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Chapter Text

“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.” 

-Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

*

Harry liked to wander around the corridors on tranquil nights like these. Cold and heavy, it was raining down on the grounds an incredible feat. As far as he knew, he was the only one out and about, and he’d found that the feeling of being alone was much more comforting now than it had been previously in his life. The immense love he had for his friends was undeniable, and yet he found it necessary to have some alone time away from them.

He paused, leaning over one of the barriers that were overlooking the grounds, taking the moment to appreciate the beauty of the view — the history that had taken place there. The rain, while Harry thought it should have made the scenery ghastly and depressing, added to the ambience. Made it look prettier. He couldn’t think of a more suitable evening to match his mood.

The deaths of his peers and superiors haunted the grounds where he walked. He knew that. Constantly feeling haunted made it difficult for him to feel properly alone; especially on the eerie, dark nights such as this, when he felt as if somebody could pop out from any corner without warning.

His gaze fixated on one spot on the drowning grass. He remembered seeing somebody die there. Whether they were on his side or not, Harry didn’t know, and he wasn’t sure whether it mattered. 

Hogwarts still felt like home, accepting and comfortable, but the cold, grim reminders of the war made his hesitancy to return grow greater. He wished to himself that his regretful thoughts were not shared with any of his classmates. He would hate for anyone other than himself to experience Hogwarts as nothing but excellent.

“Potter!” he heard, and Harry dropped his head down with a grunt, deciding not to bother turning to face the source of the voice. He already knew from whom it had come. It continued, “What are you doing out here by yourself? Friends tired of you already?”

Harry sighed, raising a hand and rubbing his eyes with his fingers underneath his glasses. There had been somebody lurking in the shadows, preparing to jump out at him after all. He should probably be more surprised as to who it was.

“No, Malfoy. Some people appreciate having alone time.”

“I wouldn’t have thought a Gryffindor would. Especially you. Have you had enough of everybody telling you how much of a hero you are?” Malfoy snarled at him, his figure unmoving. 

“Shove off,” Harry said, raising his voice slightly so that he could be heard over the beating of the rain. Pushing away from the barrier, he was momentarily surprised to find the man also alone, not flanked by one of the usually present cronies around him at all times. Whether it was for some form of protection or to make himself look better, Harry wasn’t sure. 

He looked different when he was alone. He looked almost vulnerable; nobody to laugh at his jokes or to tell him that what he was saying was smart and witty. Harry examined his posture, looked him up and down before shaking his head. He told him, “I’m not in the mood.”

“Why?” Malfoy asked, pointy chin raised in the air. “She-Weasel not satisfying you anymore?” 

Harry could tell that Malfoy thought that was funny, the corners of his mouth twitching and his eyebrows raised — a challenge for Harry to respond to him. 

“Another word about Ginny and you’ll have my wand at your neck,” Harry warned him. He watched him, eyes intent on the way Malfoy’s eyes widened ever so slightly — the way his Adam’s apple bobbed as he gulped. 

“I’m not used to such unequivocality,” Malfoy said. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you enjoy putting your wand at a man’s throat.”

“You’re no man,” Harry scoffed, stalking forward. “This is pathetic. After all- after everything, you still want to fight like this? You want to continue on as if nothing happened?”

“I don’t think I’m capable of being nice to you, Potter,” Malfoy replied. “I suspect that if I randomly began being nice to you, you’d think I was up to something and have me investigated.” 

He had a point, Harry thought bitterly. Imagining Malfoy being nice to him was… Disturbing.

“I’m not sure you’re even capable of being civil, let alone nice.” 

Malfoy shrugged. “Maybe I’m not. Maybe you want to judge me on how you’ve seen me as we’ve grown up.”

“What else can I judge you on?” Harry asked, and tried not to enjoy it when he saw Malfoy try to think of a reply, ultimately failing.

After an elongated moment, there came, “...Your hair.”

His voice cracked on the second word spoken and Harry thought about making fun of it, but instead, he stared at him, brows furrowed.

“Sorry?”

With a shrug, an uncomfortable flicker of his eyes, he told Harry, “It looks nice after you’ve been caught in the rain.”

“What the fuck?” Harry gawked at him, stepping back. He brought his hand to his hair, the cold sensation of the raindrops standing out even against the icy feeling of his palm.

“And your eyes, they look lovely in this light.” 

“What are you doing?”

“Being nice,” Malfoy said simply, raising one brow in expectation. “Do you not like it? Is it making you uncomfortable?”

“Yes!” Harry exclaimed.

“Then tell me, how do I win? By being nasty to you, which I must say, comes rather naturally, or by being nice to you, which really just makes us both uneasy?” 

“Here’s an idea; why don’t you just leave me alone?” Harry quipped. 

“I don’t think I can.”

“Why?”

“Oh, I do so love winding you up like this.” Malfoy’s expression broke and he tumbled into a grin, snorts ripped from his smugness. “Your face! You truly are one of the best forms of entertainment, Potter. I can’t get enough.”

Harry watched him laugh. He was used to seeing Malfoy laugh like this; mocking and rude, his natural state. He wondered if Malfoy did have a genuine laugh at all, or if he was doomed to only laugh at the misfortune of others for all eternity. He wouldn’t be at all surprised by the latter of the options. Stalking closer towards Malfoy, as he was busy rolling in his own laughter, Harry felt his temper burst, blood vessels in his head popping and popping, and —

 “Malfoy.” 

Malfoy looked up at him, snarky smile still on his lips. “Yes?”

Harry punched him. Right in his left cheek. 

The man fell to the ground - utterly unconscious, his cheek marked red. Harry’s eyes shifted to see whether or not anybody had witnessed the altercation, rubbing his knuckles. 

He had deserved it, Harry told himself. And it really was as satisfying as Hermione had said that it had been to punch the cocky smirk off of the prat’s face. He was pale as anything and… looked almost pretty while laying there as if asleep. He had goosebumps all over his arms and laying by his shoulder, his wand had rolled out of the pockets of his robes.

Sure, it had felt good , but seeing him there, on the ground, helpless? Harry couldn’t just leave him, could he? He wasn’t a monster. Anybody could take advantage of the situation, and Malfoy wasn’t exactly a golden-boy with no enemies in the school. He crouched down beside Malfoy and frowned — and now that he actually had a good look at him, Harry noticed how thin he was getting. His hands were boney and his face was too, cheekbones so prominent that Harry immediately knew why his knuckles were aching so much. 

He wasn’t going to just leave him there, Harry decided — but he couldn’t take him to the Hospital Wing; he didn’t want to wake Madam Pomfrey. She’d barely gotten much sleep lately, still treating people from the War. Not so much with physical issues, but mental. Harry knew that he wasn’t the only person who’d visited her seeking help because of nightmares.

So, with a huff, Harry lunged Malfoy over one of his shoulders and kept one hand on the back of his thigh to keep him in place. He definitely wasn’t eating what he should, Harry concluded, because he was lighter than a feather. 

So, Harry did the only logical thing he could think of; he brought Malfoy into the Gryffindor dorms. 

He definitely didn’t expect people to still be up.

“Holy shit,” Ron said as soon as Harry walked in. Harry froze, everybody’s eyes on him. 

“I promise he’s not dead,” was all he could think to say. 

“Harry!” Hermione shouted at him, getting up from the couch and walking over. She crouched down and appeared to try to wake Malfoy, to no avail. “What on earth did you do?!”

“He was being a prat, okay? And I- I don’t know. I just…” He held up his fist for an explanation, and a surmise of approval came from his classmates. Save for Hermione. 

“After everything and you can’t be civil with one another!” Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes as Hermione echoed his own words. “You’re both so childish, and– God, Harry, you can put him down now!” 

Harry nodded after a second and knelt down on the ground, and lowered him gently with Hermione’s help so he was laying back on the carpet. His pale skin and hair stood out against the brash colours, Harry noted. He really wouldn’t have suited Gryffindor, down even to the aesthetics.

“So… What do we do with him?” Ron asked, voicing what everybody was thinking. 

“Leave him?” Seamus suggested. 

“Don’t be ridiculous, this floor isn’t suitable for anybody to sleep on.” Hermione scoffed.

“Let him stay on the couch then. We’ll get him to Madam Pomfrey in the morning,” Dean said, and Hermione nodded in approval. 

“Get up, then,” she told the boys on the couch. “Unless you want him sleeping on top of all of you, up! ” They swiftly followed her orders and laughed at Ron when he jokingly saluted at her. She didn’t find it all that funny. “Harry,” she said, “You lift him up onto it.” 

Harry didn’t bother to respond and scooped him up, one arm underneath his upper back and the other under his knees. He laid him down softly on the sofa and propped his head up with one of the pillows.

“What was he saying to you to get you so riled up?” Dean asked him, and Harry opened his mouth to answer when he realised how stupid it would sound to say that he got angry because Malfoy started to be nice to him.

“Nothing much,” he lied. “Just the usual.” 

“I think he’s lucky that he got away with only a punch and not a hex.” Ron was glaring down at Malfoy in disgust. 

“Tell me about it, I would’ve made him run away with his arse on fire,” Seamus said, and he and Ron laughed. 

“Harry, can I talk to you?” Hermione asked. Harry felt instantly that he was in trouble and he nodded sheepishly, not even able to respond to a quiet good luck from Ron as he and the others went upstairs. “Look at him.”

Harry looked at Malfoy, unsure of what he was exactly looking for. “Yes?”

She sighed, rolling her eyes and gestured towards him. “He’s not been eating. Look, he’s as white as a sheet and almost a skeleton!”

Harry nodded. “I know, but I don’t really think that’s our problem, Hermione.”

“It is our problem— It is your problem when you knock out someone that’s seriously ill! His immune system won’t be working as well as it normally does, he’s weak. What you did was probably the equivalent of knocking out a third year!”

“To be fair, you almost did that too.” Harry chuckled. He immediately shut himself up when he saw the look on her face.

“I’m serious, Harry. I know he’s done bad things, I know that he’s never been nice to us, but I’m seriously concerned.”

“Why?” Harry scowled at her. “He doesn’t deserve it!”

Hermione placed her hand on Harry’s arm, trying to bring him around. “Self-destructive behaviour wouldn’t be unusual for somebody in his position.”

“So…” Harry shook his head. “What exactly do you want from me? What is it that you propose I do?”

“Be nice to him. Be his friend!” 

“I’ve tried, Hermione! He won’t have it! It’s him that’s being stupid about it, he won’t even agree to be civil!”

“The bruise forming on his cheek doesn’t look like you tried very hard to me.” She glared at him. “Will you agree to be nice to him?”

“No, I won’t,” he told her firmly. “It’s going to have to go two ways, and for some reason, I don’t really think that it’ll be possible for him to be nice!” 

“Fine,” Hermione said. Harry gulped, she was taking that far better than he thought she would. “I suppose that I’ll just have to make you two get along.”

Harry watched as Hermione retrieved a woollen blanket from the chair in the corner and pulled it out over Malfoy’s body. She gave one last pointed look at Harry before storming away, up to the girls’ dorms. 

Harry put his hands over his face and groaned. He wasn’t sure what Hermione meant when she said that she would have to make them get along but he didn’t like the thought of it. What could she do? She had a lot of authority nowadays. All of the teachers loved her. The thought made him sick. 

He looked at Malfoy again and gulped. The boy would hate to be aware of the situation he was in at that moment, completely vulnerable to Harry Potter, nothing he could do.

Harry wandered back over to him, looming above his sleeping figure, and tilted his head to the side to exam how bad the bruise had actually gotten. He hissed when he saw that the purple had spread down his cheek, a dark blue sitting right in the centre. It looked nasty. Harry briefly wondered whether or not he should use a healing charm on him, however, decided against it swiftly. He wanted Malfoy to remember what could happen when he gets too annoying, and erasing the traces of that wouldn’t treat him a lesson at all. Harry just hoped that he could be there for when the git woke up in the middle of the Gryffindor common room.

*

Harry discovered that he had not managed to be there when Malfoy woke up when he heard an ear-piercing scream come from downstairs.

“Jesus, fuck!” Seamus gasped in shock as he and everybody else in his dormitory shot to sit up in their beds. Harry’s first thought was Malfoy is under attack , and launched out of bed, grabbing his wand and glasses swiftly, though nothing else. He snuck down the steps, wand outstretched and fingers clutched tightly around it, when he saw Hermione and some of the other girls doing the same thing on the other stairs opposite. Hermione held a hand out to stop the curious girls behind her, a daring look in her eye. She nodded at Harry, her chest rising and falling determination. He put his best foot forward. 

“Malf—”

“ You! ” Malfoy screeched at him as soon as he passed through the archway. “You absolute beast ! Look at my face!”

Harry tensed his jaw, lowering his wand at the realisation that there was no immediate danger. His classmates stayed on the stairs. “You woke us all up.”

“And you ruined my face! Heal it! Now!” Malfoy demanded, approaching him and sticking his index finger at the bruise. It was far worse now that Harry was seeing it in the light; his eye furiously bloodshot and nearing swollen, purple-blue stretching down the flesh of his cheek. It stood out like a sore thumb against his pristinely pale skin.

“Can’t you handle a few healing charms yourself?” Harry challenged him. “Why do you need me to do it?”

“It seems as if somebody has misplaced my wand,” he shot right back at him. “Perhaps when they knocked me out cold in the middle of the night, it simply ran away?”

“It fell out of your pocket. Should you really be healed?”

Malfoy’s eyes almost bulged out of his sockets. “Excuse me?”

“It might humble you,” Harry reasoned. 

“About what, Potter? Being nice to you?” Malfoy laughed loudly in disbelief, throwing his hands up in the air as his body twisted - as if he couldn’t bear to look Harry in the eye anymore. “My God, I shall ask you again, shall I? How in the world am I supposed to win with you?”

“Maybe the question is why do you want to?” 

Something flashed in Malfoy’s eyes and Harry realised that he could see his chest heaving through his shirt. He wondered when Malfoy took off his robes and directed his eyes back up to his face. 

“Oh, for goodness sake!” Hermione stormed down the stairs with her wand raised already and glared both of them down. “The sheer immaturity of both of you is almost embarrassing! ”

“Hermione, I’ve got this covered.”

“No, Harry! I refuse to let this petty feud go on anymore, it’s ridiculous!” She gestured towards the door to the common room with her wand. “Go! Get out! Both of you! I’m taking both of you children to go and see McGonagall and we are making a bleeding truce between the both of you if it is the last thing that I do!”

“Hermione, can I just—” 

“No!”

“I need—”

“I said, no! ”

Malfoy cleared his throat politely and interrupted, “With all due respect, Granger, I think Potter is trying to say that if he intends to keep his place in Hogwarts then showing up to the Headmistress’ office in only his pants would not be a very bright idea.”

Hermione turned to him with fire in her gaze and huffed. “You shall keep that blasted bruise on your godforsaken face until McGonagall decides what to do with you.” She turned her head sharply. “Go and put some clothes on, Harry. You have five minutes before I drag you there by your ear, dressed or not.”

Harry didn’t hesitate to run up the stairs. He heard Malfoy snort, and a yelp soon after.

He pulled his jeans on as quickly as he could and didn’t bother to button up the top three buttons of his shirt, bouncing up and down on one leg as he struggled to pull on his shoes and socks. He didn’t tuck in his shirt at all, left his shoes untied and pulled on his jacket faster than the speed of light. He panted as he grabbed his wand from off of his bed, wondering and hoping dearly has it been five minutes yet?

Alas, it had not. Harry had made it downstairs with only one minute to spare, and Hermione was still clearly displeased with his appearance. He smiled sheepishly at her, wishing that she’d calmed down a bit. It seemed she had. 

The other Gryffindors were spread out in the common room now, though the couch where Malfoy had slept became the only seat that was left untouched and free, even though people were standing. Looking around, he noticed everybody giving Malfoy the stink eye, glaring at him blatantly. Malfoy acted as if he didn’t notice a thing. 

Hermione led both of them out of the Gryffindor quarters as if they were two dogs on a leash, both of them obediently following after her, too scared to say anything or attempt to leave. Pupils eyed them curiously, clearly wondering why Draco Malfoy of all people was leaving the common room of Gryffindor looking beat up. Harry gulped and kept his eyes forward. He didn’t want to be interrogated by students while on his sorrowful way to be interrogated by the Headmistress and Hermione. It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet. If this was how his day was starting, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to live through the rest of it. 

“Lumps on Doxies,” she said to the statue and let it open very slowly. Harry suddenly felt nauseous, but he did every time he went up to this office. It felt out of place not going up there to see Dumbledore. 

“What an odd saying,” Malfoy commented. Harry watched Hermione curl her hand into a fist with a smirk on his face. She pulled them both to the Griffin and they allowed themselves to travel up to the dreaded office of doom. 

“Good morning, Headmistress,” Hermione said politely. “I’m sorry to bother you so early on.”

“Good morning, Miss Granger,” McGonagall replied. She tipped her head forwards in greeting from her desk and put her cup of tea down onto her desk. “May I ask what this visit is about?”

“Of course,” she said. “Despite yours and mostly everybody’s efforts to encourage inter-house unity this year, Headmistress, Harry and Malfoy seemed to have missed the memo.”

McGonagall gave a look of disappointment towards the two boys, shrinking them down. She sighed. “Mr Malfoy, your face?”

“Thank Potter for that, Headmistress.” Malfoy smiled.

“He was winding me up, miss,” Harry complained. “I was trying my best to be civil.”

“Mr Potter, under no circumstance is bodily harm permitted on these school grounds, magical or not.” 

Harry shut his mouth and mumbled, “Yes, miss.”

“Miss Granger, I assume you brought them here for more than just a chance to let me know about their fight.” McGonagall waited patiently. Hermione didn’t falter.

“Yes. I want them to get along, Headmistress. I propose that they spend more time together. I think it would be best for everybody.”

McGonagall sat back. “And what does this have to do with me?”

“You can make them do it. They’re hardly going to listen to me, are they?” Hermione complained, and Harry found it difficult not to point out the irony in that. “If you want a symbol for inter-house unity, Headmistress, Malfoy and Harry are the best people to make a show of it.”

McGonagall squinted, picking up her tea again. She blew on it slowly, her gaze remaining on the three, before sipping on it, quiet and poised. She placed it back into the saucer. “I see.”

“ And ,” Hermione continued, “I think that their childish feud has gone on for too long. They need to both grow up.”

McGonagall smiled. “I can’t say I disagree with you, Miss Granger. However, you cannot simply force two people to get along.”

Hermione shook her head. “You can try.”

“I see that you’re incredibly passionate about this issue. I appreciate that. I will see what I can do about this.”

“Thank you, Headmistress.” Hermione tipped her head. “Would you like to speak with Harry and Malfoy alone? Or can I take Malfoy down to Madam Pomfrey now?”

“I would like to speak with Mr Malfoy,” she said. Harry felt Malfoy tense beside him. “I will ensure he gets seen to, don’t worry. Run along.” Hermione smiled at her, and turned to leave with Harry, when McGonagall said, “Oh, and Potter? Detention for two weeks. Get your knuckles tended to.”

Harry suppressed the need to groan and managed a shaky, uneven smile. 

*

“Harry, at least talk to me,” Hermione begged when they were sat at the table in the Great Hall. “I’m doing this for your own good.”

“No, Hermione, you’re really not. I don’t know why you’re doing this, but it’s definitely not for me. I can guarantee that nothing good will come out of this.” Harry shoved a bread roll in his mouth. “My own good...”

“Come on, Hermione, he has a point,” Ron said around a mouth full of bacon. “You’re forcing him to spend time with bloody Malfoy.”

“You’re both making it sound so dramatic!” She rolled her eyes. “I doubt McGonagall is going to do anything extreme. She’ll probably just make it so that you have to partner with him in a few classes.” 

“That is too much Malfoy for me,” Harry whined. “I’ll never forgive you for this.”

“I’ll miss you, mate,” Ron told him. “Malfoy’s going to become your new best friend. It’s been a good run.” 

“It won’t be the first time he’s ruined something close to me.”

“Potter.” Harry whipped his head around. Malfoy stood there, wringing his hands. “May I speak with you?”

“Your face hasn’t been healed,” Harry said without thinking. “McGonagall said—”

“McGonagall said a lot of things, including something that I’m quite sure you’ll want to know about. So, if I may talk with you, hurry up,” he said unpleasantly. He turned and left the hall quickly, clearly not wanting to spend any more time in there than he had to. Come to think of it, Harry couldn’t remember seeing Malfoy in there much at all recently, since they’d come back for the eighth year. 

“You’re not seriously considering going, are you?” Ron asked and Harry watched him gesture wildly to the buffet in front of them. “Look at how much food you’re not eating!”

“I’m sure you’ll eat enough for the whole year, Ron.” Hermione turned towards Harry. “Go on, we’ll catch up later.”

Harry nodded and swung his legs over the bench, going down the hall the same route as Malfoy had. He could feel the gazes of other students and the professors as he made his way, something he had gotten used to over the years. He kept his head down and awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, quickening his pace. 

“You’re Draco Malfoy, aren’t you?” Harry heard a squeaky voice as he walked through the doorway. “I’ve heard things about you. Lots of things.”

“I’m sure they all involve how big a fan I am of knitting and helping old witches across streets,” was the icy response. Harry smirked, keeping himself hidden for the minute. 

“Not exactly. More like how you took the Dark Mark.”

Harry could picture Malfoy rolling his eyes as he said, “That’s quite old news, you know.”

“That’s the same Mark that killed Dumbledore. And my best friend’s brother.”

There was a prolonged silence before Malfoy spoke again. “I’m sorry for your friend’s loss.”

“Good!” the boy shouted. “Why didn’t you lose anyone, Malfoy? How are you standing here, perfectly fine?”

“Do you want a list of things I’ve lost since the war? Because I can easily provide one.”

“I don’t care!”

“Did you not just ask—”

“ Silencio! ” the boy cast. “I want a duel. Draw your wand. Now! Or you’ll have another bruise on the other side of your face to match that one! Who gave you that? I think I’d like to give them my thanks.”

Harry stepped forward now, waving his wand quickly and silently at Malfoy while the boy had yet to notice him. He was different from how Harry had pictured him while not looking. He was tall, taller than Malfoy it seemed, though that may have just been because the boy was crowding him. He looked to be in his fifth or sixth year, Harry couldn’t tell, he didn't recognise him. Malfoy peeked at Harry hesitantly, before testing his luck and answering, “Potter.”

The boy seemed oblivious to the fact that Malfoy’s ability to speak had come back. “Harry Potter gave you that? Bet you really did deserve it, then! And I bet that he wouldn’t mind if I did a bit more damage either.”

“I think that’s enough,” Harry said. The boy turned his head so quickly Harry thought it was a wonder that he didn’t get whiplash. “Leave Malfoy alone.”

“ What?” the boy spluttered. “But it’s- it’s him! He’s a Death Eater!”

“He was a Death Eater. The war is over. Voldemort is gone. He has no more followers.”

“He has the Dark Mark!”

“One of the bravest men I ever knew had the Dark Mark before he died, and he died for our cause. Having that Mark does not make you evil.” Harry pointed towards the hall. “Go and eat, and don’t attempt to curse any more students.”

The boy scurried away without any argument and Harry watched him until he was satisfied, then turned back to Malfoy. “You know him?”

“Daniel Hunter. Ravenclaw, if you’d believe that.” He straightened out his shirt. “Quite feisty.”

“I can tell.” 

“I hope you’re not expecting me to thank you.”

“Are you capable?”

“As capable as I am of complimenting your hair. Or your eyes.”

“Fuck off.”

“Going to punch me again?” Malfoy tilted his head. “Not sure McGonagall would approve of that. Nor would Granger.”

“What did McGonagall say?” Harry asked, remembering why he came after Malfoy in the first place. 

“I hope your friend is happy, she’s going to be seeing a lot less of you.” He brought his hand out of his pocket and produced a small key, holding it out in his palm for Harry to take. “Here you go.”

Harry stared at the key. “What?”

“The two of us have been granted a private room! How thoughtful.” He grinned spitefully. Harry saw his fist clench. “I certainly hope you don’t snore.”

“You’re fucking kidding me?”

“Language, Potter. Show some respect to your new roommate.”

“You- You're having me on.”

“I really wish I were, trust me. I could think of nothing worse than having to sleep in the same room as you until Easter.”

“Until Easter? ” Harry continued to stare at him, waiting for him to say that it was a joke. “No. No, I’m not doing this.”

“Scared for your safety, are you?” 

“Do I need to be?” 

Malfoy didn’t reply, looking away. Harry eyed his bruise again, and his gaze travelled over his side profile, before dropping his eyes. He saw how his shirt hung low even on the sleeves, how new holes had to be made on his belt so it would be tight enough. His hands shook ever so slightly as he fidgeted. “Are you alright, Malfoy?”

Malfoy looked at him. “What?”

“You’re thin.”

“I have a fast metabolism.” 

“You’re frighteningly thin,” he continued. “I never see you in the hall anymore.”

“Been missing me, have you? You can rest assured that you won’t need to seek me out at breakfast any longer, you’ll wake up to me every morning.”

“Why hasn’t the bruise been healed?” Harry asked. 

“Why haven’t your knuckles?” 

“Didn’t see a point in going. You can’t notice it anyway.”

“Sure you don’t want to keep it just because it makes you look hard?”

“Is that what you’re doing?”

“No,” Malfoy said. “It won’t heal.”

“It won’t heal?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” He folded his arms. “McGonagall tried. When it didn’t work, she took me to Madam Pomfrey. She tried, and that didn’t work either.” 

“Why not?” 

“If I knew, it wouldn’t still be on my face. Honestly, it’s embarrassing. It’s ruining it.”

“Might be a bit of an improvement.”

“Very funny, Potter.”

“If only you were so obsessed with how your personality comes across as you were your appearance.”

Malfoy snorted. “As an excellent writer once said, it is better to be beautiful than to be good.”

“You’re beautiful?”

“Why, thank you.”

“That’s not what I meant. What writer said that, anyway?”

The corners of his lips stretched warmly upwards. “Oscar Wilde.”

Harry scoffed, an eyebrow raised at him. “You’ve been reading muggle books?”

“It’s quite wonderful. My mother has been sending me his work.”

“How does Lucius feel about that? His wife and son reading muggle work?”

“He’s not happy. That’s to be expected, though, with his son reading what’s been written by a queer muggle.” 

“Queer?”

“Yes,” Malfoy said sternly. “Problem, Potter?”

“Not at all,” Harry said in defence. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to collaborate with… Er… Queer people, yourself.”

Malfoy looked at him for a long while before laughing softly, shaking his head. “Right, of course. You never were that observant.”

Harry frowned. “What—”

“Anyway, our new sleeping quarters are to be found on the fifth floor, furthest corridor to the right, and up the seventh stairs.” Malfoy held out the key again. “Are you going to take it or not?”

“I… Suppose I’ll need it.” Harry reached out and scooped the key up out of his palm, dropping it in his pocket.

“I’ve already moved my things in there, so when you do, I ask you kindly not to touch any of my things.” Malfoy gave him a sharp look. “Have a horrible day.”

“I will, knowing I have to come back to you,” Harry said. As soon as Malfoy was out of sight, he turned around, kicked the wall and shouted “ Fuck!”

*

“Harry! Where have you been all day?” Ron asked as Harry made his way into the Gryffindor common room. Ron was sat with Hermione, who was doing either her own or her boyfriend’s homework. Probably the latter. 

“I had detention with McGonagall, then I was… Moving my things out of the dorms,” Harry replied miserably, plopping down next to them on the couch. 

“What?” Both of them looked at him in shock, examining him for traces of a joke. Hermione continued, “What do you mean?”

“McGonagall decided that the best method of getting me and Malfoy to be friends is for us to live together.” He feigned a large smile. “In a private room. Until fucking Easter .”

“No!” Ron gasped. “She can’t do that!”

“She can. She’s the Headmistress.”

“What if he… What if he tries to kill you , or something? He might sacrifice you to Voldemort beyond the grave!” 

“For Heaven’s sake, Ron, Malfoy is no match for Harry at all. He especially isn’t now he’s so weak.” Hermione put down the quill that had been in her hand. “I really am sorry, Harry. I never intended for… for this.”

“I’ll just have to put up with it now.” Harry shrugged. “Oh, and, er, his face won't heal.”

Hermione frowned. “It won’t?”

“Yeah. McGonagall and Pomfrey both tried to do it, but nothing happened.”

“That’s awful,” Hermione said. “And very curious.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty upset about it.” Harry sighed. “I feel… Bad?”

“I wouldn’t.” Ron clapped him on the back. “I’d be proud.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, uncertain. “You’re right.”

“He’s absolutely not right.” Hermione lightly shoved Ron, and he laughed in return. “You should apologise to him.”

“Why? So he can think it’s alright to go run his mouth off again?” 

Harry shook his head. “Hermione’s probably right.”

“I’m always right, Harry.” She smiled. He returned it.

“It’s just… Whenever I get close to trying to be nice to him, he becomes a huge ponce again.”

“Defence mechanism, perhaps?” she pondered. “He’s probably a little scared of you.”

“Scared of me?” Harry asked. Malfoy wasn’t scared of him. He had no proper reason to be, Harry had saved his life!

“You are one of the most powerful wizards alive, and you hate him,” Hermione said. “He doesn’t know that you wouldn’t seriously hurt him. You wouldn’t, of course, but...”

Harry was reminded of that bathroom. Blood on the floor. Him on the floor. Chest open, oozing. The whines of pain that tumbled out of his mouth. 

“Yeah,” Harry said dryly. 

“He shouldn’t be bothered if you do,” Ron said. “He owes you a life debt.”

“It was mutual.” Harry tapped his fingers anxiously on the table in front of them. “He never disclosed who I was in Malfoy Manor.”

“Was it really that big of a gesture?” Ron asked. “Maybe he just didn’t know it was you.” 

“He did.” Harry looked down. “He knew.” Hermione and Ron shared a look over the top of Harry’s head that he didn’t quite catch until he looked up at both of them again, rolling his eyes and sighing. “ What ?”

“Nothing,” Hermione chirped. 

He raised an eyebrow at her. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I don’t like it.”

“Nothing, as I said. Now, I have to finish Ron’s homework before sundown.”

“What’s in it for you?”

Ron laughed to himself as Harry watched her cheeks turn a bright pink. “You don’t wanna know, mate,” he said. 

Harry screwed up his face in disgust, shaking his head. “You’re right. That’s minging.”

“It’s nothing Harry doesn’t do with your sister, Ronald.” Hermione picked up the quill and parchment before standing up. She smiled sweetly as Ron gasped and began to gag, putting a hand to his chest.

“Don’t, don’t!” he cried. “I’ll die if you say that again!”

Harry laughed, tipping his head back. “The material I have would send him running into the Black Lake.”

“I don’t want to be a part of this conversation!” Ron squealed. “My baby sister! ”

“Not quite a baby anymore—”

“I’ll hex you, I swear!”

“What’s this?” Harry turned his head as a soft, familiar voice flowed into the room. He shut up immediately, wiping the grin off of his face. Ginny stood with anything but womanly grace after limping her way into the room from down the stairs. She had gotten injured in a recent game of Quidditch that Harry hadn’t managed to attend, and refused to stay in the Hospital Wing while it mended. 

“Nothing,” Harry rushed. She gave him a smirk as she hobbled over to sit on his lap, probably only to spite Ron. Harry didn’t look at him but heard his displeased grunt. She raised her hands and began playing with his hair, ringing the locks around her fingertips. 

“Are you free later? I was thinking we could… stay down after everybody else has gone up to bed.” She bit her bottom lip at him and he chuckled nervously. 

“He can’t!” Ron said quickly. “Harry’s moved.”

Ginny ripped her gaze from Harry’s eyes, squinting at her brother, then back at Harry. “What?”

Harry sighed heavily. “I’ve been moved by McGonagall to share a private room with Malfoy.”

Ginny’s expression darkened. “Malfoy?” 

“Yep.”

“Why the hell would she think that’s a good idea?”

“ Someone ,” Harry didn’t say Hermione’s name, but she politely excused herself to run up to bed. “Thought that Malfoy and I should start to get along. Apparently, this was the best option.”

“That’s ridiculous. They can’t room you with a Death Eater.”

“That’s what I said!” Ron complained.

“Ex-Death Eater,” Harry corrected them. “I hate him too. Trust me. But the thought of upsetting McGonagall…” He shivered at the thought.

Ginny stood up from his lap hastily. “Well, I hope you two enjoy your sleepovers every night.”

“I don’t want this either, Gin.”

“No, but you seem perfectly content in defending a man whose people killed our brother.” 

Harry looked down, wrung his hands. “I’m sorry, but I’m not lying, am I? He’s not a Death Eater anymore.”

“He may as well be,” she said. She scowled at him and began to attempt a walk to the stairs, limping with each step that Harry didn’t stop.

“Let me help,” he offered, standing up.

She whipped her head around to him quickly. “I can walk by myself,” she fumed, and hopped up the stairs.

“Nice one, mate,” he heard Ron say.

“I don’t get what she wants me to do about it.” Harry shrugged. “I can’t just not do what McGonagall wants, can I?”

“I mean… Have you tried to negotiate with her at all?”

Harry hadn’t thought of that. He shifted awkwardly. “Malfoy said he’d already tried.”

“And you don’t think that you’re a little bit more persuasive that Malfoy when it comes to her? You’re only like, her most favourite pupil ever.”

Harry realised bitterly that Ron was right. Why hadn’t he gone and spoken to McGonagall himself? He was certainly upset enough to! “I don’t want to disturb her sleep, so I’ll go in the morning, I think.”

“Already leaving?” Ron asked him. “If you wait long enough then the git will probably be in bed already. You won’t have to deal with him.”

“Good point.” Harry nodded, sitting back down next to him. “I haven’t actually seen the room yet. I’m hoping it’s nice. But I’ll miss the dorms.”

“The dorms will miss you!” Ron announced. “What do you say we go down to Hogsmeade on Saturday?”

“Looking for an opportunity to get plastered, are you?” Harry grinned. 

“After what you and Hermione were saying about Gin? God, yes, I am!”

Harry laughed again. He enjoyed spending time with Ron; it reminded him of all of the good times at Hogwarts more than it did the bad. It wasn’t like they hadn’t had fights, but all friends do, and they could never stay angry at each other, not really.

 “Up for a game of chess?” he offered heartily, summoning a table to settle in front of them. Ron’s ecstatic expression was one for the ages. They got to playing.

*

Ron won, as Ron always won when they played chess against one another. He won himself a free pint on Harry for when they got to Hogsmeade together, because Harry was thick enough to actually bet on a game of chess against him. He never really learned his lesson, did he?

“Harry,” said Ron when he got up to finally retire. He couldn’t say that he was looking forward to going to see Malfoy. He hoped for two things: that he was already asleep, and that he didn’t snore. Harry would hex him if he did. “Be careful, yeah?” Ron continued, a troubled look on his face. He placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “I know he’s weak and all, but the things he’s done…”

“I know,” Harry said and gave Ron a smile. “It’ll all be fine. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

“You won’t suddenly ditch us for the Slytherin table tomorrow at breakfast, will you?”

Harry laughed. “If he even comes down for it.”

“Fair point, that.”

“Don’t you owe Hermione some sort of thanks for doing her homework for you?” Harry smirked. “Go! I’ll be fine. I’ll see you.”

“See you, mate.” Ron removed his hand from Harry’s shoulder with a grin and Harry turned away before he could watch him try to walk up to the girls’ dorms again. He’d seen him fail at that far too many times recently.

With a huff, Harry left his old common room and began to make his way to the fifth floor. Surely nothing much would change with this arrangement anyway, Harry thought to himself as he walked, hands in pockets and head down. He and Malfoy only had to share a room in the night, they weren’t forced to spend any time at all with each other otherwise. 

Oh well, Harry thought. He definitely wasn’t complaining at the lack of thought that had gone into it.

What was it that Malfoy had said? Harry wondered, losing his way a little. Fifth floor… Furthest corridor, but was that to the left, or to the right? And was it the sixth or seventh stairs that he needed to go up? Damnit. He was kind of lost. You wouldn’t have thought that he’d been going to this school for almost eight years now, would you?

Drawing his wand, Harry cast his patronus and gazed with it with as much amazement as he had done the first time he saw it, and every other time since. 

“Tell Malfoy that I’m lost, please,” he said to it. “Wake him up if he’s asleep.”

The stag bowed his head to him before beginning to prance down the corridor, where it disappeared before Harry’s very eyes. Harry cast a small lumos again while he waited, trying to be as respectful as he could be towards the paintings. He was almost surprised that any of them were still hanging after the war. Many of the inhabitants of the frames had migrated, or the parchment on which they’d lived had gotten ripped apart or burnt. 

He sighed heavily to himself and leaned against the rocky wall. It was jagged and hurt his back, so he stumbled forward again and turned back to glare at it. 

“Stupid wall,” he muttered to it. Malfoy was certainly taking his damn time, which was probably the main irritant that was affecting Harry’s mood. Perhaps Malfoy was just going to leave him out there, in the dark and in the cold? Laugh at him in the morning when he realises that he was out there all bloody night, just waiting for him.

Would Malfoy do that? Harry didn’t have a doubt in his mind. He wasn’t exactly Harry’s biggest fan, was he? And the likelihood of him helping Harry was as thin as a twig. He didn’t know why he even bothered to send off his stag to tell him. 

“Waiting for something, young man?” Harry heard a voice say to him. He quickly raised his wand and heightened his lumos, jumping to defence. “Relax, relax,” it said, “I can’t hurt you anymore. I’m only a painting now.”

Harry narrowed his eyes at the source of the voice. It was a good-looking wizard, maybe in his late twenties, early thirties. He had a tanned complexion with matching brown eyes, though his hair was a dusty blond colour. “Who are you?” he asked.

“You’re hurting my eyes with that thing so bright, you know,” the man said to him. “The name’s Basil Davies.”

“I’ve never seen your portrait in Hogwarts before,” Harry told him. “Where did you come from?”

“Wales. Scotland has changed, really. Used to be a tad bit chillier when I went to Hogwarts.”

“Paintings can feel the temperature?” Harry furrowed his brows. 

“Well, I can imagine what it’s like. You never answered me, anyway! You waiting for something?”

Harry grumbled. “Someone.”

“Oh!” Basil’s face split into a grin. “I see, well done, young man! I, too, have had my fair share of late night escapades.”

“No, no.” Harry shook his head. “It’s not like that at all. It’s a man.”

Basil frowned. “And?”

“I… Well, er… I’m not, you know.”

“So many technicalities. Every young man enjoys experimenting! How else would you find out what you truly like?”

Harry supposed he had… some sort of a point. “Well, I don’t need to experiment. I have a girlfriend.”

“What are you doing waiting around for some lad then, when you could be getting busy with her?” Basil shook his head, looking down. “Never do learn, you Englishmen. What’s your darling’s name?”

“Ginny. Ginevra,” Harry wasn’t sure why he was telling any of this to Basil. He supposed it passed the time while he was waiting for Malfoy. 

“Very smart name.” Basil sat down onto the pink, very expensive-looking seat. “And your name?”

“Harry.” 

“Harry… Rather bland, isn’t it?”

Harry actually laughed a little. “Yeah, it is. Just Harry.”

“Well, I’m sure there are other redeeming qualities about you.” Harry watched Basil look him up and down and shifted a little, suddenly feeling rather self-conscious. “You are a bit strapping, aren’t you? Proper muscles are those. I wish it wasn’t dark, so I could see you properly.”

“Despite the lack of light, you can still see my arms?” Harry gave him a lopsided grin. 

“I can sense good muscles a mile away, Harry.”

Harry looked down a little, pressed a palm to his bicep. “So are you… You know?”

“Homosexual?” A raised eyebrow and a hand out at his side, rather flamboyantly. Harry felt his cheeks grow red.

“Yeah. Er, that.”

“You can say the word, you know.” 

“Right,” said Harry, wondering if he was going to answer his question at all.

“Say it,” ordered the painting, a sly grin over his face. “It’s not difficult, is it?”

“No.” Harry’s demeanour faltered, and he felt a bit uncomfortable. “Homosexual. We call it gay now, just so you know.”

“You do? Oh, how enlightening. We used the word gay to mean happy, when I lived.” Basil smiled. “And no, I’m not… gay.”

“Really?” Harry frowned. Could’ve fooled him. 

“Yes. I enjoyed a snog with the village deacon as much as I did with the village milkmaid.”

“So, bisexual?” That’s what it was called, right? Harry recalled having heard it somewhere. 

“Is that what it’s called nowadays? Back in my day… Well, it rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way.”

“What do you mean?”

“I do not wish to bore you with tales of my demise, Harry. Tell me more about this boy you’re meeting with, and why he’s more important than that pretty girlfriend of yours.”

“He’s not more important than Ginny. His name is Draco. Bit of a weird name, really.” Harry shrugged.

“Draco. Is that Latin?” Basil asked.

“Yeah. I think. I’m not sure. I’ve never asked.”

“Tell me more, I’m intrigued!” Basil was leaning on his hands now. “Is he attractive?”

“I, er, what?” Harry stepped back. Was Draco attractive? Was Draco Malfoy attractive? How should Harry know! He hadn’t spent that much of his free time staring at him, after all. “I don’t know?”

“You don’t know whether or not this Draco is attractive?” Basil narrowed his eyes and Harry nodded. “Well, describe him to me.”

“Okay?” Harry blinked a few times as he tried to compose himself. “He’s got really pale skin. I think it’s pure white, sometimes. Er, he’s a little bit taller than I am, but not by much. He would probably make it out that he’s got a foot on me, but he really doesn’t. And he’s got this shocking blond hair. It’s like… platinum, or something.” Harry stopped looking at Basil now, trying to picture Malfoy in his head. “His eyes are this… light grey. I didn’t even know that people could have grey eyes. But I think they also have twinges of light blue in them, sometimes. If that’s possible. I think I’ve seen some blue.”

“He sounds pretty,” Basil said. Harry frowned. Pretty? He remembered thinking that of Malfoy when he was passed out cold on the floor, and went back to feeling a bit guilty. 

“I guess, maybe…” Harry shrugged, not wanting to admit it.

“Potter.” Harry’s head snapped up as soon as he heard Malfoy’s voice and he backed away from the painting. “I’ll pretend that I didn’t just hear you and a portrait talking about me if you hurry up and get to our room.”

Malfoy looked… pretty . His hair was ruffled up, not styled at all, and he was wearing a long-sleeved nightshirt that fell over his hips. He must’ve been wearing shorts underneath, but Harry couldn’t see them. All he could see were Malfoy’s long and slender legs, one straight and the other outstretched. His arms were crossed and he looked angry and tired, yet still, his complexion looked perfect and he had little to no wrinkles that came with the thunderous expression he was making. Harry really was discovering the impossible tonight. 

“Did I wake you?” Harry asked. “I didn’t expect you to come down here.”

Malfoy scoffed. “Then what were you expecting?”

“For you to send your own patronus back so that I could follow it, maybe?”

“Very funny, Potter,” Malfoy spat at him and snapped his arms down to his sides. “If you don’t want to stay down here for the whole night then I suggest you say farewell to your friend and follow me.”

Harry nodded, confused about the outlandish reaction but doing as he wished anyway. “Goodnight, Basil.”

“Goodnight, Harry. And I assume that you’re Draco?” Malfoy nodded swiftly. “You were right about the hair, Harry. Even in this light. Shocking. ”

“Right!” Harry quickly walked away from the wall and towards Malfoy. “Let’s get to bed!”

“Don’t let anybody else hear you say that,” Malfoy said in a huff.

“What?” Harry’s eyes widened and his cheeks grew warmer. “Nobody will think I mean that— ”

“ I didn’t mean that. ” Malfoy glared at him before he began to walk. “I meant that if people heard that you were having to associate with me, it would be bad for your image.”

“Oh,” Harry said. “Right. I think it’ll be okay.”

“Good for you,” Draco said blankly.

They walked in silence, Harry behind Malfoy instead of side by side. A lingering thought tugged at his brain that for some reason kept telling his eyes to look down. And down. Oh, fucking god, why was he looking down there?

When Harry thought Malfoy’s legs were slender, he didn’t realise just how much so. He watched them as he walked, right up to the tip of his thighs. Was he really wearing something underneath that nightshirt? It was up awfully high and Harry hadn’t seen even a slip of fabric.

“Do you always wear a nightie to bed?” Harry asked with a smirk. The look on Malfoy’s face was worth ten million galleons.

“A nightie ?” Malfoy’s eyes were wider than the moon. “This is not a bleeding nightie!”

“It looks like a nightie.”

“Nighties are worn by elderly witches and patients in hospitals, both of which I am not. ” 

“Whose shirt is that, anyway?” Harry asked. “Unless it really is a nightie, why would you buy that?”

“I didn’t buy it. It was given to me. It doesn’t usually hang this low.”

“By someone taller than you, then?”

“It’s not an investigation, is it? Blaise lent it to me. It’s warmer than my normal pyjamas.”

“ That? ” Harry raised his eyebrow, looking down at it. “That’s warm?”

“Yes. It has built-in charms, you see. It’s rather brilliant and not at all like a nightie.”

“I’d hate to see your other pyjamas if this is one of the warm ones. You probably sleep naked.” Harry laughed at himself.

“I do not sleep naked, that’s crude. It’s just that my other ones are silk.” 

Harry rolled his eyes. “Of course they are. Don’t know what else I would expect from you.” 

“Silk pyjamas aren’t uncommon. I’d say that pyjamas like these ones are rarer.” He pinched the fabric and pulled on it twice. “Built-in charms, like I said.”

“Why did he lend it to you?” Harry asked, mostly to sate his curiosity but said as if he was attempting to fill the silence.

“Because he… Hm. I’m not sure, actually. He just told me to keep it. I had it anyway because I enjoy wearing it sometimes.” Malfoy turned back forwards, tearing his eyes away from Harry. 

Harry snorted. “You enjoy wearing your mate’s clothes?”

Malfoy furrowed his brows at him. “You are incredibly stupid.”

Harry immediately frowned, pausing and trying to see whether or not he had missed something. “Wait, what?”

“How you found all of the Dark Lord’s Horcruxes and managed to kill him, I will never know, truly.” Malfoy shook his head. “You can’t see what’s right in front of you.”

“What’s right in front of me?!” Harry asked, exasperated. Malfoy stopped in his tracks and Harry almost walked into the back of him.

“The door,” Malfoy said, and took his key out from his pocket. He inserted it slowly into the keyhole and twisted, then opened the door for them both. 

Inside was an incredibly bright contrast to the hallway they had been walking in. Two light birchwood double beds sat side by side against the light grey wall on the right of the room, the sheets on one red, and the other green. No point in betting on which bed belonged to who. The walls were decorated with what looked like Latin or Old English incantations that Harry didn’t understand at all, and a few portraits of seasides and countrysides; but none of any wizards or witches. The frames looked old and worn, but the gold underneath the rust shone through brilliantly. Several seagulls flew by on the painting of the seaside and Harry painfully remembered his last experience on a beach.

The carpet was regrettably white, considering that Harry was definitely bound to spill something on it at some point or other. There was only one rug in the room and it was midnight-black and fluffy, half of it hidden underneath the variant lake-green and proud red single seating couches, facing a large, grey brick fireplace that was already roaring. 

There were windows on the far end of the room that covered the whole wall, black borders separating them from each other and black curtains ready to be drawn. They overlooked the outskirts of the Quidditch pitch, Harry wondered if it was possible to watch a game from there. At the foot of the windows were two birch desks that matched the make of the beds, with a coffee-machine on one and a kettle on the other, but presumably only to do work on. Going along with that wooden theme, the door to what seemed to be some sort of en-suite to the room. Harry had never had an en-suite before, but he assumed that it was second nature to Malfoy to have such a luxury.

“This is more decent than I thought it would be,” said Harry, gawping at the decor. “At least we aren’t staying in bunk-beds.”

“I don’t think that’d be very enjoyable for either of us.” Harry stumbled a bit as Malfoy shoved past him to get to his bed. He secretly hoped that it wasn’t for some reason more comfy than his would be. 

“I’d be taking the top bunk,” Harry said. He gently closed the door behind him. “I always did when I went away with my cousin. He was too heavy to not stay on the bottom.”

“I hope you’re not insinuating that I’m fat, Potter.” Malfoy gave him an unimpressed look as he picked up a white hardcover book from underneath his bedsheets. 

“As if,” Harry said. “What are you reading?” He looked around for a light switch with no avail. Each time he had to look at Malfoy’s bruise he felt a deep pool of guilt bubble in his stomach. Perhaps he should take Hermione’s advice and apologise already. 

“The Picture of Dorian Gray,” answered Malfoy with a deadpan tone. He explained no more about it. 

“Is it good?” Harry asked, grasping onto any thread of conversation that may still linger.

“I would be able to answer that if some twit didn’t keep interrupting my reading it.” 

Harry took the hint and wandered to the other side of the room. He ran his fingers down over the text on the wall, wondering about what it could mean and why it had been put there. If this room was created by McGonagall, it was probably something to do with friendship, and unity, and how all houses are equal. It was true to say that Harry didn’t hate Slytherin as much as he used to. Regulus Black was in Slytherin, after all, and so was Snape. The Malfoy’s defected from Voldemort in the end and Narcissa Malfoy refused to tell him that Harry was dead. Draco… Malfoy had never seemed particularly evil to Harry. He wouldn’t go that far. 

And Harry had learned that you didn’t have to be in Slytherin to be evil. Peter Pettigrew was a Gryffindor through and through and still one of the slimiest tossers he ever had the misfortune of meeting. 

Harry directed his attention to the door to the bathroom. He wasn’t proud of the little buzz of excitement that flooded through him as he wrapped his fingers around the golden knob and twisted it, pulling the door open. He’d stood there in awe for a second. Yes, the en-suite was still technically being shared between both him and Malfoy, but it was a damn sight better than having to share with a dozen other boys. It felt private.

It wasn’t small, but it was a modest size that Harry admired. A bathtub with a fitted shower head was sat against the wall opposite the door, and a sink and toilet stood one by one next to it. The tiles were white on both the walls and the floor, with grey rugs at the bases of the tub and toilet. There were three mirrors in there that Harry could see, decorated with golden rims. 

“Wow,” Harry whispered to himself, looking around. He felt almost guilty for enjoying this experience, though he was almost certain that the joy would subside as soon as the reality of living with Malfoy sank in. He would miss his friends incredibly soon enough. Not being able to see Ron and Hermione in the common room every night before going to sleep and every morning before breakfast would be incredibly strange, something he’d need to get used to. 

And Ginny, he added as an afterthought. He’d miss seeing Ginny, and getting the opportunity to spend as much time with her as he had done previously. 

Harry opened a cabinet to the left of the toilet and took out what he recognised as his toothbrush. At least, he hoped that it was his toothbrush. It could very well be Malfoy’s toothbrush, and they coincidentally had exactly the same make and colour, and indent on the handle from when Harry had thrown it at the window one time. It was probably his. 

He ran it under the tap on the sink and drenched the bristles with water, softening them before squeezing some of his toothpaste onto them, and then running it again underneath the stream of water. 

Once done brushing his teeth, Harry wandered back into the main room. He’d shower in the morning, probably, he told himself. He wasn’t in the mood for showering at that moment, anyway, not when he knew Malfoy was in the next room and could potentially hear everything that he was… doing. He shivered slightly in his step and sat down onto his bed. It was surprisingly comfortable, a lot more so than all of the other beds he’d taken to sleeping in for the previous eighteen years of his life. 

“It’s getting late,” Harry said.

Malfoy didn’t look up from the page in his book. “Excellent observation.” 

“Do you mind if I go to sleep?” 

“Potter, I would like nothing more.”

“So… I can turn all the lights off?” Harry asked hesitantly. He didn’t know where he stood with Malfoy now. 

Malfoy’s eyes remained on his book, but a hand slid underneath the sheets and he grabbed onto his wand. He pointed the wand upwards towards the ceiling, and very quietly said, “ Nox.”

“Cool lights,” said Harry as he was set into almost complete darkness, save for the fireplace opposite the beds, still burning. He nodded his head in thanks but Malfoy didn’t see it. “Do you know where our trunks are?”

“Underneath your bed.”

Harry bent down, looking between his legs as he lifted up the sheets on the bed to get a good look. He squinted and felt his glasses slide close to off his face, but spotted the familiar brown leather and yanked it out from underneath him. He threw it over to his right and opened it, scanning the contents. Not that he thought Malfoy would’ve gone through his stuff, or stolen anything, but only because he could have forgotten something back at the Gryffindor dorms. 

Harry didn’t wear pyjamas, but he did wear a pair of proper cosy jogger-bottoms that he wore to absolute death. He only had one pair, so they very rarely got washed, much to Hermione and Ginny’s disappointment and disgust. He thought that they should understand that he couldn’t just not wear any bottoms! He didn’t enjoy wearing only underwear to bed nowadays. He felt like his legs were a bit nasty to look at nowadays, a bit on the bigger side and not that toned, riddled with scars from falling over again and again and again. Not even only from the war, some stretched back to his childhood, falling over in different parks or on dodgy pavements, trying to keep up with the Dursleys so that they didn’t leave him behind anywhere. 

Harry stood up and began to unbutton his shirt, from the bottom upwards, which also annoyed Ginny to hell and back. He heard a thump on the bed behind him but ignored it, and let his shirt hang open as he pulled his tie over his head. He didn’t loosen it at all, but it was already hung low enough that it didn’t catch at all when being slid over his face. He threw it into his trunk before sliding the shirt down over his shoulders. 

“Do you have no decency?” Malfoy shouted suddenly, his voice sounding a little choked. Harry turned to him with a frown on his face. 

“What do you mean?” He balled up his shirt in his hands and threw that into the trunk as well, then reached down to unzip his trousers. 

“Oh my god!” Malfoy made a point of looking away dramatically, slamming his book shut. “No decency! None!” 

“Do guys not get changed around each other in Slytherin dorms?” Harry pushed down his trousers. May as well, since Malfoy was looking away. 

“Yes, of course they do, but not when there’s only two of them in the room together!”

“Why not? It’s not a big deal, Malfoy.” Harry rolled his eyes and kicked the trousers over his feet. Malfoy didn’t reply, and so Harry turned back to face his bed, picking up the trousers off the ground and placing them on top of the other discarded clothes.

“Potter, I’m asking you to please get changed in the bathroom in the future.”

“Fine.” Harry sighed. “Whatever.” He fished out the trusty joggers from underneath the other clothes he’d buried them under. Lifting up one leg at a time, he quickly pulled them on and up, satisfied in the cosiness. 

“I appreciate it.” Malfoy had picked up his book again. He was squinting, struggling to read in such low light and Harry wanted to tell him that if he wasn’t careful then he’d end up with glasses too. If that happened, Malfoy wouldn’t be able to make fun of Harry for his glasses anymore. 

“Why don’t you sit on the couch?” Harry suggested. He lifted his trunk down to the ground again, not bothering to kick it under the bed. “It’ll be easier to read by the fire.”

“No,” Malfoy said. “I prefer it here. And turn that off, would you?”

Harry frowned. “Turn what off?”

“The fire.”

“Why? You won’t be able to read.”

“I’ll manage!” Malfoy snapped. “Now, if you don’t mind!”

Harry flinched, but complied. He wondered about why Malfoy couldn’t just do it himself, and why he didn’t want to sit by it at all, and realised sorrowfully the answer to his questions. Malfoy was still probably scarred by the events that took place in the Room of Requirement, and Harry didn’t blame him. One of Malfoy’s best friends had died there. In all of that fire. A fear of fire wouldn’t be too far-fetched.

Once the fire was off, Harry finally got into his bed. It was a lot warmer than he anticipated it to be. He hadn’t thought that anybody had ever used these beds before, so it had no reason to be as warm as it was. Oh well, he thought, he wasn’t complaining. He pulled the covers right up to his chin, and removed his glasses from upon his nose, placing them onto the bedside table that was separating the two beds. His vision was blurred, and it was awfully dark, with only the stars and the moon giving lighting to the room. He could roughly make out Malfoy’s figure as he lay on his side. He was still trying to read, though it seemed like he may start to give up soon enough, his head bobbing as if he were accidentally falling asleep from time to time. 

So… This was it. Harry’s first night sharing a room with Draco Malfoy, and he was going to fall asleep while watching him read. That wasn’t weird, right? It’s not as if there was anything else interesting to look at. Not that Malfoy was interesting to look at at all . 

He breathed deeply and watched Malfoy put the book down once more, to his right. It was a soft action. He was acting in a way that Harry didn’t normally see him act, and he wondered if Malfoy thought that he was already asleep. 

“Goodnight, Potter,” said Malfoy before he matched Harry’s position, on his side, though facing away from Harry. He wasn’t completely sure on why he was a bit let down by that. Harry might have replied to him, but he couldn’t be certain. He was more than half asleep at that point, his eyes forcing themselves shut. He was three-quarters of the way asleep, let’s call it that. 

*

Thump. Thump. Crash.

Harry shot up in bed on reflex as the loud noises interrupted his sleep. He wasn’t sure what time it was, but the sun wasn’t completely up yet, and that was just extremely unacceptable. Harry grabbed his glasses from the bedside table and pushed them on swiftly, scowling at what he saw. 

Malfoy was on the ground, sitting in front of several smashed items of china. It looked like he’d fallen over, and taken his tea with him. There was a dark stain down the front of his nightshirt that seemed to be oozing tea down his thighs, and Harry couldn’t imagine how sticky and gross that would feel. His gaze remained fixed on the stain, the shirt not quite becoming see-through but becoming to look thinner, sheerer.

“You alright, Malfoy?” Harry asked. Malfoy looked up at him with the anger of a thousand Gods.

“I’m perfectly fine, ” he lied to him. “What the hell are you looking at?”

“You. On the floor.” Harry fought the urge to laugh. “Drenched in tea.”

“Goddamn you.”

Harry stretched out his arms and yawned, rolling his shoulders as his grin died down. “What time is it?”

“Five-thirty.” Malfoy stood up slowly, carefully. “You weren’t supposed to wake up yet.”

“Why? Was that cup of tea for me?” Harry asked. “Were you going to surprise me with breakfast in bed?”

Malfoy hobbled over to his bed and withdrew his wand, casting a quick spell to clean up the mess he’d made of himself and on the floor. “Yes, that was exactly my intention.”

“You’re limping,” Harry said. “Did you hurt your leg when you fell?”

“It’s fine.” Malfoy shook his head. “Stop asking questions so early in the morning.”

“It’s not my fault you woke me up.”

“I think you’ll find that it damn well is your fault, Potter. It wasn’t my trunk that I tripped over, was it? Somebody forgot to store theirs back under their bed!”

Harry winced. It would be his fault if Malfoy had more bruises now, on his legs and perhaps backside this time though. He gulped. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t think.”

“No. I don’t think you’re familiar with the concept of thinking.” Malfoy rubbed his eyes lightly, seeming to be mindful of the pain it would cause the still heavy bruise on his eye. “I’m without tea now.”

“I can make a cuppa for both of us,” Harry offered, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He waited for Malfoy to agree, watched him nod very slowly before he made his way over to the desks by the windows. 

Harry watched with amusement as he picked up one of the teacups and another was immediately there in its place. It was weird, he thought, they didn’t have tea and coffee on hand in the Gryffindor dormitories. Maybe they did in the Slytherin dorms, that may be why Malfoy knew to go and get a cup of tea first thing in the morning. 

“The tea is premade in the kettle. No need to add milk, or such,” Malfoy said. “You just need to add the sugar.”

“Right.” Harry nodded. He lifted the kettle and filled up the two cups to the highest point it could go. It was an… alright colour, Harry supposed. A bit on the light side. A bit too much milk. 

He pushed off the lid of the container labelled ‘SUGAR’ in large, twisty letters and dropped two of the cubes into the cup that he decided was going to be his. “How many cubes do you want?”

Malfoy didn’t say anything to answer his question, which Harry found rather rude. He turned to him with a raised eyebrow. “Malfoy?”

“Yes, um.” Malfoy nodded, averting his eyes. “Um. I can finish this part.”

“What? Don’t be stupid. I’m already doing it now.”

“Yes. I know.” Malfoy picked up his book again. “You know, I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want any tea.”

“What the hell?” Harry scowled. “Just tell me how many damn sugar cubes you want!”

“I don’t want any damn sugar cubes because I don’t want any damn tea!” Malfoy shouted at him. “Just leave it!”

“It’s already been poured now!”

“Then go and fetch it for your poncy girlfriend or something, if you’re that worried about a cup of tea!”

Harry grit his teeth. “I told you to stop talking about Ginny like that.”

“And what rule says that I have to do whatever you say, Potter?” Malfoy’s knuckles were turning white as he gripped onto the book. “Are you going to curse me now? Punch me again? Or is this the part where I get your wand at my throat?”

Harry felt his cheeks grow red, but he kept his posture. “You know that I didn’t mean anything like that.”

“Of course.” Malfoy nodded bitterly. “God forbid you hurt the ginger’s feelings.”

“Malfoy, I’m serious.” Harry stepped away from the desk and down the step that was elevating them, closer to the bed. “This was supposed to stop us from fighting.”

“Well, I’m not as compliant as you, apparently. They can’t make me change my opinion of somebody. I’ll say what I damn well please, if you want to make it physical, then make it physical. I could take you down in a heartbeat.”

Harry furrowed his brows and couldn’t seem to stop himself from huffing out a laugh. “I think we both know that that isn’t at all true.”

“Oh, really?” Malfoy scoffed at him. “I beg to differ.”

“You remember the last time we faced off, Malfoy?”

“Which time?” Malfoy asked, his head tilted. “The one where you punched me without warning? You can’t call that a face off. I wasn’t prepared. Or do you mean the one where you used dark magic and almost killed me?”

“You can hardly shame me for using dark magic, Malfoy. You were trying to Crucio me at the same time. I didn’t even know what that spell did.”

“You knew it well enough to use it in a fight.” Malfoy glared at him. 

“I still won.”

“Then fight me,” said Malfoy. “Now.”

Harry paused. “Excuse me?”

“What? Are you scared?” Malfoy placed his book down on the bed and stood, his legs shaking. “Take a swing.”

“No.”

“Would you prefer to use magic?” he asked. “A knack for wands, is it?”

“I’m not going to fight you.”

“Don’t want to get too roughed up, I see. Bad for your hero image. Wouldn’t want to upset all of your fans. Or your little girlfriend.”

“It would upset her, yeah. But the only thing she’d do is come after you.”

“As if she could handle me.”

“I don’t think you realise how weak you are.”

“For fuck sake, Potter, I’m not weak!”

“You’re a bloody twig, Malfoy!”

“Which is none of your concern!”

“It is if you’re asking me to fight with you! It’s like attacking a first year!” Harry exclaimed. He flinched only slightly when Malfoy grabbed for his wand, and eyed his own over on his bed. 

“A first year?” Malfoy asked. “That’s insulting.”

“Put down your wand, Malfoy,” Harry told him calmly. He walked towards the other slowly. 

“I wouldn’t kill you,” he said back. “Why not an old-fashioned duel?”

“I’ll duel you when you put on some weight.” 

“Don’t you think I want to?” 

Harry paused. “What?”

“Every time I go into the Great Hall, I come out hexed, and the elves refuse to give me food in the kitchens!”

Harry didn’t know whether to believe it. Malfoy was probably just lying. The house-elves surely wouldn’t deny someone food. But it was Malfoy. Malfoy, who had probably cursed out those house-elves more times that Harry could count. They really didn’t owe him anything. 

“Does McGonagall know about this?” Harry asked.

“She has her suspicions, but I have put them to rest.” Malfoy pursed his lips, his fists at his sides balled up and shaking. “I ask you to not let her know about this.”

“Malfoy, you’re being starved. ”

“Starved. Phooey. I’m not being starved. I eat when I get the chance to go to Hogsmeade, and Pansy and Blaise would usually fetch me some food back from the hall. It’s just that they could never smuggle that much.”

“And now? Are they going to smuggle food all the way up here for you?”

Malfoy peered down and folded his arms across his chest, shrugging. “I don’t know.”

“I’m going to talk to McGonagall.”

“You are not !”

“Malfoy, you could die!”

“Isn’t that good for you anyway?” Malfoy shouted. “Isn’t that what you want?”

Harry let a long pause remain as he stared at the boy opposite him. With his eyes wide and mouth slightly agape, he began to shake his head ever so slowly. “You can’t seriously think that I want that?”

“Well, I don’t know, do I? You’re probably waiting for a good opportunity!”

“I saved your life when you were dead set on ending mine.” Malfoy didn’t reply. Harry continued, “What kind of person do you think I am?”

“I never quite got the opportunity to find that out for myself,” Malfoy replied. His voice was quieter now, more soft and withdrawn. 

“Well, if you can stop kicking up a fuss every two seconds and let me and McGonagall help you, you might be able to get the chance.”

“What makes you think I want that?” Malfoy asked. 

“Good point,” Harry said. “Maybe you don’t. Do you just want to keep fighting?”

“Yes.”

“You want all of this hostility?”

“It’s better than the alternative.”

“And what’s that?”

“Being your friend,” he said with disgust. “I could not think of anything worse.”

“I don’t think—”

“No, wait. Yes, I can,” Malfoy interrupted him. “Being in the place of your little ginger bint.”

Harry ignored the anger boiling in his chest. “Why would you think of being in that place anyway, Malfoy?”

“I don’t know, maybe because you keep making innuendos and walk around without a shirt constantly. It’s almost as if you’re trying to seduce me.”

Harry choked on his own tongue. “ Seduce you?”

“Yes.” Malfoy nodded in confidence. “Don’t worry, it’s quite normal.”

“What’s normal?!”

“Wanting to seduce me.”

“I don’t feel a single ounce of attraction towards you, Malfoy.” Harry snapped. “Shut up!”

“Don’t you think you’re getting a bit defensive?” Malfoy tilted his head. 

“I’m going to—” 

“What?” Malfoy stepped closer to him. “Don’t worry. I won’t judge you.”

Harry instinctively took a step backwards. “I have a girlfriend. I’m not like that.”

“Like what?”

“ Gay! I’m not gay!” 

Malfoy stared at him for a couple of seconds before his face broke out into a grin. “So amusing, thank you! You’re the best person to wind up, honestly. I know you’re not gay.” He looked Harry up and down. “Well…”

Harry scowled at him, his gaze turning to an even harder glare. “Well, what?!”

“Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worrying!”

“You seem like you’re worrying quite a bit.”

“Fuck you. Why do you do this?”

“Because it’s fun. Because you’re entertaining. Do you want to fight me yet?”

“Is that what this is about?”

“Sorry?”

“You’re just winding me up because you want to fight me?”

Malfoy rolled his eyes. “No. I do it because it’s fun and natural. Fighting you again, and winning, would just be a bonus.”

“You wouldn’t win,” Harry said again.

“Prove it, why don’t you?” 

“I told you that I’ll only fight you when you’re healthier.”

Malfoy scoffed and said, “Pathetic.”

“You’re right. Sure. Are you coming to breakfast?”

“No.”

“No, of course you’re not.” Harry sighed. “I’ll talk to McGonagall about this situation of yours later.”

“Don’t,” said Malfoy, rushed.

“You can’t change my mind.”

“Why do you even care?”

“I’d rather not wake up next to a corpse, thanks,” Harry replied, picking up a cluster of clothing from the trunk that Malfoy had previously tripped over. “I’m going to shower.”

“Very interesting.” Malfoy sat down on the bed and it didn’t even creak. 

Harry shook his head to himself and made his way to the bathroom. As he locked the door behind him, he heard the kettle turn on.

*

Harry went to breakfast alone. He strode down to the hall as if he didn’t care about this fact, because he definitely didn’t care about this fact at all. He didn’t stop once on the way there, not for the mocking calls of classmates who had somehow found out about his new sleeping arrangements and not for Basil in his portrait, beckoning him over for a chat, presumably about how his night had gone or when he was next going to see his beautiful girlfriend. 

There were smudges on his glasses. He couldn’t see out of most of his left eye but he couldn’t bring himself to care, exactly. He had one thing on his mind, and one thing only: food, food, food. 

He spotted Hermione before he spotted Ron or Ginny. The siblings were sitting down, already tucking into the buffet of bread and bacon, while Hermione was stood up behind them. She was shouting something at Ron but he seemed far too preoccupied with his mouthful of mush. Hermione saw him and double took, opened her mouth as if to call out his name, but he took a strong left. He stepped towards the Slytherin table with determined passion, fists clenched and eyes focused. 

He slammed his hands down on the table. “Draco Malfoy.”

Pansy Parkinson looked at him as if he’d suddenly sprouted a second head. She dropped her slice of toast (with marmite on it) as she tensed her jaw. “Yes, I seem to recall that name. He’s the one you stole from us, yes?”

Harry rolled her eyes at her. “What does he like?”

“Oh, that’s a long list of lavish luxuries, Potter.” Blaise Zabini smiled at him, his expression a charmer. “But mostly, he likes big, long—.”

“Sausages,” Pansy cut him off. She looked calmer now. “Long, fat ones.”

“Right.” Harry nodded. He gulped, and grabbed a plate from the spare space on the table, and grabbed a whole bunch of sausages from the breakfast buffet. With his bare hands. He didn’t miss how Pansy gagged into her hand. Her nails were painted the same jet-black as her hair as it swept over her eyes, dark yet worried.

“Why are you getting him food?” she asked with a dagger in her tone. “What will you do to it?”

“Nothing,” Harry said, offended. “I’m getting him food because I don’t want to wake up next to a skeleton every morning. Have a nice day.” 

Harry dropped the sausages onto a plate and wiped his hands in his trousers, all of the grease coming off easily onto the fabric. He picked the plate back up with some difficulty, his palms and fingers still somewhat slippery, ignored Pansy and Blaise’s sniggers behind their fists. Harry walked out of the hall without a second thought going to Ron or Hermione. Or Ginny.

He stormed back to their bedroom. He almost let some of the sausages roll off of the side of the plate a few times in the rush of his steps, and had to stop abruptly and wave the plate from side to side to try and reaffirm balance. He didn’t miss, but didn’t care about the curious and judging looks he got from passerby’s.

He walked straight by Basil again, something that would no doubt come back to bite him soon enough. Portraits didn’t like to be ignored at the best of times, but something told Harry that this one, in particular, wouldn’t be one to let go of something easily. 

Harry didn’t forget his way this time. He found the room easily, probably something to do with it being light outside now, though Harry thought he would be used to travelling in the dark by now. 

Draco wasn’t on his bed anymore. The door to the bathroom was shut tight, locked, and Harry thought that he could just barely hear the shower going off inside, so he concluded that he was probably in there.

How long did Malfoy usually shower for, Harry wondered, placing the plate of sausages onto Malfoy’s bed sheets. They were already made up perfectly, as if they’d not been slept in at all. And when Harry looked at his own… 

It was the same. The duvet was neatly tucked underneath the layers of pillows and the small blanket that had previously been thrown off onto the floor by Harry’s overactive feet was back to being placed on the end of the bed. Harry hesitated to sit down on it; not wanting to tamper with the pristine condition. He was sure that his bed would never look like this again by his own hand, after all. 

The smell of the meat filled the room and Harry was harshly reminded that he’d not had anything to eat himself. He didn’t mind. He would rather make sure that Malfoy didn’t starve to death. 

He wondered how he must’ve looked down in the Great Hall. To Hermione and Ron, and Ginny too. He should’ve said something to them. Especially to Ginny, after the argument they’d had the night beforehand. Now, all that she’d seen of him since was him running around like a little maid for Malfoy, collecting him food from across the castle. He must’ve looked like a right cock.

Harry sighed. The big black book on the bedside table between his and Malfoy’s beds kept grabbing his attention. He could read the title from his place on the bed, and he did so several times despite Malfoy having already told him what it was and who it was by.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, it read in proud white letters, Oscar Wilde.

Harry shuffled over the bed and picked the book up. There was an illustration on the cover of the book underneath the heading and name of a young man, chiselled features and Victorian clothing. He looked devilishly handsome, Harry had to admit, the man’s hair combed back into a tidy ponytail. He was stood in front of a portrait of what looked to Harry to be an actual devil. It was overwhelmingly ugly, mouth hanging open with spittle falling from its blackened and chapped lips. Its eyes were pitch black all over, skin grey and wrinkled and chapped. Dried blood was smeared over the nostrils of the beast. Neither the illustration nor the portrait in the illustration was moving, reminding Harry that this was a book written and produced by a muggle, that Malfoy was serious about reading books by muggles . Harry wasn’t surprised that a muggle could think of such a grotesque image to take charge of the front cover of a book. He knew more than anyone that muggles could be the monsters that wizards feared of. 

He flipped open the book to the front page and pushed his glasses up his nose with his middle finger, focusing on the words. 

The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn, it read. 

Harry had to admit that he was already bored. He didn’t care for roses, or trees, or delicate perfumes of the pink-flowering thorn, whatever that all meant. It seemed to him to be just a bunch of words thrown together to describe some flowers. Harry never had much appreciation for books, though.

 He turned to the last page and read, Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart.
He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage.
It was not till they had examined the rings that they
recognized who it was.

Harry scowled down at the putrid words and tattered pages. Did everything have to end in such tragedy? Why did people enjoy reading things that ended in death and blood and knives in hearts? 

“Potter.” The door to the bathroom had been opened and Harry had been too engrossed in the book that wasn’t even his own to hear it. He snapped the book closed, something he felt he should’ve done a lot earlier, and raised his eyes to Malfoy. He certainly had just come out of the shower, there was no doubt about that. He had on no shirt but only a towel, wrapped loosely around his hips and hung low enough for Harry to be able to see a sharp ‘V,’ and a trail of light blond hair on his navel that stretched far below the towel allowed Harry to see. He had water droplets on his shoulders and chest still, which trickled down his skin and over the discoloured flesh of old wartime scars. Harry wasn’t sure about how many of those were his fault. He shouldn’t be looking so deeply at Malfoy’s body, Harry told himself, but it was very distracting, and far more interesting to look at than the ground was. Malfoy cleared his throat.

“Yes?” Harry allowed his gaze to manoeuvre to his face. His face, which was dusted a pretty pink across his nose and his cheeks, the tips of his ears matching in colour as well. 

“Why the fuck have you placed sausages on my bed?” he asked, looking patient but his tone sounded more vicious, angry. As if he couldn’t bear for any disgusting grease to get onto his bedsheets, which Harry was sure wasn’t such a big deal anyway. He was overreacting.

“Oh,” Harry said. “They’re for you.”

“They’re for me?” Draco echoed.

“Yes,” Harry said. “You weren’t going to go to the Great Hall to eat, so I brought you food here. You need to eat, Malfoy.”

The pigment across his cheeks grew brighter, but he seemed to slightly calm down. His fists clenched and unclenched but his scowl slowly faded from his expression, and he nodded slowly. “Let me get dressed, and we can eat.”

“We?”

“Yes. We. I doubt you had time to eat anything yourself, you weren’t down there for ten minutes.”

“Oh,” Harry said again. “Thank you.”

Harry watched Malfoy bend down to his trunk to pull out his uniform, not forgetting the belt. He was sure that he wouldn’t be able to wear anything without a belt anymore. He took his things into the bathroom to get dressed, which Harry still thought was a little silly. There was no shame in getting changed around your peers, not when they were the same gender, anyway. It was nothing Harry hadn’t seen before, and he and the guys in Gryffindor got dressed around each other all the time. 

He supposed he shouldn’t complain too much. He wasn’t that bothered, after all. 

Harry eyed the sausages and tried to picture again how absolutely insane he looked while getting them. Storming out of the hall with them as quickly as he’d stormed in, piles upon piles of meat rolling around, threatening to spill off of the sides. He watched the sausages sit still now, resting on Malfoy’s bed, crinkling the previously perfect sheets. He dreaded to think of what Malfoy would do if any of the sausages happened to tip off onto the sheets, soiling them and making them stink of the greasy fat. 

“Sharing the food…” Harry whispered to himself. He leaned over to the plate and grabbed himself a sausage, because why not? Malfoy was the one who said that they could eat them together and… well, let’s just say that judging by the wretched noises that Harry’s stomach was making, he needed a head start. He took a large chomp off of the end of the sausage and hummed in pleasure. It really was cooked to perfection, Harry ought to go and compliment the house-elves in the kitchen himself. He chewed quickly, craving for another fresh bite as he struggled slightly to keep a grip on the thing, sliding between the grip of his fingers. 

Malfoy emerged from the bathroom as Harry shoved the rest of the sausage into his mouth. Harry watched his gaze, which fixated on his mouth, probably all of the greases around it. He made a face riddled with displeasure and pursed his lips. 

“Your acne will get even worse if you continue to let fatty oils get on your skin like that.”

“Shut up,” said Harry around a mouthful. “You don’t have perfect skin either.”

“No, but right now its biggest blemish has been caused by you, not by poor eating habits.” 

“Too bad that you’re about to have to eat these as well, then.” Harry gave him a snarky smile. 

“Yes… Where on earth did you get the idea to bring me mounds of… sausages?” Malfoy lowered himself carefully onto his bed so as to not make the plate tip over. Harry was surprised he even dented the mattress at all. 

“Parkinson and Zabini. I asked them what you like eating and they told me.”

“They told you…?” Malfoy raised one eyebrow.

“They told me that you enjoy eating sausages. Particularly the fat ones, so you can’t complain at all.”

Malfoy gave him a good, stern look that said something like “ You really are the daftest bloke alive ” and brought a hand up to his forehead. He rubbed it in a way that made him seem seventy years older than he actually was and sighed deeply. “Well. They weren’t wrong.”

“What was that look for?” Harry frowned.

“What look?” Malfoy deadpanned, sounding less like a question and more like a tired excuse.

“That look you just gave me.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t seem to know what you’re talking about.” 

“You’re lying,” said Harry, and then, “Are you going to have a sausage?”

“I’m not that hungry, if I’m honest.”

“I don’t care. Eat.”

“Fattening me up like a pig for slaughter, are you?” Malfoy asked. “What will you do if I refuse to eat them?”

“You will.”

“Will you put it in my mouth for me, Potter?” He picked up one of the sausages in between his thumb and index finger delicately. Harry blinked and jerked his head back slightly, scowling.

“What?”

“To make me eat it, that is,” Malfoy explained. “You seem so concerned, is all.”

Harry cleared his throat awkwardly. He looked down at the sausage in Malfoy’s hands and then at Malfoy’s lips, imagining the two combined and felt his cheeks grow hot. “I think you’re capable of doing it yourself.”

“I am. I was just wondering.” Malfoy shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to be fed like a child, anyway. Not by you. ” He slid the tip of the sausage between his lips and waited a moment before biting down on it. His eyes were no longer making contact with Harry’s, something which he was silently grateful for, but his gaze didn’t wander for a second. 

“Er,” said Harry, “Is it nice?”

“You’ve already had one,” Malfoy enlightened him, “Don’t you know?”

“Yes.” Harry nodded quickly. “I know. I think they’re nice. In fact…” He reached over, grabbing hold of another one. 

Malfoy continued to eat his own, and Harry refused himself even a glance this time around. They sat in a less than comfortable silence, only the sound of chewing and chomping filling the room, which Harry could tell was getting on Malfoy’s nerves. Harry would glare at Malfoy when he finished the sausage, compelling him to take another, and then another, until Malfoy had eaten more than half of the sausages from the plate. 

“I think I’ve gained three stone just this morning because of you,” Malfoy complained. He placed a hand on his stomach and shook his head, his expression twisted. “Lord. I feel pregnant.”

“You’d be worth a lot of money if you were,” Harry joked. He reached for another sausage. 

“My god, do you ever stop eating?” Malfoy asked. “It’s a wonder how you keep in shape.”

Harry paused with the sausage halfway to his mouth. “You think I’m in shape?”

He shrugged. “Well. You’re not out of shape, are you?”

“I don’t know, Malfoy, why don’t you tell me again?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He rolled his eyes and rose to his feet. “We’ve potions first, so you best hurry up. You know what Slughorn can be like when people show up late. Though I’m sure you’re immune to that sort of treatment?” 

“Not really. Slughorn is a bit of an ass-kisser but he still puts me in detention for ages.” Harry moved his legs out of the way so that Malfoy could walk past in the gap between the beds. “Maybe he’ll go easy on me since I have a semi-permanent detention schedule with McGonagall anyway.”

“For good reason.”

“That’s debatable.”

“Tell that to my discoloured face,” Malfoy said, and Harry would’ve if the other man wasn’t turned away, getting his books together. “Why on earth did you even take potions?”

“Sorry?” Harry asked.

“You,” said Malfoy. “You took potions for your NEWTS. Why? You’ve never been good at it.”

“Do I have to be good at it to want to take it?” Harry inquired. “Maybe the fact that I’m - less than average at it - is why I want to take it even further academically?”

“But you want to be an Auror.”

“I do.”

“Potions have nothing to do with becoming an Auror.”

“I know. I get that. I just think that it would come in handy.”

Malfoy shrugged and turned himself around, a pile of books settled against his chest. “I think that you’re setting yourself up for a fail on your results.”

“Nobody asked what you think though, did they?”

“Perhaps not. I am, however, entitled to share my opinion in my own room.” 

“Sure,” said Harry. “Can you pass me my potions book?”

Malfoy frowned. “No.”

“What?” Harry huffed. “Why?”

“You’re perfectly capable of getting it yourself.”

“Yeah, but you’re right next to it!”

“Your legs not work anymore?” Malfoy asked mockingly. “Do you think of me as your maid or something? Want me to wear a dress and stockings while I’m at it?”

Harry went quiet at that. He didn’t want to picture that. He was not going to picture that, he told himself. He should be disgusted at the image of Malfoy wearing maid’s attire.

He knew he’d made a mistake when Malfoy’s face ripped into a long smirk. He stepped forward a little, his head tilting to the side. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” said Harry, but his voice betrayed him by cracking. He definitely wasn’t thinking about Malfoy wearing a dress on that ended before the halfway point on his milky thighs, and stockings that reached above his knees, teasing and taunting with the small slips of flesh between the fabric of the socks and the skirt. He definitely wasn’t thinking about him with the small headpiece denting his hair, which would be in pristine condition, Harry was sure. He wasn’t thinking about what Malfoy would be wearing underneath, if he were to perhaps bend over to clean something, or even just to get on Harry’s last nerve, his last inch of willpower that was holding him back from —

Harry wouldn’t know what he was holding back from doing, since he wasn’t thinking about it. Not at all.

Malfoy raised his eyebrow and threw Harry’s potions book onto his lap, Harry only just catching it before it took a hard landing on his crotch. He would feel that for a while.

“Thanks,” he strained. 

“No problem,” Malfoy replied and rolled his eyes. “Just call me la femme de ménage. ”

“What’s that?” Harry looked at him. 

“Try and learn a different language, Potter,” Malfoy said. “It might do you some good one day.”

He made to leave and Harry stood quickly, clutching his potions textbook close to himself. “Wait,” he said, and Malfoy waited. “I’ll walk with you.”

Malfoy scoffed. “Why?” 

“Because we’ll both be heading to the same exact place, only walking slightly behind each other. That’ll look a bit awkward, I reckon.”

He straightened his face out and sighed. “Fine. But if your small legs can’t carry you fast enough, don’t expect me to slow down for you.”

Harry rolled his eyes and walked to him. “You’re literally two inches taller than me.”

“Yes, but two inches can prove to be very important sometimes,” Malfoy said, and they began to walk out of the room. “Like in the case of wands, for example.”

“Right,” said Harry, “Wands.”

*

“Okay, ladies, gentlemen, settle down, settle down,” said Slughorn as he waddled to the front of the class. He had a stupid grin on his face that never really seemed to go away nowadays. 

Harry and Malfoy had gotten to the class on time. Harry had managed to keep up with him and they’d had a pleasant conversation on the way there. Well, as pleasant a conversation could be when it was with Malfoy. 

They’d made small and awkward chit-chat about the weather and Malfoy had made an offhand comment about his bruise more than once. Students walking by them looked at them with confusion and curiosity, some of them even with betrayal towards Harry. He thought that was a teeny tiny bit over dramatic. A bit like how Ginny had reacted, he supposed. Dramatically. 

When they had arrived at the classroom, they split from one another without another word. Harry sat by Ron and Malfoy sat by Blaise. The natural order rekindled. 

“How’s it going?” Ron said. “With Malfoy, I mean.”

“Just about as bad as you’d expect, I think?” Harry shrugged. “He’s snappy and wants to fight me and won’t make any effort at all to get along.”

“Are you trying to get along with him? I mean, I wouldn’t be able to go ten minutes without socking him in the jaw.”

“It’s tempting.” Harry nodded with a small chuckle. “I think… Do you reckon Malfoy’s a little gay?”

Before Ron could dare to even think of a response to that question, Slughorn glared at them and held a finger up to his lips. Harry ducked his head down and picked up his quill while Ron continued to stare at him in awe.

“Now, today is only going to be a theory lesson,” Slughorn said, and the class all gave a chorus of ugh sounds. “I know that practical lessons are far more enjoyable, but we need to get our heads down and study hard too! Our study for the foreseeable will be mainly on Amortentia. I know that we studied this in sixth year, but it’s more advanced on this syllabus. So! I’d like you all, in this lesson, to write an essay on what you all remember about this potion.” He clapped his hands together and grinned. “Well? Get on with it!”

Harry sighed deeply and waited for Slughorn to turn and go to his desk before he looked back at Ron. “Ron?” he whispered.

“You think Malfoy is gay?” Ron whispered back to him, eyes wide. “Why?”

“Shh!” Harry looked around quickly to see whether or not anybody had heard him. “He’s been saying weird things, okay?”

“Like what?”

“Like–” Harry cast his mind back to the image of Malfoy as a French maid and shook his head quickly to get it out. That was the last thing he needed to be thinking about in the middle of class. “He said that it was as if I was trying to seduce him.”

“How?”

“Because I walk around topless or something, I don’t know!” He put his quill down and rubbed his hands over his face. “He acts as if that’s not normal. I mean, we used to walk around in our underwear all the time back in Gryffindor.”

“Maybe all the Slytherins are prudes,” Ron joked and Harry laughed. 

“Yeah, probably. No sex until marriage, and everything.”

“Imagine that kind of rule in our lives.”

“Yeah. That’d be really difficult for me and your sister.”

“Hey!” Ron said loudly, and the class plus Slughorn himself all turned their heads to them. Harry had to put his hand over his mouth to stop the laughing. 

“Mr Weasley?” Slughorn glared at him. “Is there a problem?”

“Er,” Ron stumbled over his words. “Yes, Professor. I was going to ask… whether or not the things you smell in Amortentia can change?”

“Oh!” Slughorn’s expression changed immediately to a more interested one. “Yes! If the things that you love end up changing, then the things you smell in Amortentia will change as well.”

“Ta, sir,” Ron said and nudged Harry harshly in the arm when he realised that he was still laughing beneath his palm.

Harry remembered what the potion had smelled like to him. Broomstick handles and treacle tart, he recalled as clear as day. And Ginny’s hair. He had been so in love with her. He wondered if the smells would have changed for him at all.

Harry got to writing. He wrote about the name and its routes, amour being French for love and tentia Latin for held. He made up some bullshit about how this is metaphorical for holding someone’s love in your arms, yadda yadda yadda. He wrote about the aromas he had smelled for himself and how the potion clearly worked, as he was madly in love with Ginny Weasley at the time the potion was made. He wrote about how it can cause magical infatuations but not love, never true love, despite it being the most powerful love potion in existence. 

It was all very half-arsed, really, but he was pleased to realise at the end of the lesson that he’d written more than twice the amount that Ron had done. 

He was less pleased when he realised that while he had only written a page and a bit, Malfoy had topped the class with five and a half pages. 

“How the fuck does he have that much to write about?” Harry asked Ron in amazement and disbelief. 

“Probably wrote about all of the men he’s had to douse with it.” Ron grinned at him. Harry found that he didn’t feel like laughing at that, for some reason, but he gave a small chuckle in response anyway. 

“Excellent, Mr Malfoy!” Slughorn erupted. “Top work!”

“He’s not even read it yet…” Ron complained quietly.

“What do you smell in Amortentia, Malfoy?” Harry heard Zacharias Smith yell across the classroom. “Daddy’s money? Voldemort’s cock?”

Harry watched Malfoy closely while his own fingers dug into the wood of the table he was sat at. Malfoy hardly even reacted. He looked down at his lap and rubbed his hands together, but his expression remained hard and unreadable. Slughorn whipped around faster than sound, his face thunderous. 

“Mr Smith! You will watch your mouth in my classroom, boy, you understand?” Smith laughed quietly, and he shouted again. “Do you understand!?” 

“Yes, sir,” he said flippantly. 

“You will go straight to Professor Sprout after this lesson has finished to speak of an appropriate punishment! And I will be having words with her, so don’t try to get out of it!”

Harry didn’t focus on Smith’s reply. He stared at Malfoy as the boy shoved away Blaise’s comforting hand and looked up, jaw locked and stern. 

Harry felt something in his chest twist. It was going to be a long day. 

*

Malfoy seemed to go the rest of the day without a hitch. As far as Harry knew, anyway. He was in almost every class with him that day, and had been watching him like a hawk, closely and observant. More observant than he was used to being anyway. 

Harry really couldn’t blame Malfoy for not coming down to the Great Hall if that was how his classmates acted towards him; people who had known him for years, more than the other students in years below them who still treated him like shit. Harry supposed that knowing him for that long could also be seen as a reason to hate him so much more. But people who had been actually watching, like Harry, knew that he wasn’t bad at heart. Especially not as bad as his father. 

Malfoy couldn’t kill Dumbledore. He refused to identify Harry to the Death Eaters, which surely would’ve guaranteed his family’s safety for years. When Harry caught him crying in the bathroom… 

“Harry?” He looked up as his attention was grabbed back by Hermione from across the dining table. “You’ve been acting odd all day.”

“You haven’t even been with me all day, Hermione.”

“I haven’t had to,” she said. “Ron told me.”

“I’ve not been acting odd.” Harry sighed. “I just think that some people need to grow up and realise that Malfoy isn’t a Death Eater anymore. I don’t think that he ever was one at all, really. He was a tosser, yeah. He still is a tosser. But he was too much of a coward to be a proper Death Eater, in the end.”

Hermione and Ron looked at each other. Harry couldn’t read their expressions.

“Look, if you two are going to be like this, I’m just going to go,” he said, and Hermione placed a hand quickly on his wrist to stop him. 

“No. I’m sorry, Harry,” she replied. “I’m really pleased that you don’t dislike him anymore! It’s just… Where is this coming from?”

“Smith.” Harry looked down.

“What he said in potions?” Ron asked. Harry nodded.

“What did he say?”

“He said that the smell in Malfoy’s Amortentia would probably be Lucius’ money and… You-Know-Who’s you-know-what.”

Hermione’s mouth dropped and she scowled deeply. “That’s disgusting.”

“I thought it was too far. And he said it in front of everyone!” Harry complained. “Malfoy is having a bit of a hard time as it is.”

He explained the situation that Malfoy was in with the house-elves and the Great Hall. His friends nodded along, but didn’t give Harry much of an indicator towards what they were thinking about the whole fiasco. 

“I see,” said Hermione. “You need to tell McGonagall.”

“I’m going to. At detention tonight.”

“Good,” she said. “I hope… I hope she can arrange something for him. Really.”

Harry nodded and started to rise to his feet when he realised that well, fuck, it was lunchtime and Malfoy had probably had nothing to eat since the overload of sausages. But that had been more than four hours ago, and lunch was near ending. 

There was no longer proper food at the buffet, but instead, it was filled with desserts and puddings of any child’s dreams. Harry grabbed a whole plate of what seemed to be some sort of cake, frosting and icing all over it. It had barely been touched at all. 

He hoped that Malfoy had a sweet tooth.

*

As Harry approached the door to his and Malfoy’s room, he couldn’t help but hear the distinct sound of voices, multiple of them, coming from inside the room. Harry briefly wondered whether or not he should stay outside, wait for the people to come out of the room, give Malfoy privacy with his guests. However, the end of the lunch hour was approaching rapidly and he didn’t want Malfoy to go without food until dinner time.

He used a quick levitation charm on the cake as so not to drop it as he found his key and opened it the door. The cake seemed to follow him as he took one step in.

Harry was met with the glares and gazes of not only Malfoy, but Pansy, Blaise, and Theodore Nott as well. He cringed to himself when he realised that he’d walked in on what was obviously not a good moment. 

“Er, sorry,” he said quickly. “I’ve just brought Malfoy something to eat.”

“He’s already eaten, thank you.” Nott’s eyes shot daggers at him. 

“Wow, okay. You think you’d be a bit more polite considering you’re sitting on my bed in a room that also belongs to me , but fine.” Harry shrugged and set the cake down onto one of the desks alongside the kettle and cups. Multiple of them had been used. 

“No, Potter,” Malfoy croaked, getting to his feet and dabbing his eyes with the back of his hands. “I appreciate that. Thank you.”

Harry peered at him. “Have you been crying?” he asked. Malfoy had just thanked him. Was Harry hallucinating? He must be hallucinating.

“Absolutely not!” Pansy interrupted both of them. “Malfoy’s don’t cry , Harry.”

Pansy calling him by his given name was still a bit of an odd point. Considering that she’d wanted to hand him over to the Dark Lord and everything, anyway.

“Pansy.” Malfoy shook his head, pausing her speech. “Don’t worry. Of course I wasn’t crying,” he directed at Harry. “Just a cold.”

“Right,” Harry said sarcastically. 

“You all best be off.” Malfoy hurried to the centre of the room. 

“What?” asked Blaise. “You’re kicking us out?”

“For Potter ,” Nott spat.

“After…” Blaise continued. Or, he attempted to continue. Malfoy sighed dramatically and nodded to them, and so Blaise held up his hands in a surrender. “Fine, fine. We’ll see you at dinner.”

The three of them begrudgingly left the room, trailing after one another like animals. They had clearly not wanted to leave Malfoy alone due to something that had happened, and it wasn’t very likely that Harry was going to give up finding out what it was.

“Why were you crying?” he asked as soon as the door had shut. 

“Shut up, Potter,” was Malfoy’s polite response.

“Shut up? Why are you telling me to shut up?”

“Because it’s none of your business, that’s why.” Malfoy turned sharply to face him. His face was all red and puffy, his hair dishevelled, as if he had been running his fingers through it time and time again. His eyelashes were wet and there were small and faded yet distinct tear marks on his scarlet cheeks. 

“Do you want some cake?” Harry asked. “I hear that cake often helps when you’re upset.”

Malfoy sniffed. “Why have you brought me a cake in the first place?”

“Er, I remembered that you needed something to eat, but it was kind of too late to get an actual meal. Don’t worry, nobody’s touched this one.” He smiled at him. “I didn’t realise that your friends would have already gotten you food.”

“Yes.”

“What did you have?”

“Mash, parsnips, gravy and a couple of yorkshire puddings. A little of the gammon.”

“Oh, that’s nice.” Harry lifted up the cake. “Sorry. I forgot to get a knife to cut it.”

Malfoy rolled his eyes and sauntered over to Harry’s side, looking over the cake with curiosity. “This looks like pure icing.”

“I don’t actually know what type of cake it is…” Harry confessed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I hope you don’t have any allergies.”

“I don’t,” Malfoy told him, and withdrew his wand from his waistband. 

“What are you doing with that?”

“Cutting the cake. Don’t worry, I wasn’t planning on hexing you just yet.” Malfoy gave him a stern look before silently casting, and Harry watched with a smile as the cake split into six fractions. He and Harry both picked a piece up for themselves and awkwardly walked over to their beds. They both sat opposite each other, Harry enjoying how their knees brushed from time to time as they ate. 

“Almond,” Draco whispered, seemingly to himself.

“Feeling better?” Harry spoke up after a while. He watched Malfoy look up at him and put his finger in his mouth, swirling his tongue around the tip to get some frosting off. Harry cleared his throat. 

“Yes,” Malfoy admitted as he withdrew the finger, now slick and shiny. “I appreciate it.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Harry. “Can you tell me why you were crying?”

“I wasn’t— ”

“It’s kind of obvious, Malfoy. You go all super red.”

“I go red on other occasions as well. It could simply be that.”

“Like when?”

“Like when I’m embarrassed, or angry, or aroused,” he explained simply. Harry’s throat was suddenly a bit dry.

“Oh.” Harry nodded. “Right. But you’re not any of those right now.”

Malfoy squinted at him, as if trying to figure something out. He tilted his head at him and took another bite of the cake. 

“Malfoy?”

“I’m chewing, Potter,” Malfoy said around a mouthful. “Normal people don’t speak when they’re chewing.”

“What are you doing right now then?”

“Explaining that to your impatient arse.” 

Harry got the hint and waited for Malfoy to swallow the food. He was glad that Malfoy was actually eating, for one. “You done?”

“Yes. Sorry, what was the question?”

“Why were you crying?”

“It wasn’t as if I intended to. Some fourth year hit me with a stinging hex and it… hit somewhere sensitive.”

Harry gasped. “He hexed your balls?”

“What?” Malfoy gaped at him. “No, you idiot, my Dark Mark! Merlin…”

“Oh!” Harry flushed red and looked down. “Sorry, yeah.”

“Anyway, so, yes. I wasn’t crying because I was upset about anything, so don’t worry. It just…” He hissed quietly as he rubbed his arm. “Stung.”

“Does it… Does it act up? Often?” Harry asked, genuinely curious. He wondered if it acted as his scar had. After all, that was technically a mark riddled with dark magic as well. 

“No,” Malfoy said reassuringly. “I never feel it do anything. It’s just extra sensitive.” He gulped and shook his head. “Why am I discussing this with you?”

“Because I asked?” Harry offered.

“And you’re supposed to get everything that you want, is that it?”

“What? No, Malfoy, that’s not what I meant…” Malfoy didn’t reply to him. At a loss for any other words, Harry couldn’t think of anything else to say yet was desperate to break this awkward silence. “I’m sorry about what happened in potions.”

Malfoy’s gaze snapped up to him. “Yes. Well. Nothing for you to be sorry about.”

“Smith was being an arse.”

“I can’t say I disagree with you.”

Harry hesitated before asking, “What do you smell in your Amortentia?”

Malfoy looked at him cautiously. “I don’t remember much.”

“Mine was treacle tart, the handle of a broomstick, and Ginny’s hair,” Harry explained. “But I’m excited to see how it would have changed now.”

Malfoy raised an eyebrow. “You think that it’s changed?”

“Probably.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t everybody’s overtime?”

Malfoy gulped. He was no longer looking at Harry, his gaze down at the ground, at their feet that were almost touching. “I smelled… the Quidditch pitch… and Madam Malkin’s. And dogs. I don’t know what any of that meant. Perhaps I was in love with a dog that played Quidditch in old robes.”

Harry laughed with him, “Yeah, maybe. What do you think it would be now?”

“I’ve no idea. But I feel a little nauseous to find out.”

“Will you tell me what yours is? After we all brew it in class?”

“If I want to.” He stuck his nose up at him. “Don’t you think it’s highly irresponsible of Slughorn to have all of the class brew Amortentia?”

Harry frowned. “What do you mean?”

“One potion of it was bad enough. But there will be at least ten in one room, and that’s if we’re working in partners.”

“So?”

“ So, the smells will be entirely overwhelming. The girls will all have buckled knees and the boys will all have hard-ons.”

“Oh!” Harry realised what he was getting at now, and his face grew red. “I… don't think that Slughorn thought of that.”

“No, because he’ll be the same as all of us as well.”

Harry faked a gag, and Malfoy laughed with him. Harry thought that he liked seeing that. 

*

“Sweet baby Merlin’s arse.” Ron was practically salivating at just the thought of the dinner that they were going to have after this lesson. They were currently in what seemed to be a never-ending lesson with McGonagall on the factors that wizards and witches had to take into account when taking part in transfiguring an object or a living being. They’d brushed on the topic before, but now the ins and outs of having to times the wand power with the concentration, and then divide that by the viciousness and body weight timed together, and… 

Harry’s head hurt. He was never a fan of all of the multiplication and division and then with the brackets and everything - it was all muddled up in his brain. 

“Stop. Stop thinking about food,” Harry complained to him with a groan accompanying his whining. “You’re making me think about food.”

“You boys just ate an hour ago.” Pansy Parkinson laughed her catty laugh. “Carnivorous pigs.”

“Watch your mouth, Parkinson,” Ron spat at her from across the table. 

“Why should I, Weasel?” She grinned at him as if she was happy to be getting under his skin. 

“Because some people should still be trying to be nice to people.”

“Hm?”

“For offering to give up Harry to bloody Voldemort, maybe?”

“Ron,” Harry said to him. “It’s fine.”

“You heard the hero!” she heckled. “Down, doggy, down.”

“Pansy,” Harry heard Malfoy intervene, watched as he snaked his long fingers around her skinny wrist, as if he was holding her back from speaking any more. “Don’t make a fool out of yourself any more than you already have.”

She snapped her head around to glare at him, jaw taut and tight as she seemed to try and guess what to do. After somewhat carefully weighing her options, she seemed to do what she thought was best and follow Malfoy’s instructions. She bowed her head so that her focus was back on her piece of parchment that was decorated fully with equations that Harry was sure he should be doing as well. 

“That’s right,” Ron started to stir even more. “Your time to get down , bitch.”

“What did you just fucking—”

“Goodness!” McGonagall erupted into the chaos, overshadowing all of their petty arguments. “I leave you all alone for ten minutes, thinking you’d be able to handle it since you’re now all officially adults!” 

Pansy and Ron both looked like deer caught in headlights.

“Adults. Fooey! You’re still acting like children!” She shook her head furiously. “Any other words said in this class will be said to me and only to me! If I catch one of your mouths moving even slightly, you won’t know what to do with yourself!”

Everyone had enough sense from then on to zip their mouths and shut the fuck up, but Harry couldn’t help but let his eyes wander from time to time over to the other end of the table.

He sneaked quick glances at Malfoy throughout the lesson successfully, not getting caught by him, McGonagall, or Ron either. Harry was sure that he would definitely have a lot to say to him if he witnessed him doing that.

Harry wasn’t sure why he wanted to look at all.

*

“Good afternoon, Mr Potter,” McGonagall said to him as he entered her office for the third time that week. 

“Afternoon, Professor,” Harry replied. He trotted over to the seat in front of her desk and plonked himself down in it, letting out a long, drawn-out sigh, looking over towards the empty portrait where the previous Headteacher should be standing. Perhaps he’d fancied a walk.

“You sound very tired.” She peered at him over her glasses. “You’re too young to be tired.”

Maybe after winning a war and being shoved in a room with one of the people who was trying to kill me, it’s kind of difficult to sleep, Harry thought to himself, gulped that thought down and smiled at her. “That’s true.”

“What is on your mind, Potter?”

“Er, what?” He blinked at her. “I thought I was going to do lines again–”

“You will.” She nodded slowly. “But it seems like you’ve got something to tell me.”

“Er.” Harry stuttered. “Kind of. It’s about Malfoy.”

“I presumed as much.”

“You see… Well… The thing is… He’s not eating.”

Her eyebrows rose on her forehead, but she didn’t look too surprised. “By choice?”

“No, no. He can’t go to the Great Hall, you see, because people hex him or shout stuff at him. Every time he’s in there. I’ve seen it happen. So then, he tried to go straight to the house-elves in the kitchens, but they refused to give him any as well.”

“I see.” She hummed thoughtfully, her head nodding and fingers slipping together. “I appreciate that you told me. That you had the sense to tell me. I had had my suspicions, but he denied all of them.”

“Um… You’re welcome.”

“I will speak with the elves. A dish will be sent up to yours and Mr Malfoy’s room at breakfast, lunchtime and dinner time… Unless you would prefer one as well, to keep him company, I could send up two?” she offered.

“Oh. For breakfast, yeah. Yeah, please. But I have to see my friends at other times… Thank you though.”

“I will have it arranged. Nothing for you to worry about, Potter, though it is enlightening to know that you did.”

“Is it?”

“Oh, yes. The room seems to be working.”

“It's been one night.”

“Exactly.” She smiled pertly and held her hands together on the desk. “You’re both friendlier than ever.”

“Well, I suppose, but nothing has really changed–”

“Are you sure, Potter?”

”Well, yes, because–”

“When you next speak to him, try and reevaluate how you’re feeling. How you’re truly feeling. If you promise to do that, you’re welcome to leave this detention any time you’d like.”

Harry’s eyebrow shot up his forehead. “Really? Oh, well then, I promise to do that, Professor.”

“I’m sure you do, Potter. Now, go, run along. Make sure to be civil.”

Harry jumped onto his feet enthusiastically with a large grin. “Thanks! I will!”

Getting out of detention was probably what Harry thought was going to be the highlight of his day. He bounded out of the office happily, knowing that he was going to get to finally relax for the rest of the day. Classes were over, detention was over, and he got to go back to his room and speak with Malfoy until he could eat, and then go and speak with Malfoy for the rest of the night again.

*

“Somebody looks happy,” Malfoy said after he swivelled around in his chair, examining Harry’s demeanour. “What happened?”

“What happened was that McGonagall allowed me to leave detention early today.” He threw his books onto the seat by the fire and jumped onto his bed, laughing quietly as he bounced. “So, it's time to relax now. Stop studying, or whatever it is you’re doing.”

“What? Why on earth did you get off from the detention? You deserve that!” Malfoy sounded angry, but Harry just rolled his eyes and sighed. 

“I said relax, Malfoy.” Harry sat up quickly. “If you come over here and speak to me, I’ll tell you why she let me off.”

He stared daggers at Harry but stood anyway, stomping his feet on the ground as he pushed his chair in under the desk. “I can’t believe this,” he muttered as he walked over to the beds. “The only reason that you’re in those detentions is that you inflicted bodily harm on me!”

“Yes, I know, I know.” Harry nodded with him and threw his legs over the side of the bed. They sat together as they had done earlier on in the day, facing each other on opposite beds, knees bumping and feet stepping on one another. “That’s kind of the point. I told McGonagall about your problems with food, and everything.”

Malfoy’s eyes widened considerably. Harry would be a fool to not realise the depth of the shit he was in. “You– I specifically told you to not mention it to McGonagall!”

“I had to, Malfoy, you were being starved.”

“I was not being starved!”

“Malfoy,” he said calmly. He reached out hesitantly, placed a hand lightly on Malfoy’s arm. The action seemed to stun him; he stared at Harry’s hand as if it was alien. He watched Malfoy closely, gazed at his throat as his Adam’s apple bobbed once. Harry felt his skin get goosebumps. “I’m sorry. I had to.”

“You didn’t have to,” he said, his voice croaking. 

“It was the right thing to do,” Harry told him. “The house-elves have been told to send every meal up to this room. Two dishes for breakfast.”

“Why would I need two?” he asked, hesitantly looking up at him. 

“Well, I thought that I could eat breakfast with you. It’s no big deal. I’m usually too lazy to go down for breakfast anyway, having it sent up here would be like room service.”

Malfoy frowned. “What’s–”

“Don’t worry. Anyway, are you… Is that okay?”

He seemed to consider it for a second, but nodded slowly after what seemed like a long, long while to Harry. “Yes. But if you’re expecting me to say thank you, I’m not going to.”

Harry laughed. “I wouldn’t expect you to say thank you, so no worries.”

He withdrew his hand from Malfoy’s arm slowly. Malfoy seemed to hold his breath at that as well. “Well,” he said, “I still think that you need to pay me back today for not serving your time with McGonagall.”

“What? Oh, come on, that’s unfair,” Harry whined.

“No, I don’t think that it is.” Malfoy laughed dryly. “There’s a bruise that is tainting my beauty right now, and you’re doing absolutely nothing to compensate for it.”

“Well, what do you want?”

“Is giving you a bruise of your own off the table?” he asked, feigning innocence in his expression.

Harry rolled his eyes. “I’m going to say yes to that.”

“Then… tell me a secret, Potter.”

“A secret?” Harry asked. “Huh.”

“Anything. Is there anything that Weasley and Granger don’t know about you?”

“I’m… not sure about that one. I do have a couple secrets, I guess. Er, I can do wandless magic?”

Malfoy raised his eyebrows. “Was that a statement or a question?”

“A statement? A statement.” Harry nodded at him.

“Are you serious? I mean, I know there are some spells that all people can do, but you can do… everything?”

“Well, not everything. But a lot. More than, er, normal wizards, I suppose. That’s what Hermione and Ron told me, anyway. I thought it was pretty normal.”

“So, you wouldn’t be able to use Unforgivables wandlessly?” 

“Haven’t exactly tried, to be honest with you.” Harry tilted his head. “Why ask that?”

“It’s nothing. Just… When the Dark Lord,” he paused. “When Voldemort,” he said more confidently, but his voice shook slightly at the end of the name, “was living in the manor with us, he would speak endlessly of wandlessly being able to cast Unforgivables. He said that he could do them. Nobody really wanted to try and prove him wrong.” 

Harry frowned. “It must have been really tough.”

“It was fine,” Malfoy said quickly. “Really wasn’t all bad.”

“You don’t have to lie, Malfoy.”

“Good thing that I’m not lying then, isn’t it?” He gave Harry a stiff smile. “Stop.”

“Oh, come on. I told you a secret. Tell me one in exchange.”

“First of all, you’re telling me secrets in exchange for a punch in the face. Second of all, I hardly think that a secret about how wonderful your abilities are amounts to private details on traumatic situations.” 

Harry took a couple of seconds, trying to come up with an appropriate response. It seemed he couldn’t do even that. “So, er, the bruise is really paramounting your ability to seduce women, huh?”

Malfoy just stared at him blankly. “Are you serious?”

Harry wasn’t quite sure whether or not Malfoy meant that he was being insensitive, or if he meant that Harry was being completely obtuse to the fact that he’s not interested in women. Of course, Harry had his suspicions about that now, so he wasn’t so ignorant towards it. And you know what? Harry was fine with it! Completely peachy! Malfoy could date whoever he wanted to date, in Harry’s books. He wasn’t one to judge, after all, Dumbledore was apparently gay, and so was Basil, the portrait he’d been ignoring for the past two days or so. 

“No, wait, he was bisexual…” Harry whispered to himself. “What’s the difference?”

“What?” Malfoy said. “Who?”

“Basil. The painting I was talking to the other day.”

“Why is that relevant?”

“Oh,” Harry said. Oh. Maybe Harry had gotten it wrong after all. Maybe Malfoy was as straight as a ruler. He didn’t know anymore. He was just a bit confused. “I was just thinking that I hadn’t said hello to him in a while.”

“You’re welcome to leave whenever you want.” Malfoy stared at him, as if daring him to leave.

“We’ve not discussed partners,” Harry abruptly announced. Too much talk of sexuality had his head spinning. “I have a girlfriend.”

Malfoy clenched his jaw. “Why, thank you, Potter. I was aware.”

“No, I mean… What are the rules here? Am I allowed to bring her back here? Can you bring people back to… do stuff with? If you do that. I’m not shaming you or anything.” 

“You’re insinuating that I indulge in casual sex often.”

“No,” Harry said quickly. “I’m just saying, if you do… it’s fine with me. You can do whatever. Just remember to put up some privacy charms.” He laughed stiffly and awkwardly at himself. 

What if Malfoy ended up bringing back a guy? Harry would be forced to sit through that, or lie on his back and pretend as if he wasn’t noticing? He didn’t even know how two guys did it together in the first place! How are you meant to know what goes in what? How do you know who puts something in something? Is there even penetration involved at all?

Harry wondered how Malfoy would act in bed. He supposed that everybody acts differently, but he didn’t really have much material to compare to. He had himself and Ginny, and Harry was sure that nobody could be as vicious as Ginny was. Harry couldn’t handle her most of the time. But Malfoy… Perhaps Malfoy would be more considerate. Gentle. Perhaps he’d be more complacent, because let’s face it, Harry thought, if Malfoy was going to do it with a guy then he definitely wouldn’t be the one in the role of a man. He was so… bratty. Harry was sure that one day someone had to go and put him in his place. He was sure that even a girl would do that to him. Ron had mentioned something about dominatrix women before… 

And then Harry snapped out of it. Because normal people don’t usually think about what their (male) roommate is like in bed. Obviously, Harry, Jesus.

“I suppose the same goes for wanking?” Malfoy asked, blushing but looking as if he wanted to cause that same kind of reaction on Harry. 

“Oh. Yes. Er, that too. I thought that that would’ve gone without saying…”

“Privacy charms in the Gryffindor dormitories may be mandatory. Perhaps not everything is the same in other houses.”

“What?” Harry stared at him. “You didn’t– You just listened to each other?”

“I wouldn’t say we listened to each other. We just really didn’t care. It’s natural. In first and second year, we tended to just not do it at all, obviously. When we hit thirteen, we were all close with each other.” Malfoy shrugged. “I suppose we’re not at all close enough for that.”

“Er,” Harry stumbled over his words. “No, I, um…”

“Unfortunately, there aren’t any curtains on these beds, so you’ll have to turn to lay on your side.”

“That’s fine,” Harry said. “I don’t sleep in my glasses anyway.”

Malfoy smiled stiffly. “Perfect.”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me another secret,” Malfoy requested. “I don’t believe that yours was juicy enough.”

“Juicy?” Harry scowled.

“Yes. For example…” His expression changed now, the awkward smile shifting into more of a sneaky smirk. “Yourself and your girlfriend.” 

Harry’s scowl deepened. “Why?”

“Because that’s what I want to talk about, and you owe me.”

“I don’t anymore! You asked me to tell you a secret and I did it.”

“And now I’m asking you to tell me about you and the She-Weasel.”

“I don’t have to tell you anything else.”

“I’ll tell you about what it was like, if you tell me.”

Harry’s gaze shifted. He looked between Malfoy’s eyes suspiciously. “Tell me about what was like?”

“Living with him. Him and the other Death Eaters,” he said. “I know you’re interested.” 

“Why’re you interested in me and Ginny?”

“You never talk about her. I want to know things.”

“Watch out, people will think you’re trying to be my friend.”

“By ‘people,’ you mean yourself.”

“Yep.”

“We can’t have that,” Malfoy said. “Tell me. You first.”

“Well… What do you want to know?” Harry asked. He watched closely as Malfoy leaned back on his hands.

“Have you had sex?”

Harry certainly wasn’t expecting that. “How… How can you seem like such a prude about getting dressed and shit, and then go and say things like this?”

“Just because I let my mouth say unhonorable things doesn’t mean that I want to see people getting dressed.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m not some sort of voyeur.”

“... I guess. Well, yeah. We have.” 

“Hm. Before or after the war?”

“After. We kind of only got together in sixth year, but she was fifteen. Then after that… Yeah, we didn’t see each other much. Until we won the war.”

He scoffed. “Then what? She just couldn’t wait until sex with the saviour?”

“No, we, er, we did it at the Burrow on her birthday. Her seventeenth.”

“What a nice birthday present. I’m sure Ronald was over the moon.”

Harry snorted a little. “You should’ve seen his face when he realised.”

“How exactly did you have the balls to take your girlfriend’s virginity in her own home when she has, what is it, six brothers?”

“Five,” Harry corrected him.

“Five? Oh, I see, the dragon-lover wasn’t there. Charlie, is it?”

“Fred wasn’t there.”

Malfoy’s eyes widened in realisation and his lips parted. He nodded quickly and looked down. “Of course. I apologise.”

“Don’t worry. It’s not your–” Harry stopped himself. Was that the right phrasing? Malfoy had been one of them. One of the people who had caused Fred’s death. He took a deep breath. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“You know, I don’t know which one of them did it,” Malfoy said. “But I hope that whoever it was didn’t go to Azkaban. I hope that whoever it was died slowly and alone.”

“That’s what George said.” Harry was still looking at him. “And that it was one of the Weasley’s who ended him.”

“I truly am sorry, Potter. For your loss.” Malfoy gulped. He raised his head slowly to look up at him once again. “If you can pass my message onto the family.”

“No offence, Malfoy, but… I think you should do that yourself.”

“Yes… Yes, sorry.” He nodded. “I… I want to.”

“Since we’re already on a dark topic… You wanna talk about when you lived with Voldemort?” Harry asked. “I mean… you don’t actually have to. Seriously. I’m not going to make you–”

“Potter,” he interrupted. “It’s fine. Don’t worry.”

Harry slowly sighed, rubbing his palms nervously on his legs. “If you’re sure.”

“I didn’t even realise it was happening at first,” he started. “That they were moving in, I mean. They were just there. All the time. They started sleeping there and the Dark— Voldemort, he started to reside in mother and father’s room. All of the rooms were taken up by his followers. It was really horrible, if I must admit.” He laughed weakly. “I had Aunt Bella on one side of my room and Greyback on the other. If that’s not the biggest boner killer when you’re trying to wank, I don’t know what is.”

Harry shuddered. “I wouldn’t want to even imagine doing that while in the same house as Bellatrix.”

“I stopped. I mean, this is clearly too much information, but I literally couldn’t after a while with them all there. It was like he brought an actual misery, wherever he went. I couldn’t even take joy in that. And God forbid if I ever locked my door to do it… Anytime anyone heard that they’d charge in immediately and accuse me of trying to escape. I didn’t even know that I was being kept there against my will.” 

“So, you didn’t get a chance to… you know… for months? How?”

Malfoy seemed like he couldn’t help but laugh. “You focus on that instead of me being kept a prisoner in my own home?”

“Oh, sorry, it’s just…” Harry trailed off, unsure how to continue that sentence at all, when Malfoy saved his ass by laughing again. Harry felt somehow enchanted by that laugh.

“I’m joking.” 

“How is it that the first time you’re laughing with me is when you’re discussing… this?” Harry joked.

“It takes away the seriousness, I think.” Malfoy shrugged, but the smile was still on his face.

“I had to stay in a tent with Hermione and Ron for the same months,” Harry said. “They were both pining after one another. I never heard Ron get off but I was certainly too awkward to do it. Even with a privacy spell.”

“What about Granger?”

“What?”

“Did she masturbate?”

“Oh,” Harry said, and went red. “I don’t know. I didn’t even consider that.”

“You wouldn’t.” He sighed. “Does Ginevra think you’re good in bed?”

“I… don’t know. She’s never told me.”

“Well. Do you stimulate the clitoris?”

“... What’s that?” Harry asked.

“Salazar’s balls, Potter!” said Malfoy in frustration. “For once in my life, I feel sorry for the Weaslette!”

“What?” Harry exclaimed. “What is it?!”

“You know, I never once thought that I would know more about vaginas than the great Harry Potter.”

“Malfoy!” 

“Perhaps I should teach you how to please a woman.”

“What?” Harry got quieter now, breathy. “Yes! Yes. That would work.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yes. I always got the feeling that Ginny wasn’t… liking it. Not as much as I was.”

“Well, I can’t say that I’m surprised.” He sighed deeply. “I suppose I can do that. Would you like to start… now, or later on in the night?”

“It’s almost dinner, isn’t it?” Harry asked, and there was no clock in the room for either of them to be able to tell. “Later, maybe, after dinner.” 

“That’s if I don’t change my mind,” Malfoy warned him. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me this afternoon. I’ve been in a good mood. Don’t expect this often.”

“I wouldn’t dare.” Harry smiled at him, and it felt genuine.

*

As Harry walked through the corridors on his way to the Great Hall for dinner, he couldn’t help but feel slightly guilty about leaving Malfoy on his own. Harry remembered all of the times he’d been left by the Dursleys to eat by himself in his cupboard, never allowed at the dinner table with them. He supposed that this was almost the same sort of situation. 

With each step that he took, he felt a sharp pang of the guilt in his chest. Even his feet felt sweaty in his shoes, a way of his body telling him and urging him to go back to his room and keep Malfoy company. It was so surreal to him, how he could feel so incredibly close to the man who he used to consider one of the people that he hated the most out of a lot of people not two days ago. He supposed that spending a lot of time with somebody would allow you to see the good side of them more.

Harry twisted his face into a deep scowl and fingered his wand in his pocket. The urge to turn right around was aching in his gut, but he persisted. Ron would only have more questions if he didn’t go to see them before going to bed. And Harry knew that he needed to speak to Ginny. If not now, then when? He was sure that he was still in the doghouse with her, no matter whether the whole thing with Malfoy was his fault or not. He had to try and understand what she was feeling and why… After all, Harry had lost many, many people to the Death Eaters, but never somebody who he’d grown up with, lived with his entire life. He couldn’t imagine how close the two of them were. 

He hoped that she’d listen to him, hear him out. He hoped that Pansy and Blaise had gone up to see Malfoy as well. Harry knew how depressing it was to eat by himself, after all.

When he walked in through the entrance of the Great Hall, he almost knocked over three little first years from being so distracted. He was busy looking over at the Slytherin table, trying to see where the vacancies were but found that unfortunately Pansy and Blaise were both sat there, chatting and eating to their hearts’ content. Theodore Nott wasn’t there though. As much as Harry disliked him, he hoped that he was keeping Malfoy company.

But not too much company. Harry had heard the rumours about Nott; that he too was gay. He didn’t think that somebody with such a piss-poor attitude as fucking Nott should be up to Malfoy’s standard. He deserved better than that little shit, that’s what Harry thought. And to be honest with himself… Nott was pretty damn ugly. Even Harry himself would be a better match for Malfoy than he would. It wasn’t as if Malfoy was unattractive, after all…

“Harry!” Ron called out over the tops of all of the Gryffindor’s heads. “Get a move on!”

Harry walked towards his friends in less than a hurry. His stomach was turning a little with hunger but not unbearably so. Whilst walking, he realised that yes, Ginny was at the table, sitting opposite where he was about to park himself down. He’d finally get to talk to her.

“Hello,” Harry said.

“Hi.” Ginny didn’t look up at him. She twirled around her cutlery in the weird sauce-cheese concoction on her plate, making it look even more of a mess than it already was.

“Gin’, can we talk?”

“Sure.” 

Harry looked at Hermione as if he were pleading for help, but she didn’t even spare him one glance. She kept her gaze fixed on her food as if it was that entertaining. He thought that was a bit of a rude thing to do, considering she’s the reason that he and Malfoy were rooming together in the first place, which is exactly what Ginny was upset about.

“I’m sorry,” said Harry. He figured that was a good place to start. She looked up at him now, her eyes curious and patient. “I should’ve tried to understand where you were coming from. It can’t be easy for you…”

“It’s not.”

Harry swallowed thickly. “Malfoy doesn’t know when he’d get the chance to tell you himself, but… He said that he truly is sorry. For everything, but mostly about Fred. To all of your family. He said the same thing as George, that he hoped they died painfully.”

She seemed to get progressively more interested in the words he was saying. She gulped once he’d finished, and Harry looked over at Ron to see his reaction, whether or not he’d heard him as well. 

“He said that he’d tell you himself if he could.”

“I don’t want to talk to him,” Ginny said quietly. “But… I appreciate him saying that.”

“Oh,” Harry perked up. He reached across the table and took both of Ginny’s hands in his own, rubbing his thumbs over her knuckles. “And… Malfoy said that if we ever need to… We can use my room as often as we like, as long as we use privacy spells.”

She looked as if she didn’t want to smirk in response but she did, her grasp on Harry’s hands getting tighter. “Well, at least some good news has come out of this.”

“Depends on what you figure is good news,” Ron chimed in. “So, what? You’re just gonna get rowdy in bed next to Malfoy?”

“If there are privacy spells—”

“He won’t be able to hear you, Harry,” said Hermione, “but he would still be able to see you.”

“That’s okay,” said Ginny back to her. “Don’t your beds have curtains?”

Harry looked down. “Nope, actually.”

“Fucking hell, how do you get off?” Ron asked. “Doing that with Malfoy right next to you… Blegh. I don’t think I could do it.”

“I haven’t really wanted to try and do that yet, thanks.” Harry rolled his eyes. “And I don’t have to as much anymore.”

Ron scowled as Ginny and Hermione laughed with him. 

“However, there is a downside. I hope you realise how much I sacrificed for you, Gin’. He said that in order for us to be able to go up and do that, he has to be allowed to as well,” Harry lied. It was only a teeny weeny lie, but it made more sense to say that than to tell all of them that he had offered for Malfoy to bring people back up to their room to… what had he said? Do whatever. 

“Wow, you really got yourself into something there, mate,” Ron told him as if he didn’t already know. 

“Well, it wouldn’t be that bad, would it?” Hermione reasoned. “Harry wouldn’t have his glasses on, so he wouldn’t be able to see, and with the privacy charms, it shouldn’t matter. Whoever the girl is—”

“Girl?” Ron laughed. “Harry reckons that Malfoy is bent.”

Hermione frowned. “Harry…”

“I never said it was a bad thing!” he exclaimed as he defended himself. He looked over and saw Dean and Seamus, sitting side by side and looking at him suspiciously. “I’m not homophobic,” he said.

“Why do you think he’s gay?” Ginny asked. Her expression puzzled him, he couldn’t read what was on her mind.

“Huh?” Harry said.

“What made you think that he’s gay?” she repeated. “I mean, surely something must’ve given you that impression of him.”

“He said that he thought I was trying to seduce him.” Harry shrugged. “Because I was walking around without a top on, or something, as if that isn’t a normal thing to do.”

“Well, it is quite cold out,” Hermione pointed out.

“Yeah, thanks, Hermione. No, I mean… When I’m changing into my pyjamas, for example. He’d freak out and be like, whoa, guys can’t get changed in the same room when there’s only two of them in there!” Ginny raised one eyebrow as Harry continued, “And then he goes on and talks all… suggestively.”

“He what?” Ginny asked blankly.

“Like… saying things about how two inches can be very important, and…” Harry decidedly, was not going to bring up the French maid situation. Never. “I don’t know, whenever I mention him with girls, he gives me this look that’s like he’s saying, really? As if I’m stupid to think that he would be near any girls.”

“Well, even if he is,” Hermione said. “Is it really an issue? He’d probably be as disgusted with you and Ginny having sex as you would with him and a guy having sex.”

“Yeah.” Harry sighed. “You’re probably right.”

“We’ve been over this, Harry. I’m always right.”

“So,” Ginny spoke again, at last. “Tonight..?”

“Tonight…” Harry gulped cautiously. He and Malfoy were supposed to be going over the different ways to pleasure women tonight. Harry would rather steer on the safe side, and maybe not do anything with Ginny until he knew that he could please her as she pleased him most of the time. “Maybe tomorrow night?”

She frowned. “Why?”

“Well, Theodore Nott has been up with Malfoy most of the evening,” Harry said, using this as a quick excuse. “And I think they might be planning on staying up there for a while still.”

“Ah,” she said. “Yeah. Right.”

Harry looked down at his food guiltily. He didn’t like lying to his friends, but who did? And he’d lied a lot in the past ten to fifteen minutes he’d been sat down. “Anyway,” he said, “how have all your days been?”

*

Harry tripped over his feet and almost fell flat on his face on his way back to his room after dinner. He’d been caught up in his own little world, random fantasies and thoughts beyond his own control, as if he was dreaming, but awake. However, he was very rudely interrupted, his wild imagination being torn to shreds in one swift moment. And the evil bugger who did it was in a painting.

“Harry!” Basil screamed from his place stuck on the wall. “You’ve been ignoring me!”

“Fucking—” Harry jumped, gasping aloud and eliciting strange and curious gazes from onlookers that were still up. “Merlin, you scared me!”

“Sorry,” Basil said, and he didn’t look very sorry. “But really. You’ve been walking by my portrait without stopping endlessly now!”

“I’m sorry,” Harry said. “I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

“Yes.”  He folded his arms and stuck his nose up at him, eyeing him up and down. “Like that pretty roommate.”

Harry frowned. “Sorry?”

“I knew I got a sense from you, Harry, I knew I did.” Basil nodded. “No hetero man has a body such as you. It would be criminal.”

“I… don’t know what you’re insinuating.”

“You do.”

“I’m not gay,” said Harry.

“Perhaps not. But definitely not heterosexual.”

“Did you ever think that these accusations are why nobody talks to you?” Harry asked. His words felt harsh as they came out of his mouth. “I’m straight, Goddamnit.”

Basil sighed deeply. “You’ll see,” he said to him. “Soon enough.”

“Portraits aren’t oracles,” Harry said to him, and began to walk away once again. Where did that guy get off on trying to tell Harry what he was, anyway? It was none of his business in the first place, the fact that he was purely wrong hardly made a difference. 

So what if Harry sometimes had fantasies about Malfoy wearing a French maid’s dress? So what if Harry couldn’t stop looking at Malfoy’s lips when he spoke? So what if he was becoming more and more rapidly obsessed with the idea that Malfoy might be gay?

Harry loved Ginny and Ginny was a girl. A female. With a vagina. A vagina that Harry liked very much, even though he wasn’t quite sure how to manoeuvre with it sometimes. 

And that was exactly what Harry was going to go and find out - how to work with vaginas 101, with Professor Malfoy to teach him Sex Ed.

Fuck.

As Harry triumphed over the long, winding staircase up to their shared room, he couldn’t help but hope that Theodore fucking Nott had done a fast one and hightailed out of that room as soon as the dinner hour was coming to an end. Harry didn’t like Nott. He didn’t like Nott at all. 

He thought that he was really damn rude to think that it was okay to cuss Harry out in his own damn room, and when he’d brought Malfoy food as well! He thought that that was quite a nice thing to do for the guy, but nope. It may as well have been a hate crime according to Theodore Nott.

He waited for one moment when he arrived at the top of the stairs. Eavesdropping wasn’t something Harry was proud of doing, but it made things a little more… helpful, towards him. It was an easy way to gain information, like when he found out about when his birthday actually was from Vernon and Petunia when he was seven. And at this moment, Harry just wanted to find out whether or not Nott had fucked off yet. 

Harry pressed his ear to the door.

“... going to be here soon.” Harry heard a muffled voice say, but he couldn’t figure out who had said it. 

“I don’t know what to do,” the other voice said. It sounded distressed. “Please!”

“Nothing else I can do, I’m afraid…” Harry recognised the voice now. It was Professor McGonagall. “My only advice is that you tell him.”

“As if I could ever do that,” the other voice stressed, who Harry could infer must have been Malfoy. “He’d laugh in my face.”

“Why don’t you ask him?” McGonagall asked, and Harry fell forwards as the door opened swiftly. It was so evident that he had been listening in on their conversation, and Harry wondered if it was a collective Headmaster’s ability to know absolutely everything. 

Harry cleared his throat and looked at them both, eyes full of guilt. “Ah… Ask me what?” 

“Nothing,” Malfoy responded instantly. “Nothing to worry about.”

Harry squinted at him and stepped closer. “The bruise,” he said in awe. “Holy shit, what happened to it?” 

It had blossomed in the worst possible way. The blotchy purple was darker than it had been and it now spread over Malfoy’s entire cheek, some veins even visible beneath the skin, sticking out like a sore thumb as the pigment travelled over his forehead. 

“Feast your eyes, Potter.” Malfoy glared at him, and Harry saw his eyeball now. Where it should have been white, it was now a deep red, only little spots of creaminess showing through the bloodshot. “It’s your fault, after all.”

“Mr Malfoy,” McGonagall said sternly. “Be civil.”

He looked up at her and Harry could tell how hard he fought to not roll his eyes at her. “Sorry, Headmistress.”

“Now, you two seem to be getting on fairly well. This is very surprising, yet pleasing,” she began. “It seems that this sleeping arrangement is working swimmingly.”

“Yes,” Malfoy said.

“So, to keep this positive train rolling, you two will be partners in any classes you have together, in any tasks,” she said. Malfoy’s face was a picture. As if he’d known that it was going to be coming, eventually, but was now surprised that they were actually putting him through that. Harry folded his arms. He wasn’t that bad. “You were not entirely innocent in this equation, Mr Malfoy.” She stared at him over the top of her glasses. “You provoked Mr Potter, and I hear that you’ve been asking to duel him. You’re lucky that I’m not making you attend these detentions with Mr Potter.”

Malfoy looked over at Harry now and Harry raised his hands, shaking his head. Malfoy sighed. “I hardly believe that it’s acceptable for us to share the same punishment when all I did was jest at him, and he turned around and knocked me out completely. I mean, do you see Potter suffering permanent damage from this whole ordeal? Isn’t that punishment enough for me?”

“It is not permanent, Malfoy. We’ve been over this.”

Harry frowned. “What?”

“Nothing,” said Malfoy. “It is permanent.”

“The Headmistress doesn’t seem to agree.” Harry looked at her curiously. “Miss?”

She sighed deeply and pursed her lips, raising her shoulders and dropping them very subtly. “It is not my place to tell you, Mr Potter,” she said to him, and then looked between him and Malfoy. “I will see you tomorrow in my office, Mr Potter.”

“Well, isn’t that just peachy?” Malfoy said bitterly.

“Goodnight, boys.” She smiled at them and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind her. Harry waited for the click-clack of heels on the stairs to fade away before he really got into it.

“Malfoy,” said Harry, stepping towards where he was on the bed with his pillow covering his head, laying on his stomach. “What did she mean when she said that it’s not permanent?”

“She and Madam Pomfrey have made a stupid conclusion,” he told him. “Don’t bother yourself about it. It’s not going to work.”

“Have you tried?” he asked, sitting down on his own bed opposite him. Harry wasn’t sure where to look, if he was being honest. His face was being hidden underneath the pillow and Harry probably wouldn’t have been able to tear his gaze away from the giant bruise anyway. So he settled with just looking at the dip in his lower back. 

“Shut up, Potter. You don’t understand. It’s magic that doesn’t even exist. Not really.” 

“You know that for a fact?” Harry laughed quietly. “There’s a lot we don’t know about magic. McGonagall definitely knows more than we do.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Malfoy said eventually and Harry nodded, though he couldn’t even see him. 

“Okay.” Harry looked down. “So. Do you want to… Do that thing you said you’d do for me now?”

Malfoy’s head shot up and his eyebrows furrowed, his mouth opening and closing hesitantly. “Have I forgotten something crucial?”

“Er, you said you were going to help me figure out how to get better at… you know. With women.”

“Oh!” Malfoy exclaimed in realisation, pushing himself up with his arms to sit cross-legged on the bed. “I remember now.”

“Yes.” Harry nodded awkwardly. 

“You want to start now?”

“Yes,” he repeated.

“Well,” Malfoy started. “What do you normally do with her?”

Harry blinked a couple of times at him, his expression blank. “I kiss her. I put my… my dick in her. She blows me.”

Malfoy didn’t say anything for a while, until he frowned and sighed. “Really? That’s all?”

“I thought that’s what sex was.”

“Yes, technically, but it’s more than just sticking your cock inside something,” Malfoy explained. “You have to make her feel good too. You have to pay her the attention she deserves. When she puts her mouth on you? You do it right back to her.”

Harry’s eyes widened. “What?”

“On her vagina. Mainly her clitoris.”

“You mentioned that earlier. What is it?”

“Think of it as a tiny, unformed penis. It’s extra sensitive, more than anywhere else down there, I presume.”

“So I’d just…”

“Tongue it, suck it, rub it. As if you were with a man.” Malfoy smirked.

Harry rolled his eyes and said, “Oh, don’t you start.”

“Sorry?” Malfoy raised a brow. 

“Fucking Basil. The portrait I was talking to. He thinks I’m gay.”

Malfoy nodded slowly. “Oh.”

“I mean, I don’t look gay, do I? I’m not homophobic or anything, but come on. What gave him that idea?”

“When I approached you speaking to him the other night, you were saying that I was pretty.”

“Well.” Harry opened his mouth, but no rational words seemed to come to his mind that he could respond with. “He asked what you looked like. And kept pressing.”

“So you think that I’m pretty?” Malfoy asked, looking between Harry’s eyes deeply. 

“It was more like… You’re not manly. So you’re pretty. Like a girl.”

Malfoy let out a small laugh. “I don’t look like a girl, Potter.”

“You think?” Harry smiled. 

“Yes,” he said with a nod. “I don’t have a girly figure.”

“You kind of do.” Harry sat back, looking him over. “You’ve got a tiny waist and a… nice bum. And you’re not all that broad on the shoulders. You’ve lost muscle because you’re not eating. It’s probably just that. But yes. And your legs are pretty ladylike as well, they’re slender and… nice.”

Malfoy stared at him for a while. “I believe that I’ve deduced why the portrait thinks you’re gay.”

“Shut up.” Harry put his head in his hands. “You know what I mean. You just don’t look manly.”

“First you compliment me, now you insult me. Bit of a love-hate thing you’ve got going on with me, isn’t it?”

Yes, his mind supplied. He bit his tongue. Instead, he said, “Tell me more about how to make sex better for the woman.”

Malfoy laughed sharply. “The fact that you’re asking a gay man for advice on vaginas really says something about you.”

Harry paused. For a while. Probably too long of a while to be able to play it off.

“Potter?” Malfoy tested.

“You’re gay?”

“Will that be a problem? Since, you know, you’re not homophobic or anything.”

“No.” Harry shook his head quickly. “No problem.”

“Good.”

“How do you do it?” Harry asked.

“Sorry? Are we still talking about vaginas?”

“No.”

“Then how do I do what?”

“No… How do guys have sex?” Harry swallowed his pride. “I’ve always kind of wondered about it.”

Malfoy’s eyes scanned his face and it seemed like he couldn’t help but let a small smirk sneak out. “I don’t know the exact details,” he told him. “I’ve not actually had sex with a man.”

“But you know how it works?”

“Oh, yes. I have read things.”

“Literature?”

“Not always.” Malfoy turned his head, looking over at his trunk that was peeking out from underneath the bed. “A man has to have some material to… you know.”

“You have porn mags? Of like, guys? I didn’t know they made those!”

“They’re not good ones,” he said. “They’re muggle ones. Unfortunately, it’s rather difficult to acquire wizard magazines of men without family finding out. So I’m stuck with non-moving pictures.”

Harry pursed his lips. “That’s got to be annoying.”

“Yes. It is. Fortunately, I prefer literature a lot of the time anyway. Or imagination, or memory.”

“Memory?” Harry queried. “But you said you’d never done anything with a man before.”

“It doesn’t have to be a sexual memory. And I hadn’t said that I hadn’t done anything, ” he corrected him. “For example, I could just think about an attractive man that I’d seen.”

“And that’s all it takes for you to get off?”

Malfoy shut his eyes in disbelief. “I can’t believe you’re asking me all of this.”

“It’s just curiosity,” Harry said.

“Yes. And you’re very curious.” He nodded. “How often do you discuss what you wank to when you talk to Weasley?”

Harry frowned at him. Well… Never, he supposed. But that was different, wasn’t it? Ron was like a brother, and you’re not supposed to talk about sexual things with your brother. Like, if Ron was to talk about his sex life with Hermione, Harry would probably puke in his mouth. But if Malfoy started to talk about his sex life… That would be okay.

Right? At least he understood his logic.

“That’s besides the point,” Harry said to him. “Go on. You wanted to know about my sex life too.”

“That’s your sex life.”

“Yeah?”

Malfoy sighed. “Nevermind,” he said. “What do you want to know?”

“What do you think about?”

“ Men. ”

“I gathered that!” Harry felt himself flush red. “But like, you know…”

“You want to know specifics, do you?” Malfoy asked. He was raising his eyebrow and smiling weirdly, as if he’d figured something out; something that Harry hadn’t yet. He didn’t like it.

“Yeah.”

“Merlin. Okay. I think about men’s bodies. Their muscles, and- and abs, and legs, and such.”

“And such?”

“Yes.”

“What’s such?”

“Are you really going to make me say it?”

“Say what?”

“Cocks, Potter. I think about men and their cocks, and what I’d fancy doing with them.”

Harry smiled triumphantly, and found himself suddenly having a growing need to lick his lips and gulp deeply. They’d seemed to have run incredibly dry all of a sudden. The concept of somebody- Malfoy thinking about that kind of thing got his heartbeat racing faster than he knew was possible, and he was confused as to why it was even happening in the first place. 

“Can I ask something?” he asked, ignoring how wobbly his voice went.

“It seems to be the only thing you’re able to do now, so proceed.”

“Then why don’t you want me to get changed in the same room as you?” Harry asked him. “If you like it.”

“I never said that I liked your body, Potter. But because… you didn’t know that I was gay, did you? It felt as if I was taking advantage, or something of that nature.”

“But you weren’t doing anything.”

“Potter, if there were a woman getting undressed in the same room as you, wouldn’t you prefer to leave the room? So you wouldn’t feel disrespectful?”

Harry thought about that for a moment. He supposed that Malfoy was talking about a woman that wasn’t Ginny, that he wasn’t in a relationship with. And he realised that he was right. Honestly, if Hermione were getting undressed in the same room as him then he would run out of there before she could get the chance tell him to. “I think I get it now.”

“Good.”

“Do people know?”

“Know what?” he asked. “That I’m gay? My friends know. I don’t care who else does, though. I can’t expect you to keep a secret from your little group.”

“I wouldn’t tell them,” Harry told him honestly. “Not if you asked me not to.”

He supposed that it was useless to not tell them anyway, though. He’d already voiced his suspicions to them, after all, but he didn’t know if that was on the same par as confirming it to them. He would keep to his word, though. Nobody needs to know apart from himself. He almost felt special, in a way, that Harry was lumped in with a very small group of people that Malfoy considered close enough to him to consider him a friend of some sort and tell him this secret that he’d more than likely struggled with at some point in his life. 

“If you mean that,” Malfoy said after a long silence, “Please don’t spread the word. I think many people have their suspicions anyway, but I would prefer it if it remained unknown.”

“Of course.” Harry nodded quickly. 

The air felt thick and Harry’s mouth was dry. He didn’t want to act different around Malfoy now that he knew that he was gay but it was nagging at the back of his mind, saying he might be into you. 

Would he be?

Malfoy was the one who said that he never claimed that Harry’s body was one that he found attractive. And as far as Harry knew, Malfoy still hated his guts. Sure, they’d gotten closer than they were before this whole debacle but it had only been a couple of days. That couldn’t possibly be enough time for someone to fall for somebody. Maybe it was different for gay people though?

“Do you mind if I get dressed in here?” Harry rose to his feet. “Now you know that I won’t feel taken advantage of.”

Malfoy frowned at him. “Why?”

“It's a bit too much effort to go to the bathroom every time I need to change.” He laughed lightly. 

“... Okay,” Malfoy said. “If you want to.”

Harry picked up his joggers from his trunk, noting that he needed to remember to shove that under his bed this time. Placing them on the bed for later, he didn’t look at Malfoy, or give any hint of recognition that he was there in the first place. He wanted to know, or at least get an idea of whether or not Malfoy found him attractive. He wasn’t told often after all, and growing up the way Harry had done really did wonders on his self esteem issues.

He loosened and removed his tie in a series of swift moments, then followed up by chucking it onto the end of the bed, his eyes following it and glancing over Malfoy as it flew. He had picked up his book again.

Harry got to undoing the buttons on his shirt and tried his best not to feel embarrassed as he pulled the two sides apart that exposed his chest and stomach and scars. The biggest scar that Harry had acquired over his many adventurous years was from when he’d quite literally died. It wasn’t anything like the infamous scar he’d gotten the first time around; it was large and protruding and ugly , and Harry hated it. It was thin but long, in the same shape as the one on his forehead. Harry wouldn’t be surprised that if he caught Malfoy staring, he would be staring at the scar instead of his body. 

But Malfoy had scars too. He was sure about that. He’d seen them.

Discarding the shirt to where the tie went as well, he could see that Malfoy was perhaps having a little trouble focusing on the words on the pages. He hadn’t flipped the page over in a while, or even moved his head to indicate that he had moved onto the next page in the double spread. Judging by how fast Malfoy writes, he should be able to read just as fast, if not quicker. 

He reached down for his belt buckle and heard a sharp intake of breath. After debating to himself whether or not he should address it or continue, he decided on the latter. He lifted up the buckle and pulled the leather through, removing it from his hips after pulling it through each of the belt loops. He held it in his hands for a few seconds while he licked his lips to try and regain some moisture to his mouth. He could see his heart pounding against his chest when he looked down and his breathing sped up when he felt a small pooling sensation of heat in his lower abdomen. He suddenly had an urge to turn around for when he removed his trousers. 

A flicker of his eyes upwards and he made extremely brief eye contact with Malfoy before the man directed his gaze swiftly back to his book. Harry took a deep breath and pulled down his zipper, a sound that was almost booming in the quiet and thick atmosphere of the room. He undid the button on them and hooked his thumbs over the waistband to push the trousers down over his thighs and knees, and eventually over his feet. He left them on the floor, something which he was sure Malfoy would chew him out for in the morning. He didn’t care. 

He turned around now, his back to Malfoy as he faced his own bed and picked up his joggers. One foot after the other, he stepped into them and pulled them up until they snapped around his hips comfortably. He exhaled, feeling as if he could finally breathe again, but the protruding problem in his pants was going to become a very big issue very soon. 

He shuffled over to the en suite, completely confused by what happened to even cause this reaction from his body. Nothing in particular had occurred, but now he was half hard and his joggers weren’t exactly made to hide that fact. He tried to calm himself down as he brushed his teeth, staring at himself in the mirror and thinking about anything that could possibly make his dick go down. McGonagall in fishnets and garters. Flitwick in fishnets and garters. Hagrid having sex. Hagrid having sex while wearing a maid’s outfit. Maid’s outfit, maid’s outfit, maid’s outfit. Malfoy. He felt his cock throb and he was even more confused than he had been beforehand. Reaching down with his spare hand, he grabbed his crotch over his joggers and rubbed it lightly. He attempted to push it down but the contact made him hiss and he let go quickly, spitting into the sink and washing his toothbrush off when he was finished. 

Harry adjusted himself once more before he retreated into the bedroom once more. He didn’t look up as he walked back to his bed, keeping his gaze down purely on his feet. Malfoy wasn’t saying anything either, but Harry could determine that he’d regained his focus while he was by himself in the room, as he heard him flip several pages as he got himself settled into bed. He pulled the sheets up to his waist; it was a cold time of year but the warmth that was spreading through his veins was heating him up greatly. He lay on his side, facing Malfoy’s bed as he gazed off into the room, not looking at anything in particular. 

“Are you looking at me?” Malfoy asked after a while. Harry shifted his gaze, looking first at his face, which was taut and revealing no emotion. His eyes travelled to the book in his hands, held only by his bony and fragile-looking fingers. 

“I am now,” he said. 

“Why have you got your glasses on in bed?”

”I’m not sure,” Harry answered. “I don’t want to sleep yet.”

“Then what do you want to do?”

Get off, his mind quipped. God, but he didn’t want to do that while Malfoy was still awake. The thought of being caught by him was a hell of a damn sight more than just embarrassing. 

“I’m not sure,” he said again.

“You’re not sure of a lot of things.”

“Mm.” Harry watched as Malfoy folded over a page in the book before putting it down on the bedside table that separated both of their beds. “Are you tired?”

“Mentally.”

“Your bruise,” Harry said quietly. “Does it still hurt?”

Malfoy looked at him. He looked in between his eyes and Harry couldn’t help but cringe at the sight of the bruise. It was huge compared to how it had been when it first formed and it made Harry feel guilty every time he looked at it. 

“No,” Malfoy whispered. He lay back down and adjusted his pillows to a more comfortable position that Harry envied. He was uncomfortable. He was horny and fuck, there was something about the way that Draco lying that made his cock twitch. Was it the way that he reclined his leg upwards that showed off his thigh, or was it the way he tilted his head backwards, his chin stretched upwards and accentuating his neck? Perhaps it was the way that he allowed small and supple noises to spill from the delicate pout of his mouth which began to hang open after a while? Maybe even the way in which his hands, long fingers that were once caressing the hard lining of a book were now caressing his chest, down to his stomach and then down… and…

Harry’s breath caught in his throat. Malfoy was touching himself, right next to Harry. He could hardly believe it, was sure that he was just hallucinating or having some sort of fever dream. That was until he watched Malfoy reach over to the desk separating their beds and pick up his wand, waving it while muttering an incantation that Harry knew all too well. Fucking hell, he thought, as Malfoy placed his wand down on the desk again. He actually was going to get off. 

Harry lay on his side and reached down, pressing his palm to the hardness of his cock over his pants, not wanting it to get any more erect than it already was. This was fucking surreal as it could get. 

He watched Malfoy’s arm movements closely, his left arm bent so that his hand had clear access to his crotch, and his other hand plastered over his mouth, as if he thought that the privacy charm wouldn’t be enough to muffle or silence his ecstasy. Slowly, Harry found himself unable to take his eyes off of Malfoy’s left arm. It was moving up and down in such a way that Harry found himself wanting to mimic it because he could see it so vividly. 

His other hand - the one that had been covering his mouth - now slid down to his chest and lightly rubbed the buds that Harry could see clearly over the silk nightshirt that he was wearing. His hands moved in sync with one another, one sliding up and down his cock while the other was decidedly on his nipples, and Harry managed to tear his gaze away for just a moment to get a look at the expression on Malfoy’s face. 

His lips were separated and his eyes were closed shut from the bliss that he was giving himself. The way that his Adam’s apple moved was a telltale to how many noises and whimpers that he was making, that were tumbling out of the wide open mouth that Harry couldn’t help but fantasise about and wish that he was able to hear the noises that he was being deprived from.

Harry rubbed his thighs together for hope of some release as he pushed his glasses up his nose, gripping the sheets in an attempt to hold back from touching his own cock while watching Malfoy. That would just be too far… wouldn’t it? So instead, he just watched him, wishing that he could be touching his cock at the same time. He wasn’t sure why he was even hard, though, why he was being so turned on by this experience. He didn’t think that he was gay, but… 

His focus quickly returned as he watched Malfoy gasp, his jaw twitching several times and his eyes squeezing shut harder than they were before. Harry bit his lip as he examined the way that Malfoy’s hips pushed up into his hand underneath the sheets and deduced that he was probably incredibly close to cumming now. He wanted to know what Malfoy looked like when he came. 

He realised suddenly that Malfoy had told him that he’d needed to use the special magazines that he’d had, either that or… memory. There was every possibility that Malfoy was perhaps thinking of him , of Harry, considering that he’d just gotten changed in front of him, and he shivered delightfully at that fact. He found that he wanted deeply for Malfoy to think of him when he got off, and not anybody else, including anonymous bodies in cheap Muggle sex magazines. 

The saliva on Malfoy’s lips caught the light of the moon peeking through the window and Harry knew that he couldn’t have pictured anything more beautiful than that. He gulped as Malfoy threw his head back, his hair gorgeously spread on the pillow he was laying on and he slapped his hand over his mouth again as his eyes rolled upwards. His arm movements slowed considerably and Harry could tell that his breathing was beginning to calm down, judging by the movements in his chest. 

As Draco leant over to retrieve his wand again, presumably to undo the silencing charm, or to carry out a vanishing charm, Harry realised that he’d thrown the covers off of himself in the heat of the moment. Malfoy took a deep look at him, at the glasses on his face down to the hand on the obvious tent in his jogger-bottoms, and waved his wand a few times with quiet muttering. He shot a mysterious stare at Harry before telling him, “Perhaps you should seek out Ginevra for some help with that.”

Harry felt too shocked to process what had happened properly. As he rolled over to face away from Malfoy, his glasses now removed, Harry heard Malfoy whisper, “It doesn’t hurt so much when you’re here.”

Harry couldn’t recall what he meant.

Chapter Text

“Settle down now, settle down,” Slughorn said happily. The cheesy smile on his face stretched his rosy cheeks and Harry wasn’t sure whether or not he actually wanted to know why. “Weasley, do you remember what we’re doing today?”

“Making Amortentia, sir,” Ron replied aloud, obviously proud of himself for actually having been listening and not dozing off or talking.

“Very good!” He nodded to him. “I will be putting you in pairs to do this, and it’s rare that we’ll be having practical lessons so make sure to enjoy!”

Harry didn’t know if he could do that. He hadn’t spoken to Malfoy that morning when he woke up, or while eating breakfast, nor first or second lesson, and now he was to be partnered with him. Harry was embarrassed. He was so, so embarrassed, he wanted to rip off his own cock to punish it and to teach it to never freaking do that again.

When Slughorn announced that Ron was going to be partnered with Pansy Parkinson, Ron’s head dropped onto the desk, and he reached out to grip Harry as if he was saying help meeeeeeeee! with his hands. Harry suspected that he was going to be doing the very same thing soon enough. If Malfoy brought it up then Harry was sure that he just may keel over and die from that embarrassment.

After being paired with Malfoy, to nobody’s surprise at this point, Harry walked over to his desk, instead of the other way around. Pansy Parkinson took his place next to Ron and Harry took hers, but being at a desk in the middle of Malfoy, Theodore Nott and Blaise Zabini had very little perks. And that’s without even bringing up the fact that Nott was partnered with Zacharias fucking Smith. Two of Harry’s favourite people!

Harry could tell that Malfoy was on guard from the moment that he stood next to him. He wasn’t sure if it was more because of him or Smith.

“Okay,” said Harry once Slughorn told them to go ahead and get started. “You’re far better at potions than I am.”

“I know,” Malfoy responded dryly. “Do you know the basic recipe?”

“Never really dabbled in love potions before.” Harry shrugged. “But… An Ashwinder egg,” he said. “That comes first.”

“Congratulations, you’re aware of the most basic ingredient.” Malfoy picked up one Ashwinder egg with his index finger and his thumb and popped it inside the cauldron. “Next?”

Harry took a deep breath, huffing and shaking his head. “Can’t remember.”“Really? I do still wonder why you’re taking potions if you can’t remember a basic recipe.”



“Thanks.”



“I want to be the first in the class to finish, so here’s what’s going to happen,” Malfoy said sternly to him. “I’m going to do everything myself and you’re just going to hand me things when I ask for them.”



On a regular day, Harry would’ve been more than happy with that method of classwork. However, he was absolutely not prepared to let Malfoy take all the credit and embarrass him in front of the class. Plus, he just really wanted to get more involved. He wanted Malfoy to put what happened last night aside, and perhaps talk that out as well. They really should. Harry should tell him that he wasn’t turned on because of him at all, and that that part was just a misunderstanding. He wasn’t at all sure as to why he was turned on in the first place, but he figured that that was just a natural part of being eighteen. He was still backed up from all of those months on the run, after all…



“No,” Harry said. “I want to help.”



Malfoy raised his eyebrow. “You want what?”



“To help,” Harry repeated. “Tell me the recipe. I’m going to help.”



Malfoy stared at him with a blank expression that portrayed a fair bit of disbelief. “Handful of rose thorns.”



Harry grabbed a handful of rose thorns from the bowls of ingredients without thinking at all. He hissed immediately, snatching his hand back from the bowl and examining his hand for cuts. There were a few, but when he looked up and saw Malfoy’s unimpressed expression, he gulped and just poured all of the contents from the bowl into the cauldron. From the lack of snarky remarks, he figured that he’d done the right thing.



“Okay.” Malfoy nodded slowly. “You measure the peppermint oil and I’ll do the moonstone.”



“Alright.” Harry smiled at him, reaching for both of the bowls and handing the more important of the two over to Malfoy, as he’d asked. “How are you this morning?”



Malfoy gave him a slight side-eye that Harry wouldn’t have been able to hear if he wasn’t already looking over at him. “Why do you ask?”



“Because,” Harry said, “I’m curious again.”



“For a more noble reason this time,” Malfoy added.



He cleared his throat. “Perhaps so.”



“I’m okay,” he told him as he bent down so that he was eye-level with the table. He shook the tube that the moonstone was in lightly. “And yourself?”



Harry looked down at the peppermint oil and decided to just pour the whole thing into the cauldron. “Yeah. I wanted to just tell you, to clear the air. The whole… thing, that I had… It wasn’t because of you.”



Malfoy leaned on the table with his elbows, his chin resting on his hands. He was bent over now, and Harry could tell that he was fed up of him talking in the first place. His bum was almost touching the table behind them, and he wasn’t sure how much Zacharias Smith was going to appreciate that.



“I hadn’t thought that it was,” he said.



“Really?” Harry raised his eyebrows. “Then why are you in a bad mood with me?”



“Am I?”



“Yes. You didn’t say anything to me this morning.”



“You didn’t say anything to me either.”



“Oh,” Harry said. He supposed that that was quite true. But Malfoy was definitely treating him weirdly, he was sure that it wasn’t all in his head.



“I was in a strange mood, yes, but not because of you,” Malfoy told him, then added on, “Well, not directly.”



“Not directly?” Harry watched his body as he stood up straight again and poured the moonstone into the cauldron.



“No.”

“Is this something to do with what McGonagall was telling you when I arrived yesterday?”

“What, the conversation that you were eavesdropping on?”

“Only for like, three seconds before she opened the door.” Harry rolled his eyes and Malfoy inserted a spoon into the cauldron, huge and wooden and poking out of the top. Malfoy walked around the desk to the other side so that he was standing opposite Harry and took the end of the stick in both of his hands. He took a deep breath before he began to stir the concoction, and Harry could only picture his arms snapping in half as he struggled with it.

“What… Exactly… Did you hear?” Malfoy asked as he took deep breaths with each stir.

“Er… Just… That you can’t tell somebody something because they’ll laugh at your face, or something… and… Hey, do you want me to do that?”

Malfoy glared up at him. “What?”

“Do you want me to stir it?” he asked again. “Not because I don’t think you’re capable,” he lied. “I’m not doing anything though. You’re better with the things to do with ingredients and method, and I’m better with practical things.”

“There’s nothing else… to do…” Malfoy told him. Harry could see his muscles tensing now and was starting to feel a bit worried. “I told you that it was an easy recipe as long as you have the ingredients.”

“Yeah,” Harry said. “Come on. Let me do it. You’re clearly struggling.”

“I am not .”



“Yes, you are. You’re literally breaking a sweat right now.”



Malfoy groaned, but he let go eventually, beating out his stubbornness and folding his arms. “Fine,” he said. “Do whatever you want.”



Harry walked around to where Malfoy was standing and took the stick in his hands, and began to stir the cauldron with little to no trouble at all. Malfoy looked as if he wanted to kill him.

As Harry gazed around the room, he could tell that most of the pairings weren’t working that well together. The majority of groups were arguing and nobody had gotten to the stage that Harry and Malfoy were at yet, which made Harry feel cool, as if he’d accomplished something.



Harry continued to stir for a long while, a dull ache pooling in his biceps but he kept going strong, not wanting to show Malfoy any sign of weakness. Malfoy didn’t tell him when to stop, just cast the spell that activated the potion without warning Harry beforehand. He did it ever so quickly that Harry found it impressive that it didn’t it him instead of the fluid inside of the cauldron.



Soon enough, large spirals of steam began to rise out of their cauldron and flutter into the air of the room. If Harry had to use one word to describe it, it would be blissful. Harry briefly noticed the room fall silent, in contrast to the cluster of shouting and arguing that was going on beforehand, but it was barely noticeable compared to the overpowering aroma of the potion. Harry stepped closer to the pot, looking inside and letting his mouth drop open as the steam hit his face. He was salivating more than he usually did and he felt sweaty all over.



Harry could smell tea before anything else. The kind of tea that was incredibly weak and milky, and probably had far too much sugar in it than was deemed healthy. He knew then that his smells had changed since the last time that he’d had experience with the potion but he couldn’t figure out what tea had to do with Ginny.



The next was smoke. Smoke that came from a fire, not the kind that came from a cigarette or a cigar. It smelled nice, though not like the normal wood fires he’d had at the Dursleys’. It was some sort of fire that had magic in its flames and at the core of it. He felt slightly uneasy when it hit his nose but eased into it, inhaling it even more so than he had been before.



The last was some kind of nut, that’s what Harry was sure of. He couldn’t say that it was a peanut, nor a walnut or cashew… It was something that he’d had recently but he couldn’t put his finger on it, and it wasn’t like he’d had any nuts to eat in the past couple of days, or weeks for that matter.



“Potter and Malfoy!” Slughorn announced with glee as he walked over. Harry tore himself away from the cauldron quick enough to see that Malfoy had been doing the exact same thing that he had. He watched Slughorn peer over the top before nodding happily and placing the lid on top of it, trapping the steam inside and cutting off the delicious smell slightly. Only slightly. Harry could still smell it if he sniffed hard enough, and it seemed that he wasn’t the only one. Not only was Malfoy so clearly distracted but they’d seemed to have acquired a crowd. People had abandoned their own cauldrons in favour of walking up to his and Malfoy’s desk in a lovestruck daze. He spotted Ron mouthing Hermione’s name and Theodore Nott staring at Malfoy with his jaw dropped like a fucking dog.



“Twenty points to each of you!” Slughorn said to them both. “Excellent!” Harry suspected that he must’ve taken some sort of immunity potion before the lesson and decided not to give it to any of the students at all. The professor walked away unhinged, back to his seat at the front of the class. “Now, back to your stations! All of you!”



People slowly disbanded away from their work station, but Harry was deeply confused on what he should even be doing. They were done, weren’t they? And as far as he knew, Slughorn hadn’t set them any work to do after the practical part of the lesson.



Malfoy looked flushed. He was staring only at the cauldron and breathing heavily out of his mouth, licking his lips once every few seconds when he felt his lips grow dry. His hair had become disheveled from the steam yet still managed to look good on him, something that Harry found incredibly rude. Harry gulped, not wanting to interrupt his trance but needing to know what else they are meant to be doing. He didn’t want to just be standing there like a lemon, after all.



“Malfoy?” Harry said softly, quiet enough that he couldn’t be heard by others over the ruckus of the classroom. Malfoy blinked slowly a couple of times, shutting his mouth and taking in a deep breath through his nose. He didn’t look up at Harry just yet. “Hello? Are you with me?”



“With you,” Malfoy mumbled before his gaze snapped up and he clenched his hands into fists. “Fuck. This was a bad idea. That lid is doing fuck all.”



“Yeah. I agree.” Harry nodded. He was just glad that Malfoy didn’t look like he was being hypnotised anymore. “Er… What do we do now?”



“I don’t suppose that he thought anybody would be done so early.” Malfoy rubbed one of his eyes with the bottom of the palm of his hand. “I suppose we wait for everybody else to finish.”



“Maybe it wasn’t a good idea, you’re right.” Harry laughed quietly. “I don’t remember it being quite so intense last time.”



“I do.”



He looked up at him, puzzled. “Is it the same for you?”



“Not the same smells,” he whispered with a shake of his head. “But not different.”



“What does that mean?” Harry queried. “You mean there’s different smells?”



Malfoy nodded slowly.  “Yes. No. One of them stayed the same.”



Harry stared at him. “The person stayed the same,” he realised aloud.



He watched Malfoy’s expression swirl into a snare and he hit the table lightly with his fist, his jaw clenching. Harry’s gaze followed every movement he made closely.



“Draco,” Harry heard a voice behind him call. He turned around at the same time as Malfoy did in response, and was met with a slightly sweaty Theodore Nott giving him a harsh side eye. Nott sternly looked back at Malfoy after a few seconds. “You alright?”



“Yes,” Malfoy said through gritted teeth. “What do you want?”



“To see…” Nott frowned, lines appearing on his forehead. “To see if you were alright.”



“I’m fine,” he repeated himself.



Zacharias Smith sniggered loudly as the steam began to rise from their cauldron, right into Malfoy’s face, as if he’d planned it. Harry wondered if there was some sort of known thing about the smells inside of Malfoy’s Amortentia that Harry was oblivious to. It seemed like some sort of cruel inside joke, but Smith was the only one who was laughing. Nott looked as angry as Harry felt as he watched Malfoy freeze up, inhaling the seductive scent and gripping the desk tightly.



“Connasse,” Malfoy cursed, but Harry didn’t have any idea what it meant. He was speaking French again, and although he realised that he probably wasn’t supposed understand it, he felt envious that the other Slytherins around them probably could. Judging by the look on the surrounding faces, namely Blaise Zabini and Nott himself, he could tell that it wasn’t very pleasant.



“What’s wrong?” Smith mocked. “Gotten hard?”



“What’s your problem?” Harry confronted him. He ignored the scent but it felt as if he could feel Malfoy’s presence closer to him. “Why do you have to continue to be such an ass?”



“Oh, look, Malfoy. Got yourself a boyfriend.” The tone in the bastard’s voice so closely reminded Harry of Malfoy’s voice that a wave of nostalgia rushed over him for a second.



“You’re not funny,” Harry told him. “None of this is funny.”



“Potter,” Harry heard from his side. “Enough.”



“No, no, let him continue.” Smith laughed in his face. He didn’t look at Malfoy when he spoke. “I want to hear what your boyfriend has to say.”



“I’m not his boyfriend,” Harry fumed. “And you should know better than to make homophobic jokes.”



“Homophobe, am I?” Smith pursed his lips as he furrowed his eyebrows. “So Malfoy’s actually gay? As in, properly?”



“No,” Harry said quickly, realising his mistake. “Joking about us, as if we were in a– as if we were together or whatever it is. That’s just bigoted.”



“But I didn’t start out by doing that. I was just having a little fun. I didn’t know that it was going to start steaming at that moment, did I?”



Harry bit his tongue from going on any further and gripped his wand tightly at his hip, the temptation to knock the fucker out almost overcoming him before he felt a strong calmness wash over him. Malfoy’s hand on his bicep caught him off guard. He looked up at him hesitantly before turning around quickly, digging his fingers into the desk to try and calm himself down. Slughorn hadn’t noticed the altercation, thankfully, judging by the way that he was marching on over with that same old annoying grin on his face. He was going over to inspect Nott and Smith’s potion, he supposed.



Malfoy’s hand was haunting him. He felt as if he was so close to him, surrounding him even, but when he looked up and saw him bending over to pick something up on the other side of the desk, he realised that he was just imagining things. But he just seemed so close…



Harry heard about five more cauldrons bubble up and start to steam in the next five minutes. He could feel his throat and mouth run dry and he could tell that his heart rate was increasing alarmingly. Malfoy looked to be in a similar sort of state, though, and that made Harry feel slightly better. They were both sitting achingly at the desk, feeling closer to each other than they actually were and having no explanation for it at all. Harry was still riled up from the argument with the fucker behind him and slightly excited after hearing Malfoy speak French again.



“What do you smell?” Malfoy asked suddenly. “Is it different?”



“Yes,” Harry spoke. “It’s different.”



“Do you smell her? Ginevra?”



Harry looked down. He hadn’t even thought about Ginny and whether or not he could smell anything to do with her, and he was sure that he would be able to recognise it by now. “No,” he told him softly. “It’s not her.”



He heard Malfoy’s breath hitch before he asked, “Who is it?”



Harry shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t tell.”



Malfoy continued to stare at him.



*



Harry hadn’t smelled Ginny in his Amortentia. He hadn’t smelled his own girlfriend in the goddamn love potion, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about that. He felt guilty, but other than that, he didn’t feel… sad. He didn’t regret that it wasn’t Ginny, if anything, he was more curious as to who the fuck he was smelling. He didn’t really recognise it, but then again, he didn’t spend a lot of time going around sniffing people either. Trying to add up the smoke, nuts and tea was a struggle as well. He just couldn’t add those pieces together.

He didn’t know if he could face her.



And he wanted to ask about Malfoy’s scents. He was curious as to what Ron smelled as well, of course, but he was pretty sure that it was still Hermione. If he asked him, he’d probably start to go on a rant about how much he loved her again, and Harry really wasn’t in the mood to hear about how much a guy loved his girlfriend. He didn’t know what this meant for him. He wasn’t sure if going to lunch with them was even a good idea, but he did anyway. It was the normal thing to do, even if Harry was feeling anything but normal. Hermione would surely notice that something was off straight away and start to grill him for it. But, he’d have to grit his teeth and hope to God that she didn’t catch a whiff of the truth.



“Afternoon,” he greeted them as normally as he could. He sat down next to Ron and felt his stomach rumble at the sight of his overflowing and honestly god-awful looking plate. It was one of those things that looked so bad that it was good.



“Hello, Harry.” Hermione smiled at him. Harry could feel her gaze though, digging into him to try and reveal any secrets that he had acquired today. It was one of her less appealing features. “How was potions class for you? According to Ron, it was a nightmare.”



Harry laughed as he picked up some meatballs and garlic bread from the centre of the table. It all smelled so gorgeous that it almost rivalled the love potion that was in question. “Well, he was partnered with Parkinson. It would be a nightmare for anybody.”



“You don’t understand, mate.” Ron shook his head and spoke around a mouthful of shepherd’s pie. His eyes were wide and he looked loaded with fear and anger. “It was torture. She always thinks that she’s bloody right. It’s like a worse, less attractive version of Hermione.”



Hermione visibly kicked him underneath the table. She smiled anyway. “I wish it was legal to brew it outside of the classroom. I would love to see what mine would be now.”



Ron stared at her, clearly offended. “You think yours has changed?”



“Not because of the person, silly.” She rolled her eyes. “But we’ve had a lot more experiences since you wiped some toothpaste from my mouth in the Burrow.”



“Yeah…” Ron smiled dumbly. “I smelled your perfume. The one you sprayed all over me the other week.”



She laughed brightly with him. Harry felt a little on the outside. “Oh, that’s what it was?” he asked. “I thought you’d just gotten more in touch with your feminine side.”



“Funny, funny,” Ron joked. He shoved some more food into his mouth and Harry watched some sauce dribble down his chin with distaste.



“So, what did you smell, Harry?” Hermione asked him with the same grin, but that little knowing look was back once again.



Harry damn near choked on his food. He looked away from her so that she couldn’t sense what was going on in his brain, but that probably showed even more by doing that anyway. “Uh,” he mumbled. “Yeah.”



She furrowed her brows at him. “Yes?”



“Smelled Ginny,” he lied.



“Right.” She looked between Harry and Ron with suspicious eyes. She knew he was lying. She just always had to know everything, didn’t she? “So what else?”



“... Tea,” he told them eventually. “Smoke, and nuts.”



Ron giggled. “Nuts?”



“As in like, almonds, you half-wit.” Harry hit him lightly. “Where is Ginny anyway?”



“Quidditch practice,” Ron said.



“She did tell us,” Hermione added.



“Right,” Harry said, nodding as if he remembered. “I need to find out what time she’s coming over later.”



“Oh, yes, of course.” She smirked at him. “Some alone time.”



“Almost alone time,” Ron said quickly.



“Don’t remind me.” Harry sighed. “It’s going to be so awkward.”



“I wouldn’t be able to get it up with Malfoy around.”



Harry chuckled nervously. That was a bit of a sore spot, Ron. “Yeah.”



“I don’t think that it’ll be that bad,” Hermione said. “He’ll probably be asleep.”



“Or reading,” Harry said. “He reads a lot.”



“What does he read?” Hermione asked in interest.



“Probably a step-by-step guide on how to court pureblood men.”



“No, actually,” Harry intervened. “He’s reading a book by Oscar Wilde at the moment.”



“Who?”



“The Oscar Wilde?” Hermione said, curious and confused. “He’s reading a book by a muggle?”



“This guy is a muggle?” Ron laughed. “As if.”



“No, really. I’ve seen him reading it a lot recently. He even reads it in the dark.”



“That has got to strain his eyes.”



“Yeah… But when I want to sleep, he says it’s okay to turn it off.”



“That’s considerate,” she said.



“Why doesn’t he just sit by the fire and read it?”



Harry shrugged. “He doesn’t like the fire.”



“That’s not surprising after the whole thing with Crabbe,” she said softly. “It must have been traumatic.”



“What did he smell in the Amortentia?” Ron asked suddenly. “Does he have a crush?”



“Oh,” Harry said. “He hasn’t told me what he smelled specially. Not yet. But he said that it’s the same person that he smelled back in sixth year.”



“Wow.” Ron sat up straight. “That must be proper love. I didn’t know he was capable.”



Hermione kept quiet, like she knew about something else that was going on that Harry didn’t know. He’d gotten used to it, though it was slightly annoying that she might’ve gotten the secret as to who it was before Harry did.



*



Ginny arrived at their bedroom at an unarranged time. Harry didn’t even know that she knew how to get there at all, it wasn’t as if Hermione or Ron had been to visit him there, after all. But… he wasn’t complaining. Harry had been wanting to get some release for a while now, even more so since their potions class that day. He was so incredibly aroused by it and he couldn’t even put his finger on who he had been turned on by.



Unfortunately, it wasn’t Harry who opened the door to her. You see, Harry wouldn’t have let Malfoy open it if he’d have remembered that she was actually coming over. It wasn’t as if he’d been reminded, as Ginny hadn’t shown up for dinner either. Harry didn’t know where she was then, but he was pretty sure that it wasn’t still Quidditch practice and he didn’t ask whether or not it was. The conversation would just develop and develop into something out of hand and Hermione and Ron would end up finding something out.



“Oh,” Malfoy said when he opened the door. “It’s for you, Potter.”



Harry swung his legs over the bed quickly, standing up and attempting to fix his fair. It didn’t do much good. “Hey, Gin’.”



“Hi.” Her eyes sparkled. Harry felt his heart break a little bit more. “I’ve been waiting to see you all day.”



Harry strode to her after Malfoy retreated to his own bed. Taking her face in his palms, he leaned towards her and kissed her in a quick greeting. A hand slowly ran over his back and Harry felt tingles all up his spine, breathing hotly against the wetness of the girl’s lips. He allowed his gaze to switch between her eyes, peering at her over the top of his glasses, which were threatening to slip off of his nose. Gently, she brushed his lips with the pad of her thumb, smiling at him brightly.



“You look amazing,” Harry told her.



“You look tired.” She laughed.



“I am. But not too exhausted for you.”



“How romantic,” Malfoy commented from his place on his bed, book in his lap and an annoyingly nonchalant look on his face.



Ginny thankfully managed to ignore him, though Harry had to grit his teeth through it. The urge to chew him out was a lot to deal with, but Harry knew that it would pay off to ignore the bullshit he was saying and get on with their activities. If he started shouting at Malfoy now, Ginny would get bored and leave. He wasn’t going to have that.



Pulling her along with him as he stepped backwards, Harry pressed their lips together once again. He moved them as he was used to doing, but it didn’t feel normal. It didn’t feel as great as it normally had done beforehand, when he and Ginny kissed and… everything else. Speaking of…



“Get on the bed,” he whispered to her. “I’m going to show you something.”



With a suspicious yet impressed smirk, she giggled and followed his instructions, and Harry was just glad that she showed up wearing a skirt instead of those trousers that a lot of the girls had started wearing recently. Her knees were roughed up, bruised and scabbed over, and Harry remembered her injury, how she was meant to be in the hospital wing at the moment. He cringed when he realised that he should’ve probably helped her over to the bed instead of dragging her, but she seemed to be fine enough, right? She was smiling her beautiful smile, her knees knocking against one another, her sun-kissed hair tousled up and toppling over one half of her gorgeously freckled face.



Harry used to think that he would stare at that smile forever.



He cleared his throat and leaned over the bed to the bedside table, grabbing hold of his wand to cast a short muffliato around Ginny and himself, just to be on the safe side. Malfoy surely didn’t want to be hearing that anyway, but Ginny would’ve murdered him if he’d forgotten to do it before they started to go at it like bunnies. And once Harry got down onto his knees, soon to be beat up and bruised themselves, it was evident to him that the advice that Malfoy had given him wasn’t complete hogwash at all.



Ginny ended up splayed out on the bed on her back, covering her mouth despite the spell as Harry twisted his tongue around her, making her squirm just how he’d planned to do. He was rather impressed with himself, not to toot his own horn. The only problem now was that she looked like she was more than worn out to do anything else that was… physically demanding, and she had said on more than one occasion that she was losing control over her legs as they twitched and spasmed, almost kicking Harry a few times in the process.



But she offered a solution that Harry wasn’t very likely to turn down. On the other side of his bed, she slid over so that she was now the one who was on the floor, biting on her lip seductively, inviting Harry with her eyes. He rose from his sunken place and swiftly sat opposite her, his legs stretched out either side of her body. Ginny took out his cock faster than he could comprehend, his mind foggy and his judgement clouded. Harry leaned back on his hands at first, his mouth parted and his chest heaving as he gazed down at her and her pretty mouth heading towards his dick, her fingers already around it.



“Oh, fuck,” Harry mumbled when he finally felt her lips on him, dropping his head backwards and feeling his hips twitch up into the pleasure.



She began to ever so slowly take him further into her mouth, her hand taking care of all that she wasn’t yet reaching. He could feel her tongue moving and his heart pounding against his chest, so achingly hard that he wasn’t sure how long he could even last.



And that overwhelming feeling was before he somehow managed to lock eyes with Malfoy.



For some reason that Harry could not comprehend at the time, he didn’t look away from him, didn’t care that Malfoy was pretty much watching him get sucked off by his girlfriend. Harry supposed that it was almost a nice thing to do for Malfoy, since he hadn’t much material in the first place, he’d said. Maybe this could be his material. Harry wasn’t sure that he minded the thought of Malfoy masturbating, but that might’ve just been in the spur of the moment.



He could sense that Malfoy was testing the waters. A slow hand rose to his hair, which still somehow managed to be in pristine condition this late at night, and took a handful of it roughly in his grip. Harry supposed that Malfoy might’ve been hinting at him to do that to Ginny, but he was on his way to that regardless of Malfoy’s intentions. However, for some reason unbeknownst to Harry, he hoped that that wasn’t what Malfoy was doing. Carefully eyeing the strength that Malfoy used on himself, Harry matched it to the extent he held Ginny’s hair, picturing that he was holding Malfoy’s golden, short, boy hair instead of Ginny’s flaming long locks.



He heard himself moan when Malfoy ran his fingers through his hair and Harry mimicked the motion with the head down on his cock. He could feel his dick in her throat now, and she started to bob her head up and down on him. Harry watched a haunting smirk stretch over Malfoy’s face, menacing but alluring, and couldn’t help but bite his lip when Malfoy’s mouth dropped open.



“Oh, oh, fuck…” Harry felt as if he could start hyperventilating. As he gazed at the man, Malfoy morphed his fingers into a circle at the side of his face and he stuck his tongue in his cheek. He began to start moving both his tongue and his hand simultaneously back and forth. It was ridiculously erotic and Harry was incredibly lost on how he was even finding it remotely arousing but fuck, he could feel his cock pulsating and he felt closer than he had done with just Ginny on him. Harry watched, embarrassed as Malfoy’s eyes travelled down to his navel, and he paused the movements. Harry almost felt let down until he watched three of Malfoy's fingers slip inside of his own mouth, through the confines of his lips and into the clear wetness. Malfoy’s long fingers stretched down his throat and Harry watched in awe as some saliva trickled down his chin, his Adam’s apple bobbing temptingly. He gulped, his leg bouncing and toes curling as Malfoy gazed into his eyes once again.



Harry came as he stared into Malfoy’s eyes, gripping on hard to Ginny’s hair and biting down on his lip, denting the skin with his teeth. He allowed moans and grunts to pass through his mouth, the knowledge that Malfoy couldn’t hear any of them being slightly comforting to his mind, he didn’t have to be so embarrassed. As he felt himself release down into Ginny’s throat, he maintained eye contact with the man opposite him, and he could have sworn that he saw Malfoy smirk at him, but he was too far into the bliss of the moment that he didn’t know if he cared or not.



“Fuck,” Harry said once he felt as if he’d calmed down a considerable amount. The grip he had on Ginny’s hair loosened and he looked down at her, smiling. Her eyes were filled with moisture and she had a mixture of semen and saliva around her mouth and on her chin, but a wide smile on her face as well. “That was amazing,” he told her.



She coughed and gulped, nodding along. “Thank you. You’ve not finished like that in ages.”



“Yeah,” Harry said. “I don’t know what changed.”



He leaned down to her and wiped her mouth with his thumb, and kissed her lightly. It wasn’t a great taste, if he was honest, the remnants of his own cum on her lips, but he felt it was the right thing to do.



“I love you,” she whispered to him. Harry looked into her eyes, half-lidded and dazed, and then turned his head upwards again to gaze over at Malfoy. He was lying down in his bed again, the covers up and drawn as if nothing at all had happened. Harry wondered if he’d imagined all of it.



“I love you too,” said Harry, but he wasn’t looking at her anymore.



*



Ginny left their bedroom at around five the next morning. She had wanted to get back to the Gryffindor dormitories before any teachers had the chance to inspect them and see that there was a student out of bed, with the added bonus of getting to cuddle with Harry all through the night. Harry couldn’t say that he was pleased with it, though. He was going to have to tell Ginny, wasn’t he? That he apparently wasn’t into her anymore? He didn’t want to go on in the relationship while keeping it from her, after all, and he did want to find out who the hell he was actually smelling.



Sitting up in bed, Harry tried to put together the pieces of this puzzle that he called his love life. Tea, smoke, nuts. Those were pretty damn broad, and not at all easy to narrow down. Harry had a cup of tea every morning if he could help it, he couldn’t remember the last time that he’d eaten a nut, and the fire was pretty much always burning in the Gryffindor dormitory. It wasn’t burning as much in his new room with Malfoy, he thought idly. Harry didn’t want to flat out ask the other man, but he could safely assume that he was affected by the fire so much because of the incident they’d been in during the war. That was a magical fire, come to think of it, Harry realised. But the only girl who had been there was… Hermione.



No. It couldn’t be her. That would just put a huge spanner in the works.



But… She did drink tea a lot of the time. He didn’t have an excuse for the nuts, but two out of three was enough, wasn’t it? The thought made him shiver. He pulled the bed sheets tighter around him and rubbed his arms with a hiss.



“If you’re cold,” Harry heard Malfoy say nonchalantly from the other bed. “Put the fire on.”



It was the first thing that Malfoy had said since he had done… whatever he had done while Harry was getting busy with Ginny. Harry gulped at the reminder of it. It was still dark outside, and he didn’t have his glasses on, so Harry couldn’t see whether or not Malfoy was looking at him or still lying facing away from him.



“No,” Harry said. “It’s fine. I’m just thinking.”



There was no response for a short while, but Harry heard the bed creak a little bit and some bed sheets ruffle. “What are you thinking about?”



“Amortentia.”



“Why?”



“It wasn’t Ginny,” Harry told him again. He sighed deeply, covered his face with both of his hands in shame.



“And you don’t know who it was?” Harry nodded slowly. He wasn’t even sure that Malfoy could see him do it. He continued, asking, “What did you smell?”



Harry rubbed his eyes. “Tea, smoke, and some sort of nut. I don’t know what any of it means.”



He could hear Malfoy gulp. “What have you figured out so far?”



“I think… The smoke might’ve come from Fiendfyre,” he admitted. He heard Malfoy hold his breath. “But the only girl there was Hermione.”



“So… So, you think it’s Granger?”



Harry frowned. “I don’t want it to be Hermione.”



“Why?”



“She’s my best friend. She’s dating my other best friend. And I’ve… never really been into her. Not my type.” Harry turned his head. He still couldn’t see Malfoy, and so cast a soft Lumos that wouldn’t hurt their eyes. He gazed at Malfoy in the light now, blurry as hell, but he could still see him well enough if he shifted to the edge of the bed. He was staring back at him. “What did you smell?”



Malfoy closed his eyes, and said ever so softly, “Book pages.”



“I’m not surprised by that.” Harry chuckled quietly.



“Nor was I.”



“What else?”



He looked in pain, by Harry’s judgement. “Birchwood.”



Harry frowned. “Like our beds?”



“Yes.”



“Huh. And then what?”



“Are… Are you serious?” Malfoy asked him. “You’re being serious?”



“What?” Harry picked up his glasses and put them on swiftly. “What do you mean?”



“Fucking hell.”



“Malfoy?”



“What, Potter?”



“What’s wrong?”



“Nothing is wrong!”



“Alright,” Harry agreed. “Okay. So you don’t want to tell me who it is, I guess?”



Malfoy glared at him with a snappy turn of his head. “No. I don’t.”



“You should be happy that you actually know who it is, though.”



“Should I?” he rebuked. “You shouldn’t tell me how to feel!”



“I’m just saying that you’re lucky in comparison to me!”



“Fuck off, Potter.”



Harry stared at him a while longer, unsure of what he’d done to warrant such a reaction. He eventually stood up, though every fibre of his body was telling him that it was far too fucking early to be up and about. He went over to the kettle and asked, bitterly, “Fancy a cup of tea, Malfoy?”



Harry didn’t receive a straight answer. He just looked up in time for him to see his reflection in the window - with Malfoy standing right behind him. He reacted quickly, ducking down as he watched Malfoy raise his arm and he just barely avoided getting smacked across the head.



“Malfoy!” Harry shouted, turning around and facing him. “What the fuck?”

Malfoy just stepped forwards again, hand raised and Harry caught his wrist in his hands. His fingers could touch one another around the skinny thing.



“Fuck you!” Malfoy bellowed at him. He wiggled his wrist around, trying to get free from Harry’s grip. “You’re such a shit, Potter!”



“Why? What have I fucking done?”



“Exactly!” Malfoy laughed almost maniacally, but he looked distraught. “You don’t even know.”



“You’re right, I don’t.” He dropped Malfoy’s wrist. “So, tell me.”



Malfoy stood, shaking his head. He was refusing to meet Harry’s eyes. “I wish that I didn’t know who mine is.”



Harry’s expression immediately softened, and he placed one hand on Malfoy’s shoulder in an attempt to comfort him. He rubbed the fabric of his shirt sleeve with his thumb in short movements. “Do you want to tell me who it is?”



“No. It’s worse than you could imagine.”



Cogs started turning in Harry’s brain. Someone that Malfoy hated. Someone that he wishes he wasn’t attracted to… It had to be. He felt a sharp pang against his ribs and a low, steaming hotness from the inside of his chest as he thought about it unwillingly. He didn’t want Malfoy to be interested in that man.



“I know who it is,” Harry told him. “And it’s okay.”



Malfoy froze. He was still looking down at the floor. “Excuse me?”



“It’s pretty obvious, when I think about it,” he said bitterly. “You’re distraught.”



“I… I would be.”



“And you know that the feelings aren’t reciprocated, right? It must be hard.”



Malfoy looked up at him then, snapping his head up. His eyes were teary and his chest was rising and falling quickly, his lips apart. “You don’t have to fucking rub it in, Potter. I don’t want to fucking feel like this, do I?!”



“I’m sorry. But it should get easier the faster you accept it. I mean… Unless the whole homophobic front he’s putting on is because he’s trying to hide who he really is.”



Malfoy sniffed once, and stared at Harry blankly. “I’m sorry?”



“The comments that Smith makes almost every lesson, it might just be so that nobody suspects him of being gay.”



“Smith… Smith?” He shoved Harry’s hand off of his shoulder faster than Harry could realise. “You think I’m in love with Zacharias fucking Smith? Oh, that’s just brilliant, isn’t it?”



“It’s… not Smith?” Harry scowled, a rush of anger and curious jealousy shooting through his veins. “Then… who?”



“If you’re not able to figure it out, you don’t even deserve to know.” Malfoy looked him up and down. “But you know, that was the closest you’ve gotten to actually trying to fight me.”



“That wasn’t anything. You wouldn’t have even bruised me.”



“Fight me, Potter.”



“No.”



“I’ll tell you who it is if you fight me.”



Harry rolled his eyes and turned back to the kettle. “Do you want tea or not?” he asked, but Malfoy had already locked himself in the bathroom.

Chapter Text

Harry wasn’t sure how much longer this could go on. He was lost at this point on whether or not it would hurt Ginny more to continue with this lie or to just tell her outright that she wasn’t the one for him. It wasn’t as if it was only the Amortentia that he was going off of, though; he’d been feeling awkward about their relationship for what felt like weeks. He had been scared about accepting the feelings though, scared that the Weasleys would hate him and he’d lose the closest thing that he’d ever had to a family. They weren’t cruel enough to do that to him, Harry knew that, but the fact remained that he wouldn’t be as welcome at Sunday dinners as he once was.



Harry knew that he couldn’t ask Ron what to do, and Hermione would just try to psychoanalyse him, but maybe that was what he needed? Malfoy was in a strop with him still, as far as Harry was concerned, and Luna and Neville would probably have given him good advice, if only Neville had stayed for the eighth year and Luna wasn’t off with fairies every two seconds (literally and figuratively). Seamus and Dean would maybe knock some sense into him, but Dean was Ginny’s ex, and he had a feeling that that would be a little bit awkward.



Hermione it was.



After a considerable amount of thinking done on Harry’s part for the six days since his fight with Malfoy about the Amortentia smells, Harry decided that nope, it most definitely was not Hermione that he was smelling in the potion, thank Merlin. She had her tea far too strong for it to be her. That would’ve messed up their whole cycle, anyway. Hermione would be weirded out with him, Ron would hate him, and Harry would be weirded out by and hated himself as well. It would just be wrong of him. However, this then raised the question of who it was in his potion yet again.



“Hermione,” Harry called out to her in the corridor, grabbing her by the wrist. He wasn’t sure where she was off to, but he hoped that it wasn’t some kind of detention… Oh, who was he kidding? This was Hermione, after all. “I need you.”



“Oh, Harry!” Hermione spun around in the crowd, her hair hitting at least four people in the process. “I was just on my way to the dog’s house, seriously. Hannah Abbott wanted to meet me to mentor her younger cousin, as if I’m not busy enough as it is!” She shook her head, sighing as her and Harry pushed their way through the people around them, off to the side where the coast was clear. “What do you need?”



“Advice. Your skills.” He shrugged, frowning. “Can you come with me to my room?”



“Oh, yes! I have been wanting to see your room, actually. Parkinson talks about it often, it’s getting a bit irritating.”



“Come on, then. Malfoy shouldn’t be there right now, he’s got a meeting with Slughorn. I don’t remember what for.”



“Alright. Should we get Ron?”



“Er… No.” Harry took a deep breath. “No.”



“Why?”



Harry gulped. “It’s about Ginny.”



Hermione stared at him for a second, before her expression was washed with realisation and pity. Harry hated how she just knew immediately from what he’d said, how smart she was and how presumptuous she was being. She was probably right though, knowing Hermione.



As they walked side by side to Harry’s room, he felt as if he was frittering away time that he didn’t have. He wanted to talk about this with Malfoy sort of… out of the picture. Ever since Malfoy had done… whatever it was, when Ginny had come over, Harry was unable to get him out of his head. The look in Malfoy’s eyes as he approached his orgasm was completely unforgettable - it was enchanting, and Harry was unable to stop himself from fantasising about it night after night. He hadn’t been brave enough to masturbate while in the room yet. He wondered how Malfoy would end up reacting if Harry began to jerk himself off while the fire was still roaring, while the lights were still on. Harry’s thoughts began to swirl, he wondered if Malfoy took advantage of the time that he had alone in the room while Harry was out eating or spending time with Ron and Hermione. He wondered if Malfoy thought about what happened with Ginny as much as he did.



“Harry?” Hermione tapped his arm and he was snapped back to reality.



“Oh, sorry.” Harry chuckled nervously. “I was somewhere else entirely, then.”



“I could tell.” Hermione frowned at him. “Are we almost there?”



“Er… Yes,” Harry said. They were almost at Basil’s portrait, Harry was sure, and he really wasn’t sure if he wanted to be dealing with that… In all honesty, he was embarrassed. He felt ashamed at the fact that the last time he and Basil had spoke was when Harry was in an awful mood, and had shouted at the portrait in a way that he probably really didn’t deserve. It bugged Harry that people were beginning to think that he was… gay, but should he really have been that bothered about it? Did it warrant such a reaction?



Harry wasn’t mad about that anymore. Of course, it was still bizarre that anybody would even suspect that he was anything but straight (obviously,) but he wasn’t angry. He knew he should apologise, but he didn’t want to have to do it in front of Hermione. She’s probably just begin to shout at him for his ignorance, or whatever it was, and he wouldn’t be able to get her to focus on the proper task at hand.



“Is it bad?” Hermione asked. “Really bad?”



Harry shrugged. He wasn’t sure if it was really bad, but it wasn’t at all good, was it? “It’s… you’ll see.”



“You’d have told Ron first if it was good,” Hermione said quietly.



Harry turned to look at her slowly. “No, I wouldn’t.”



She sighed and looked down at her feet, and Harry knew this corridor well. He took a deep breath, hoping that please, please, please please please—



“Oh, Harry!” Basil cooed from the wall. “Harry!”



Harry closed his eyes and muttered, “Merlin above.” If there was a God, Harry didn’t like him anymore. He turned and smiled at the portrait awkwardly. “Good afternoon, Basil.”



“Good afternoon,” Basil echoed, eyeing both Harry and Hermione back and forth. “Forgive me, my darling, I don’t believe we’ve met.”



Hermione had a large smile spread across her face now. She nodded at him quickly. “I don’t believe we have. You’re… Basil?” she recalled.



“Indeed! And you must be Ginevra, perhaps?”



“Oh!” Hermione put a hand on her chest as she laughed. Harry rolled his eyes. “No, no. My name is Hermione. I’m just Harry’s friend.”



“Ah, I apologise. I’ve yet to meet Ginevra yet, and Harry spends little time talking about her.”



“Yeah, okay.” Harry clenched his jaw at him. “Did you want something?”



“Yes,” Basil said. “I long to apologise to you, Harry, for my words that were said the other day. I realise that I must have spoken out of turn, judging by how hurt you reacted.”



“What did you say?” Hermione asked with interest, her brows furrowed as she gazed between them both.



“I suggested that perhaps Harry was something besides heterosexual.”



Hermione’s lips parted and she gazed down at the floor now instead. She remained like that for a while, as if trying to find the right words to say whilst working something complex out in her mind. “I suppose…” she started, “it is rather a sensitive subject to bring up.”



“Oh, indeed, but Harry had informed me several times beforehand that he wasn’t at all… What was it…? Homophobic.”



“I’m not,” said Harry exasperated. “I just don’t like when people accuse me of things that aren’t true.” He shrugged, trying not to notice how Hermione was looking at him. “But don’t worry, Basil. I’m not bothered anymore. It’s all okay. I’m sorry for lashing out.”



“Glad that that’s settled.” Basil clapped his hands together. “How is the pretty one?”



“The pretty one?” she asked.



“His name, oh… It was Latin, no? Began with D…”



“Draco,” Harry choked out. “I didn’t say that he was pretty.”



“Didn’t you? I must be mistaken.”



“You must be.” Hermione sighed. “Harry, weren’t we going to talk?”



“Yes.” Harry nodded swiftly, holding his hand up to Basil’s portrait. “Sorry, we’ve got to go. Kind of in a rush.”



“Have a nice time!”



“Thank you,” said Hermione courteously, and began to push him away.



Harry gulped, and didn’t meet her eyes until they arrived at his room. Thankfully, Malfoy wasn’t anywhere to be seen, so he and Hermione still had time to chat with some level of privacy, even if he was going to be back soon.



“Well?” Hermione inquired. So, she wasn’t going to bring up the Malfoy and sexuality thing? That was just peachy to Harry. He could definitely live with that.



“Well.” Harry plonked himself down on his bed. “I don’t think that I’m in love with her anymore,” he said easily, relief passing through him with every simple yet complex word that ushered from his mouth.



She walked towards him, sitting opposite him on Malfoy’s bed. He was reminded of when he and Malfoy had chats, knee to knee, toe to toe. They hadn’t had one of those in days. “Why do you think that, suddenly?”



“Because…” Harry sighed. “Because of my Amortentia.”



Hermione studied his face closely. “You were shifty when you told me that you smelled her in it.”



“I didn’t smell her in it. The problem is, I don’t know who I smelled at all.”



“Oh,” said Hermione, not giving Harry a shit ton of confidence. “Well.”



“Well…?”



“Tell me again what you you smelled.”



“I could smell tea. The weak kind, with like no sugar. Then smoke… from Fiendfyre. Then also some kind of nuts.”



“So, what are you confused about?”



“Okay, well. I don’t know anybody who takes their tea so… disgusting. And I don’t even remember the last time I ate nuts!”



“The Fiendfyre?”



“Right,” Harry said. “For a little bit, I thought that it was you. You were the only girl that was there, in the Room of Requirement, so… I kind of assumed.” The look on Hermione’s face was a pure picture, honestly. “It’s not you!” he said quickly. “Trust me.”



“Good.” She laughed quietly. “That would have been awkward. And I see why you didn’t tell Ron, now.”



“Yeah.”



“So, what did Malfoy smell? Did he tell you, eventually?” she asked, but it confused Harry. Wasn’t she more concerned about him and Ginny? Why was she bringing Malfoy into this?



“Yeah,” Harry said again. “He smelled book pages, probably because he’s constantly reading. Birchwood, too. He didn’t tell me the last one.”



She looked around the room. “Did he tell you what he’d smelled in sixth year?”



“Oh, yeah. The same person. It was, er… Madam Malkin’s, the Quidditch pitch, and dogs.”



Hermione took a long, deep breath in. She looked at him with worry, which only made Harry all the more anxious. “Harry, what if you… weren’t straight?”



“What?” Harry swore he almost choked on his fucking breath.



“I’m not… trying to be offensive, or anything, Harry.” She reached out to him, placing a comforting hand onto his arm. “But… I think you might be in love with Malfoy.”



“I think you’ve gone fucking loopy.” Harry let out an exasperated laugh. “Are you serious?”



“Yes. Harry, he was there in the Fiendfyre, and I’ve had to hear countless times in Charms this year about how Pansy Parkinson misses his pathetic tea making skills.”



“And the nuts? Do you have a brilliant explanation for that?”



“The cake that you brought up here a while ago. It was almond.”



Harry stared at her.



He stared, and stared, until he realised that no, she wasn’t going to break out into a fit of laughter and tell him that she was just kidding.



“Holy fuck.”



“Just… If you could, Harry, try and… I don’t know, smell him?” She huffed awkwardly. “I know it’s not practical, but wouldn’t you like to know? If I’m wrong, I’d like to apologise. But I think you know that I’m not.”



Harry kind of wanted to punch something.



“Harry?” She rubbed her thumb over the skin where she had already placed her hand.



“Oh,” came a voice from Harry’s left, one he knew quite well. He hadn’t even heard the door open. “Isn’t this cozy?”



Hermione withdrew her hand, but it wasn’t rushed. She regarded him politely, nodding her head and saying, “Malfoy.”



“Granger,” he said back. “Do you mind if you hand me my book? It’s underneath my pillow.”



“Of course.” Hermione leaned over and withdrew the hardcover from underneath the pillow on the right of the bed. “Dorian Gray?” She smiled. “You never said that it was this Oscar Wilde book, Harry.”



“What about it?” Malfoy queried.



“Nothing really. I’ve read it several times, myself.”



“Which version?”



Hermione smirked. “The uncensored. And yourself?”



“Whoa,” Harry said, looking between them. “What?”



“It’s not raunchy, if that’s what you mean.” Malfoy rolled his eyes.



“No,” Hermione agreed. “The uncensored version uncovers a lot more of what Oscar Wilde was actually trying to say. His editor at the time had to get rid of a lot of the content that he put in because being homosexual was illegal at the time.”



“Oh,” Harry said. “What did they have to cut out?”



“A lot of what Hallward feels for Gray.” Malfoy picked the book out from Hermione’s hands. His fingers slid over the edges and he gazed at it with admiration. “Adored madly, extravagantly, absurdly.”



“That’s truly an emotional passage.” Hermione rose to her feet. “I best be off now, though.”



“No,” Harry stopped her. “Why don’t you have some tea first?”



Hermione frowned at him and shook her head, as if to say you have to do this on your own. “I’m sure if you’re that desperate for a cup of tea, Malfoy can make you some,” she said, and turned towards the door. “Thank you for having me, both of you. I’ll see you at dinner, Harry.”



“Bye.” Harry scratched his arm nervously. “See you.”



“Goodbye,” Malfoy said softly, walking over to the kettle and not looking up. 



She closed the door abruptly, and Harry was left to awkwardly think about what she had said to him. Truly… he couldn’t be in love with Malfoy, could he? It was Malfoy. Malfoy, who was a prat who bullied him and his friends for years. Malfoy, who watched Hermione get tortured by his own aunty, who supported Voldemort through the war, who picked the wrong side.



And he paid for it, a voice in his head defended him. Harry supposed that yeah, he had paid for it, in a way. His father was tucked away in Azkaban for good, their family was on the verge of losing Malfoy Manor all together, Harry had heard. Malfoy was being abused every day here at Hogwarts now. He was still in the process of paying for his wrongdoings.



But was Harry even gay? How could he be in love with Malfoy if he wasn’t gay? That didn’t make any sense at all. He slowly began to reevaluate his entire experience with Malfoy - from being completely obsessed with him throughout their younger years at Hogwarts to now, when he was sharing a bedroom with the man. He remembered staring at him constantly, hoping he didn’t notice, including when he’d watched the man masturbate until orgasm and gaining a massive erection while doing it. He remembered cumming the hardest he ever had done when he was gazing at Malfoy, into his eyes. He recalled being so fucking mad at Smith, and feeling like Malfoy was so much closer than he actually had been after Smith had brewed his Amortentia potion as well.



“Fuck,” Harry whispered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”



“Are you alright over there?” Malfoy asked, not even bothering to turn his head to look at Harry when he asked the question.



No, Harry wanted to say. No, anything but okay.



“Yes,” he said instead. “How’s that tea coming along?”



“Perfectly,” Malfoy replied dryly. He seemed irritated.



Harry took a deep breath before rising to his feet. It was at times like these that Harry almost wished that he stayed dead when Voldemort killed him, because holy fuck, he was so fucking nervous. He could feel his hands shaking as he stepped over to Malfoy, settling beside him uncomfortably. Gazing down at the cups that Malfoy had put side by side on the desk, he released a deep sigh as he realised the slightly scary truth. Malfoy’s tea was about as white as him, and Harry could swear that he could see the pile of sugar mountaining beneath the surface of the liquid. It looked disgusting, and Harry was enamoured.



“Malfoy,” he said quietly. “Your tea is hanging.”



“Shut up,” he replied. “You’re hanging.”



“Thanks.” Harry was still looking down at the cup. “It’s not Hermione, by the way.”



“Sorry?”



“My Amortentia. It’s not Hermione.”



“Are you sure? You two both looked incredibly snug with one another when I came in.”



“I’m sure.” Harry pushed himself away from the desk and steadied himself behind Malfoy. “She has a different idea of who it was.”



Harry heard Malfoy take a sharp breath. “Does she?”



“Yeah,” he said, and gulped. “Er. Malfoy… Do you mind if I smell you?”



Malfoy was quiet for an unsettling amount of time. He gripped the handle of the teaspoon tightly, taking unsteady breaths. “I never thought that I’d hear Harry Potter ask me that.”



“Can I? I’m sorry if it’s weird.”



“Just– Just do it,” Malfoy gave him all the confirmation that he needed. Harry leaned in and pressed his nose to the back of Malfoy’s neck and inhaled deeply, taking in his scent for the first time really, and he caught his breath as soon as he did so, his eyes widening.



“Fuck,” Harry breathed, watching the hair rise on the back of Malfoy’s neck. “You smell nice.” Like delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn and like cauldrons and grass and fuck, nuts, and smoke, and tea that suddenly seemed a lot more appealing.



“Has this helped you?” Malfoy asked. He sounded exasperated.



“Yes.” Harry inhaled again. “Shit.”



“You don’t speak to me for a week, and this is the first thing you do.”



“You weren’t speaking to me,” Harry corrected him. “You were the one who was…” He sniffed. “In a mood with me.”



“For good reason.” He arched his neck slightly to the side. Harry dug his nose deeper into the crook of his neck and felt his lips brush over the skin briefly and softly. It was a short interaction but he found that he loved it, he wanted to do it again. Harry felt as if there was some kind of force that he couldn’t see that was telling him, begging him to kiss his neck once again.



“Because I didn’t know who I smelled,” Harry clarified. He closed his eyes in bliss. “I think that I…”



Harry parted his lips ever so slightly and closed them onto the paleness of Malfoy’s flesh. He allowed his lips to linger for a few seconds before he withdrew them and he placed both of his hands on the table that was in front of both him and Malfoy, effectively trapping Malfoy in. He lowered his head and kissed him again, and again, until he was littering small butterfly kisses on him, delicate as he was.



“Potter,” Malfoy whispered. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”



“I do.” He planted a steamy kiss on his neck now, sucking and grazing it with his teeth. “I really do.” Harry watched Malfoy stumble a little on his feet, the other man’s breath hitching and hesitating. He still bared his neck for Harry, as if he was urging him to continue. He was more than happy to oblige.



“Fuck,” Malfoy huffed. “Your mouth.”



Harry felt a heat begin to pool in the deep pits of his stomach. He reached down, temporarily freeing Malfoy from his confines and pressing a palm to his crotch, as if it would somehow be able to restrict his erection from growing any further. It had been a while, Harry supposed, so that was a good excuse. He and Ginny hadn’t done anything since and he had been far too anxious to jerk off still.

He peeked down at his crotch, unintentionally but thankfully seeing how fucking close Malfoy’s ass was to his cock. He wanted to buck his hips forward and feel the curves of Malfoy’s ass on him, wanted to grind their hips together and feel the release, hear Malfoy’s whimpers, his moans, his–



“Stop,” Malfoy panted. Harry snapped his head up and his eyes were instantly attracted to the dark purple bruise that was now on the back of Malfoy’s neck. “Stop it.”



“Malfoy?”



The man turned around faster than Harry could comprehend and Harry decided that he liked it a lot better this way. He could gaze easily at the other man’s face now, comfortably and brilliantly. His eyes scanned over Malfoy’s pinkened cheeks to his shining, moistened eyes and quivering lips, his imperfect blemishes to the way that his hair wafted perfectly over his forehead. Malfoy lifted his hands and rested the palms on Harry’s cheeks delicately, Harry had never felt something so amazing. He felt his eyes flutter shut while Malfoy swiped his thumbs over his cheekbones softly and adoringly, subconsciously tilting his head into the hold. He could sense Malfoy leaning forwards more and more and just one more centimetre and their noses would be flush beside one another, their lips pressed so tightly and closely. He felt a breath against his lips.



“Potter,” Malfoy whispered. Harry could feel his movements and he dug his fingers even deeper into the desk, crowding him. “Punch me.”



Harry’s face dropped. “What?”



“Trust me.” He looked desperate. “Please.”



“I’m not going to hit you,” Harry told him sternly and took several large steps away from him. “You– What am I even doing?”



“Potter,” Malfoy warned. “Slow down.”



“I have a girlfriend. I’m not even gay!”



Something flashed behind Malfoy’s eyes and his mouth twitched. “Can you let me know when you’re ready to stop pretending?”



“Excuse me?”



“Oh, come on. You aren’t in love with Ginevra.”



“I am,” Harry was approaching shouting now. “I love her!”



He rolled his eyes. “You didn’t even smell her in your Amortentia.”



“Maybe I need to brew it again. You probably did something wrong.”



“Me?” He cocked his eyebrow. “Oh, of course, because between us, I’m obviously the one who is terrible at potions.”



“I was just following your orders!”



“Well you don’t seem to be very good at that, do you?”



“You make everything into an insult.”



“Potter.” Malfoy took one step forward. “You don’t love her.”



“Oh, fuck you. Fuck you. What was I even doing? Why was I—”



“Because I’m a man. And you like men, Potter.”



“I don’t.”



“You do.”



“I don’t.”



“If you want to keep living a lie, it’s up to you. Suffer for all I care.”



“You think you’re so smart.”



“I am smart. Admit it.”



“You’re insane if you think that I’m gay.”



“Potter,” Malfoy said again. He took Harry’s wrist and Harry didn’t protest against the grasp, thankfully. Malfoy elevated his hand and slid his own over it, intertwining their fingers. Harry gulped and watched the other man’s gaze follow his Adam's apple down his throat.



“What do you want?” Harry asked firmly. He tensed his jaw as he stared at their hands. Malfoy rubbed his hand a few times before directing it downwards and downwards until Harry’s palm was flat on top of Malfoy’s crotch. He could feel the hardness of his cock through the confines of his trousers and the fullness of it made his breath hitch. He’d never touched another man’s dick before - he’d seen them though. Never had he fantasized about anything to do with the naked men in locker rooms and dark dormitories in his earlier years, but now…



“Do you like this?” he whispered to Harry, peering at his reactions while Harry just stared at their hands. Malfoy rubbed them against the fabric and Harry couldn’t protest if he wanted to - and he definitely didn’t want to. “I do. I fucking love this. Your hand, your presence. Touching me and feeling me. Do you like it?” he asked again.



“No,” Harry lied, his breath uneven and his voice shaking. He couldn’t rip his eyes away. “No, Merlin.”



“Well,” said Malfoy, arching his hips in such a seductive manner that Harry had to bite his lips to stop himself from gasping aloud. “That’s good, isn’t it?”



That made Harry’s eyes flicker up. “It is?”



“Yes.” He nodded. “What would Ginevra think if she knew that her hero boyfriend likes touching pretty boys’ cocks?”



“Fuck you.” Harry didn’t move his hand as Malfoy withdrew his.



“What would Ronald think if he knew that all that time he was worried that Granger would leave him for you, you’d been gagging for a man’s cock in your mouth?”



“I’ve never done that,” he hissed. “Fuck you.”



“What would poor old Molly Weasley think about it? That the man who she thought was going to be her son-in-law just cheated on her naive little girl?”



Harry’s head shot up and he snatched his hand back to himself. “I didn’t cheat,” he sneered.



“Did I imagine the bruise on my neck?” Malfoy taunted.



“I’ll give you another type of fucking bruise in a minute, Malfoy.”



“Do you like the way that they show against my skin? That’ll be third you’ve given me in two weeks.”



“It’s got nothing to do with your skin.”



“I think it does. I think that you love my complexion. After all, you’re constantly staring–”



Harry threw his punch before Malfoy could finish his sentence, hazed by the heat of the moment and clearly not thinking enough about the consequences it would come with, but it didn’t land.



Harry blinked, staring at his own fist because what the fuck, why didn’t it land? His hand seemed to be frozen in mid-air, an inch or so away from Malfoy’s unbraced face. His arm felt paralysed somehow and he took long, deep breaths, trying to look around to see if there was some sort of explanation for this.



“Fuck,” Malfoy whispered. “Shit. Fuck.”



“What?” Harry stressed. “What just happened?”



“I apologise for daunting you, Potter. I had to know… had to see for myself.”



“See what?” Harry shouted. “Why can’t I move my arm?!”



Malfoy raised his hand ever so slowly - the one that he’d used to press Harry’s hand on his cock - and gently caressed his closed fist with his palm. He was breathing unevenly, almost as much as Harry was himself, and he had such a panic-stricken look on his formerly cocky and alluring face that Harry could only expect the worst. Painstakingly sluggish, Malfoy grazed his open palm over Harry’s arm, up to his shoulder, and Harry could feel again. He withdrew sharply, stumbling backwards with wide eyes and his hand clutching the affected arm like he’d been shot at. Testing the waters, he expanded his fingers several times, curling and uncurling them to see whether or not he could move now.



“Malfoy.”



“You can’t harm me,” Malfoy stammered. “And I, you.”



“Why did it come back when you touched me?” Harry urged.



“I can’t… May I just try something?” Malfoy asked, tone worried and hesitant.



“Try what?”



“Just trust me,” Malfoy ordered, and he reached out with both hands to take hold of Harry’s previously paralysed arm. He slid his hand over Harry’s and their fingers intertwined once again before he lifted Harry’s hand up and pressed it gently against Malfoy’s cheek.



Harry almost snatched his hand back, but Malfoy began to gently rub Harry’s fingers all over his bruise on his face, and he couldn’t help but gawk when he saw why.

The bruise was retracting into itself, shrinking and dying. The pigmentation was withering away as well, leaving the pale, previously perfect skin and Harry gaped.



“Is it working?” Malfoy asked in a hopeful mumble. Harry could only stare and nod.



The very last of the bruise vanished and Malfoy looked normal again, as if no conflict had ever occurred between the two of them. He was so amazed at what had happened that he found it difficult to think about the implications of it.



“Malfoy,” Harry repeated himself.



“I thought she was delusional,” Malfoy muttered, stepping away from Harry and stepping into the bathroom. Presumably, to go and stare at himself for hours on end, Harry assumed.



“Who?” Harry called after him. “Who is delusional?”



Harry followed him into the bathroom and discovered that he’d been wrong. Kind of, he supposed. Malfoy was staring at himself in the mirror, that was for certain, but he was also splashing a hell of a lot of water onto his face - his eyes wide in panic and distress. Harry wasn’t sure whether or not the droplets on the side of his face were from the frantic splashes of water or if they were from him sweating.



“Malfoy,” Harry said calmly, approaching with care. He didn’t touch him yet. “Are you alright? Can you tell me what’s going on?”



“No,” he whispered harshly. Harry wasn’t sure which question he was replying to.



“Why not?”



“Can’t know.”



“I can’t know what’s going on? No offence, Malfoy, but after everything that you’ve just pulled, I think I deserve to know.”



Malfoy caught his eye in the mirror, and he looked terrified. “Go and find Ginevra,” he told him shakily and winced. “Fix things. Tell her you love her.”



“I’m not leaving you when you’re like this.” Harry stepped closer now, placing a hand between his shoulder blades at the top of his spine. He applied pressure with the ball of his hand and began to slowly and carefully massage him. “I care too much. Breathe, breathe.”



“I’m fine,” Malfoy lied, his breathing becoming rapid and uneven. He gripped at the sink, knuckles turning white and legs shaking underneath his weight.



“You’re not fine.” Harry put his hands gently on Malfoy’s arms. “Come on, let’s get you to the bed.”



“I don’t want to.”



“You’ll feel a lot better there,” Harry said in an attempt to convince him. “Yeah, Malfoy? Come on, now, let go of the sink.”



“No,” he panted, shaking his head as he said so.



“You can’t stay in the bathroom, Malfoy.”



“Will you just fuck off?” Malfoy shouted at him. “Leave me alone!”



Harry sighed, scanning over Malfoy with sympathy. What else could he do? He leaned down and grabbed Malfoy by his legs and tipped his body over his shoulder - he wasn’t even surprised by how effortless it was for him to do so. He’d done this when messing about with Ginny, Ron, Hermione, and many more, and Malfoy was definitely the lightest out of the bunch.



“Put me down!” he screamed, and Harry could see him bunching up his fists in the mirror, but he was evidently far too smart to attempt to bang them on Harry’s back like he probably wanted to do.



“I will,” Harry said. “When we get to the beds.”



He carried Malfoy successfully out of the bathroom and over to in between both of their beds. With a bit of debating with himself, he decided that dropping Malfoy onto Harry’s bed instead of his own was a smarter idea. After all, Malfoy had already made his bed up all pretty and perfect, and Harry’s was still unmade and messy, so it made sense to not mess up Malfoy’s anymore so. He set the man down on the bed gently, as not to annoy him or disturb him even more.



“I hate you,” Malfoy mumbled quietly into Harry’s shoulder. He had his arms around him, keeping him bent down over him. “I really, really hate you.”



“You’ve told me that.” Harry placed his hands on Malfoy’s arms, pulling them down with care. “You’re okay now. Why don’t you try and get some rest?”



“You’re due in detention later, and I have to finish extra credit,” Malfoy huffed. “No time to sleep… I need to get everything finished.”



“I’m sure McGonagall will understand. I’ll go and have a word with her.”



“Potter,” Malfoy said sullenly as Harry pulled the quilt over his body. “Whatever she tells you, I’m sorry.”



He rest his head on the pillow and sighed, and Harry could only watch on in confusion. He was lost as to what had just happened, felt as if he’d gone slightly loopy. Malfoy knew something that Harry didn’t, and that was as far as he could go. It was something to do with him, that was very upsetting and painful. Harry had no idea.



“That’s alright, Draco,” he murmured thoughtlessly, resting his hand comfortably on the man’s back. “Sleep well.”

Chapter Text

“Tell me what’s going on,” Harry demanded of the woman in front of him, pacing back and forth in her office and wringing his hands within one another. He had gone to his detention as was compulsory but had no intention to carry out any work that was set for himself. He had far too many questions, and he was sure that McGonagall was going to be the one who was going to be able to answer all of them. He noticed that Dumbledore was absent again. Maybe he was just giving him privacy, at this point.



“Mr Potter, sit down,” she ordered calmly, holding a hand out to the seat on the opposite side of her desk. Harry glared at the seat and shook his head defiantly.



“Not until you tell me what’s going on. He said to me before I left him that whatever you’re going to say, he’s sorry about it. It’s obviously something to do with me! What is it?”



“What happened to Mr Malfoy, Potter?” she asked, her tone still relaxed in a frustrating juxtaposition to Harry.



“I… think he had a panic attack,” he said.



“How did that come about?”



I’m meant to be asking the questions here, Harry thought furiously. “I went to… lightly hit him. As a joke,” Harry lied. “My arm got paralysed when I couldn’t do it - just frozen in midair. He touched it and it came back. He started to freak out after I touched his face and his bruise vanished.”



Her eyebrow rose slowly, dauntingly. “The one you gave him?”



“Yes,” he confirmed.



“I see.” She nodded. “And now..?”



“He’s sleeping. I managed to get him into the bed but he was just hysterical, telling me he hates me, but that he’s sorry too.”



She took a slow, long breath that made the hair on Harry’s arms stand up straight in fear. “Have a seat, Potter,” she said, her expression pitying and terrifying.



“Why?”



“You’re going to want to be sitting down for this.”



Harry gulped. Those words were never, ever a good sign and Harry could bet on Hogwarts that whatever news that she and Malfoy had been keeping from him had been kept for a good reason.



“Tell me.”



“Are you sure?”



“Please don’t stall, Professor.”



She shifted her eyes suspiciously, awkwardly, before asking him, “You’ve heard of bonds, haven’t you, Mr Potter?”



“Bonds?” Harry frowned. “Like, magical bonds? Like with Unbreakable Vows?”



“Yes,” McGonagall said. “Or life debts.”



“Life debts?” Harry queried, his head jerking back in surprise. “Malfoy isn’t indebted to me.”



“I think you’ll find that he is. And you, him. You see, Mr Potter, when you saved his life in the Room of Requirement in the War, he immediately became indebted to you. The same happened when he refused to turn you in at Malfoy Manor. However…” She waved her hand arcanely. “War brings different circumstances, and the magic understands that. People are saving and killing each other left, right, and centre. There was something about Mr Malfoy and yourself that the magic thought was acceptable.”



“I don’t understand,” said Harry, clenching his fists underneath the desk on his lap.



“It is often confusing to wonder about, is magic. But it seems as if the bond that Mr Malfoy and yourself have has developed far more than we could have expected.” She peered at him from over her glasses. “Or, it has been for far longer than we expected.”



“But it couldn’t have started before we saved each other. It can’t be that long beforehand.”



“I have seen many cases of many different kinds of bonds, Potter, and little were at all like this. One though, one springs to mind.”



“What happened?”



“A very… Similar scenario. The two had never gotten along. They were always quarrelling one way or another, but… something bad happened. After that, they learnt to tolerate each other, but found that only they could heal one another, nothing else would work.”



Harry looked down at his knuckles. Where there were previously bruises that should’ve faded a long time ago, there was nothing but smooth and flawless skin, and Harry recalled Malfoy’s hands all over his.



“They found that they, too, couldn’t harm one another. It hurt to even attempt such a thing. They soon found that they… were infatuated with each other.”



“Infatuated.”



“In love,” she clarified. “But not for long. One of them turned on the other, killed him, and then died in turn because of it. It was a dreadful thing.”



Harry took a sharp breath. “That’s horrible.”



“It was. But their spirits live on, unhinged by one another. Their bond was broken, though.”



“And you’re suggesting that Malfoy and I… we have this bond?”



“Stronger, if I may say. You and Mr Malfoy, you’ve known each other far longer than they had done, and they never saved each other. Not in the way that you’ve done, and you’ve done it in more ways than one. You two have been through a lot together. The fact that you two can even have a civil conversation with one another is already… outstanding.”



“So, what? What is it?”



“Potter, however odd this may sound to you, and it was quite odd to my ears the first time I heard it as well, Mr Malfoy and yourself… are soulmates.”



Harry stared and stared and stared at her until his eyes hurt so much he thought that they were going to fall out of his head. He waited for her to give him some sort of indication that she was joking around with him, however nothing at all came, and he was left feeling incredibly shaken. “What?”



“A soul bond is incredibly rare, but this seems like just that kind of magic.”



“Soulmates,” Harry repeated blankly.



“Would you like for me to mentor you on how to become a parrot animagus, Potter?”



“You can’t actually be serious.”



“Let me ask you this, what did you smell when you brewed your Amortentia in Professor Slughorn’s class?”



Harry clenched his jaw. “I wish everybody would stop talking about that goddamn potion.”



“Mr Potter,” she scolded sternly, and he flinched underneath her glare.



“I’m sorry, Professor.” He sighed deeply. “I know what you’re trying to get me to say.”



“I simply want you to answer the question.”



“I smelled him. Okay?”



She gazed at him for a while before nodding slowly, hooking her hands together on the desk. “I know this must be very overwhelming news for you, especially considering Miss. Weasley…” Harry flinched. She continued, “It was certainly a shock for Mr Malfoy, as well. He didn’t take it well at all.”



“That’s what you were talking about,” Harry realised aloud. “That time when I came back to the room and you were there, and he was shouting.”



“Yes.” The woman picked up her wand so suddenly that Harry wasn’t even sure where it had come from. She waved it in a rush and suddenly a door opened behind Harry. “I think you should have a discussion with him now, Harry,” she told him fondly.



“I won’t make it down for dinner if I do it now,” he said waveringly.



“I’ll make sure that two dishes will be sent to your room, and no interruptions.”



He took a shaky breath and nodded, still wanting to have some time to process all of this for himself. He understood now why Malfoy was so desperate for him to try and hurt him. “Miss?” he asked. “How come we could hurt each other all those years?”



“I believe it was the life-saving that triggered it. After it saw that you still hated each other, with you punching him, it wanted to sprout into action.”



Harry nodded, hesitantly rising to his feet and turning to the door that had opened behind him. He made for it, stepping very small steps and breathing very loud and heavy breaths, before he paused at the door, looking back at her. “Sorry, miss,” he said. “What was the name of the man who was killed?”



She smiled sadly at him. “Basil,” she told him. “Basil Davies.”



*



He knew what he had to do before he even left the Headmistress’ office. He was glad now that he and Basil had reconciled because he needed to talk to him more than he ever had before. He physically felt like he needed to know more about this… this goddamn soulmate thing.



“Harry!” That voice was like sweet, sweet music to his ears. “How have you been?”



“Er…” He wasn’t quite sure how to answer that one. Should he open with hi, think I’ve gotten myself a soulmate and I heard you’re experienced in that area, or a normal haha, everything is absolutely peaches and rainbows! “Okay.”



“Always a pleasure to hear.” He gave a toothy smile. “Apologies, am I keeping you from something?”



“Oh, no. Not this time, don’t worry.” He was certainly helping Harry stall seeing Malfoy, though, and that was just what he wanted.



“Brilliant!”



“How have you been, Basil?”



“Oh, you know how it is, being a portrait. Gets a bit boring sometimes. Not many to talk to!”



Harry smiled sadly at him. “I’m sorry I don’t get the chance to catch up with you often.”



“Not to worry, not to worry! I know that you’re busy with your student life. Very interesting, very interesting. How is Draco?”



He widened his eyes and awkwardly rubbed at the back of his neck. “That’s something I wanted to talk to you about. Professor McGonagall said that when you were alive… you had somebody special to you. Someone who was your… soulmate?”



The shock that Basil must’ve experienced was evident by the picture that was his face. It was as if he’d just witnessed an explosion. “Yes.” He placed two of his hands onto his chest. “Why was she speaking of such a time?”



“Because I think I’m in sort of the same situation as you,” he admitted to him. “McGonagall says that Draco is my… He’s my soulmate now, apparently.”



He watched the portrait breathe in in what seemed to be a wash of realisation and pity. He nodded slowly, solemnly. “I thought so. The magic is so rare, you see, it takes somebody who has experienced it themselves to recognise who else has a connection. The way you spoke about him was clear, the way you interacted. It reminded me so much of myself and my partner. Of course, that was before…”



Harry gulped. He didn’t even know he spoke about Malfoy differently to anybody else. “I’m sorry that I’m making you relive all of this.”



“Don’t be ridiculous now. It’s fine, it’s fine. I have no doubt, you see, that your fate will end far more happily than my own.” He took a seat. “You see, we went through a lot together, but I could tell that it was nowhere near as much as him and yourself. A war, I hear. On opposite sides. That’s tricky. And yet, you still manage to admire him.”



“Admire?” Harry felt his voice go hoarse.



“With your eyes. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean.” He raised an accusing eyebrow at him. “But with your heart as well.”



“I… Don’t…”



“You do, Harry. Think now. Think to every moment you two have shared with one another and what it meant. What it meant to you, and what it meant to him…”



Harry tried not to. He really tried.



“Why did he do it? Why did he kill you?”



He smiled again. “Because he was afraid. He was afraid of who he was. Who we were.”



“I suppose that would’ve made sense back then, though?”



“Slightly more than nowadays, perhaps. But we loved one another deeply, I never would’ve expected such a… For him to do such a thing.”



“He couldn’t accept himself?”



“He was to be married. Pureblood, you see. He knew that he didn’t want to betray me with her and that the magic would become angry. It punishes the one person whilst the other is seeing another person, man or woman. He knew we’d be killed if the secret got out, and so he ended it with me, hoping that the magic would go away with it. It didn’t… It broke my heart. I threatened to tell people if he didn’t stop the marriage because it hurt every single time he thought of her.”



“It hurts?”



“Oh, terribly.”



“What did he do?”



“He didn’t use magic. That was most probably a good thing. It would have rebounded on him, and I perhaps would’ve lived. Dying by his hand would’ve been less painful than living without him. He used the knife that I gifted to him on our first anniversary of meeting.”



“I’m so sorry,” Harry whispered. “That’s horrible.”



“It was. But you, Harry…” He leant forward. “You and Draco could be remarkable.”

Chapter Text

When Harry arrived back at his room, Malfoy was still asleep in his bed. He looked so peaceful and serene, wrapped up in the cosy red duvet that while Harry had thought didn’t suit him beforehand, now seemed to complement and accentuate his distinctly golden and striking features. He found it jaw-dropping how absolutely beautiful the man could look when he wasn’t prepared for it, when he wasn’t aware that somebody was looking at him with such intent and admiration. Harry felt like he had to take a step back to just appreciate him.



But he also felt like that was a little bit creepy, so he stopped immediately and let himself fall into the chair by the fire.



He didn’t want to wake Malfoy up. That was the last thing he wanted to do at that moment. Harry wondered if Malfoy was dreaming, unravelled his thoughts into wondering what he would be dreaming about. Was he having a regular dream, about something crazy and that didn’t make any sense, that he’d laugh about when he woke up? Or was he having a nightmare, just quiet about it because he was conditioned to be?



He heard the bed sheets rustle about behind him and resisted the urge to turn around.



“Harry,” he heard. Don’t turn, he told himself. “Harry… Harry…” Don’t turn, don’t turn.



He licked his lips subconsciously. The sound of Malfoy saying his name - there was just something amazing about it, something that made Harry’s skin crawl with excitement. Harry put his head in his hands. Just what kind of dream was he having?



“Potter?” The voice was clearer now, more groggy, and Harry had to admit that it sounded more like Malfoy when he called him by his second name. “I really do hope that that’s you, otherwise I may have to hex whoever is there.”



“It’s me.” Harry still didn’t turn around. He didn’t think that he’d be able to handle looking at the sod while he was awake just yet. He should’ve spent more of the time he had by himself thinking about what he should do about this whole soulmate situation and less of the time gazing at his so-called soulmate while he slept.



“Did you speak to McGonagall?” he asked softly, and Harry could hear him getting out of the bed.



“Yes,” said Harry in response, his eyes stuck on the roaring flames. He listened to Malfoy’s footsteps approaching him, until they came to a stop and he was suddenly beside Harry, his hands twisting against one another and his clothes thick with creases.



“And she told you?” Malfoy asked as he sat down in the chair next to his. “She told you that we’re…?”



“Yes,” Harry said again. “You know… If one person on Earth was going to be my…” He grit his teeth. “My soulmate. You wouldn’t have been my first guess.”



He could sense Malfoy go stiff beside him. “Ah,” he said. “Well, I wasn’t expecting your reaction to be anything except this, I suppose.”



“No…” Harry sighed. “That came out wrong. I’m not really angry about it.”



“You’re not?” he asked with a shake in his voice.



“I’m not.” He looked down. “I mean… It’s ironic, isn’t it? And I’m kind of… not surprised. In some kind of super twisted way.”



“I thought so as well.” Malfoy huffed out a laugh. “I didn’t believe it myself until you tried to hit me.”



“You were winding me up, in my defence.”



“Don’t worry, I don’t blame you for it. I was trying to make you hit me. It was my aim, unless you couldn’t tell.”



“I thought you were just flirting with me.”



“You would.”



“You can’t blame me for that either.”



“Why not?”



“You’re really flirty with me,” Harry told him matter-of-factly.



Malfoy gaped. “I’m not!”



“You really are, Malfoy.”



“Name three times.”



Harry raised one eyebrow. “I can name more than that.”



“Well, go on.”



“The, uh, the night I punched you. You kept turning what I was saying into euphemisms for blowjobs.”



Harry looked over at him in time to see Malfoy roll his eyes and tuck his knees underneath his chin. “I wouldn’t call that flirty,” he defended.



“What about the time that you wanted me to tell you about my sex life?”



“That was nothing compared to you asking me what I think about while I wank, Potter.” He met his eyes now. “You were so curious.”



Harry kept his gaze and wet his lips before he said, “You weren’t as descriptive with your answers as I was, though.”



“Well.” Malfoy shrugged. “Sorry about that.”



“Do I need to go on?”



He straightened his back a bit as he gazed at Harry, and raised his chin. “Yes. I’m not convinced.”



Harry felt himself flush a dark red. “The French maid’s dress?”



A smirk plastered the man’s cocky face. “Well, that was your own fault for putting a dirty spin on it.”



“I didn’t! You did!”



“If that’s what you want to tell yourself. Any more?”



Harry waited before speaking again. He allowed his gaze to travel over Malfoy’s folded body as he rubbed his face in disbelief of the conversation that they were having. “Next you’ll be telling me that sucking on your fingers while Ginny was giving me head was just a coincidence.”



He watched Malfoy visibly flinch, and hold his hand to his chest as if it had been burnt. “Okay,” he admitted with a curt nod. “I’m responsible there.” He dropped his legs down so he was sitting in a regular position and the smirk on his face slipped away, until he was staring at Harry with sheer intensity. “You loved it though,” he whispered. “You can’t deny that.”



“No,” Harry said. His throat felt incredibly dry, and he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the other man. “I can’t deny that.”



“Then…” Malfoy said slowly. “What do you think we should do about this bond?”



Harry let out a deep sigh. “Research it. But first… I need to tell Ginny.”



Malfoy’s eyes widened, and a small frown almost snuck itself onto his lips before he caught himself. “Good luck with that.”



“She’s probably going to break up with me.”



“Well, yes.” He scoffed.



“Shut up,” Harry said, and was sharply reminded about what Basil had said. Every time he mentioned Ginny, it would physically hurt Malfoy. He regretted his words immediately and wondered if Malfoy knew about that himself.



“You know, I’m so glad that we can still be horrible to each other with the bond.”



“It is a delight.” Harry rolled his eyes. “Listen, do you mind if I tell Hermione and Ron about it as well?”



Malfoy frowned. “Why?”



“Hermione is better at researching than I am, and Ron deserves to know just as much as she does.”



“I’m sorry to burst your bubble, Potter, but there’s no use in researching. I’ve looked in almost every book there is to look in in the library, and nothing came up. It looks like we’re stuck with it.”



“There’s got to be something that we can find,” Harry reasoned. “Even if we can’t find anything about stopping it.”



His eyebrows furrowed further. “You don’t want to stop it?”



“Well, really, it’s not a… bad thing, is it?” Harry asked. “It’s a lot to get my head around. I mean, a lot. But I’m not upset by it.” He examined Malfoy’s troubled expression and remembered his reaction to the situation, and slowly realised that Harry was obviously just thinking about his own feelings. The man he was sitting with had had a goddamn panic attack at the thought of Harry being his soulmate.



“I’m glad you’re not upset by it,” Malfoy said sharply.



“Are you going to tell me why you’re so distressed by it, or are you going to just keep me guessing? I mean, I’m not that bad, am I?”



“We hate each other, Potter,” he spat.



“I did,” Harry admitted softly, not rising to his anger. “I don’t anymore. After the war, hating anyone just seems so pointless. Especially you.”



“Why am I especially?”



“I spoke for you at your trial, Malfoy, and I meant every word that I said up there. Everybody was right. Our dislike of each other was just childish and stupid.”



He let out a snappy laugh. “Oh, I wouldn’t say it was stupid.”



“It wasn’t unfounded. Not on my part, at least.”



“Not on my part, either!”



“Why? Because I wouldn’t shake your hand when we were eleven?”



Malfoy looked as if he’d been hexed. “No, not just because of that, you dim-witted piece of shit.”



“Then, tell me!”



“I idolised you! I thought that you were the most brilliant wizard on Earth when I would overhear father talking about how you killed the Dark Lord! I was so excited when I learnt that we’d be in the same year; I thought that we’d be best friends. Can you believe that?” He shook his head with a bitter chuckle. “Then it turns around, and you don’t like me because I said some stupid things in Madam Malkin’s and defended myself against a Weasley. I was so beyond hurt that I became furious. Then you start hanging around with wizards and witches who I thought were nothing compared to you… When you should’ve been with people who could match your power, people who were from noble families, like—”



“Like you, you mean,” Harry finished for him sternly. “You’re not leading a very convincing case right now, Malfoy.”



“I know that thinking like that was wrong. I know that now! But back then, when I was desperate and you were best friends with a muggleborn, it felt like betrayal. And it was just built up and up from you proving me wrong all the time, making me look stupid, talking back to me… You hated me, and that’s hard as fuck to just let go. And then in sixth year… You were dead set on exposing me for what I was doing.”



“Obviously.”



“Shut up.” He glared at him. “You were so fucking determined to ruin our plans, and the fact that you actually could think that I was one of them—”



“You were a Death Eater, Malfoy.”



“I didn’t want to be!” he shouted. “You think I wanted to take this ghastly blemish? You think I didn’t know that it wouldn’t end well for me? I took it because if I didn’t, I’d be seen as a traitor and be killed! My mother and father could’ve been as well, or tortured!”



“You could’ve come to us! We could’ve helped you!”



“Don’t kid yourself, Potter. If I came running to you in surrender, you wouldn’t have helped me! You would’ve laughed in my face, and if any of the Death Eaters caught wind that I had gone to your side, my parents would’ve definitely died!” He kicked himself up from the couch, turning around to Harry, and Harry could see the moisture of his tears on his cheeks reflected by the flames of the fire. “Imagine my fucking shock when all I smelled in the Amortentia was you. The very ponce who was despised by my family and everything we stood for, and who despised me!”



Harry paused out of shock, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. He hadn’t gotten that far yet; not yet been able to put two and two together and remember that when Malfoy said he smelled the same thing in the Amortentia this time, it meant that he had also smelled Harry two years ago. Malfoy had been in love with Harry for two whole years. His head hurt when he tried to get his mind around that fact.



“Everyone was having such fun discussing what they smelled, what their smells could’ve possibly meant. I knew right away that it was you while I had to go off and fix that fucking cabinet.”



“Two years?” Harry whispered. “Two whole years?”



“I understand how embarrassing it is, but you don’t need to rub it in.”



“I’m not going to rub it in.” It was Harry’s turn to rise up from his seat now, standing up opposite Malfoy and gazing at his hurt, vulnerable face. “It’s just a shock.”



“I didn’t even know that I was - whatever I was, with you. People made jokes all the fucking time. You’re talking about Potter again, Draco, you’re staring at Potter again, Draco, are you in love with him, or something?”



Harry’s gaze shifted between Malfoy’s teary eyes. “Were you?”



He shrugged, bottom lip quivering. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t have gone that far… And then you saved me. In the fire.” Harry stared, unblinking as he waited for him to continue. “My heartbeat was going twenty miles a minute and it wasn’t because of the near-death experience. That’s when I knew. But… But soulmates? That would require you reciprocating these fucking feelings - and we’re meant to be rivals! We’re meant to be at each other’s throats and not —” He paused, gesturing to the bruise on the back of his neck that Harry had kindly left earlier on. “Not in this way!”



“If it’s any consolation, everybody used to say the same to me. They’d call me out for staring at you too often, talking about you too often. Make jokes.”



“Yes, but you did it because you thought I was fucking evil.”



“Not only that. I think I was fascinated by you.”



Malfoy breathed in sharply. “Why?”



“Because you spoke all this shit and you were so horrible - but I could tell that you just wanted to be liked, and accepted. It’s not your fault that you were raised to believe all of that crap, you know.”



“It’s my fault that I didn’t realise that it was crap as I got older.”



“You’ve realised now. That’s enough.”



Malfoy bit his lip anxiously. “If you think so.”



Harry tore his eyes away from the other man’s for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, frowning curiously. “Why didn’t you tell me?”



“That we were soulmates? Or that I’ve been in love with you for years?” His voice cracked. “Oh, yes, that would’ve gone down so well, wouldn’t it. Oh, hey, Potter, I know that you can’t stand me and I can’t stand you most of the time, and you’ve got a wonderful girlfriend, but hey.” Harry looked up at him once again when he paused his speech. “I think I love you.”



It seemed to Harry at that point that several puzzle pieces had slotted right into place in the giant mystery that was his life. It was like an epiphany for him - a gigantic realisation that would most probably alter his entire existence at Hogwarts. As he watched unfortunate tears slip down his cheeks, Harry was reminded of the harm that he’d imprinted on this man - and never felt more guilty in his life, wanted to kiss his tears away and cradle the spot in which he’d deformed. He was reminded of everything nasty he’d ever said to the other man, every ugly look he’d shot him throughout the years. He realised the extent to which he cared for Malfoy - for Draco. He realised what he wanted with Draco.



Harry wanted to kiss him until they couldn’t breathe. He really wanted to. He should’ve. But he didn’t. He had to find Ginny first; he wasn’t going to betray her like that.



“I need to—” he started to say, but was taken by surprise by the confusing look that was plastered on Draco’s face; shocked, curious, filled with awe. He was no longer looking at Harry’s face, but his chest.



“You’re glowing,” he spoke in a hushed, amazed voice. “Your chest is glowing.”



Harry looked down, and Draco was correct. Even through his clothes, an overwhelmingly bright orange light could be seen that was being emitted from his skin. It illuminated Draco’s features beautifully, Harry realised when he looked up again. He looked as if he’d been caught in the sun on a particularly clear Summer afternoon; golden just like him.



He wondered for a moment whether or not he was dying. Maybe this had been the reason he’d stayed alive despite Voldemort’s persistence. But he realised quickly that he wasn’t dying. He wasn’t dying at all. He was living, and he was loving.



He pressed one hand over what seemed to be the source of the light but it didn’t falter, and the light shone brightly through the gaps in his fingers. Draco was hesitant to remove Harry’s hand from his own chest but confident when it came to replacing it with his own, pressing his body closer to Harry’s as he did so. Harry could feel their body heat mingling.



Harry felt the hand on his chest and suddenly he could also feel the hotness and intensity of the light that was beaming out of him. He gasped at the sensation, but it wasn’t a bad feeling at all. It was breathtaking, and Harry loved it. But just as soon as it started, it subsided lamely, the light disappearing back into the confines of his flesh and bones. He stared down at the hand on him before he redirected his gaze back up to his face tenderly, hotly, and couldn’t take another second of it.



He grabbed Draco by his uncharacteristically creased clothing and yanked him forwards, crashing their lips together. He felt Draco’s hand slide up his torso and cup his neck comfortably, resting there and Harry couldn’t have been more happy about it. He responded immediately to his kiss, which was more than fucking brilliant, shocking Harry to the core. Draco’s mouth felt hot and amazing against his own, the caress of his lips more fantastic than he ever could’ve imagined. If Harry thought that kissing Ginny was good, then this was one step up from outstanding. Tentatively, Harry reached out to him with his tongue and Draco opened up to him with little fight and an enthusiastic moan.



“Harry,” Draco whined against his mouth, his other hand reaching up to come to a rest on Harry’s cheek. “Harry, we can’t…”



Harry breathed out hotly and deeply against the man, resting his forehead against the other. He gazed into Draco’s eyes, seeing the blue in them once again, that rare, rare blue that was never normally able to be seen within the grey. “I know,” he huffed. “I know, we can’t.” He nodded along with Draco, and yet rejoined their lips together anyway.



Draco didn’t fight it once again, releasing little whimpers from deep in his throat. He moved his lips softly against Harry’s and Harry released his tight grip on his shirt to flatten his palms against Draco’s chest. He knew that he’d made the shirt even more creased than it already had been, and he was sure that Draco was going to shout at him for that when this was over. But honestly… why was he even still wearing it?



He made blindly for the buttons of the other man’s shirt and stepped back until he felt the back of his calves hit the seat that he had previously been sitting in, dragging Draco back with him by only his lips and his fingers. He fell back down onto the chair and Draco followed along with him, settling his legs either side of Harry’s lap. He could feel the man’s crotch snug up against his own and if that wasn’t enough to keep him interested then he didn’t know what would be.



Harry pushed the sleeves of Draco’s shirt off over his shoulders and Draco ground down onto him in response, rolling his hips in the most fluid and sensual way that Harry could imagine. He was getting hard beneath his trousers and he knew that it wouldn’t be long before Draco would be able to feel it, and he wasn’t sure whether or not that would be too fast or whatever - but if Harry was being honest, if Draco thought that that would be too fast then he should cease grinding down like that because holy fuuuuuuck.



He dipped his tongue back into Draco’s gorgeous mouth and allowed his left palm to shift down from his shoulder. It travelled slowly over the bare skin of his chest until he found his nipple, and gently rolled it in between his fingertips. He could sense the man’s mixture of shock and excitement and continued on with his actions; rolling the bud of the nipple underneath his thumb. His other hand made its way up to Draco’s hair and he made sure to grip it tightly, as if his life depended on it. He enjoyed the sensation of the short hair in his hand, perhaps more so than he did with long hair, he thought.



“You like that, don’t you?” Draco panted with a smirk. “Being rough.”



“I don’t know, never thought about it,” Harry replied in a hush and yanked him back down to meet his lips again. It didn’t take long for Draco to start rolling his hips again, only this time it was with clear intent. Harry attempted to try and match him, rolling his hips up to meet his thrusts and grunting at the friction as he did so. He couldn’t miss the way that Draco whimpered either, as each thrust they made started to sync up, and Harry was just aching. He was ready to slide his hand down further when he realised –



“Draco,” he said gleefully, pulling away from the kiss and leaving the other man confused. “You’ve put on weight!”



He watched him roll his eyes, but the smile was evidently there on his face. “You know, if I was anybody else and you said that to me, you’d be having a clip over the head. Yes, I put on three pounds.”



“That’s great!” Harry grinned, sliding his hands over his torso and relishing in the fact that he couldn’t completely feel his ribcage. He took this moment to get a proper look at Draco, seeing how worn out he was and how messy his hair was, how red his lips had gotten and, when he allowed his eyes to travel down even further, he could see the other man’s erection poking up underneath his trousers, desperate to be released in order to get somebody touching it, feeling it, and Harry was more than happy to comply when they heard three knocks on the door.



They froze in position, staring at each other with wide eyes as if they’d only just realised what they were doing.



“Who is it?” Harry called out as Draco scrambled to get off of his lap, picking up his shirt in the process.



“It’s Ginny!” she shouted through the door. “Hermione told me that you wanted to talk to me!”



“Fuck,” Harry whispered, standing up and looking over desperately at Draco. “What do we do?”



“I’ll go into the bathroom,” Draco told him, but he had a stern look on his face. “But if you don’t break up with her now, Potter, you’ll only end up hurting her more.”



“You care about that?”



Draco scowled at him. “Believe it or not, I actually have a heart. And the one thing that we value the most in Slytherin house is loyalty.”



Harry watched as he stomped into the bathroom and closed the door behind him, letting out a big sigh. “Coming!” he called, but he should really look in a mirror. If Draco looked that fucked out, Harry couldn’t imagine what he looked like as well. He simultaneously hated and loved Hermione at this moment. He wouldn’t have been able to forgive himself if he and Draco had gone any further. He took a quick look over at his bed, which was thankfully still messy as hell, before he strode over to the door and opened it with a nervous smile.



“Hey, Gin,’” he said.



“Hi.” She furrowed her eyebrows at him. “You look like shit. What the hell happened to your hair?”



“I was napping,” he lied. “I just got back from talking to McGonagall.”



“Oh, for your detention?” she asked as she was welcomed inside, and she took a seat down on the chair that he and Draco were just occupying. Harry gulped as he shut the door closed and made his way to the other chair, sitting on the very edge.



“No,” he told her. “It’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”



“Are you getting expelled, or something?” Ginny joked.



Harry heard the shower turn on in the bathroom and tried his hardest not to turn his head to fantasise about what his roommate would be doing in there. He gave her a stiff smile. “No. Er. This is kind of serious.”



“Oh.” Her face twisted so she was no longer smiling and she sat up straight. “I’m sorry.”



“No, I am.” He let her gaze fall over her. “How’s your leg?”



“It healed up fine a couple of days ago.”



“Oh,” he said, nodding. “Good.”



“Harry,” she prompted. He took a deep breath.



“I don’t know if we should be together anymore,” he rushed out, wringing his hands nervously. He didn’t let himself look at her, too scared of her hurt reaction.



“What?” Her voice was croaky. “Why?”



“It’s… A long story,” he said. “But apparently, and I don’t know why, or how… I have a soulmate.”



She let out a sharp laugh. “A soulmate? Those don’t exist. Not really.”



“They do,” he whispered. “It’s very rare magic. I have a soulmate, and I wish it was, but it’s not you. I’m sorry.”



“Who?” she lamented. “Who is she?”



“I’m not gonna tell you, Gin’.” He shook his head. “It’ll only hurt you more.”



“You’re not going to be with her publicly?”



“I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not.”



“If you’re not, then why can’t we just–”



“I didn’t smell you in my Amortentia, Ginny, I smelled them, and I don’t want to betray you like that when I clearly don’t… like you as much as I used to like you. I want us to still be friends, but–”



“How did you find out?” she interrupted him.



He sighed. “McGonagall told me.”



She nodded, pushing her tongue into her cheek and standing up. “I guess I’ll be going, then.”



“Ginny, I’m sorry.”



“How long have you known that we’re not the same as we were before?”



He kept his gaze on the floor. “For about a month,” he admitted. “I thought that it would pass, but…”



“But it didn’t.”



He shook his head. She had tears in her eyes and the only confirmation that Harry needed of himself was that he didn’t want to kiss away her tears as he had done with Draco’s. It felt completely different.



“Thank you for telling me,” she whispered to him. “I’ll see you. I’ll see you, er, tomorrow, maybe.” She shrugged, and walked towards the door. Perhaps he should’ve stopped her, hugged her and comforted her but he didn’t. He was sure that she wanted some time to sort her head out.



He didn’t watch her leave.