Chapter Text
Harry had begun doubting his decision to come back to Hogwarts before he’d even gotten on the train. Every subsequent day that passed within those familiar halls, disorienting and exhausting and filled with staring eyes, he regretted the decision a little more.
But it was when the doors to the Great Hall opened on his second Friday back to reveal Filch leading in Draco Malfoy—the same Draco Malfoy who was supposed to be a mere six weeks into a two-year sentence in Azkaban—that Harry knew beyond any doubt:
This had been a huge fucking mistake.
⭒ ✵ ⭒ ✵ ⭒ ✵ ⭒
“It’s Malfoy,” Harry said, his tone dull and closed to any possible disagreement. He took the butterbeer that Ron passed him, sat at Hermione’s round table in the flat she’d rented above Horizont Alley. Harry had been unhappy enough to stalk off the grounds and Apparate straight down to London to vent to his friends. “Of course it’s going to be awful.”
Ron knocked his own bottle against Harry’s in commiseration. “Maybe he’ll get sent packing back to Azkaban before a week’s out? There’ve got to be parents who will protest, and dear ol' Minnie doesn’t have the same sway that Dumbledore did.”
“Had enough sway to get Malfoy pulled out of prison practically the day he’d been put in there,” Harry grumbled, taking a long pull of the sweet brew. It wasn’t enough to wash the bad taste out of his mouth.
Malfoy. He’d be doing Eighth Year with Malfoy.
To be completely fair, his old foe had spent a bit more than a day in prison. Over a month, in fact. Harry hadn't intended to commit to memory the exact date Malfoy had been sent to Azkaban, but the sentencing had been carried out on July 31st. Ron had joked that it was the universe’s birthday gift to Harry: ensuring he wouldn’t have to see the stupid git again for years.
But no, Harry was going to see him in several classes a day, five days a week, because their N.E.W.T. classes were all houses combined, and Headmistress McGonagall had thought Harry’s former nemesis still deserved a shot at a proper education after experimenting in genocide.
Hermione settled on the chair across from Harry, plucking Ron’s butterbeer out of his fingers to steal a healthy swig. A strangled whimper of protest leaked out of him, like air out of a dying balloon, and Hermione plopped the bottle back into his hand with a roll of her eyes.
“Look, Harry, I understand you didn’t expect to be stuck seeing Malfoy day in and day out, but weren’t you also the one who said it was ridiculous for the Wizengamot to lock him up for two whole years, after—and I do believe I quote you on this—’I even bothered to testify for the ungrateful bastard.’”
Harry grumbled into the hard glass of his butterbeer bottle’s neck.
“What was that?” Hermione asked, a hint of steel under her kind tone.
“I just thought Azkaban seemed a bit much!” Harry exclaimed. “I was perfectly fine with them putting him under house arrest till he was 82. Or maybe expelling him from Britain or something. I certainly didn’t expect anyone would bring him back into the school he helped Death Eaters invade.”
And Harry knew he was acting unreasonable. After all that he’d seen over the past two years, he knew as well as anyone how trapped Malfoy must have felt when he’d brought the Death Eaters into Hogwarts that night. He understood that Malfoy hadn’t had a lot of opportunities to make the right choices in life, caught up as an idiot fucking child born into the wrong side of a war. He’d testified to that exact thing at the git’s trial.
But Malfoy had always found a way to sprinkle Harry’s time at Hogwarts with his own special brand of misery, like some knock-off Tom Riddle lite, and Harry was buggered if he was going to sit back and let it happen one more year.
He declared as much aloud. Then he laid his forehead on the table, temple pressed against his sweating bottle, and mumbled, “I’m going to let it happen, aren’t I?”
“Probably, mate.” Ron patted him on the shoulder. “Shoulda just freeballed the exams in August like me and been done with the whole thing.”
Harry could feel Hermione frowning without even lifting his head. Her voice prickled as she countered, “Or, Ronald, he might’ve revised properly, like me, and taken the exams in August to get decent results.”
Harry had done neither. When Hogwarts had reopened for exam students just three weeks after the battle, offering a summer term of intense tutorials for those who still wanted to attempt their O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s in a special August sitting, it had barely even registered to Harry. There’d simply been too much else going on to consider disappearing back into Hogwarts less than a month after Voldemort’s fall. Harry had still been busy giving testimony at trials and sharing Pensieve memories and sitting through a parade of funerals with dry, sandpaper eyes.
Hermione, meanwhile, had spent the summer building up connections, as she and Harry haunted the Ministry’s halls, and she’d been offered an internship in Shacklebolt’s office before June had even ended. She hadn’t been keen to turn it down and miss her shot at helping mold their new government as it was being rebuilt. And, of course, she’d never stopped revising, even during all their months on the run. So she had been fairly comfortable sitting her exams in August without bothering with Eighth Year.
Ron had gone along for the ride, not really caring about getting particularly good results. He'd settled into his new role helping George run the shop, which required no such qualifications. Plus, he’d discovered the joys of both having a serious girlfriend and having a private flat available to the two of them. Of course he hadn't wanted to return for another year at boarding school and more nights spent pouring over old books when he could instead be—well, honestly, the less Harry heard about the details, the better for all three of them.
Most of their old yearmates had similarly sat their exams or decided they didn't need N.E.W.T. qualifications. Only seven had chosen to retake the entire year. The group—mostly Ravenclaws, to the surprise of no one ever—had created a tiny cohort of “Eighth Years” who had returned to Hogwarts that September. Harry and Dean had brought the number up to nine, not that either of them had ever joined Seventh Year the first time around. And now Draco Malfoy brought the total to ten.
A soft hand landed on Harry’s, still loosely curled around his bottle, and he lifted his head to look up at Hermione.
“I know it’s not ideal, but you have survived far worse than classes with Draco Malfoy,” she told him, with that sorrowful smile that only momentarily brought him back to when he’d walked away into the forest alone.
Hermione’s face brightened as she suggested, “Come on, let’s focus on the big picture. Any fresh ideas to explore for post-graduation?”
This line of questioning did not make Harry feel any better, because that was the original disaster that had sent him back to Hogwarts in the first place. He spent most his time avoiding thinking anything about it.
“Not...really?” he admitted. He looked to Ron, correctly guessing that he’d find more sympathy there.
“The shop’s doing terrifyingly well, now that people aren’t afraid to step foot in Diagon Alley,” Ron mused. “And I’m doing my best to keep things running, but George is still—well, it’d be easier with another pair of hands. You know you’re always welcome to come work with us. Number one investor and all that.”
Harry shot him a grateful smile, though he couldn't see himself actually working at Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. Hanging out with Ron and George in the backroom was fun for a weekend—but he wouldn't want to do it forever. The trouble was he couldn’t imagine wanting to do anything for forever.
“I just don’t know,” he said, for the hundredth time, dropping his head on the table again. “Chasing after bad guys and fighting for what’s right seemed so obvious back when we were 15 or 16, but now...”
Ron clapped him on the shoulder, giving it a little shake. “I reckon you’ve done more than your fair share of fighting for what’s right already, mate. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a break from the bad guys.”
Harry smiled in relief against the wood of the table. At least his real friends got it, no matter what The Daily Prophet or Witch Weekly might have to say about The Chosen One being unable to choose a path.
Then Harry remembered what had driven him to his best friends that night, and he groaned. “But now I’m stuck with one of the bad guys for the next nine months!”
“Oh, Harry,” Hermione sighed. “Steer clear of him if you must, but don’t let him take this final year away from you. It’s yours to enjoy, after all.”
Because that had been the hope. A nice holiday from impending adulthood, a chance at a normal school year for once, and some space and privacy to figure out what he might want to do now that a long life free from mortal prophecy stretched ahead of him.
But even with Voldemort out of the picture, Harry was beginning to think it might be too much to hope that he’d ever make it through any school year at Hogwarts without some disaster befalling him. And this year, well...
Disaster had a name, and its name was Draco Malfoy.
⭒ ✵ ⭒ ✵ ⭒ ✵ ⭒
Dean was already seated at the end of the Gryffindor table, closest to the doors, when Harry stumbled into the Great Hall on Monday morning and dropped down onto the opposite bench, slumping over the table.
Behold, your heroic savior, he thought to himself, cheek pressed to the smooth wood warmed by the morning sun. Honestly, Harry could not for the life of him understand how any of the younger students could persist in seeing him as somehow remarkable.
“Long weekend?” Dean asked, pushing a carafe of coffee his way.
Harry grunted. Then he mumbled, “Went down to London,” while feeling blindly for a cup.
The Eighth Years were allowed to do whatever they wanted on their evenings and weekends, including leaving school, as a part of the whole you’re-adults-and-we’re-going-to-treat-you-like-it stance that McGonagall had taken up. The freedom was nice, but the flipside was being housed in the same wing as the staff quarters, where they couldn’t get all that rowdy without risking the wrath of a professor.
He wouldn't say he'd been running away from Malfoy, exactly, by staying at Ron and George’s flat above the shop till Sunday night. It had just been easier not to have to worry about the possibility of encountering Malfoy. Plus, he’d missed his best friends.
God, he’d missed them. They'd lived completely in each other's pockets for a year—or seven, really—and coming back to Hogwarts without Hermione and Ron had been more unmooring than even Harry had imagined it might be.
“How fare the Golden Trio?” Dean asked, taking pity on Harry and nudging his hand away from the mug he’d been fumbling so that Dean could steady it himself and fill it with coffee for Harry.
“Hardly a trio any longer,” Harry mumbled.
“Ouch,” Dean remarked. “It’s hard watching old friends drift away.”
“They haven’t drifted away.” Harry sat up to fix a resentful look at the other boy, though it was only petulant and not truly angry. “It’s just... They’re both off doing different things with their lives, moving forward, and I’m—I’m back at school. For some reason. Alone.”
“Sitting right here, Harry.” Dean sipped from his own coffee with a serene look, and finally Harry’s gloom cracked enough to allow him to smile.
“The only thing keeping me sane, mate.” He knocked their coffee cups together and propped himself up on an elbow as he asked, “How awful is today for you?”
His friend pulled a face. “Five classes, so not too bad. But Double Potions with the Slytherin Third Years. You?”
“Rough luck,” Harry commiserated. “I’ve got my worst block tomorrow—seven classes in a row, with First Year and Second Year Potions. And no break for lunch. But today I don’t have any of the early years.”
Hogwarts had been facing a conundrum that autumn, with every year behind in their studies, an extra cohort of Eighth Years, and the professors spread far too thin. That was why, when McGonagall had handed the Eighth Years their timetables in a small gathering after the Welcoming Feast, each had found themselves assigned eight extra double classes—for First, Second, Third, and Fourth Year subjects. They were each to serve as teachers’ aides in these classes, allowing the professors more time to do lesson planning and grading, and also helping to reinforce inter-house unity, since they were all assigned to classes from every house.
Harry and Dean squabbled jokingly over who had it worse with their assignments, ignoring the ebb and flow of younger students passing behind them, until they couldn’t avoid their 8:10 N.E.W.T. Transfiguration class any longer.
As Dean stood and slung his bag over one shoulder, Ginny passed behind him with a gaggle of her Seventh Year friends.
“Hurry up, you two,” she teased, slapping Dean on the arm. “You’d better not lose us any house points because you’re useless after the weekend!” Harry got a quick smile and a wink flashed his way as well, and he gave a half-hearted wave as Ginny walked on with her yearmates.
Harry hadn’t only come back to Hogwarts sans his two best friends—he’d also returned sans girlfriend. Back in May, they’d tried to fall back into what they’d had before the war, but between the Weasley family’s grief, Harry being pulled in a dozen different directions by the Ministry, and nearly a year apart, it hadn’t been the same. They hadn’t been the same.
Eventually Ginny had declared, in her typically frank fashion, “Look, we started this because it felt right at the time. If it doesn’t feel right anymore, let’s just give it a break.”
Then she’d given him a hug, perhaps noticing how his face had fallen, and said, “Maybe things’ll feel right again later, after everything has settled down a bit.”
Harry thought they both knew it probably wasn’t going to happen. He’d seen the way Ginny was already flashing sparkling smiles at one of the Ravenclaw beaters since coming back to school. She’d moved on, just like Hermione and Ron. It was only Harry who couldn’t seem to find a path forward now that there wasn’t a Dark Lord to bring down.
Trudging after Dean, Harry entered the Transfiguration classroom to find that most of the Seventh Years had already filled their usual seats in the front rows and the handful of Eighth Years had taken their regular spots lurking in the back. There was only one notable change that morning: the presence of one Draco Malfoy, sitting at a table alone along the opposite wall.
Harry felt his nostrils flare, though Malfoy wasn’t even doing anything.
He was simply there, back dressed in school robes now, his textbook and notes already spread out before him and a quill at the ready as he kept his eyes fixed steadfastly on the blackboard. As if the whole war hadn't happened.
Ignore him, Harry told himself. He doesn’t exist. Pretend he’s just another of the Seventh Years whose names you can’t remember.
Harry and Dean settled together at one of the wide desks, and the last few students trickled in, finding empty places to sit while managing to leave the space beside Malfoy unoccupied. Then McGonagall swept in—the old witch somehow still carrying a full teaching load while serving as Headmistress—and class began.
It was almost normal. Harry probably could have forgotten Malfoy was there if his white-blond hair hadn’t been so utterly unmissable, gleaming in the sunlight as the other boy bowed his head to take notes on his parchment. Harry’s own quill kept pausing so he could watch him—but the Slytherin did absolutely nothing worthy of his interest, other than perhaps struggling with the Transfiguration task they were set. Harry couldn’t see all that much of the result, but he did notice the way Malfoy was clenching his new wand tightly in his left hand and repeating the prescribed motion again and again.
But as soon as the bell rang to mark the end of class, Malfoy was on his feet, sweeping his things into his school bag and hurrying out of the room before most of the other students had even stood.
“What’s his big hurry?” Harry muttered, brows furrowing.
Stuffing his own notes into his bag, he told Dean he had to run back to his room for something, then he took off without even hearing his friend’s reply.
It was only when he had dumped his bag on the ground in his private room and was rummaging through his trunk for the Marauder’s Map that he thought to consider what he was doing.
“Is this mad?” he asked himself, hands pausing. “Hermione would definitely say yes.”
He hadn’t even thought about his intentions in running straight to check the map. It was as if the past two years hadn’t happened, and the old habits of sixteen-year-old Harry had simply taken over once more. Malfoy off skulking around? Better see what he’s up to.
“McGonagall wouldn’t have had him back if she didn’t think it was safe,” Harry tried to tell himself. “The Wizengamot wouldn’t have allowed his release back to the school either.”
But then he tried to imagine working on his Transfiguration reading while the question kept niggling in the back of his mind, and Harry decided: What Hermione didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
He had the map out and unfolded in a flash. “I solemnly swear I am up to no good,” he whispered, touching his wand to the center. Before the lines had even finished spreading across the large sheet of parchment, he had his nose to it to search for the name Draco Malfoy.
There.
Malfoy was...in the old history classroom. Along with Anthony Goldstein, Sue Li, and a half dozen names that Harry vaguely recognized as belonging to Seventh Years, as well as the ghost of Binns.
Harry sat back on his heels, somehow disappointed to realize that Malfoy had merely been hurrying to his next class.
It wasn’t that he really wanted Malfoy to be up to something. But foiling Malfoy would have given Harry something familiar to distract himself with. The completely un-sinister discovery that Malfoy was taking N.E.W.T.-level History of Magic didn’t afford Harry any reason to tail the Slytherin through the halls and catch him in the act of evildoing...and coincidentally avoid thinking about what the hell he himself was supposed to do after graduation.
Of course, that didn’t stop him from stalking Malfoy through the map anyway. For the next three days, Harry found empty classrooms and hidden passages to hurry into every class period that he and Malfoy didn’t share, so he could whip out the piece of parchment and scour it.
He learned that Malfoy had been assigned younger year classes to assist, just like the rest of them, and that he apparently still took Astronomy, as well as History of Magic and the five N.E.W.T. subjects he and Harry shared. In their shared classes, Harry noted that Malfoy always sat the farthest from everyone else he could manage and didn’t interact with any other students unless forced to by a teacher.
But no matter how closely he watched the Slytherin in person or through the Marauder’s Map, Harry didn’t find a whiff of anything actually suspect.
⭒ ✵ ⭒ ✵ ⭒ ✵ ⭒
On Thursday, Harry was following Slughorn from the large Potions lab—where he’d just been assisting First Year Gryffindors learning to brew a cure for boils—when a message came flitting their way, the letter folded into a little butterfly that was winging itself along through the air.
Professor Slughorn caught it in his hand and unfolded it, giving a little sigh of dismay that seemed more affected than genuine.
“Oh dear me, seems Goldstein is in the Hospital Wing. A nasty brush with a Venomous Tentacula in the Herbology class he was assisting.”
Harry felt his stomach drop as he followed the professor into the advanced students’ lab. Anthony Goldstein was his usual partner in Potions, since Dean didn’t take the subject, and Harry knew that there was only one other student who didn’t have a partner currently.
“Well, I suppose we’d better just pair you with Mr. Malfoy today,” Slughorn said, giving Harry a commiserating slap on the back as he blustered on. “It’s time we all let bygones be bygones, after all. No reason to have two students working without partners!”
Harry thought he could probably come up with a good reason or two, but before he had the chance to, Slughorn was nodding him towards the workstation that Malfoy had claimed alone on Monday, and the rest of the class was filing in.
Heaving a sigh, Harry walked to the table and dropped his bag on it, fishing out his Potions text. The only joy he got out of the situation was seeing the comical way that Malfoy froze when he walked into the classroom and saw Harry at his workstation. It was as if he’d been struck with a Full Body-Bind Curse.
Malfoy’s eyes slid to the professor at the front of the room, but Slughorn only gave a jaunty wave towards the table Harry was currently occupying. For a moment, it looked like Malfoy might ignore the motion, but then the flat line of his mouth grew even flatter, and he walked over to stop beside Harry.
They’d had twelve classes together by then, thanks to all the subjects they shared, but this was the closest Harry had actually been to Malfoy in all that time. And Harry realized for the first time how rough the Slytherin looked up close, like he hadn’t been sleeping or eating properly since he'd got out of Azkaban. Or maybe since before he'd gone into it.
Still staring, he didn’t even think to look away when Malfoy lifted his light eyes to meet Harry’s. The other boy’s face twisted for an instant, but then it returned to that flat look he’d been wearing since the previous Friday. He didn’t acknowledge that he’d caught Harry gaping at him, only turned to pulling out his equipment.
“Today, we’ll begin our brewing of Dreamless Sleep, which I’m sure you all did the reading on in advance of class, hmm?” Slughorn chortled to himself as he looked around the room.
“Oh, and if your Memory Potion from Monday was not completed successfully, remember that you have until next Monday to turn in an acceptable sample if you wish to receive any credit!”
“I’ll get the ingredients,” Malfoy offered, his voice muted and restrained, and he was gone before Harry could react beyond blinking in surprise.
He didn't think it was any exaggeration to say that it was the first he could recall Draco Malfoy speaking to him—or anyone really—without his voice brimming with either a boast or an insult. Barring a few times during Voldemort’s reign, when he'd instead sounded terrified for his life.
And offering to do something for Harry?
Maybe he was planning to sabotage Harry's ingredients. That could be it.
He was gone a while to the store cupboard, along with half the class. Other students began to trickle out clutching lavender sprigs and sopophorous beans, and Harry watched Mandy Brocklehurst head back to the table she shared with Morag MacDougal—and finally Malfoy emerged again, the last to do so.
Mouth pressed tight again, he unloaded the ingredients he’d held close to his body, clamped under his forearm. But they weren't separated into two sets, which would seem to make it hard to sabotage Harry without also sabotaging himself.
Then Malfoy pulled his chopping board in front of him and spoke again in that empty voice: “If you could measure out two cups of standard potioning water for each cauldron, I’ll chop the lavender.”
And on it went like that. Malfoy quietly issued directions when necessary, never using more words than were needed and never in anything but a neutral tone, and Harry was too dumbfounded to do anything but follow along. Malfoy had always been better than him in potions anyway.
But Harry found himself more and more distracted by how odd the whole thing was. He’d known that Malfoy was being quiet in classes—he’d seen how the Slytherin sat and worked alone, both in person and on the map—but this was just bizarre. He almost wanted to ask Everything all right there, Malfoy? and hope he'd get an insult in return, because he was beginning to suspect possession.
Perhaps if he had been less distracted, he might have been able to prevent what happened next. But probably not. It wasn’t either of their faults when a Seventh Year Hufflepuff, carrying a cauldron full of uncompleted Memory Potion back from the storage shelves, the top shimmering with the haze of a Stasis Charm, tripped over someone’s bag on the floor.
She sent the whole thing flying with a shriek, and Harry grasped Malfoy’s robes and yanked the other boy back, battle instincts kicking in again with a sharp surge of adrenaline. Malfoy stumbled, grabbing hold of Harry in turn to keep from falling.
Golden-bronze liquid sloshed out in an arc as the cauldron tumbled through the air, then the whole thing crashed onto their workstation, knocking both Harry and Malfoy’s cauldrons over. A wave of deep purple liquid, streaked with sparkling gold, exploded outward and crashed over the two of them.
Harry stood stock still, hot potion dripping down his cheeks and plastering his shirt to his chest. The entire class had frozen in shocked silence. He tasted lavender and something like burnt sugar on his lips and blinked furiously though it did nothing to clear away the splatter obscuring his glasses.
Then he heard Malfoy suck in a choked breath beside him, and a hand grabbed at his robe to drag him even closer. He knocked into Malfoy, knees bashing and his hand landing somewhere around the Slytherin’s shoulder, and he could just make out some fuzzy movement through his dirty glasses before Malfoy bellowed, “Aguamenti!”
Water struck Harry like someone had tipped a giant bucket over his head, only it didn’t stop. He choked and coughed as it kept pouring, soaking through all his clothes and streaming down face, hair plastered over his eyes, while he fought to get away from the deluge.
It probably only lasted four or five seconds, but he was still sputtering and gasping for air when the charm ended. Prying his eyes open, he could make out Malfoy’s right arm raised high in the air through his bleary lenses, that new wand clutched in an awkward fist where the Slytherin had it pointed down at the two of them. Because Malfoy was left-handed, but his left hand was currently still wrapped in Harry’s robe.
“Wha—”
Slughorn bustled out of his office, where he’d been doing god knows what but certainly not supervising the N.E.W.T. class. “My word!” He leveled his wand at Harry and Malfoy, hitting them with some charm that left them closer to damp than dripping, but without the customary blast of hot air that a drying charm produced.
The professor looked over the mess, seeing the three cauldrons tipped on their sides and the Seventh Year girl standing nearby with her hands clasped over her mouth in horror.
Malfoy finally lowered his arm and released Harry.
“Mr. Malfoy,” Slughorn said, looking his student over with those beady, assessing eyes. “That was your Aguamenti?”
Malfoy nodded without speaking.
Slughorn studied him a moment longer, then gave a satisfied little nod. “Very good. Ten points to Slytherin for quick thinking. A brew meant to be consumed orally instead being applied to the skin—let alone a mix of incomplete brews which could interact in unpredictable ways—could have quite disastrous effects. Washing the solution away at once was a very good call.”
He gave another wave of his wand and set their cauldrons upright again, siphoning liquid from the table and sending it streaming over the students’ head to the sinks on the far wall.
“Still, I must insist you both report to the Hospital Wing to have Madame Pomfrey examine you, just to be on the safe side. You can make up your potions tomorrow or this weekend.”
The other students continued shooting curious looks at them as Harry and Malfoy packed away their supplies in silence, before hoisting their sopping bags and squelching out of the room.
It was a fairly long walk to the Hospital Wing, but neither of them said a word the entire way.
When they reached the tall doors that led into the infirmary, Harry finally glanced over to perhaps say something, but the other boy only shoved the doors open to stride inside. And then Madam Pomfrey was exclaiming, her tone exasperated and brisk as ever, and Harry and Malfoy were sat side-by-side on a bed as she ran spells over them, and the chance to perhaps say or ask anything was gone.
After nearly five minutes of diagnostics, Malfoy finally spoke, his voice polite enough, if slightly stiff. “Madam, I’m supposed to be assisting a Charms class next hour. If this will take much longer, could I send a message to Professor Flitwick?”
“Oh!” Madam Pomfrey gave one more little flick of her wand. She tapped it against the palm of her other hand as she looked over them both. “No, I believe you should be safe to go. You don’t seem to be in any immediate risk, but do come to me at once if you notice any rashes, dizziness, or other strange symptoms.”
Malfoy slid off the bed, leaning down to grab his bag from the floor.
“Thank you, Madam Pomfrey,” he muttered, still sounding entirely unlike himself. Harry was so befuddled by it that he almost forgot to say anything himself.
“Malfoy!”
The blond stiffened, then he glanced over his shoulder at Harry.
“Thanks,” Harry muttered, feeling it had to be said.
Malfoy jerked his chin down in what might have been a nod or might have just been him turning away, and then he was off like the ghost of Voldemort himself was behind him.
⭒ ✵ ⭒ ✵ ⭒ ✵ ⭒
Harry had gone back to his room during his free period, stripped off his damp clothes and taken a proper shower in his small ensuite, still thinking about how odd the whole thing had been. By the time he’d tried to dry and salvage what he could from his bag, he’d barely made it in time to his D.A.D.A. class with the Third Year Gryffindors.
It was a long two and a half hours, and when he was done with the double class, Harry couldn’t even be bothered with going to the Great Hall for dinner. He called Kreacher and asked if the old house-elf could drop a sandwich or something in Harry's room. What Harry found waiting in his room, when he arrived there, was half a beef and ale pie, a flagon of pumpkin juice, and a sticky toffee pudding large enough to serve three.
Chuckling wearily to himself, Harry ate as much as he could manage, distractedly shoveling food in as he chipped away at his class readings. Then he flicked a Statis Charm over the leftovers and crawled into bed, ready to give the whole day up as a bad job. It wasn’t even nine, but sleep claimed him within moments of his head hitting the pillow.
⭒ ✵ ⭒ ✵ ⭒ ✵ ⭒
The world slowly resolved out of the darkness, geometric snatches of pale moonlight and shadow. As it came into focus, Harry saw white stone columns and great windows and rows of uniform, painted doors.
He realized where he was with a start. It was Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. And there at the sinks, hunched over in just his shirtsleeves and with his Slytherin tie hanging loose about his neck, was Malfoy.
It was just like that night, except this time it was silent. Malfoy wasn’t pouring out his fears, and there was no Myrtle there trying to soothe him. It was only the two of them.
“Malfoy?” Harry asked, uncertain, but not sure what else he was supposed to do. It was obviously a dream, but it felt odd somehow. Sharper than usual. Realer.
The blond whirled on him, drawing his wand just like the last time—only he didn’t throw a curse. When he saw it was Harry, he just snorted, sounding weary and bemused.
“So we’re doing this again, are we?”
Harry blinked behind his glasses, glancing around the bathroom that they seemed to have to themselves. “I hope not?” he offered.
Malfoy lowered his wand, which Harry noticed was the old hawthorn one that was actually still in a drawer in his dresser back at Grimmauld Place. He watched as Malfoy slipped it in his pocket then strode across the bathroom.
“You sure about that, Potter?” he drawled, sounding much more like himself than the real Malfoy had that afternoon. He stopped right in Harry’s space, leaning in to press their faces close. Harry was annoyed to be reminded that Malfoy had a couple inches on him, and he had to lift his chin to meet those grey eyes straight on, darker than usual in the shadows. “You normally seem to enjoy slicing me to ribbons in these dreams.”
The words were like the slap of a wet towel on his skin, cold and uncomfortable. It was true that Harry did sometimes still dream of that night—the chaotic exchange of curses, Malfoy’s sobbing, the blood blossoming across the wet tile floor—but never as something he enjoyed. And never had the nightmares felt as clear and real as this one did.
“It was an accident!” he insisted, even though he shouldn’t have to defend himself against this vision of Malfoy his mind had conjured up. “I didn’t know what that curse did—you think I would’ve used it if I’d known?”
Malfoy’s lip curled, and he didn’t move away. “Maybe not. Or maybe you like the idea of leaving me even more badly scarred than you are. You certainly left your mark that night.”
“What?” Harry breathed, his lungs punched empty by the thought. Snape had said it probably wouldn’t scar, but—but in fact, Harry had never found out what had happened. Hadn’t even once considered if Malfoy might have been left scarred by what he'd done.
The other boy finally pulled back a few inches, but only to tilt his head to the side. Harry wasn’t sure what he was about until Malfoy tugged at his shirt collar with one hand, pulling it down to better reveal the faint line that crawled over his collarbone.
Then his other hand came up and popped his top button through its matching hole. His hands continued down, quickly pulling the two sides of his shirt apart like a magician pulling back a curtain.
Harry gaped, eyes darting between the silvery lines crossing Malfoy’s pale torso.
“I didn’t—”
He didn’t know what he meant to say, but before he could finish, Malfoy shoved him backwards, slamming him up against the side of a wooden stall.
“Sorry, are you?” Malfoy hissed, his forearm pressed against Harry’s throat, nearly choking off his air. “Oh, please. We both know there’re only two reasons you ever show up here. If you aren’t here to fight, then I guess you’re here to fuck.”
Every thought then fled from Harry’s brain as Draco Malfoy slammed his mouth against Harry’s own, grinding up against him in a bruising attack of a kiss that was unlike anything Harry had ever experienced in the real world. Worst of all, it felt good. What the fuck did that mean for his psyche that he was not only imagining his boyhood bully kissing him but even making the bastard seem good at it?
He shoved Malfoy off, chest heaving as he sucked in lungfuls of air like he’d been an hour without oxygen and not mere seconds.
“What, Potter?” Malfoy growled. “Going to run away like you did after you cut me open? What a cowardly little Gryffindor you are.”
And Harry didn’t think about what he was doing, because it was just a mad dream, and it was fucking Malfoy being a prick like always, but Harry still couldn't ever let the bastard win at anything. So he grabbed the blond by the shoulders and swung him around, reversing their positions as he slammed Malfoy’s back against the wooden stall instead. It shook under the impact. Then Harry attacked back just as viciously, all biting teeth and snarling curses and fingers knotting in Malfoy’s pale hair in a way that had to be causing pain.
Malfoy wrapped one hand around the back of Harry’s neck as he held him in the furious kiss, the other fumbling with his flies, and then Malfoy had a hand down his pants. Harry nearly lost it then and there, because it didn't matter that it was Draco Malfoy in this insane dream. It had been months since anyone else had touched him, the sensation was as real as anything, and Harry was about as horny as an untouched 14 year old. And apparently, unlike your average 14 year old, Malfoy had quite a good idea what he was doing with that hand.
“F-fuck,” Harry groaned, as the mouth beneath his disappeared. It took a moment for his brain to catch up to what was happening, because Malfoy had slid to the floor and Harry was looking down at his blond head. Then the other boy yanked Harry’s trousers down around his thighs, and without a moment of hesitation, he took Harry in his mouth.
Harry’s hands slammed against the wall of the wooden stall, holding himself upright as his legs nearly gave out. His head hung low, and through the buzzing haze of arousal, he gaped down at Malfoy: on his knees and caged in by Harry as he loomed over the Slytherin.
“Fuck,” he gasped again. “I’m gonna—I’m gonna—”
Malfoy looked up then, eyebrows lifting in a look of challenge, even with his mouth still around Harry’s prick, and the world exploded like a firework as Harry came harder than—
⭒ ✵ ⭒ ✵ ⭒ ✵ ⭒
Harry flew upright in bed, heart pounding and back damp with sweat.
He’d been dreaming of something—he was sure of it—but—but it was gone. Gasping in a few ragged breaths, he sat curled over his knees in the bed he still wasn’t quite used to, alone in his private room in the south wing.
What was that?
His pulse was thundering through his veins, but try as he might, Harry couldn’t recall even a hint of what the dream, or perhaps nightmare, had been about.
He struggled to slow his breathing. Doesn’t matter, he tried to convince himself. Whatever it was, it was just a dream. We’re safe now. Everything’s over. Harry still had to remind himself sometimes that the war was truly over with, and Voldemort finally gone, but he knew it was true. His dreams couldn’t hurt him any longer. Not if he didn’t let them.
Shaking, Harry settled back on the mattress, tugging his sheets up over his shoulder as he curled on his side.
It was just a dream.
Everything’s fine.
Then he went chasing after sleep once more.