wha—”

“Ron,” Hermione says, cutting her boyfriend off, “Was saying how they were underperforming in their last quarter.”

Harry nods. He appreciates her trying to help, he really does. But the exhaustion has gripped his bones so tightly, that he won’t feel like a person until he gets at least three hours of uninterrupted sleep in the next five minutes. And Hermione could be a truly awful liar at times. She doesn’t even like Quidditch. 

“I’m sure they were,” Harry responds. “I’m uh… I’m knackered. I’ll see you lot in the morning.”

He makes his way to the boys dormitory. 

“Good night, Harry,” Hermione calls after him. 

“Night,” he says.

It’s a bittersweet sight to see Neville, Dean, and Seamus already wiped out in their own beds. Harry feels a swell of gratitude that they’re here, at Hogwarts, alive. But guilt piles on alongside it when he remembers those he lost, those who could not make it back to join them in their last year. It makes his gratitude feel empty, and worthless. 

His bed creaks loudly under him as he lands on it face down. His glasses press uncomfortably into the bridge of his nose and he doesn’t even care that his clothes are dirty. He’d shower in the morning. His eyes flutter shut, and in a few minutes, he’s out like a light.

***

When Harry opens his eyes, he’s back in the forest clearing. It’s daylight, and the buzzing of insects and the wind in the trees sound soft and fuzzy. He is beyond the reach of the mysteries of the forest, here in the clearing. He is safe, and he knows it. 

A sharp gasp carves through the quiet. And there he is. Draco Malfoy, splayed out on the ground with deep, gaping slashes across his chest and blood spilling out freely. 

Christ, no.

Panic sets in. Harry hurries to his side and drops to his knees like he always does. Like he always will. Malfoy’s hair looks translucent in the sunlight, and his skin pales as life rushes out of his body. Harry’s breath comes out in short gasps as he presses his hands against the cuts, trying desperately to keep as much of the blood inside his body as possible. 

“No no no no,” Harry says, his voice and hands shaking madly. “Help! Someone, please help!”

Malfoy coughs as more blood gushes from his mouth, dripping down his cheek to his neck and onto the dirt beneath him. It’s so much blood, too much, Harry thinks. 

He’s going to die, and Snape isn’t coming to save him. He’s going to die, and there’s nothing Harry can do about it.

The blood flows and flows and the ground is soaked with it. It pools around their bodies and spreads out, out, out. It spreads until the entire clearing is tinged with Malfoy’s blood. The sky turns red. The forest grows in on itself, until the branches cave in on the two boys, threatening to crush them. 

Harry screams.

“Harry! Harry!” Ron’s voice cuts through.

Harry’s eyes fly open, and Ron is there, shaking his shoulders. His throat feels rough. He distantly registers Neville, Dean, and Seamus standing around his bed, tired but stricken with worry.

“I– I almost–” Harry cries. He’s not sure he’s even awake. “I almost killed him, Ron.”

Ron examines his best friend’s face anxiously.

“Who, mate?”

“I–” Harry tries but the words get caught in his throat. It hurts to speak. Hot tears stripe his face.  “I could’ve killed him.”

He collapses into Ron’s chest, sobs wracking his body violently. He feels Ron’s arms circle around him, holding him tightly against his scratchy knitted jumper. Then, Harry’s bed dips as the others pile on and hug them. He cries freely, surrounded by the warmth of his friends.

***

It was not the first time Harry had dreamt about that day. But it was the first time he had woken up crying about it. And it was the first time anyone was there to witness the aftermath. 

When he awakes in the morning, Ron is still in the dorm, getting ready for class. Harry feels raw, but well-rested in the way you can only feel after a solid cry. A good cry can do wonders for the soul, Molly Weasley would say. Harry sits up.

“Hey,” Ron says.

“Hey,” Harry replies groggily. 

He feels around his bed for his glasses and puts them on. The others have already left, it seems. Good. It was embarrassing enough to wake them up with the sound of his screams, much less to cry in front of them.

Ron hooks his bag over his shoulder and stuffs his hands into his pockets, looking down at his feet. Harry swings his legs over the side of his bed with his hands perched on the edge. He wants to say something to break the tension, but the words evade him. They seem to do that quite a lot lately.

“I’m er… going down to breakfast, then,” Ron says.

“Uh,” Harry says. Ron stops. “Will you wait for me?”

Ron opens his mouth and shuts it quickly.

“Y-yeah, mate. I’ll wait.”

“Cool. I’ll be quick.”

He dashes to the bathroom and takes the fastest shower he can. He gets dressed quickly, angling his body away so that Ron can’t see any of the leftover bruises on his body. In a record four minutes and thirteen seconds, Harry is ready and out the door after Ron.

They walk down silently, side by side. The unspoken conversation hangs heavy in the air. It’s bearable, but only just. They’ve dealt with far worse in their friendship, as far as arguments go. Harry senses the well of questions Ron has for him, the answers Ron desperately wants to pull out of him. But there really isn’t much to tell. Harry doesn’t want to think about things, and when he doesn’t want to think, he finds Malfoy and beats the daylights out of him, and lets Malfoy do the same to him. 

It sounds absolutely demented and there’s no way Harry knows how to start that conversation that won’t end with him institutionalized. Or worse, expelled.

In the back of his mind, however, he knows he owes Ron an explanation. But… he can’t. Not today.

When they arrive at the Great Hall, the Gryffindors are abuzz with excitement. The Seventh and Eighth Years chatter incessantly, turning behind them to get the attention of non-Gryffindor students as well. Hermione greets them both with a wave, covering her mouth as she chews her food. Ron plops down next to her and gives her a kiss on the cheek.

“So what are the plans for tomorrow?” Ron asks no one in particular. 

Harry sits down across from them, ears perking up at the sound of plans being made. Dean claps Harry’s shoulder affectionately, then chimes in, his smile bright and charming.

“We were thinking drinks at eight,” he says.

“‘nough to keep us warm for our walk to the Broomsticks at nine,” Seamus finishes the thought, leaning across the table on his arms.

Harry tucks in to some toast, letting the voices carry over him. It seems a bit early in the year to start going to Hogsmeade, but he figures people probably need the break. Now more than ever. While lost in thought, fiery red hair swings into his field of vision.

“You coming with us tomorrow?” Ginny asks. 

Harry swallows quickly and wipes the crumbs off his mouth with an embarrassed look.

“Er, yeah maybe,” he makes out. 

It sounds like it could be fun, at least. When he stares back at her, she’s searching his eyes. Harry shifts uncomfortably in his seat. It shouldn’t feel as intrusive as it does.

“How are you feeling, Harry?” she whispers.

He reads the distress in her brows and all at once, he knows exactly what she’s looking for. What she knows happened last night. He gnaws on his bottom lip, his temper ready to resurface at a moment's notice.

“Who told you?”

Ginny’s eyes widen a fraction.

“What?”

“It was Dean, wasn’t it?” Harry says, keeping his voice low but steady. 

“Harry, I don’t—”

“Which one of my friends,” and he can’t help the rising volume of his voice, “thought it was okay to tell you about—”

“Harry,” Ron barks.

His eyes snap to Ron’s, his shoulders shaking with controlled anger. Harry notes the Gryffindor table going quiet, eyes averted from the conflict. Dammit. He was supposed to have gotten enough anger out on Malfoy for the whole week, and yet here he is, brimming full of it. Harry puts his hands on the table and stands up, the bench scraping loudly against the floor.

“I would really appreciate it,” he says loud enough for his table and then some to hear, “if everyone stayed out of my bloody business and kept to themselves.”

He storms away from the table and from the dozens of eyes that no doubt follow his back as he retreats out of the Great Hall. For a split second before making it past the doors, he catches silver eyes leveling him a stare.

***

“That was quite the display at breakfast.”

Nope. He can do this. He can get through the next fifty-five minutes without flipping his lid.

“Weasleys’ got you down?”

He stirs his potion, grinding his teeth painfully.

“Doubt I’ll be seeing you with them in Hogsmeade after all that.”

It doesn’t matter. Malfoy doesn’t know shit about him and his friends. 

“I wonder what the Weaslette would think if she found out the true extent of your anger issues.”

Harry shoots out of his seat and walks out of the classroom, abandoning his potion.

***

Malfoy is going to Hogsmeade. Malfoy is going to Hogsmeade with other students. Other students and his friends and Ginny. If Malfoy, for some reason, decided to tell someone what they were doing… 

Harry paces alone in his room. He treads anxious footmarks into the carpet at the foot of his bed. The noise from the common room downstairs had reached its peak only minutes ago, and now it peters out as the older students tipsily shuffle out of the room. The younger students have likely gone to their quarters already. When it’s all quiet, Harry grabs his invisibility cloak and whirls it over his head. He casts a Muffliato and flies down the steps, keeping close to the walls. 

There is no good reason why Malfoy would out their arrangement other than to mess with Harry and his rapidly deteriorating relationship with his friends. He had given Ginny space over the last few weeks, and watched from the sidelines as she made new friends, played Quidditch, and procrastinated on schoolwork. And the first thing he does when she talks to him is yell at her. He’d been a right pillock, there was no excuse. He simply can’t allow Malfoy to go and make things worse.

When Harry arrives at the bottom of the steps, Ron and Hermione are speaking in hushed words.

“Be safe while you’re out,” Hermione says, fixing the scarf around his neck. “And don’t let Seamus get his own tab.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?” Ron asks, reading her expression.

“Don’t be silly, Ron,” she says. “I’ll be fine. I need to get these papers finished.”

From where they’re standing, Harry can’t see Hermione’s face. But he can see Ron scanning his girlfriend’s face for a long moment before taking his scarf off.

“I’m staying,” he says with a smile. Hermione shakes her head, her hands dropping to his lapels.

“What? Ron, really, it’s okay—”

“I know. I want to, love.”

“You’ll just get in the way,” she teases. 

“Deal with it,” Ron grins. He walks around the couch and sits down, Hermione’s spread of books and parchment on the coffee table before him. “I want to spend time with my best friend.”

Harry’s heart lurches at the words. A deep ache settles in his chest, the swell of loneliness capsizing him, unforgiving in its torment. He flees. He makes his way towards Hogsmeade, pushing and pushing the feeling down his throat. 

It’s easier to feel miserable in this cold. The late October air worms its way through his clothes, and he curses himself for not wearing thicker socks under his Chucks. The thin hoodie under his jacket barely keeps his ears warm. He casts a warming charm as he follows distantly behind the straggling group of Gryffindors. 

The bevy of adolescents is led by Dean, Lavender, and Ginny. He watches as they pile into the Three Broomsticks, their shouts and snickers growing muffled as they enter the building. It’s at this point that Harry finally asks himself what the bloody plan is.  

He steps around the front, peering in through the frost covered window at the sweltering amount of students occupying the pub. The Gryffindors have already taken over several tables, undoing scarves, taking off coats, and ordering drinks at the bar. Carefree laughter bubbles throughout the pub. His heart tugs bitterly again. In this small and precious moment, as he stares from the outside in, Harry wants nothing more than to be able to sit amongst his friends and joke about things that don’t matter, and lean into touches that mean nothing, and not hurt when he looks at them. He wants and wants and wants. But he’d gone and bollocksed it up, hadn’t he? 

A shrill squeak cuts through the sounds of amusement and revelry. Harry turns his attention to the dark corner of the pub, where Pansy Parkinson and a few choice Slytherins lounge around their table. Malfoy’s bright blonde hair stands out in the smoky lounge and that’s what he came here for in the first place. Malfoy’s threadbare threat came forth in his mind. But he doesn’t seem to be paying Ginny any attention. 

Harry leans in closer until his breath begins to fog up the glass. Malfoy plays with his glass, rolling the bottom around in circles against the table. He’s got a thousand yard stare, even though he seems to respond to his colleagues when they speak to him. He’s not really there, Harry thinks. It isn’t until Parkinson says something specific that snaps Malfoy out of his meditative state with a fierce blush. Malfoy now seems to be invested in the conversation around him. Harry can see him say ‘Pansy’ with that all-too-familiar snarl. And she must’ve said something outrageous again because Malfoy gives her that hard, cold stare, then gets up without pretense, leaving his drink behind. 

Harry steps away from the window, heart suddenly pounding as Malfoy storms towards the exit, Parkinson wading past other patrons to try and catch up to him. The pub door slams open and sound pours out onto the dark streets of Hogsmeade. Malfoy rips out the doorway, fury mangling his features. Harry’s feet are already carrying him after the fuming tosser when Parkinson stumbles out the pub, calling out to Malfoy.

“Draco. Draco wait!”

“Leave it alone, Pans,” he says, not deigning to look over his shoulder as he walks into the alleyway beside the pub. Despite his better judgement, Harry trails after them.

“I didn’t mean to—Well, I wasn’t going to say–”

“Say what?” Malfoy spins around so quickly Parkinson almost runs into him. Harry notices his hands shaking. He takes a step closer to Malfoy. What could she have possibly said to make him this angry?

Parkinson shakes her head, “N-nothing, I–”

Malfoy’s ears perk up. Parkinson notices the change before Harry does. Malfoy draws his wand and shoots a blast of light square at Harry’s chest. It knocks him into the brick wall behind him and sends his cloak flying away from his body. Malfoy’s magic wraps tightly around him, while his hand holds Harry firmly in place, uncomfortably pressing against his collarbones while he points his wand at Harry’s cheek. Parkinson–less importantly–has her wand out also.

Dammit.

Malfoy huffs out a breath, which ghosts hot against Harry’s face. His eyes bore into Harry’s with malice and dread. For some reason, he doesn’t feel like he’s in danger. 

“Spying again, Potter?” Parkinson pipes up. “Has no one told you stalking is creepy?”

“Go inside, Pansy,” Malfoy says, eyes unwavering.

“But–”

“I said, go inside.”  

After a short moment of hesitation, Parkinson snaps her jaw shut, stomping off angrily back into the pub. They hear the door swing open, laughter rising and dropping in volume as the door closes behind her. Malfoy studies his face, and frankly, Harry has no idea what he’ll find. 

“What are you doing here, Potter?”

Chapter Text

The hazy atmosphere in the lounge had actually been somewhat decent before the gaggle of Gryffindors marched in like a parade of circus animals. Draco and a few of his friends had arrived ten minutes earlier with every intention of outclassing the bumbling idiots that were certain to bound through the pub doors making a fuss. (Nevermind the fact that after one drink Pansy and Blaise talk loudly and brashly enough to be mistaken for Gryffindors.)

Draco is surprised—and a little pleased—to see Potter missing from the group. He thought he would see Potter with his arm around the girl Weasel, giving him death glares every few minutes from his side of the pub. But Potter is nowhere to be found, and she seems content sideling up with Dean Thomas and Lavender Brown. Then again, Draco thinks, Potter was never the possessive type. He wasn’t with Cho Chang, and he certainly isn’t with his own girlfriend now, from the looks of it—word travels fast. A strange sense of satisfaction ripples through Draco at the thought.

“What are you smiling about?” Blaise asks. 

Draco, to his utter horror, feels the slight tension in the muscles around his mouth and promptly relaxes them. 

“I wasn’t smiling,” he says as he swirls the whiskey in his glass, staring at the small waves in the liquid. He doesn’t even like the taste all that much, but it’s an adult drink, and he wanted to seem adult when he ordered it. “There’s nothing for me to smile about.”

“Right,” Blaise acquiesces. “What have you been up to these days? I feel like I barely see you.”

“Don’t even try,” Pansy says, lips pursed over her drink. “I’ve not got a word out of him.”

“Secrets, yeah? That’s a new one for Draco.”

“Piss off, Theo,” Draco mutters.

“Ohoho, so there is a secret,” Mole Girl chimes in. What the hell is she even doing here? 

“As I said, I’ve already tried,” Pansy reiterates. “You’re not going to pull it out of him.”

Draco’s lips quirk up.

“I am a skilled Legilimens,” he says, taking another bitter sip. He concentrates on not seeming disgusted by it.

“I don’t know about that,” Theo says, “Draco’s a pretty easy book to read.”

“Well he doesn’t want to be read,” Pansy insists.

“No need to get defensive, Pans.” Blaise puts a hand on her arm. He waves his Butterbeer in Draco’s direction, eyes narrowed deceptively. “We just want to know what our good friend is doing in his time off.”

“Or who he’s doing,” Mole Girl says with a cheshire-like grin.

“Tish!” Pansy cries, scandalized.

“Oh?” Blaise says. Draco rolls his eyes.

“This is ridiculous,” Draco deadpans.

“Not exactly a denial,” Mole Girl says.

“It is.”

“Draco isn’t doing anything salacious,” Pansy waves her hand about. “I would know it if he was.”

“Pansy.”

Blaise raises an eyebrow at him. Oh, perhaps that came out a little stronger than he meant it to. Theo leans back in his booth, entertained beyond measure.

“Sounds to me like you’re covering up the fact that you’re being quite salacious together.”

And oh that is funny.

“Ha!” Pansy laughs. “Don’t be ridiculous. Draco isn’t—”

She cuts herself off, and the mirth disappearing from her face is more telling than anything. Draco pales. It’s intensely warm in the room and yet a chill racks his body. His eyes dart around the table. There’s a sense of confusion, of a slow recognition, and Draco… he can’t be here right now.

His body carries itself out of the pub, and the students become white noise until he reaches the safety of an empty Hogsmeade alleyway. The buzzing has started up again, so he stuffs his hands in his coat pockets. 

“Draco. Draco, wait!” 

“Leave it alone, Pans,” he calls out. There are a great many things Draco does not want to talk about, and this one comes second to Harry Potter. He really needs to be alone.

“I didn’t mean to–” Pansy tries. He can hear the apology in her voice. But Slytherins were never very good at apologizing. Pride, and all that. “Well, I wasn’t going to say–”

“Say what?” Draco dares her, turning on his heel. He almost wants her to take the bait, just to have a reason to argue with someone.

Pansy shakes her head, eyes glistening. 

“N-nothing, I–”

A sudden, quiet intake of breath. And it isn’t Pansy’s. 

Draco whips around and sends a wordless binding hex before he can give himself away. He moves quickly, slamming his assailant into the wall and pointing his wand at the idiot’s face and of course. It’s him.

Pansy makes a surprised noise behind him.

“Spying again, Potter? Has no one told you stalking is creepy?”

“Go inside, Pansy,” Draco says. 

Potter keeps his expression steady. He’s completely at Draco’s mercy, and yet the twit has the gall to appear unfazed when he’s attacked and bound. Green eyes just stare back into his, lips pressed into a determined line.

“But–”

“I said, go inside.”  

Pansy hesitates, but stomps off back to the pub, most likely to badmouth Draco to the rest of their friends, he thinks. Draco watches the gears turning in Potter’s head, the tensing of the jaw, the flaring of the nose, the quick inhale exhale under the palm of his hand. 

“What are you doing here, Potter?” 

The Boy Who Sticks His Nose in Everything turns his nose up at Draco. His defiance is baffling. He’d been the one sneaking up on Draco, not the other way around. Draco laughs, remembering his taunts from earlier in the day. He leans in closer, pushing his wand lightly into Potter’s cheek.

“Are you here because you’re worried that I’ll spill our little secret to your girlfriend?” 

Draco doesn’t have time to rethink the implications of what he just said before a sharp crack to his temple knocks him off his feet. 

What they won’t show you on television is that when one person rams their forehead against another person’s forehead, both people go down with splitting headaches. Potter has now learned this lesson, as he slumps to the floor gripping his head, groaning miserably. The sudden pain had been enough to break the hex, letting him kneel on the floor beside an equally miserable Draco.

“Oh bugger, I’m never doing that again,” Potter winces, voice cracking.

“I hate you,” Draco groans. “So much.”

“Right now, so do I.”

Draco rolls onto his side and pushes himself up with his forearms. The pounding of his forehead does not mix well with the alcohol. His only solace is in the knowledge that Potter is in the same pain he is.

“What are you doing here, Potter,” he manages through several layers of irritation, “and answer me or I’ll hex you into next Sunday.”

“Nothing,” Potter barks.

Draco swings wildly, but his spinning head doesn’t do him any favors. He misses Potter by a wide margin and lands ungracefully on the cobblestone floor again. 

“I’d laugh but I think I’d throw up,” Potter says with a deep grimace.

“Please do, it’d be the highlight of my day.”

A long minute passes where neither of them speak, letting themselves catch their breaths and wait until their heads stop throbbing. Draco rearranges himself awkwardly, looking away from Potter.

“You have nothing to worry about.” Potter looks up at him. “I wasn’t going to tell her anything.”

“You weren’t?”

“Of course I bloody wasn’t. I’m not risking expulsion just to get one over on you, Potter. I have too much on the line for that.”

“Like what?” Potter snorts.

“Like my reputation!” Draco snaps. It’s superficial, and he knows it. But it’s all he’s known, all he’s ever been raised to care about. Reputation, lineage, power. It’s all one big ball of miseducation that began to unravel itself the moment the Dark Lord set foot in his home, forcing him to do unspeakable things.

“Right. As if you have any chance at improving your reputation,” Potter says bitterly. 

Draco’s mouth goes sour. He’s probably right, Draco thinks, but he’s an arsehole for saying it anyway. The pit in his stomach grows and he really wants a fight.

“I don’t think stalking is exactly reputable behavior,” he snarls, fists at his side. He cocks his head. “Is there a reason you’re not inside with your Gryffindor groupies?”

Potter’s upper lip twitches. Draco can play him like an instrument when he wants to.

“It’s a little sad, honestly. You lash out at them, then follow them here like a kicked dog.”

“You’re one to talk,” Potter spits angrily. “What made you lash out at your girlfriend?”

Draco holds his tongue. This can not be happening. Calling Pansy his girlfriend is clearly a taunt meant to drive a clear distinction between himself and Draco. Had Potter been inside, listening in on their conversation? Had he waited in some dark, damp corner, waiting for someone to say something vaguely threatening? Had he heard Pansy’s slip up, and followed them outside to fill in the gaps? If so, Potter is more of a bastard than Draco had previously thought.

Draco stands up, if only to tower over Potter. He feels off-balance, like the floor could slip out from under his feet at a moment’s notice. 

“If you a breathe a word of this,” Draco hisses, “to anyone, I’ll–”

“You’ll what?” 

He fixes Draco with an intense stare. Harry Potter—sitting on the floor of a dingy alleyway, permanently disheveled hair and wild eyes—radiates an alarming amount of power. A looming force hidden beneath a young face that is often overlooked by adults and figures of authority. Draco sees it. He always had, in some ways. And right now, it makes him feel terribly small.

Plenty of Draco’s secrets and personal life had been exposed during his trial at the Wizengamot. Details had leaked to the press, the brutal punishments, the Malfoys’ disgrace, everything Draco had been forced to do and had done with little effort. His easy bigotry. His shame. His regret. Nothing was hidden. 

Some things deserved to be kept secret.

“Are you trying to be cruel?” Draco says, threatened and poised to bite back.

“I don’t even know what you’re bloody talking about!” Potter shouts, arms thrown out. “I only came because—”

Potter deflates, his gaze falling to the floor. Draco holds back a sigh of relief in favor of studying the boy in front of him. There’s a moment of vulnerability here, Draco knows, the strings of some weakness he could manipulate. But that’s not who he is anymore. Or at least, not who he wants to be. 

When he looks back up, Potter is chewing on his lip. He does that a lot. It drives Draco up the walls, for more than one reason, but mainly because it’s a bad habit that Potter should really kick. It leaves his lip red and raw and prone to chapping.

“We don’t talk,” Potter says finally. More to himself than to Draco. 

“No,” Draco agrees. “We don’t.” 

Potter nods at him, then stands up to grab his invisibility cloak that flew off to the side. Draco rakes over the Muggle clothes Potter is wearing and how it falls loosely off his body. His shoes are still filthy and ridiculous. His jeans are…. Well, they’re jeans. Draco doesn’t follow loose threads when they appear to him.

“Don’t…” Potter starts. He fiddles with his cloak. “Don’t tell anyone I was here.”

Draco shakes his head, turning away to leave the alley.

“Do what you like, Potter,” he says over his shoulder. “I wasn’t going back in.”

If he were to speak truthfully—not that he would, especially not with Potter—Draco’s frustration with his friends has grown tremendously since coming back to Hogwarts. No one seems ready to touch the war with a ten foot pole. No one seems ready to talk about their role in it, the part they played. And after the disaster that was Pansy’s running mouth, Draco isn’t keen on facing his friends about either subject. 

Neither is Potter, it seems. Draco steps out onto the cobblestone street, making his way past dark storefronts and empty stalls when the sound of rubber soles slapping stone catches up to him. Potter pants next to him and why is he following me? Draco spares him a glance, letting his eyebrows ask the question for him.

“I’m not going in either,” he explains. It doesn’t explain shit, but Draco doesn’t press. 

He wonders what Potter’s friends had done to upset him so badly. He’d always seemed at the center of attention, surrounded by a sea of smiling faces and adoring fans. Less so in the last couple of years, evidently, but the impression still sticks like a pin in the corkboard of Draco’s mind. Potter takes up quite a significant portion of that board, and Draco really hates this metaphor. 

They walk in long, awkward silence towards Hogwarts. Draco steals glances at the boy next to him, just to see if he’s still there. Potter’s hands are stuffed into the pockets of his jacket, the trails of the cloak sticking out of it. 

It isn’t long before they reach the grounds, the castle only a few minutes away and the edge of the Forbidden Forest lining the way on their right. The trees extend and blend into the dark night sky. 

They slow to a stop, an unspoken question hanging in the air. Draco holds his breath. Out of the corner of his eye, Potter’s side profile is hard and unchanging. The urge to stumble after each other in the dark until they reach that clearing is… tempting. It would be so easy to fall into that madness again, let his instincts take over and allow himself to be a wreck. And Potter would indulge him, he knows. He’d fall right beside him, gnashing teeth and curling fists. The stillness of the forest begs to be disturbed and they would gladly oblige.

“I need a drink,” Potter says distantly.

The statement seems so uncharacteristic and strange coming from the Chosen One that Draco almost laughs. Here he is, thinking about whether Potter wants to take him to the middle of the forest to beat each other to a pulp, and Potter is thinking about knocking back a few rounds. It’s absolutely bizarre.

“Well the Three Broomsticks was that way,” Draco snarks, pointing a finger the way they came. “In case you missed it while you were spying on us.”

Potter rolls his eyes and runs his fingers through his hair. It’s a whole show.

“Didn’t feel like a crowd tonight,” he explains, hand still on the back of his head.

Draco can understand that. Going out tonight with the others was… almost entirely for appearances sake. Despite his intense desire to lock himself up in his room for the rest of the year and never be seen until his NEWTs, he doesn’t want to be seen as a shut-in. But a drink… Well, that’s never hard to pass up, is it?

Draco studies Potter again, trying to read whether he’s serious or whether he’s just saying something to fill the silence. Staring up at the castle, Draco decides to test that.

“I may know where to get a drink around here.”

***

The trees are eerily still in the dead of a breezeless night. Two young wizards walk past the forest, and hungry eyes watch its prey escape into obscurity. Their magic teems with untapped potential, red and vigorous and waiting to spread. The forest aches for it. Deep in its belly. Taunted for another taste. And still it waits, unstirring but for the woodland creatures and magical beasts that roam its depths. It will wait another day. Maybe more. Keen to feast again.

***

“The kitchens. Why have I never thought of that?” Potter says.

Draco isn’t at all surprised to see a plate of frosted scones for Potter on the table when they arrive. The elves had always been sweet on him, and Draco learned quickly that every once in a while, an elf would save an extra batch of sweets and put it off to the side. Magically charmed to stay warm for a few hours. 

“Because you’re an imbecile. Any other questions?” Draco throws back, strolling to the cabinet where a few bottles of liquor are hidden behind charmed doors. He takes his wand out and spells the countercharm. The doors swing open with a click. Draco grabs a bottle of rum—used primarily for rum cakes and caramel sauces—and turns around to a puzzled Potter.

“What?” Draco asks.

“How do you know the countercharm to the– Oh my god.”

Draco pales as a look of realization spreads across Potter’s face. 

“So you are the one that’s been helping in the kitchens,” Potter says, as if finally putting the pieces together. A smile pulls his face wide open and Draco’s stomach drops. “You’re the reason the food’s gone bad.”

“I–” Draco frowns. Potter really is supremely irritating. “The food has not gone bad. And if it has, it’s not my fault for having inadequate teachers.”

“Well I’m sure you’ve been a pisspoor student,” Potter replies, crossing the distance and snatching the rum from Draco’s grasp. He turns to sit on the table across from him, his feet up on the bench. It’s crude. He unscrews the cap and tips the bottle back into his mouth, hissing as the rum burns down his throat. 

“I figured Granger would have told you already,” Draco says, leaning against the counter behind him. 

“No, we haven’t really…” Potter trails off, then takes another sip before handing the bottle to Draco. “And anyways, I sort of found out at the start of term? Didn’t really have confirmation though so I just… forgot about it, I guess.”

“Found out, did you?” Draco says with a narrowed gaze. His eyes skirt over the invisibility cloak sticking out of Potter’s pocket. Potter follows his line of sight and startles.

“N-No! I didn’t follow you or anything–”

“Right,” Draco says before wiping the rim of the bottle with his cloak and taking a swig. He holds back a wince. “As if I’m going to believe the git who followed me only twenty minutes ago.”

Potter yanks the bottle out of his hands. 

“That’s not what happened, Malfoy.”

Draco crosses his arms. Potter’s cheeks are flushed, the alcohol burning through his system. Draco wonders if alcohol gives him the same complexion, whether the red stands out against his features more than the tanned skin before him. His face certainly feels warm. 

“Whatever you say, Potter.”

Draco watches him scoff and take another long drag from the bottle. He taps the glass a few times, elbows on his knees, one leg bouncing. Nervous. He’s made Potter nervous. A little part of him is pleased at the prospect of not only being able to make the Boy Who Lived red with righteous fury, but also nervous and downright twitchy. A larger, more significant part of Draco worries that he’s made Potter uncomfortable somehow. Was he meant to leave? Had that been part of some unspoken arrangement when he agreed to find Potter a drink? He’s about made up his mind to leave when Potter speaks up.

“So what’s it been like?” He asks, handing the rum back. “Working in the kitchens?”

Draco palms the bottle and wipes the rim again out of habit. Out of nerves. Didn’t Potter have a No Talking policy?

Draco thinks about telling him how he’s accepted the helter-skelter of elven cooking practices. How he’s grown used to the warm lull of the dinner rush, the rapid-paced wake up call of breakfast prep. He could tell Potter that it’s become the only times of the day that he doesn’t have to think and he can just melt into the work. He could tell him how he’s made friends with Peechy. And has started laying the foundations with other elves, even if it's slow work. But alcohol makes him honest. More honest than he’d like to be with someone who… Someone like Potter.

“Filthy,” Draco decides. “Food flying everywhere, plates whizzing past your head. It’s pure chaos. Except it isn’t, because somehow the elves know exactly how it all works and I’m just… a pebble in the gears of an anarchic food-making machine. It’s ludicrous.” 

It’s the truth, shrouded by layers of insincerity. But this is the Draco Malfoy that Potter knows. 

“Sounds fun,” Potter says.

“Well, you would think it's fun,” Draco says reflexively, taking another long sip.

Potter’s leg stops bouncing. The bench under his foot stops tapping against the floor. Draco tenses.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Oh, here we go.

“Relax, Potter,” Draco drawls. “I’m simply implying that people with your upbringing are attuned to disorder and filth. Jokingly, of course.”

Potter’s eyes narrow at the statement.

“It’s funny that you think you’re allowed to joke about that, you complete dickhead.”

“Am I not allowed a laugh?”

“No.”

Draco meets his gaze, and he can’t help thinking that he overestimated his familiarity with the boy in front of him. We really aren’t that close, he reminds himself. He feels a pang in his chest, the same ache he felt when he first came back to Hogwarts, when returning meant being an outsider among his peers, with so much of his life laid bare to the world. It was a terrible mix of loneliness and longing.

He takes another drink. It goes down easier.

“You know,” Potter starts, his tone clear that he does intend to start something, “I was wondering where you were at breakfast and dinner everyday. I thought maybe you didn’t want to show your sorry face to the rest of the school. But this… this is way better.”

Right. Draco should’ve known better than to bring Potter here. Here of all places. 

“Was this your punishment for returning to Hogwarts?” Potter asks. “Having to deal with the elves?”

The initial humiliation that Draco had first felt upon his return flares at the insult. 

“I don’t–” Draco bursts out, furious at the implications of Potter’s accusation. He thinks about Peechy, and how she taught him the proper way to knead pie dough. How the Head Elf–angrily, yet out of care–reminds him to tuck his shirt in. How the other elves hadn’t made him feel unwelcome when he rolled his sleeves up for the first time. It had been a while since Draco had seen his work as a punishment. “I don’t deal with them.”

“You don’t?”

Draco huffs and hands the bottle back to Potter indignantly. Crosses his arms over his chest. It hurts that Potter thinks the worst of him, but really, what other alternative had he given him?

“No, I don’t. I work with them. They… work with me. It’s mutual.”

It’s enough of an admission that he has to look away when he says it. 

“That’s… good,” Potter admits. 

Draco chances a look at him. His pitch black hair sweeps down over his eyes as his head hangs to the side, eyes searching the floor. Warm, orange light from the candles reflect off his cheeks, full of color and life, whether from the rum or the atmosphere, Draco can’t tell. 

Potter lets out a laugh. For some reason, Draco senses he’s the butt of the joke. 

“Tell me why I shouldn’t go over there and strangle you,” Draco says, fully intending it to sound menacing but missing just shy of the mark.

Potter tilts his head up at him, eyes swimming with amusement. He leans in and whispers.

“You reek of tomato when you come to Potions.”

Due to the rum, Draco’s inhibitions are lowered and his momentum is equally slowed, so when he lunges for Potter, the boy is already swinging his legs to the other side of the table and hopping to his feet. Draco rounds the corner of the table, alcohol fueling him more than anger or embarrassment. Potter wears a rude smile as Draco advances, gleeful in his ability to turn Draco into this. He watches in horror as Potter reaches across the table and throws a scone at him, thumping against his chest in a burst of crumbs and icing.

He looks down at his robes, dusted with white, and the sad heap of crumbs on the floor. He snaps up at Potter, whose expression is open and impish.

“You are so childish,” Draco says to a smiling Potter.

Draco extends an arm out and grabs Potter by the jumper, dragging him into a waist lock. Their feet scramble for purchase against the stone floor, pushing and pulling against their weight. Draco curls his fingers into Potter’s sides, grasping the thick cloth of his hoodie. 

Something about tonight feels different. Draco’s anger feels different. It’s contained, muted, channeled into thrill, that under-the-skin swell of competitiveness that gets his heart pumping and makes his head fuzzy. It feels like playing Quidditch again. 

The alcohol makes them sluggish, so when Draco loses his footing, Potter goes down with him, hand slipping against the table and knocking over the plate of scones onto the ground. 

“Agh! You–” Draco gasps, back hitting the floor with Potter sprawled out over his stomach. Their legs are tangled up so he doesn’t attempt to stand up or roll over. Instead, he reaches out and grabs a scone that is mostly intact off the ground, then smashes it against Potter’s head. Potter leans up, eyes wide in shock.

“Fittz made these for you, you dolt,” Draco says defensively. “Don’t be wastef–”

Draco doesn’t have time to respond before a scone is smushed into the side of his face by the mirthful idiot leaning over him. Icing sticks to his cheeks and the side of his nose, and he knows with dreadful certainty that there's crumbs in his hair. He sputters incoherently, cheeks warm from exertion and embarrassment. Potter’s eyes are bright and green, so very green. 

“Ha ha! You should see your face!” Potter laughs, and Draco can feel his body shaking in every place where they touch. Something in his chest lurches and hiccups. 

Oh, Merlin. 

“You–” Draco tries, but words are stuck in his throat. 

He grabs Potter’s shoulders, ready to roll them over and punch his bloody lights in with leftover scones. But Potter turns away suddenly, facing the door with a sudden panic. Draco holds his breath. He hesitates to look, letting his head roll slowly to the side as his eyes land on Peechy, standing meekly in the doorway to the kitchens. 

“I–” Peechy squeaks. She’s frozen in fear. Her eyes dart to the bottle of rum upended on the table, the shattered plate on the floor, and the two boys covered in scones and wrestling on the floor.

“Peechy, it’s not–” Potter starts, beginning to lean up to sit on his haunches.

But before he can explain… whatever this is, Peechy disapparates with a crack. Draco stares at the empty spot she had inhabited, willing her to come back. The weight of Potter against his thighs becomes negligible. His body goes cold.

I’m so fucked.

Chapter Text

For as long as he’s known he was a wizard, Harry’s life has been a troubling mix of life-changing revelations, unforgettable traumas, and awkward situations. As far as awkward situations go, this one takes the cake.

Or, the scone.

A full eight seconds have passed since Peechy disapparated, and every second lasts minutes in Harry’s mind. The spot where she once stood is still unbearably empty. Harry refuses to look at the boy beneath him. 

“Malfoy,” he says into the empty.

The voice below him is eerily calm, but tight. “Yes, Potter?” 

“Everything is going to be fine,” Harry says. He doesn’t fully believe it, but he says it anyway. He stares at the doorway.

“Potter.”

“What–”

“ Potter,” Malfoy shakes him by the shoulders, forcing Harry to look upon his cold, grey eyes, anger swimming just beneath the surface. Harry’s breath hitches. “I mean it this time. I’m going to kill you.”

Normally, this specific look coming from Malfoy means trouble. Harry has seen this deadly glare many times. The swift kick to his face that broke his nose was preceded by this very look. Perhaps it’s the alcohol swaying his judgement—or perhaps it’s the icing sticking to the side of Malfoy’s nose that makes him look utterly ridiculous—that causes Harry to burst into laughter. 

“You’re as painted as the Fat Lady,” Harry wheezes in between laughs.

He doubles over when Malfoy’s face twists into something murderous.

In a less-than-coordinated move, Harry is inelegantly pushed to the ground, giggles stammering out as Malfoy digs his shoulder blades into the floor. It hurts a bit, but Malfoy has done worse. 

“You think this is funny?” Malfoy barks. He grabs his wand out of his cloak and digs it into the soft flesh of Harry’s cheek, pulling the corner of his mouth up into a crooked smirk. He’s suddenly reminded of being pinned against a dingy wall barely an hour ago. Hot breath knocked out of him, curling white in the late night air. Malfoy fuming before him. “I could get kicked out of Hogwarts, my only chance to live a halfway decent life, and you think this is funny?”

In his fit of rage, a chunk of scone falls out of his hair. It’s hilarious. Everything is hilarious. Harry picks up the scone and plops it in his mouth. Malfoy’s disgust is the cherry on top. 

“A bit,” he concedes cheekily. 

“Ugh,” Malfoy groans and sits up on his haunches, “You are the worst kind of drunk.”

Harry rolls his eyes, batting away Malfoy’s wand. 

“I don’t have to be drunk to notice what your face looks like.”

The boy above him immediately colors, furiously wiping at the pastry on his face. Harry smiles at the sight. Malfoy is oddly endearing like this.

Right. Okay.

That was definitely the alcohol talking.

Harry shakes his head of the thought and sits up. 

“We won’t get in any trouble,” Harry says. “I doubt Peechy will say anything.”

For a moment, Malfoy pauses his self-grooming, thinking it over. His eyes wander before he stands up fully.

“You’re right,” Malfoy says finally, “She won’t.”

Harry’s heart drops. He doesn’t like the sound of that. Hell, how could he allow his guard to drop around someone like Malfoy? He shoots to his feet, already at the defensive.

“What does that mean?” Harry asks, forcing the warning in his tone.

“It means she’s my friend.”

Malfoy faces him head on. Harry almost laughs, but it’s written all over; Malfoy’s serious. 

“It means she won’t rat on me. She knows what it took for me to be here. She wouldn’t jeopardize that.”

The surprise of Malfoy’s original statement has Harry reeling. A Malfoy, on amicable terms with an elf? Friends, even? A shock of guilt runs through him, tugging at his insides. Malfoy recognizes it before Harry does.

“What did you think I meant?” Malfoy asks incredulously. Harry doesn’t know what to say. He feels as though he’s backed himself into a corner.

“I–”

Malfoy scoffs, anger building up his body language.

“You thought I would do something to her?” 

“Malfoy, it–”

“That I would hurt Peechy?”

“As if that's an unimaginable thing to believe,” Harry launches back. “It wouldn’t be the first time yo–”

A solid right hook sends Harry into the dining table, backend landing heavily on the bench. He cups his cheek. It throbs angrily with pain. He looks back at the boy responsible, who breathes heavy through his mouth, his rapidly bruising fist hanging limp at his side. Malfoy’s hair swings loose in front of his eyes. His gaze glues Harry to his seat.

“The only person I hurt now… is you,” Malfoy says, hard and unflinching. “And you ask for it, Potter.”

Malfoy walks out of the kitchen before Harry can say anything. But, Merlin… what would he even say?

***

Harry rolls out of bed to an empty dorm room, thanking whatever god existed that he didn’t have to face Ron after the night he’s had. Guilt had eaten most of his time spent trying to fall asleep. He’d kept the bruise overnight, a punishment as well as a reminder. In the dead silence of night, Harry had stared up at the canopy of his bed and curled his hand, reaching up until he slid his knuckles against the tender swell of his cheek, trying to remember how it felt when Malfoy’s fist connected with it. 

His hangover has mostly passed, but not enough to care about his current state of dress. He only bothers with healing the bruise before walking down the steps to the Common Room.

“Well I wouldn’t believe a word out of a Slytherin’s mouth anyway,” he hears someone say. “They’re always painting Harry in a bad light.”

Harry stops at the sound of his name, pausing before he reaches the end of the steps. He peeks behind the wall and finds that a few members of his house are chatting on the couches, books spread out as if they were studying. Ginny sits among them, he notices, arms wrapped around one leg.

“I’m not saying it’s true,” Dean says with his hands raised. “I’m just telling you what I heard Parkinson say.”

Harry shrinks back behind the wall. Who did she tell? And what had she said? Bollocks, this is a nightmare.

“Why would she lie?” another voice says.

“We shouldn’t be talking about this,” Ginny groans, annoyed. “She probably wants this. Help the gossip about.”

“It doesn’t make any sense.”

He can’t listen to this anymore. He’s too tired and too hungry to keep eavesdropping. Harry takes a deep breath. He quietly walks back up a few steps, then noisily stomps back down them, ensuring he makes as much sound as possible. The chatter dies down once he reaches the floor, all eyes turning to him. He pretends not to notice and beelines for the exit, but not before Lavender can interrupt him.

“Hey Harry! We missed you last night,” she says with a smile.

“Yeah, what did ya get up to?” Seamus asks. He doesn’t even have a book open.

Harry slows to a stop just shy of the exit, despite his heart protesting. Why is everyone looking at him like that? He knows what he looks like, knows the ass he made of himself in front of the entire Gryffindor table. Why are they talking to him as if nothing happened?

He can feel Ginny’s eyes roving his face.

“Oh, come off it,” Dean says, lightly smacking Seamus’ arm. He turns to Harry. “Harry, there’s a rumor going around. You might as well hear it from us so you won’t be blindsided later.”

“When have I given a damn about rumors?” Harry says, tired and trying not to snap at his housemates. Again.

“I just want you to be ahead of the curve, mate,” Dean laughs. “Parkinson is telling people you were at the Broomsticks last night.”

“Implied you were some kind of peeping tom,” Seamus adds, clearly humored by the concept.

Harry pales. His eyes dart to Ginny. Almost every instinct tells him to disapparate with the same speed and impulsivity that Peechy had the night before, disappear into the forest and never come back. Another instinct tells him to sweep her away from all this noise, and give her the apology she deserves for what he said to her. I’m so sorry sits heavy on his tongue.

Would she even want to hear it? Nothing about her eyes reveal anything, and Harry is lost.

“I was here last night,” he lies.

“Obviously,” Lavender says pointedly at Dean. “No one but Pansy would want to stalk Draco anyway.”

The banter resurfaces in the group, some choice insults making its way through the noise. Ginny looks away, playing with a page from her book. Harry needs to leave. Immediately. Before this gets any worse.

“I’ll be going then,” he says to no one in particular, and steps out of the Common Room.

***

He gets strange looks at breakfast. (Technically lunch now, but it’s the weekend, and who’s going to call him out on getting up late?) He pretends not to notice. He pokes the yolk of his eggs. It runs soft and yellow across his plate. 

Malfoy isn’t there. He doesn’t know if it’s a relief or an ache he wants to press on.

***

“Harry!” Hermione whisper-shouts.

Harry jumps up in his seat with a gasp, hands scrambling for purchase against his textbooks. A few students in the study area of the library turn at the sudden exclamation. He ignores them to stare up at Hermione, who's got this amused, though slightly concerned, look about her.

“I was just resting my eyes,” he says, adjusting his glasses, and there’s a minor ache against the bridge of his nose where it dug in against the table. 

“You were snoring.”

“It helps my… process,” he says, squinting. Hermione squints back. “O-kay, I may have been taking a short nap. Maybe.”

Hermione rolls her eyes and sighs in mock-exasperation as she takes the seat next to him. He notices her hair is braided again, resting over her shoulder. She looks far more put together than he feels, in his grey hoodie and tartan pajama bottoms. He unconsciously pulls at the strands of hair that curl against the nape of his neck.

“I came to see how you were doing,” Hermione says. She tries to make eye contact.

The stone in his stomach returns. He knew this conversation would have to come at some point, whether it be from Hermione or from Ron. He figured the next time he’d see Ron it might be met with a fist to the face, given the last time they’d spoken Harry had been yelling at his little sister, for Merlin’s sake. Instead, they seemed to avoid each other entirely for the last day and a half. 

Harry shrugs and looks away, “I’m sure Ron told you what happened.”

“We don’t tell each other everything, you know,” she replies defensively. Harry raises an eyebrow. “Alright, he told me you had a nightmare, but that’s it! And I wanted to hear your side, Harry.”

Harry chews on his inner cheek. Doesn’t say anything.

“Was it… about Voldemort?” She asks quietly.

He shakes his head. The image of Malfoy bloody and torn violently reappears in his mind. He shudders through the thought.

“It doesn’t matter what it was about. It matters that my friends thought it was fine to tell people about it,” Harry mutters. He twists his fingers. “I… I didn’t handle it the best way. Obviously. I understand if Ron or Ginny don’t want to be around me for… a long time.” 

They sit silently for a moment, letting the admission hang in the air. Then, Hermione takes a deep breath and puts her hand on Harry’s shoulder.

“Firstly, no one shared the fact that you had a nightmare,” Hermione says. When Harry squints at her again, she proclaims, “I can hardly imagine why I wouldn’t be an exception under the circumstances. You and Ron are my best friends.”

Harry concedes the point. He really doesn’t mind Hermione knowing. It was simply… embarrassing. 

“Secondly, you did overreact. And yes, you should apologize. Though as far as I’m aware, you’ve already got their forgiveness.”

“Why?”

“Harry… we went through hell. All of us, together. We know that there are moments when we can afford grace to one another.”

Harry shakes his head. “I lashed out at people who didn’t deserve it. I don’t deserve grace. I don’t understand why they aren’t…”

He can’t finish the sentence. Doesn’t want to think about losing more people in his life, even though he’s doing a pretty shit job at keeping them lately.

“Well, I can’t speak for Ginny,” she starts, “But as for Ron… He’s walked out on you before, and it was one of the greatest regrets of his life. He’ll never walk out on you again.”

Harry peers up at his friend. The honesty pierces through him, and he knows he can always count on Hermione to say what needs to be said. To remind him of the truths of life. And he can always count on Ron to stand by his side. He just needed to be reminded of that. 

As a swell of gratitude rises in his chest, Harry wraps his arms around her shoulders.

“Thanks, ‘Mione,” is all he can manage with the lump in his throat.

“Of course,” Hermione says, returning the hug. Harry swears he can hear the tears in her voice. “You can talk to us. Whenever you’re ready. I promise it stays between us.”

Part of him knows it’s true. He’ll always have the two of them to confide in. But another part wants what they have. He doesn’t know what he’s missing, and still he feels out of the loop around them. He doesn’t know why he can’t tell them what’s wrong. 

Harry squeezes tight one last time, and when he pulls back, Hermione’s eyes are rimmed with unspilled tears. He smiles, and she smiles back. 

“Did you also come here to help me study for the OWLs? Because I could really borrow some of that Granger-patented focus.”

“Actually,” she wipes her eyes and laughs, “I came to ask about this exceptionally unimaginable rumor I heard.”

Today really wants to send him through the ringer, doesn’t it? 

Hermoine reads the truth on his face before he can deny it. Her eyes turn to saucers, then droop down just as quickly into concern. 

“Oh, Harry.”

“I–” Harry panics. He can feel a hiccup in his chest. “Listen, ‘Mione, I… I needed to keep an eye on him. I thought he might–”

His jaw clicks shut.

‘You thought I would do something to her?’

“Harry, I know what Draco’s done. Trust me, I do not need reminding,” she says. “But… spying–”

“I’m not–” Harry cuts himself off, feeling himself getting louder. He clears his throat and lowers his voice. “I had every reason to follow him in Sixth Year. Malfoy was up to something, I knew he was and he confirmed it every step of the way.”

He knows it doesn’t make any sense. He knows that Malfoy isn’t his father, knows that he was placed under impossible circumstances. But he also knows that cruelty is a tough habit to kick. And hell if Harry wasn’t going to be cautious.

Hermione nods, following where Harry’s train of thought is leading him.

“Harry, you have to know that this is…” She contemplates. “Obsessive. It’s not healthy. What you had to do back then is completely understandable. But the war is over. And Draco, for better or worse, is trying to fix what he can.”

She says it so easily. At least, Harry thinks it seems easy for her to say. But to hear it is an entirely different thing. Everyone can see that just because the war is over, it doesn’t make things magically better. It doesn’t instantaneously solve political strife, or rebuild damaged infrastructure. It doesn’t bridge societal gaps, or bring people back from the dead. Ending a war is only half the problem. You have to deal with everything that comes after, too. 

And Harry has no clue what to do with all this hurt. 

“Then why does my body still feel like it’s at war?”

He knows she’s analyzing him head to toe. The mess of hair, the dark shadows under his eyes, the bouncing leg, the posture. He follows her line of sight until she grasps his hands gently.

“Trauma can manifest physically as well as mentally,” she starts. As though she’s had this conversation before. Maybe she has, Harry thinks. He glances at her braid and thinks about all the younger students who flock to the Eighth Years, revering them, but also finding comfort in their presence after the final battle. Hermione must have many young Gryffindors looking up to her, being the brightest witch her age and all. Harry smiles fondly at the thought, missing most of what Hermione is saying. “I can lend you a book on the subject, if you’d like.”

Clink clink.

The two whip around, searching for the source of the clinking sound. Their eyes land on an owl, perched in the window high above them. The bird pecks at the glass again.

Clink clink.

Hermione produces her wand from her boot and discreetly points at the window.

“Alohomora,” she whispers. 

The window latch clicks open and the owl shimmies through the glass pane. Then, in a fell swoop of feathers and talons, the brown owl careens gracelessly past their table, dropping a large, sealed envelope before flapping back towards the window at a sluggish pace. 

In messy lettering: Harry

Hermione lights up, “That looks like–”

“Hagrid,” Harry finishes with a smile.

He rips the envelope open and they scan the letter quickly. Harry and Hermione grin at each other, giddy with excitement as they gather their books and break into a run out of the library.

Dear Harry, Ron, and Hermione,

Hope all is well at Hogwarts. Thought I’d let you all know that I’d be visiting from Romania for a week or so. Petrina’s a darling old owl, so expect this letter to arrive a wee bit late. Should be there by Sunday the 28th. 

Your friend, Rubeus Hagrid

***

The October winds are biting cold as Harry and Hermione make their way towards the station. Neither of them care to confess regret over not returning to their rooms to grab their coats. Instead, Hermione blasts them with warming charms the whole way, hands buried under the crook of their armpits. 

They reach a hill about a dozen meters before the station when they hear the telltale growl of a motorbike flying through the air.

“Oy!” Harry shouts, waving his hands above his head. His voice doesn’t carry over the wind, but Hagrid hears him still.

The bike sputters to a halt, making its shaky descent to the ground. Hagrid shifts his flying goggles to his forehead and waves as the two young wizards stumble their way down the hill towards him. The second he steps foot on grassy terrain, Harry and Hermione crash land into his soft belly, arms wrapped around his sides. His hearty laugh shakes them.

“‘Ave I gotten shorter, or are the both of yeh gettin’ taller?” Hagrid says, mussing up their hair with his bulky hands.

“Ron’s actually grown a few inches,” Hermione responds, humoured by the joke.

“Takin’ after Bill, then? Skinny little feller, he’ll blow away in tha wind if yeh let ‘im go. Where is he, anyways?”

Hermione glances at Harry and says, “He’s… working on his Muggle Studies paper.”

Harry sidesteps the topic, eager to move on from Ron and the growing chasm between them, to Hagrid and what must be an exciting array of dragon-breeding stories.

“How’s Romania? And Norberta?” 

“Rainy as e’er. Practically live in my wellies,” Hagrid laughs. “We’re preparin’ fer snow storm season, wanted ter come see you lot ‘fore I can’t fly back. ‘S for Norberta, she’s happier than a duck in water, bein’round her kind an’ all. Ah! Tha’ reminds me.”

He opens his coat and reaches into it, retrieving a small, purple velvet bag. He gives it a rattling shake, and plops it into Harry’s hands. 

“Gathered those up o’er the last month or so,” Hagrid says. Harry pulls on the drawstring and peers into the bag. It’s filled with fangs, claw clippings, and scales of all sizes and colours. “Hard to get yer ‘ands on dragon remains round here. They’ve got bucket loads of use. Look here.”

Hagrid stuffs his hand in the bag and digs out a yellowed claw the size of Harry’s finger. He tilts the wide end towards them.

“See that fleshy bit?” He says. “If yeh chew on that, suck out its marrow, yer ‘ole tongue’ll go numb. It’s helped me through some nasty colds, I’ll tell yeh that.”

“Fascinating,” Hermione says, curiosity spilling out her ears. “How long does the effect last?”

As they chatter on about the magical properties of dragon toenail clippings, Harry turns the claw over in his hand. There are plenty of potions and tonics that he’s sure Hermione will find ways to improve upon with these remains–if anyone can do it, it’s Hermione. But Harry thinks about something else.

He pockets the claw. 

They continue their discussion on Hagrid’s bike, speeding up and back down over the hill towards his hut. He talks about the dragon training and the new wizards he’s met. He talks about how Charlie is doing well, considering the time he spent at home to grieve Fred. He’s thrown himself into his work, apparently. Following his passions. In some ways, Harry can understand that. In many other ways, he can’t stomach the idea of it. To force that ugly, rotting bit inside you to look away for a moment. To force yourself to be happy. To be happy on purpose. It feels wrong. Unnatural.

He thinks about Malfoy. He thinks about the solid hit to the face he took, and the words he spoke with malice. He has no use for these words anymore, but it felt good to wield them. To hold them like a knife. 

Harry grips the claw tightly in his pocket and closes his eyes. The cold air blows over his face, cards through his hair and parses through his thoughts, pulling them into the wind behind him. The rumble of the motorbike calms him. He un-clenches his fist. 

Hagrid slows the bike to a stop, only a short walking distance from his hut. He stares out at the Forbidden Forest. Harry follows his gaze, looking at the billowing tree branches. The dark grey clouds hanging low over the trees makes the forest depths seem pitch-black, devoid. And to Harry, alluring in the way a black hole cradles you in its orbit, before pulling you in forever.

“There’s somethin’… off,” Hagrid says. “Can’t put my finger on it.”

When Harry looks back, Hermione is patting Hagrid’s arm and stepping off the bike.

“You’ve had quite a long trip,” she says. “Let me put some tea on for you.”

That snaps him out of his daze. Hagrid is among one of the many unfortunate victims of Hermione’s burnt cuppas. He gives Harry a sidelong-glance, and he does his best to hide his grin from Hermione. 

“Yeh know me,” Hagrid says, dismounting the bike with a rocking motion, “Ne’er will I say no to a friend.”

***

Come dusk, Harry and Hermione say their goodbyes with slightly heavier pockets than before. They approach the castle as the sun disappears past the horizon, the world becoming darker with every passing second. 

“You should ask Luna,” Hermione says, unzipping her jacket as they enter the candlelit halls. Other students walk by them, heading in the same direction. Dinner is soon to begin. “She’s been practicing since fifth year. She’s quite good.”

“I don’t know, ‘Mione. I honestly think I could do it mys–”

“Harry,” she interrupts with a grin. “You couldn’t.”

“It’s not even that bad,” he tries.

Hermione stops them near the entrance to the Great Hall. She reaches up and lifts his fringe away from his forehead. His vision clears up quite a bit without the mop of hair covering the top of his view, but he won’t satisfy her by telling her that. 

“You can barely see. And your ears are almost gone!”

“Maybe I want to grow it out. Did you consider that, Hermione?” He jokes. He picks a butterfly clip out of her hair and waves it around in front of her. “Maybe I want people to give me butterfly clips every once in a while.”

She giggles and rolls her eyes. He smiles, but catches a dash of red in his peripheral. Panic flushes hot through his body. He turns and clears his throat, looking at the floor as they approach carrying their broomsticks.

“Ron, Ginny! You two went flying?” Hermione asks.

“Yeah,” Ron responds, voice tight. “It was quite cold, though.”

Harry glances up at the pair. Ron, his eyes darting back and forth between him and Hermione. His shoulders are set, grip tight on his broom. Ginny’s expression is open, but perfectly constructed, meant to hide whatever is beneath it. No one says anything for a long moment. 

Something close to an apology sits in Harry’s mouth.

“Ron’s a baby,” Ginny says, breaking through the tension.

Harry chuckles. The near-apology slides back down his throat, falling into his stomach.

“Wh- am not!” Ron sputters. He jabs a finger into his sister’s shoulder. “And it was bloody cold out there, don’t pretend like you weren’t shivering.”

Harry misses them. They’re right in front of him, bickering and jabbing, and he can reach out and touch them if he wants. And he wants so badly. To curl himself back into the warmth of a family that took him in as one of their own years ago. He lets the three of them pull him into mindless banter. He chimes in with a joke or two. They volley a few back. 

It’s normal, for the briefest of moments. Harry feels normal.

Really, he does.

Chapter Text

The buzzing in his hands won’t stop. The nerves in his body are alight like a live wire.

It had always felt good to hit Potter. Natural, even. But tonight—with the alcohol coursing through his system and giddy energy turning sour at rapid speed—punching Potter had felt downright nasty. He’d deserved it, but Draco had regretted it the moment he stepped foot in the hallway outside the kitchens. 

Not that he’d even thought about turning back around and apologizing. As Draco storms his way back to his dormitory, he vacillates between regret and vindication. Drowsy from the rum and coming down from the adrenaline, questions tumble through his mind without preamble (and with very little effort to stop them). Draco tries to shake his head of the thoughts when he reaches his dorm, trying instead to focus on ridding himself of the icing that cakes his hair and face. Potter had deserved to stew in his guilt. But had hitting him been the right move? Draco felt as though they’d made some progress towards… a truce? Conciliation? Is that something he even wanted? What had been the point of this arrangement, again? 

With a shaking hand, Draco vanishes the icing off his robes. He ignores the tremor. 

He stands in the shower for longer than usual. Maybe it’s the alcohol, or the steam rising up in the bathroom, slowing down time and making him dizzy. His brain helpfully reminds him that his roommates will be back from Hogsmeade shortly, and that he should probably get out and go to bed before they can interrogate him. He wills himself to turn off the water and dry off–slow from liquor-heavy limbs–getting dressed before setting a charm to wake him up early. 

Draco slumps into bed with a groan, face sinking into silk sheets. His body sinks too, enveloped by his buzz fizzling out and the warm water evaporating off his skin. He flips onto his back. Feels weight pushing his shoulders down, down into the mattress. Remembers eyes green as willow grass scrunched up with glee, laughing down at him, urging him to look back up at them.

Draco’s stomach turns. His eyes snap open. 

Fuck.

***

When Draco arrives at the kitchens, it is still pitch black outside. He awaits by the doorway and scans the room for Peechy. A few other elves have already filed in, yawning and tying aprons around their waist. He’s grown accustomed to waking up early now for the breakfast rush, though never this early. He doesn’t know how the elves do it on a near-daily basis. 

Where do the elves even go at night? He files the question away for a later time. 

He jumps slightly at the tug on his pant leg. He looks down to find Peechy staring at the floor, her tiny mitts bunched in the fabric of his trousers. 

“Peechy, I was looking for you,” Draco says breathily, still startled from when she grabbed him.

Peechy makes a tiny squeaky sound.

“Thought you might be c-cross, M-Mr. Malfoy,” she mutters nervously, wringing her hands in the cloth.

Draco nearly collapses to the floor. When had he made her this… frightened?  

“W– No, no,” he placates, lowering himself onto one knee. “I’m not cross. Well, not at you at least. Why would I be cross with you?”

She wrings her hands some more, looking anywhere but his face. 

“I was… p-perhaps, maybe I was intruding, sir,” she whispers, face crinkled up in distress. “D-didn’t mean to interrupt Mr. Malfoy and M– Harry. I really didn’t, did I?”

“Intruding?” Draco scoffs. Peechy recoils slightly at his tone and Draco adjusts. “I– Peechy, you weren’t intruding on anything, you don’t…” 

Draco trails off, scanning the kitchens for any remains of mess that he and Potter had surely left behind. There are no traces of the decimated scones, or the likely shattered plate, or the half-drained rum bottle, for that matter. It’s as if their scuffle had never happened. The thought–regrettably–occurs to him, that Potter must’ve cleaned up after he stormed off, cleaned up the mess Draco made in the kitchen he has come to know and respect. 

Potter, cleaning up after Draco’s mess. Like that was a revelatory statement. Shame unfurls within him, cold and twisting. 

Have I really changed so little? Draco thinks glumly.

“Mr. Malfoy?”

Draco snaps back to Peechy’s attention. The worry lines between her brows have lightened since he first saw her, replaced now with a friendly concern. He takes a deep breath and lets it out in a big gust. 

“No need to worry. Potter and I were having a laugh,” he says, hoping it will reassure her. He tries a smile and stands up as she brightens. “But let’s forget about last night, shall we?”

“A-alright, Mr. Malfoy. It’s forgotten,” Peechy replies with a polite smile, but still worrying her hands.

“Joinin’ us now on the weekend then, lad?” Draco turns around to see the Head Elf waddling past, gruff and grumpy, tying the strings around his apron. He opens his mouth to respond but gets cut off– “Don’ care why, jus’ wash yer hands an’ get star’ed.”

“Yes, sir,” Draco responds with a roll of his eyes. He rolls up his sleeves and tucks in the back of his shirt tails as he makes his way to the sink. “What are we making?”

“Crepes!” Peechy says. “Many members of Slytherin have been particular to them over the years. Yes, and you’re fond of them too, aren’t you, Mr. Malfoy? I seem to remember that, I do.”

Draco towels off his hands. Early, early memories of his mother preparing them at home resurface. With a light dusting of sugar and whichever berries were in season. She always fed his sweet tooth. It couldn’t be helped.

“Yes, Peechy,” he says. “Quite fond.”

***

Draco eats his breakfast with the elves that morning. He tells himself it’s because he wants to spend more time with the other elves, get to know them a bit more. And that bit is true, he does want that. They’ve been nothing but cordial with him, even friendly on good days; it serves to reason that building connections is the most sustainable path for him at the moment. But it’d be a lie if he said it was the only reason.

He dreads leaving the kitchens. Knowing what may lie waiting for him beyond the safety of these walls. The dorms are off-limits. Theo and Goyle usually hang around in the common room on Sundays, catching up on material due Monday. Blaise is most likely on the pitch, doing drills. And Parkinson makes her way around the school grounds, though mostly ends up chatting with some girls in the courtyard. Best to avoid those areas as much as possible, he decides.

After last night at the pub, the last thing Draco had wanted to think about was the conversation being had once he left Hogsmeade with Potter. He’d drunk himself silly and got into a pastry war with Potter instead of thinking about it. Then he’d been too cross to remember the Pansy situation at all, feeling like his body was swimming, replaying the sensation of Potter’s thighs on his before falling fitfully asleep. Then he’d spent his morning whisking eggs and milk and chatting with Frittz and Peechy and Liila. 

Now, he’s here. Scared out of his wits and not ready to admit it.

He heads for the library, preferring to run into Granger than any of his own Housemates. He goes over a mental list of books he’s meant to check out for his classes tomorrow. He walks quickly, scanning the hallways. He manages to get to the library undetected, though the feeling of eyes on his back makes his hair stand on end. He finds the textbooks with ease. Atlas of Celestial Anomalies for Astronomy, The Alchemists’ Almanac for Potions, and Upper Level Conversions and Configurations for Transfiguration. He picks a quiet corner of the library and opens up the almanac. For two hours, Draco pours over tide tables, moon cycles, and seasonal agriculture patterns until his eyes go cross. By midday he calls it, rubs at his eyes with the palms of his hands before closing the book with a sigh. He’s not entirely sure any of that information got through to him, though he trusts his subconscious memory to have stored at least some bit of knowledge away. 

Draco stands to gather his books, massaging his sore neck. A sharp thwack makes him jump when a letter drops onto his books, his owl already out of sight. On the envelope, To Draco is written in the neat, curly signature of his mother. The ink lines are thicker than usual, however; frustration penned into parchment.

Wonderful, he thinks bitterly.

He’d been dodging her letters. He suspects that’s what this letter is about, if the aggressive, swirly letters spelling his name are anything to go by. He ignores the unease that settles in his stomach, crudely tucking away the letter into his pocket to either read or ignore at a later time.

He pinches his neck again, and when he rolls his head up he finds Blaise standing at the other end of the library, facing him dead on. Draco stills, his fingers buzzing at his nape. Blaise stands unevenly and his breathing is slightly heavy, as though he’s been jogging and finally has a chance to rest his feet. Draco takes note that he isn’t wearing his cloak, nor his gloves, which means he never went flying this morning. He comes to the quick realization that Blaise has been looking for him. 

Fear spikes through his body, running cold down his spine. His heartbeat is a frenzy as he stacks his books with shaking hands, holds them to his chest, and strides toward his friend, toward the exit to the library. He avoids eye contact even as Blaise tries to speak, “Draco–”

The request slips right through Draco, refusing to stop him in pursuit of his escape. 

“Draco, stop,” Blaise says. 

His voice echoes off the long hallways. Draco keeps pace. 

“Accio textbooks.”  

Draco has half a second to react before his books are flying out of his arms and back towards the Slytherin behind him. He whips out his wand and sends the books slamming into the wall next to Blaise, just out of reach. They land in a violent heap, binding upturned and pages wrinkled. Draco rushes at Blaise with a fierce grip around his wand. 

“Why the hell are you bothering me right now, Zabini?” he grits out. 

Blaise stays steady on his feet, holding firm eye contact with the storm headed his way.

“We need to talk,” he says.

For a second, Draco wishes he was at home in the mansion. Only if home were entirely different than how he now remembers it. Tainted, and utterly decimated in his memory. And yet, the desire to return from whence he came bleeds into the cracks, urging him to crawl back into the snakes’ pit. Some conversations are more difficult than going home.

“I don’t think we do,” Draco responds, hoping it’ll be enough. It doesn’t deter Blaise.

“You’ve been avoiding us,” he says, “And acting strangely.”

Draco lets out a dry scoff. To think that the boy who once had disdain for Draco, was now pretending to be concerned over him. It was laughable. Where had this respect suddenly come from? They hadn’t spoken since long before the Battle had started, then upon returning to Hogwarts in September, it was as though the Battle had never happened. No one spoke about it. The few Slytherin that had decided to return had banded together whether they were prior friends or not. 

“Why do you care?” Draco spits, inching closer. “Since when did we become friends?”

Disregarding the blatant attempt at an argument, Blaise asks, “Is it because of last night? What Pansy said?”

“I said I don't want to talk about this.”

“Why not? It’s clearly bothering you.”

“Why not?” His mouth twists up in anger. His blood boils from being put on the spot like this. Made to feel interrogated. Vulnerable. Backed into a corner. With nowhere else to go, he breaks.

“Why don’t we talk about what we’ve all been avoiding, hm?” Draco seethes. Stabs a finger into Blaise’s chest. He ignores how it trembles. “I don’t think I’ve heard a word from you about it, actually.”

Blaise shakes his head, but refuses to take a step back. Eyes widening in shock at Draco’s outburst.

“What are you on about?” he asks.

“The war, Zabini. The bloody war,” Draco snaps, voice growing ragged with indignation. His eyes dart wildly across Blaise’s face. “W-we’ve been back for almost three months now and no one, no one wants to talk about it. The part we all had in it. I have been carrying this guilt, this- this shame for years, and I’ve only just started paying for it. And I have been losing my mind wondering if any of you feel even an ounce of the same regret that I do.”

Blaise steps back. He looks at the floor.

Draco runs cold. 

Probably not, then.

His body moves without thought, shuffling to pick up his books, straightening out the pages. His throat feels raw and swollen shut. As though he were about to cry. Bugger, he has to get out of here. He walks quickly down the hallway, refusing to look back around.

***

Dinner goes off without a hitch, to Draco’s surprise. He finds himself weaving through the chaos with ease, falling into that familiar rhythm he’s been learning since the start of September. The pot roast he was tasked to prepare is edible. Good, even. A small part of him hoped that someone out there in the Great Hall was enjoying it tonight, a spark of pride taking hold within him.

By the end of the night, Draco and a few other elves work on the mountain of dishes until they dwindle down to a small hill. 

“There’s not much left, Gildha. I can handle the rest,” Draco says, forearms deep in soapy water.

“Are you sure?” the elf asks gruffly. “We’ve always finished them.”

“You’ll be up far earlier than me tomorrow,” Draco reasons, taking his wand out and spelling more plates and sponges to dunk themselves in the water then scrub themselves in the air around him. “Go, before I change my mind and call you all back in here.”

Gildha chuckles. “Goodnight, lad.”

“Night.”

He watches her disapparate then gets back to work. The motions and warm water calms his nerves. Quiets his thoughts. Here, he doesn’t have to think about his housemates, or what they may or may not know about him, or the war, or his mother and father trying to reconnect with him. After a few minutes to himself, he hears footsteps stopping timidly at the entrance to the kitchens.

Draco sighs, “My fingers are prunes, Gildha. Don’t think I won’t have you switch places with me.”

“Pruney fingers.” The plates and sponges pause in midair. Draco whips around at the sound of Potter’s voice. “Whatever will you do?”

Draco’s jaw falters, and he can feel heat rising up his neck. Merlin, what did he want?

Potter leans against the doorsill, arms crossed over his chest with a smug grin plastered on his face. His hair is pushed back with a thin, black headband. Draco can’t stop looking at his forehead. It becomes a problem when he realizes just how long he’s had his mouth open. He tries to form words, mouthing empty syllables. Potter arches a brow, clearly entertained. Prick.

“You look like a girl,” Draco says finally, before returning to furiously scrub at a plate. 

Potter laughs, unphased. “One of the First Years is letting me borrow her headband,” he says, meandering footsteps approaching. “Said I should be able to see where I’m pointing my wand. Besides, I’m not the one wearing an apron.” 

The hairs on Draco’s neck stand on end. He looks down at the navy apron tied around his waist, preventing water from getting on his black cotton jumper. He feels a prickling of embarrassment, but he’s had enough bad spills to know it’s practical and he refuses to take it off. 

“I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to have it back,” Draco taunts. “She’ll kiss it goodnight and sleep with it under her pillow for safekeeping.”

“Eh, probably.” He can hear the smile in Potter’s voice. The smarmy bastard. 

Potter leans back against the counter, hands propped up on the edge beside him. His fingers tap incessantly against the marble. Draco avoids looking directly at him, refusing to indulge in giving Potter his attention. Golden Boy, however, fixes him with a stare that Draco has grown quite used to over the years. A searching, accusing stare. Looking for some mistake, some clever deceit in the workings to catch him on. Draco hates it.

“Why are you here, Potter?” 

Potter turns away and scratches the back of his head. This should be good.

“I came to apologize.”

Draco pauses. Stares back at the boy next to him, not knowing what to say. From up close, he can see that the bruise Potter would’ve had on his cheekbone has been magicked away.

“I– That was unfair of me. Last night,” Potter explains. He shifts his weight. “I know that Peechy is your friend, and you wouldn’t hurt her. You’ve done good work here, I realize that. I wouldn’t have testified for you if I didn’t think you could… make amends. I… I shouldn’t’ve said what I did.”

Draco rakes his eyes over the apologetic boy. Last night, he would’ve revelled in Potter tucking his tail between his legs and apologizing for his insinuations. Right now, it just feels backwards.

“I don’t blame you,” Draco says quietly, returning to his dishes again. The plates make gentle clinking sounds as they get stacked up behind Potter. “I haven’t given you, or anyone for that matter, a reason to trust me.”

Potter shakes his head. 

“Maybe, but you haven’t done anything wrong since we came back for Eighth Year. Other than being unbearable.” Draco shoots him a glare, to which he laughs. Potter sighs, drumming his fingers again. “I keep expecting the worst from people. Even from my friends. I keep thinking about the next… disaster, the next terrible thing that might happen. And it doesn’t come.”

“It could,” Draco says.

“Yeah, it could,” Potter responds with a quirk of his lips. “But I’m starting to think maybe I don’t need to look forward to it.”

Draco considers Potter’s remorse. Turns it over and over in his head, and he finds no ulterior motives for the sentiment. He hadn’t been deserving of grace in a long time. It’s a strange feeling. Especially coming from the Saviour of the Wizarding World, clad in a girl’s headband and red tartan pajama bottoms.

“I’m sorry for… for hitting you,” Draco says, finding irony in the statement. He sends Potter a smirk. “Normally, you deserve it for being an arrogant know-it-all. But it wasn’t necessary then.”

“Thanks,” Potter says amusedly. 

They fall quiet, letting the words hang in the air. Draco keeps piling up plates and utensils, more than a little unnerved by the silence between them. He waits anxiously for Potter to say something, or leave, or punch him again. He doesn’t know which he’d prefer. 

“I bet that was extremely hard for you,” Draco huffs, lacing his words with subtle barbs. He finds himself unable to hold up a conversation with Potter without insulting him–out of habit, he supposes.

Potter chuckles, “It’s easier to apologize to someone like–” and snaps his mouth shut.

“Someone like what?” Draco snaps back. 

“Someone I’m not mates with,” Potter clarifies. “It’s easier than apologizing to a friend.”

Potter looks at his feet. Draco remembers the–frankly, concerning–outburst Potter had had the other day. How he’d barked at his girlfriend and other Gryffindor cohorts in front of the entire Great Hall. The implication that Potter’s regret was deeper, and somehow more profound towards his friends than to him made him bristle with disdain.

“So I’m your practice dummy?” Draco sneers. “Did you actually even mean that apology?”

“Did you?”

“Yes, but I’m starting to regret it now,” Draco says bitterly, shaking the water off his hands as he finishes the final plate. He grabs a hand towel from the rack above him and angrily dries his hands. Potter follows the movements with his eyes. He steps a bit closer and lowers his voice almost to a whisper. 

“Do you want to go to the Forest?” 

Draco scoffs. He turns to Potter, sees the mischievous glint in his eye up close. “You’re mad.”

Potter shrugs and sticks his hands in his hoodie pockets.

“You look like you have some things on your mind,” he says. “I can help you… not think for a while.”

Draco thinks about the fight with Blaise, how he’d let out what he’d been trying to keep in to maintain the peace, maintain unity within the crumbling Slytherin House, even if it amounted to shit. How his so-called friends would probably never see him the same way again. How Pansy runs her mouth. How his secret might not be a secret anymore. How the letter from his mother burns in his pocket. It all simmers in the forefront of his mind, refusing to let him forget. The fact that Potter can read him this well… It scares him.

He nods. Starts taking off his apron.

Potter tampers down a smile and grabs onto Draco’s upper arm. 

“The pot roast was decent, by the way.”

“ Decent. High praise from the Chosen Mongrel. You wouldn’t know good food–”

In a blinding flash, Potter apparates them into the middle of their clearing. Draco stumbles forward a few feet and barrels over, his stomach reeling. A low groan escapes him. He hadn’t apparated in a while, clearly.

“What was that?” Potter teases. “I didn’t quite catch that last bit.”

Draco huffs, catching his breath. “You really want me to hit you again, don’t you, Potter?”

He finds Potter staring down at him, expression squinted in challenge. His hair still looks ridiculous, curls pushed back, framing his face in a ragged circle. It almost, almost detracts from the serious excitement brimming underneath his features, concealed in the set of his shoulders. But he’s not quite ready, Draco decides. Not quite angry enough for him. 

“Are you a masochist?” he asks. 

Potter’s nostrils flare as he takes a short, fast breath. And oh, yes. That’s what Draco wants. To bring what’s hidden to the surface. To find what hurts and poke at it. For Potter to give him his all. He smirks.

“You’re all but begging for a beating, asking me to come out here,” Draco says, straightening up. He notices Potter’s fists clenching at his sides. Almost there. “Go on, tell me who hurt your feelings today, Pottie.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Potter says, attempting to be firm. As though his facade isn’t crumbling with every passing second.

“It was the Weaslette again, wasn’t it?” Draco pushes. He crosses his arms over his chest. “She finally break it off with your sorry arse?”

“Why–” Potter grits out, “–do you always need to bring her up?”

Draco shrugs. “It’s funny. Your disappointing romances amuse me.”

Almost there.

“Is that so?”

Draco can hear the challenge in his voice. Can feel the energy shifting in the air. The thrill starting to course through his veins. The buzzing in his fingertips. He grips his jumper tight.

Potter scoffs. He looks Draco up and down. “You’re obsessed.”

Draco’s mouth turns into a thin line. You’re one to talk, he thinks. He watches Potter tilt his head and examine him. He isn’t ready for the air to be locked out of his lungs when Potter asks:

“Are you jealous or something?”

The muscles in his chest freeze up. The maliciousness of Potter’s statement pierces through him. Potter must know. He must know that Draco couldn’t give the lowest of fucks about Ginny Weasley. Which means he’s implying that–

Word must’ve gotten around. Or it didn’t, and he’s just been especially terrible at hiding this in front of Potter. His mind runs through dozens of interactions, trying to figure out where he slipped up. Draco’s stomach turns and turns and he can’t feel his hands with how much that numbing buzz is taking over. He feels ill. Potter knows and he’s taunting him for it. Throwing it in his face like it means nothing. Like it gives Potter some sick thrill to air out Draco’s… preferences. 

“Does Parkinson know that you’ve settled for her?”

Draco blinks and he’s got his hands fisted in Potter’s hoodie, slamming his back into the floor with an awful THUMP. Bitter rage takes over. Draco lets his body be driven by it, even though his accuracy is being clouded by his vision blurring with anger. He grunts, loud and ugly as he whales on the boy beneath him, his fist connecting only once or twice. 

He grabs Potter by his hoodie and yanks him up. 

“You do want me to hit you,” Draco seethes.

Potter smirks, his hair and clothes in disarray. 

“I thought you enjoyed it,” he says.

Draco has all but two seconds to be mortified before Potter swings at him, a burst of pain in his right cheek as he gets knocked to the side. 

“Agh! Bastard,” Draco says, feeling the side of his face.

His opponent has already gotten to his feet. He shakes out his hand.

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

Draco doesn’t gratify him with a response. Instead, he scrambles to his feet and charges again. He grabs him by the shoulder and haphazardly throws a punch. He revels in the feeling as he connects with Potter’s nose, drawing out a sharp yell as his head snaps back. Potter grabs hold too, anchoring himself by grabbing Draco’s jumper at his shoulder and waist. His knee drives up into Draco’s abdomen. When he doubles over in pain, Potter wacks his elbow across Draco’s face, instantly cutting the inside of his mouth with his teeth. 

The taste of iron floods his tongue. He spits blood onto the dirt. He returns to Potter, sees the mixture of intoxication and trepidation on his face. Eyes searching and mouth open and panting. He watches the blood trickle from Potter’s nose, over his lips and down his chin. He wonders if Potter is disgusted by him. By the truth. Wonders if he enjoys hitting him–even more so than usual–now that he knows. The thought creates a new surge of anger, adding fuel to the flames.

“Aaaaaggghhhhh!”  

Draco wrestles Potter to the ground, kicking and screaming and grunting with exertion.

Draco decides, right here and right now, that he hates his life. Hates that all of his decisions have led him here. Hates that certain choices have been taken from him. Hates that he has no one to lean on. Hates that all he has is this. 

The Forbidden Forest. 

Potter. 

All this pent-up rage. And Potter is satisfied with ruining it.  

Potter returns the kicks and punches, eyes wide at the sound of Draco’s mad yelling. Draco doesn’t care. He doesn’t care what he looks like, or what he sounds like. In this moment, all he cares is pummeling Golden Boy and his stupid pushed back hair into the ground. 

After a while, his arms have grown sore and every inhale makes his lungs feel like a balloon about to pop. A truly terrible headache has set in as well. Draco leans back and rolls off of Potter with a groan. Potter’s breath comes out shuddery. Exhaustion from the fight has set in for both of them. 

Draco coaches his own breathing into a steady rhythm. Blood pounds in his ears. His heart is still racing, unsettled by their fight. Unsettled by the boy next to him and the information he holds. How he could wield it against him. Their fight is over and his fingers are still buzzing anxiously.

“For the record…” Potter startles him. “I’m not with Ginny anymore. Haven’t been for a long time.”

What? 

Draco turns his head to the boy next to him. So they hadn’t been together all this time? Why was he telling him this? What was Potter getting at? He searches his expression for clarity, but finds nothing. Potter just stares up at the sky, chest rising and falling in tandem with his own. 

The honesty is unsettling. Brave. Draco clenches his jaw. Daring himself to be a little brave too.

“I was never with Pansy,” Draco admits.

Potter’s face crinkles up in confusion. He looks back at him, eyebrows drawn together.

“Oh.” 

He pauses. They let it hang in the air. 

“You still don’t have a chance with Ginny,” Potter says.

Actually, Harry Potter might be the least perceptive human being Draco’s ever known. 

“You’re quite possibly the biggest idiot I’ve ever met.”

***

The sky is bright, blue, and cloudless. Surrounding his periphery, he can make out tree tops blowing in the wind. Foliage brushing against each other makes soft sounds, like hands rubbing together. He looks around, and finds that he lies on a bed of small, lily-white flowers. The petals caress his fingertips. He swears he can feel his peach fuzz being tickled by the wind. This feels… nice. Very nice, actually. He could lay here for hours. He just might, too. 

It happens slowly, so there’s no cause for alarm. He doesn’t think twice when the forest folds in on itself, covering the sky above him. The blue horizon stretches on ahead, sandwiched between the trees. The terrain stretches and multiplies in a way he doesn’t question. When he looks up, he sees a similar patch of white flowers and a familiar face looking down at him. He stands up, gaining a sense of vertigo as the forest floor comes up and down at once. The head of wild, dark hair bounces as it approaches Draco. 

“It’s you.”

Potter looks down at him in awe as he descends–or as Draco ascends? 

“It’s me,” Potter responds. He looks around, hair flopping along with him. He gets closer, and Draco can see he’s wearing the same hoodie and red tartan bottoms from the night before. “We’re in the Forbidden Forest.”

“Observant as always, Potter.”

Potter laughs at that, unfazed by the quip. Soon they’re face-to-face, Potter’s lopsided smile hanging upside down at eye level. It’s a look that’s wholly unfamiliar to him. He’d seen it only when Potter was with his own friends, and until recently, the other night. 

“This is a dream, isn’t it?” Draco asks. He already knows the answer.

He reaches out and tugs on a dark curl, wrapping it around his finger before letting it go. It falls upwards to its own plane of existence. The lightning bolt scar peeks out between a curtain of hair. Stares back at him.

“Y-yeah,” Potter replies. “I think so.”

Draco lets his curiosity get the better of him. He reaches up again and Potter flinches.

“What are you doing?” he asks, more curious than offended.

“Just–” Draco flushes, not sure why he’s embarrassed. This is his dream. What was there to be embarrassed about? “Trying something.”

Potter blinks. He doesn’t step back though, and Draco takes it as confirmation. He smooths a finger over the slightly raised skin. Follows the zigzag line from start to finish. He doesn’t know what he expects to feel, but when he looks up, Potter’s eyes have fluttered closed. 

Draco smirks. The real Potter wouldn’t let him get this close without a fight. He lets his hand fall to his side.

“It’s nice here.”

Potter hums in agreement. 

The wind blows warm across their faces, folding through their hair and clothes like fish in a stream. There’s magic swirling around them, invisible to the naked eye. It feels good, loving, in a strange way. Like a mother’s embrace. 

A searing, hot pain slashes through his hands. He and Potter wince at the same time. Fresh blood trickles out of his palms, staining his fingers and the white flower petals at his feet. The initial sting has fizzled, and now that his blood flows steadily out of him, the pain is virtually gone. 

Potter is next to him now, a perfect mirror with his own bloody hands and confused look. He watches his brows scrunch up, a thesis being formulated.

“What is it?” Draco asks.

“I think…” Potter starts, unsure. “I think if we want to stay here, we have to feed it.”

Draco nods. That settles it then. He lowers himself back down to the bed of flowers and lays his hands upturned at his sides. His fingers buzz. Potter joins him on the ground. They stare up at the sky, where it has returned to its proper place above. Their hands rest bloody and dripping side by side, flowing into the earth below.

Chapter Text

After the war, Harry often found his mind wandering. The same way his thoughts would drift with no direction every summer after finding out he was a wizard. At school, at Hogwarts, he knew what he was supposed to do. When his life wasn’t actively in danger, Harry was preoccupied with putting one foot in front of the other so as not to stumble and trip through the rest of his miserable life. Disaster after disaster had been his daily routine.

But the war is over, he reminds himself again and again as he settles into his breakfast. The war is over. There is no one left to defeat. Nowhere to aim his ambition. 

As the chatter around him in the Great Hall drones out, his mind wanders.

He thinks about Ginny, and the conversation they’d had the night before. How she’d tugged at his headband and laughed a sad laugh, an ending without a proper end. But they both knew what it meant. He had been glad, knowing that she could move on with her life even if he felt like he couldn’t. He thinks about all the things he loved about her: her dry sense of humor, her wicked quidditch skills, her confidence. 

Then he thinks about Malfoy.

Draco Malfoy.

His frenetic grey eyes.

Harry tries to replay their fight on a loop, to try to make sense of it somehow. But his mind keeps cutting it short. Refusing to acknowledge what he’d learned. Instead, he thinks about how Malfoy had called him an idiot, then watched him stumble to his feet, muttering expletives as he walked out of the clearing without turning around once. He thinks about how he stood up on his own, surrounded by the Forest, loneliness welling up inside him. How he’d seen a crumpled paper in the clearing and picked it up.

To Draco.

His fingers fiddle with the corner of the envelope in his pocket. 

“Morning, Harry,” Ron says.

Harry jumps in his seat, yanking his hand out of his pocket. Ron and Hermione throw their legs over the bench seats and sit down, seeing nothing amiss with Harry’s behavior. 

“G’morning,” Harry greets them. He takes a bite out of the crumpet he holds and has been staring at. The buttery bread fills his nose and taste buds, waking him up from the zoned-out state he was just in.

“You look like you’ve got more color this morning,” Hermione observes. “Sleep well, Harry?”

“I think so,” he responds absentmindedly.

He distantly remembers flashes of blood and bright blond hair among white flowers. He assumes that he had dreamt of almost killing Malfoy again, blood staining his own hands with regret. And yet, he had awoken peacefully, as though the nightmare had been serene and not distinctly torturous like the last several times. 

His jaw tenses at the memory of waking up shaking and crying in Ron’s arms. He looks up at his friend, who is already staring at him. He’s got a smile on, but it doesn’t reach his eyes all the way. 

They had been good last night, right? They’d all joked around over dinner and laughed about classes, the latest rumours, meaningless rambles. This… this fight was over, wasn’t it?

Harry mentally whacks himself in the head. You haven’t even apologized properly, you dolt, he thinks to himself. But now isn’t a good time. He’d find a better time. A better place to lay it all out for Ron.

“You came back to the tower pretty late last night,” Ron says, no longer meeting his eyes. All hints of accusation are drained from his words. Harry watches him dig into his food. “Where’d you go after dinner?”

Of course.

Harry decides on a half-truth.

“I went to the kitchens,” he says. “Sometimes the elves prepare something extra for me. Helps me get to sleep better.”

“Where’s my late night treacle?” Ron pouts. “Don’t be stingy, mate.”

“Did you see Draco?” Hermione asks, leaning in a little. As if the question wouldn’t sucker punch Harry in the gut.

“W– When– Did I see him?” Harry sputters. Good lord, he was not prepared for this question this early in the morning.

“So you did see him,” she tries to confirm. Her gaze bores into him. 

“N-no, why would I have seen Malfoy last night?” His palms are getting sweaty. Heart beating a little faster. He glances at Ron, but he seems very interested in piling up his plate with food.

“Because he’s been helping in the kitchens?” she whispers to prevent eavesdroppers. This is privileged information, after all. She doesn’t want to mess with the results of her program by airing out Malfoy’s situation to just anyone. “I thought you might’ve run into him...”

“Oh, right,” Harry breathes out. “No, I must’ve missed him.”

Hermione nods, eyes still firm on Harry’s. Searching. He looks away with a cough.

“I still can’t believe you kept that from me,” Ron says to Hermione, half-chewing his food. “Now I know who to blame for our dinners tasting off. And the tea being shit–”

“Shhhh!” Hermione shushes him. “And I wasn’t keeping anything from you. It’s not like you needed to know about it.”

“We don’t keep secrets, Hermione,” he snuffs, turning his nose up in mock-disappointment. 

“All right, that’s fair,” she rolls her eyes affectionately, then looks back at Harry. “Friends don’t keep secrets.”

Harry dry-swallows another bite of crumpet, refusing to make eye contact.

***

So here’s the thing.

Harry has always been curious. Sure, that curiosity has probably gotten him into more dangerous situations than he can recount, but that doesn’t mean he should silence that inquisitive, instinctive part of his brain. Hell, it’s what makes him a good Gryffindor. His curiosity – nay, his suspicion – has almost always set him on the right path. 

And when it comes to Draco Malfoy, he’s rarely been wrong.

So who could blame him for being wary of this letter? And who could blame him for cracking the wax seal open? 

That was as far as he got late last night before shoving the letter guiltily under his pillow, refusing to look at the contents. Now, as he sits next to Malfoy in Potions with the letter tucked away in his pocket, he questions his own instincts. 

What was there to be suspicious about? Other than the fact that the last time Harry had seen Malfoy read one of these letters, he had quickly swallowed it with flames then proceeded to tear a statue apart limb from limb. Harry had felt the lingering embers of that particular flare-up in the bruising along his ribs and cheek. 

But Malfoy has changed. Or… has been changing. Harry doesn’t know exactly how or why, but the stepping stones are there, the signs are obvious. To him, at least. 

Well, who wouldn’t be changed after what they’d all been through?

Harry comes to the conclusion that it’s a matter of trust. Trust in that Malfoy has turned a new leaf, that there is nothing insidious within the confines of this envelope, waiting to bite them all in the arse. 

How much do you trust Draco Malfoy?

He steals a glance at the boy in question, only to find grey eyes already looking his way. They snap their heads forward and downward immediately, resuming their notes in an equally panicked fashion. Harry refuses to look back up at his deskmate, the tips of his ears burning up.

Harry alternates between writing down a few notes from Slughorn’s lecture and debating what he should do. The answer doesn’t come to him by the time class ends.

It doesn’t come by the end of the day, either.

***

Harry spends the next week more distracted than he has been in months. His classes become mere grains of falling sand, time passing quickly, without mercy. The semi-frequent study sessions he has with Hermione have done little to help his marks from a steady but inevitable decline. He zones out, leg bouncing and bouncing and his quill stationary in contrast. When she asks him what he’s thinking about, a lie falls from his lips with practiced ease. He finds that it’s become easier and easier to do so. Especially when he finds excuses to sneak away to flip through his map, finding that familiar name and following its footsteps in a daze. 

Draco Malfoy.

Harry watches Malfoy’s name dart all across Hogwarts over the course of the week. Even in parts where he normally wouldn’t show face (He’d passed by the Room of Requirement, footsteps hesitant and unwilling to face who he’d lost in there). He watches Malfoy pace back and forth in his dorm, surely treading tracks into the floorboards. 

This is nothing like Sixth Year, however. No, nothing like that at all.

This is different, Harry tells himself over and over. He’s not sure how, but it is. 

His Potions partner barely says two words to him all week, getting his work done swiftly and efficiently; but with a far-off expression, as though his mind were elsewhere. Harry wonders if it’s because of Ginny. If that’s whom he’s thinking of when he goes quiet. 

Malfoy probably didn’t want to talk about Harry’s revelation in the Forest. He’s probably angry and upset at him for even bringing it up in the first place. That’s why he’s been so mind-numbingly normal, refusing to take the chance to berate Harry when a potion nearly blows up in his face. He isn’t his usual pratty self and it’s infuriating.

***

On the other hand, Harry may, in fact, be losing his mind.

It’s early. He should be working on his Potions paper. He could be playing a one-off game of Quidditch that his mates invited him to. Instead, underneath a cobblestone arch, he sits cross-legged on a bench staring at his map. The thick sheets of yellowed paper are folded up small in his clutches. 

Malfoy’s name walks itself swiftly across the page, exiting a nearby building. Harry turns the page over as his steps go over the creased edge, making his way to the courtyard he currently overlooks, like a crow perching on a phone line. A few other names float around in the courtyard, heading from one place to another.

On the right end of the page, her name catches his attention.

Ginevra Weasley.

Harry lowers the map and peers down at the courtyard in horror. Below him, he sees: a pale comet on its predetermined path, carrying a load of journals as he storms eastbound, and a girl with orange hair and red robes leading the sunrise through the trees with her broom in hand. 

Harry senses their collision in the beating drum of his chest, suddenly terrified of what might happen when they do. Before he knows it, his wand is in his hand, and then it is being pointed down at the two, words coming out of his mouth without a second thought. A great gust of wind lurches out of his wand and charges at the courtyard, fierce like a horse-driven chariot. Leaves are dragged into the air, swept up by the invisible force that nears its targets. It reaches Ginny with a gasping blow, knocking her broom out of her hands and tangling her hair across her face. The wind pivots sharply and whips its airy tendrils around Malfoy, blasting his papers out of his hands in the opposite direction.

As the two wizards steer off course from one another–each cursing up a storm but none the wiser–Harry lets out a shuddery breath of relief.

He tenses up, then looks over his shoulder to see if anyone saw him cast that spell. He gathers his map and wand in a hurry and darts away as though he were running from the scene of a crime. Except, what crime had been committed? What was there to feel guilty about? 

Why did I do that?  

He asks himself this the whole way back to the tower.

***

Sleep is a tiny, scurrying animal. Harry catches it in bouts, holding on tightly before it escapes him again. Late into the night, he checks his map again under the covers with a small light filtering from his wand. Malfoy’s name hovers gently in place in the Slytherin dormitories. 

“Go to the bathroom like th’rest of us,” Seamus slurs, half asleep in his own bed.

Harry blushes fiercely and extinguishes the light, pushing the map back under his pillow alongside Malfoy’s letter.

***

The weekend arrives with little fanfare. 

No outings to Hogsmeade are planned. No weekend Quidditch matches. No parties or drinking or dancing. Classes are in full swing and there is limited free time to go around. It seems as though everyone is studying and writing essays until their fingers fall off.

Harry can’t understand the urgency anymore.

He ignores the looks of concern from his professors when he doesn’t turn in an assignment. This, like several aspects of his life, goes unaddressed. Instead, they silently deduct a point or two from the House without so much as a scolding. He wonders how far he can push it before they break and yell at him about his future. McGonagall is the only exception. He knows she’d have his arse in a sling if he slacked off in Transfiguration so he does his best to finish those assignments at least.

“Would you keep your head still, please?” Luna asks over his shoulder. “If I snip your ear off I’ll feel awful.”

“Pretty sure I’ll feel worse,” he mutters. 

Harry straightens his head and puts his textbook at a better angle to pretend-read. Ron and  Hermione sit close by on the nearest couch, and a few others are scattered around the Common Room finishing up their own work. Idle chatter fills the room, warm and serene.

“I can’t believe you’re letting her near you with scissors,” Ron says while scribbling words onto parchment. 

“I’ve had a lot of practice,” Luna says without a hint of offense. “Though there was that one time I tried to vanish the extra bits of hair that had fallen on my dad’s shoulders. We had to buy a month’s supply of Mane-Gro potion.”

Harry smirks at the look of mild horror on Ron’s face. 

“I’m not all that attached to my hair,” Harry responds with a shrug. Plus, it feels nice to have someone combing his hair, though that seems too mushy to admit. “I needed a trim.”

Luna snips her scissors a few times. Large curls fall onto his shoulder. 

“Luna does a terribly good job with haircuts, Ron,” Hermione says, though the jab is directed at both of them. “You should’ve seen how she fixed up Lavender when she tried to cut her own bangs in fifth year.”

“Hey!” Lavender whines from across the room.

Hermione rolls her eyes and returns to her work. 

“I could do yours after, if you’d like,” Luna says to Ron with a sweet smile. 

His mouth forms something of a grimace, twisting in a gross attempt at politeness.

“Thanks, Luna, but no thanks. ‘Mione likes my hair the way it is,” he says.

Harry flicks his gaze over to a very silent Hermione. The rest of the room seems to as well. Her quill moves quickly.

“Hermione,” Ron moans sadly, hands going to his hair. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing’s wrong with it!” she groans as giggles bubble up around them. “It just– It could be– I don’t know, it might be nice to try something new, or– I like your hair, all right?”

Ron throws himself onto the back of the couch with his hands over his eyes.

“She thinks I’m hideous. My own girlfriend thinks I’m hideous,” he cries dramatically. More for the performance of it all—or to embarrass Hermione.

Harry smiles at his friends, affection curling in his stomach and rising up like bile in his throat. They’re disgustingly sweet. 

He allows the conversation and gaiety to wash over him. He makes no room for himself within it. He doesn’t want to. Not when Ginny isn’t here. It’s all he can think about; the map upstairs, under his pillow, ready to give him the answer to where Malfoy is, if he’s anywhere close to Ginny. Anxious energy travels through him. The silent treatment he’d been receiving all week from his Potions partner is getting to him. He tries not to bounce his leg while Luna has sharp blades near his head.

Luna finishes on his hair eventually and Harry excuses himself under the guise of needing to shower, practically ready to burst. He bounds up the stairs as soon as he’s out of sight, feeling much lighter from the cut. And he can finally see.

The map and letter is right where he left it. He slides them out from under his pillow and opens the map, reciting the password quickly. Sitting on the edge of his bed, foot tapping like a kick drum, he scans over the pages for Malfoy. 

He isn’t in the dungeons, nor the library, or the kitchens for that matter. Harry flips through different levels of the castle, slowly losing his patience. At the bottom level map, he finds movement on the outer edges. 

There he is.

Moving at a steady pace across the field, Malfoy’s footsteps lead him straight toward the Forbidden Forest. Harry squints at the page. He looks out the window. The sun is beginning to set over the horizon, a chilly pink glowing through the staccato of clouds. It would get awfully cold soon. 

Harry can’t help but wonder why he’s going there alone. The answer burns in the back of his mind (and in his left pocket) as he slips out of the Gryffindor common room hidden under his invisibility cloak. 

***

It’s almost dark by the time Harry arrives at the edge of the Forest. He’d stowed away his cloak once he’d gotten past the Painted Lady, tugging up his hood instead. His hands are balled into fists in his jacket pockets, trembling from the cold. 

The leaves curl in his direction. The grass clings to his shoes as he treks over the forest grounds. They whisper to him. 

He does not hear them. 

He reaches the clearing with ease, overly familiar with the path to their fighting ground. Malfoy is there, zipping around in his cloak looking for something. He lets out an aggravated noise as he upturns stones and fallen branches. He whirls around with frantic eyes before they settle on Harry. 

Harry holds his breath. Malfoy gives him a look that says of course you’re here. He huffs and goes back to his search.

“I’m not looking for a fight, Potter.”

He watches Malfoy groan and grumble for a few moments as a ball of nerves grows in his stomach. He needs to tell him, now. Harry steps into the clearing, pulling his hood down. 

“Neither am I,” he says. He watches Malfoy toe at the flowers. “What are you looking for?”

You already know, he thinks angrily at himself.

“There’s a–” Malfoy stops as his gaze locks onto the top of Harry’s head. 

“Oh, shit,” Harry cringes as his hands fly to his hair. “Is it bad? I haven’t had the chance to look in the mirror yet.”

The Slytherin keeps his mouth firmly shut for several long seconds before speaking.

“You–” Malfoy’s voice breaks. “It’s ugly.”

“Really?” 

“Yes,” he blurts out. He turns back to his hunt, eyes darting around the floor and nowhere near Harry or Harry’s head. “Hideous as always, Potter, now would you mind?”

“I– um…” Harry reaches into his pocket. Pulls out the letter. “Is this what you’ve been looking for?”

Malfoy looks up, zeroing in on the letter with a broken Malfoy seal. Harry almost doesn’t catch it when Malfoy whips his wand out and wordlessly accios the letter into his hands. His hands are shaking when he catches it. He stares at the letter he’d been waiting on for over a week. Harry waits, and the nerves start to feel like his stomach is being pulled inside out. He wants to retch. Why had he waited this long, again? 

Malfoy lets out a sad, bitter laugh. 

“Somehow… I knew you had it,” he says, venomous and cold. “You always know exactly where to twist the knife, don’t you?”

A lump forms in Harry’s throat.

“Malfoy, let me explain, I–”

“ Shut up.”

Malfoy stows the letter in his pants pocket and unclips his cloak. He tucks his wand away, then rolls up his sleeves. Harry watches as the Dark Mark is revealed in the moonlight. Malfoy’s expression is like stone, a hard curve on his brow and a frigid upper lip. His intensity is grim, menacing—and yet exhilarating all at once.

He almost wants to give Malfoy this fight. He deserves it for hiding the letter for so long. But he knows, reasonably, a conversation must be had before things get hairy.

“I’m really not looking for a fight, Malfoy,” he says with a raised, pleading hand. Malfoy stalks closer. “I’m sorry I didn’t give it back sooner, but I–” He doesn’t have time to finish his statement because he’s ducking out of the way of a swinging fist. “Bloody– Christ, Malfoy, would you just–”

Malfoy swings again, a near miss as Harry stumbles backward. He remembers Seamus suddenly, a memory from before the war, before the world had been bloodshed and tyranny and redemption. Seamus had been recounting advice from an uncle who used to be a semi-renowned boxer. He’d said to imagine hitting past your opponent’s head, that you’d use enough force to knock them clean off their feet. 

They had been just boys, then. They still are.

Another fist brushes his ear. Harry briefly considers the fact that he never felt the need—or want—to dodge Malfoy’s hits before today. Today is different. When he attempts another punch, Harry grabs hold of his forearm and splays his other hand on Malfoy’s chest, using his momentum to pitch him around until his back hits the closest tree trunk. Malfoy grunts, the lines on his face becoming sharp and resentful. He can feel the shallow rise and fall of the boy’s chest under his hand.

“Calm down,” Harry says.

And isn’t that just fuel to the flames.

Malfoy plants his feet into the soil—it pushes back up against him in turn—and shoves Harry toward the center of the clearing. He doesn’t catch himself this time and trips over his shoes, falling disgracefully to the ground. With bated breath, he watches Malfoy bound upon him like prey, fury beset in the line of his shoulders. It’s riveting.

He’s riveting. 

Panic sets in when Malfoy’s hands finally reach him, furling into his collar. Those glistening grey eyes. Hair falling out of its usual style, dangling over his forehead. 

—He’s what?

A flashbang of teal light slams into Malfoy’s side and sends him spinning a few meters away. Harry gasps, sits up and turns to the direction of the spellcaster, ready to fire off any attacks.

“Harry!”

It’s Hermione, struck with terror. And Ron at her side, wand still leveled at Malfoy, angry and confused and in need of answers.

“Are you all right?” she asks, coming into the clearing. 

Harry gets to his feet quickly, raising his hands at his friends. His heart thrums like a hummingbird. Fast, too fast.

“I’m all right, listen–” He looks back at Malfoy who is now stumbling to his feet, his anger actively redirecting itself towards Ron. 

“He hurt you?” Ron asks, locked onto Malfoy. Unwavering, like his loyalty. 

“Ron, I’m fine–”

“You don’t look fine!”

The outburst startles him. It seems to startle Hermione as well. The distress lines across Ron’s face say too much; Harry wonders if he’s been losing sleep, too. Ron looks at him expectantly, as though Harry could explain what he was witnessing with only a sentence. 

The weight of the world had been on his shoulders since he was eleven. Ron’s steady gaze feels heavier still. 

“Harry,” Hermione tries again. She takes a step closer. “Please. Tell us what’s going on.”

His chest aches now, heartbeat wild and all his secrets threatening to burst.

Behind him, Harry hears Malfoy take a few steps closer. He turns to see Malfoy’s hand reach for his wand.

“Malfoy, don’t,” Harry panics. 

Instinct.

This is what he’d been questioning all week. The feeling in his gut that pointed him in the right direction, that told him when and where he needed to be, who to trust. His compass. It had all gone bottom up, his polarities reversed the closer he got to Malfoy. 

He doesn’t know why his useless instincts kick in now. It slows everything down and speeds them up at the same time.

Over the course of a few seconds, Malfoy raises his wand at Ron, prompting him to send another teal blast of light towards Malfoy. Harry, with no time to reach for his wand, darts at Malfoy, covering the hand that holds his wand and pointing it to the sky. With his momentum, they twist just shy out of the way of the magic blast, and with a vague notion of where he wants to go, Harry disapparates them on impulse.

In a wormhole one second, out the other. 

They spin and bump into a sink, plates clattering noisily against one another. Their feet are tangled and Harry grabs on to whatever he can to keep them upright. His head throbs from the effort of apparating. Lungfuls of breath come in and out, and he can feel Malfoy’s panting against his chest. 

He takes stock of his body, slightly worried he splinched one or both of them. His right hand still covers Malfoy’s, wand limp in his hand. His left arm snakes around Malfoy, gripping the sink behind him. He can feel a fist bunched up in his hoodie, just near his hip. For one horrific, terrible moment, Harry is scared to pull away. A small voice suggests maybe they’d melded somewhere along the way to the kitchens, that once they tried to take a step back, their skin would stretch painfully apart. He imagines having to be surgically separated from Malfoy.

“You could’ve splinched us, you idiot,” Malfoy pants. His breath huffs past his ear. Heavy and intense.

Harry feels electric.

He leans back. Malfoy’s face is flush and bewildered, his hair swept every which way across his forehead, a few strands poking near his eyes. His eyebrows quirk up. Harry dimly realizes it is a reaction to him squeezing Malfoy’s hand involuntarily. 

“A ‘thank you’ would be nice,” Harry counters, embarrassed and stuck in place.

“ Thank you?” Malfoy sneers with a pinched face. He shoves Harry back onto the wooden table. The loud scuffing sound it makes against the floor punctuates his yelling. “What should I thank you for, exactly? Hm? For stealing my personal mail? For siccing your pets on me? For groping me afterwards?”

“Gro– What?” Harry balks. Blood rushes to his face. “I-I was not– groping you, I–”

“You are missing the point, as always, Potter,” Malfoy grimaces.

“I was trying to help,” he says, his voice raising. “Except you’re as hard-headed and stuck up as a French bulldog, so I don’t know why I try when you won’t accept it.” 

Malfoy looms closer. Harry has to tilt his head back to keep eye contact.

“If this is supposed to be helpful, I don’t want it. I don’t care about your pathetic attempts at playing the hero. I’m done being… mocked by you.”

Harry watches as he starts towards the door. A wave of deja vu overcomes him at the sight of Malfoy’s retreating back — memories from a Divination lesson flit through his mind. Unresolved pieces, moments, of your life that come back to you over and over. The back of Malfoy’s head. Words stuck in his throat. Empty space.

“Malfoy, wait—”

He jumps off the bench and follows Malfoy through the narrow and winding halls. He falls into a brisk jog until he catches up to the fastwalking boy ahead of him. 

“ Malfoy.”

They’re halfway up a flight of stairs when Malfoy is within grabbing range. Harry takes him by the upper arms and pushes him against the wall, their feet on two different levels. He doesn’t care where they are. McGonagall could walk by and expel them both for all he cares. 

“Stop,” he pleads. “For two minutes, just… stop.”

Malfoy levels him a deadly stare. Doesn’t say a word. Harry takes the chance being offered to him. 

“I didn’t read the letter.” Malfoy scoffs in disbelief. Harry shakes him, suddenly desperate, “ I didn’t. I mean, I thought about it, but I didn’t. I can prove it. We– I can go get the Veritaserum from Slughorn’s class. You can ask me directly if I’ve read it.”

Malfoy’s eyes search him for a moment. He then shakes his head and takes out his wand. 

“That’ll take too long. I’ll just read your mind.”

“What?”

“Legilimens,” Malfoy casts as though he’d done it a hundred times.

Harry stumbles back, his left foot almost falling off the step as he struggles to put up the barriers in time. Malfoy’s magic floods his mind. It is the same wispy breath of air that he remembers when he’d healed Harry’s bruises. The same coarse yet controlled energy he’d felt along the repaired granite statue. Malfoy tugs at the memories, and Harry grasps at threads just out of reach as he attempts to recall Snape’s teachings. The physical and mental imbalance doesn’t help his case.

Get out of my head, Harry pushes the message out. Defiant until the end.

“Do me a favor and stop fighting,” Malfoy says.

—The letter flashes through his mind, lying remote on the forest ground. He picks it up. Then he’s in bed, cracking the seal open. Shoving it under his pillow—

Harry grinds his teeth.

See? I didn’t read it. Now shove off.

“That was day one, Potter,” he says bitterly. “You’ve had a week to read it.”

He presses on, doubling down on the legilimency. Harry draws back into a mental corner, panic flitting through him as it becomes harder and harder to control his emotions. Malfoy catches glimpses:

—Harry is in Potions. He tilts his head enough to keep his deskmate in his periphery—

—“Did you see Draco?” Hermione asks him in the Great Hall—

—A map is spread out across his bed. The light cast from his wand illuminates the moving ink on the page. Malfoy’s name wanders through the library—

Malfoy, I mean it, he says, curbing the river of magic trying to seep into every nook and cranny of his memories. Get out of my—

—The map, again. It’s morning now. Malfoy’s little footprints shuffle through the kitchens—

—Draco Malfoy’s name in the boys’ bathroom—

—Draco Malfoy’s name in the dungeons—

— Draco Malfoy—

— Draco Malfoy—

—Harry sits overlooking the courtyard—

Malfoy, STOP, he tries again frantically.

—Harry sends a shockwave of magic down at the two wizards. It blows them off their path. Harry runs—

SMACK.

Malfoy’s magic disappears from his mind without a trace. His face is turned to the side. Blond hair covers his eyes. Harry’s palm stings. He puts two and two together.

“You…” His breath comes short and quick. He’s too busy reprocessing the memory and what it means to Malfoy to consider the violation he’d just endured. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

An unenthusiastic chuckle escapes the boy before him. The sound strikes Harry with fear.

“I don’t know whether to laugh… or to run for the hills.”

Malfoy turns and climbs the stairs. Harry watches as his head disappears over the top of the staircase, leaving him alone several steps below. 

There she is again. 

Deja vu. 

***

Harry waits on the stairs for a long time. He waits for the rock in his stomach to settle down to a manageable size before heading back. 

As strung out and on edge as he is, he has no energy to talk to Ron or Hermione tonight. He returns to the tower close to one in the morning, expecting that they’ll be fast asleep by then.

He expects wrong.

His friends are wide awake in the Common Room when he enters through the framed door. Hermione is pacing, her arms crossed and shoulders bunched up to her ears. Ron sits propped up on the couch, leaning over on his knees. He twirls his wand mindlessly. They look up at his entrance in unison. 

Well.

Harry rubs his palms against his trousers and says, “What?”

“What?” Ron scowls and hurls a lumpy couch pillow at Harry’s head. It almost knocks his glasses off. “What d’you mean, what?”

“Ron–”

“No, Hermione, no,” Ron says, keeping his eyes on Harry. “He is not going to stand there and act like nothing’s wrong.”

The rock in his stomach doubles in size. There is no escaping this situation. This was going to happen sooner or later, he was simply hoping it’d be later. How could he let it get this bad?

“Harry,” Ron says, snapping him out of his daze. “What is going on with you and Malfoy?”

Going on? 

Harry thinks about Malfoy crouching over him. Fists in his clothes, eyes a frenzy. The pale shape of his knuckles leaving their imprint against his cheek. 

“Nothing,” he panics. “W-Why would you think there’s something going on between us?”

“Nuh–” Ron cuts himself off. His hands bunch into fists, his eyes bore into Harry’s. “Nothing. Nothing’s going on, issat right? You disappear in the middle of the night, you miss meals, you lose your lid on my sister, and now you’re following that prat around again? That’s nothing?”

Deflect.

“Why were you following me?” Harry asks, and it comes off as a demand. He’s lost control of his voice. His words. They’re spiraling, defensive and escalating. It sounds ugly out loud.

Hermione raises her hand before Ron can speak.

“I told him about your… reestablished concerns about Draco. When you ran off earlier tonight, I– I was worried, Harry.”

“You had no right, Hermione,” Harry says, angrily pointing downward.

“You’re my friend,” she almost yells before lowering her voice, “and that means I have every right in the book when you won’t even talk to us.”

The hurt carries in her voice. Her bottom lip trembles. Harry’s heart breaks a little at the sight, but right now he’s selfish; he wants nothing more than to disappear from this conversation, from this tower, from the country. He wants to wallow. To sit in a dark room and self-flagellate and lick his wounds. He wants to yell and kick and scream until his vocal chords are run ragged. He wants to drink. He wants to collapse, to be anything but the Saviour of the Wizarding World, to be the worst version of himself and not deal with the consequences. He wants no witnesses to his descent. With the exception of one person.

Ron places a careful hand on his girlfriend’s shoulder. She holds onto his hand for support. For some twisted reason, the sight sickens Harry in its familiarity.

“Did you consider that I don’t want to talk to either of you?” Liar, he tells himself. He grows bolder, the exhaustion draining away his filter. “I don’t need to run everything by you. I’ve never had parents looking over my shoulder, and I don’t need any now.”

He doesn’t stick around long enough to see the effects of his words; the woe-stricken look on his friends’ faces. He feels horrid enough as it is, head pounding and stomach heavy like lead. He heads up the tower to his dormitory and shuts the curtains around his bed. For the rest of the night, Ron never comes up to the room. 

Harry doesn’t sleep a wink. His burgundy pillow muffles his sobbing.