Chapter Text
The prospect of taking Veritaserum with Harry has done nothing but wind Draco’s nerves tight and gyrate his brain in dizzying circles, but seeing the playful glint filling Potter’s electric green eyes slows his nerves to a steady rotation and the ache in his head turns to a lulling buzz.
Potter stares at him for a moment too long, and something wiggly and hot works its way through Draco’s chest and snakes around his ribs.
“Come on then,” Harry says, tugging the sleeve of Draco’s robe to gently pull him into the room.
The door clicks behind them and Draco pulls the small vial out of his pocket. For some reason he feels the need to tell Potter about the portraits immediately, so he does. He turns and holds the vial out. “The strangest thing happened to me in the corridor.”
Harry takes the vial from his grasp and tips it back and forth, examining the liquid inside. “Really,” he hums, “What happened?”
“Four portraits tried to stop me to talk. I stopped for the first one, and all he did was call me pretty and tell me he knew my name. It was strange.”
Harry looks up from where he has the vial held in front of his face with his eyebrows raised. “A portrait called you pretty?”
Draco frowns. “Right. I nearly forgot you were a prick.”
Harry sighs lightly and moves to sit down at his desk chair. “No, I just mean, portraits aren’t allowed to say that to students,” He looks contemplative for a moment, “Well, I suppose we are of age, I guess they can say whatever they bloody want now.”
“What, so now that I'm eighteen I have to walk around and listen to the portraits moan about how good looking I am?”
Harry laughs at that, and the sound sends another wave of heat through Draco’s chest. He looks down at Potter, then around the room, and shakes his head unbelievingly. The interactions between them this past week have been terrifyingly casual. The two of them spent a large portion of their adolescence doing everything they could to worsen the other's life, and Draco spent years teasing Potter's friends. Then you add the fucking wizarding war that they fought against each other in, and the entire situation—Draco standing here, Harry sitting and smiling up at him—is completely ridiculous. There is no logical explanation for the two of them to be in the same room comfortably, yet here they are.
"This is weird, Potter." Draco voices.
Harry hands the vial back to him and shoots him a funny look. "Yeah, that's why we're doing it."
"No," Draco fidgets with the glass in his hand, "I meant—I meant it's weird for you and I to be speaking like this. Like we haven't spent our lives fighting."
Something flickers behind Potter's eyes and the smile he’d been wearing dims. "Would you rather me scream at you and tell you everything you've ever done wrong?” Draco shakes his head.
“Nothing between us has ever been normal, Malfoy, and I already explained how I was feeling. If you don't want this then I'm not fucking holding you hostage, am I?" His volume increases with each word, leaving him practically yelling at the end. Draco distantly remembers Hermione mentioning Harry's temper—he sees what she meant. His brain also catches on the word 'this'; if you don't want this.
"Potter. Again, that's not what I meant. Of course I don't want to fight with you–if I wanted to do that I would have already. I also wouldn't be here if I didn’t want…" He decides to throw Harry's vocabulary back into his face, "This. That wasn't me saying I’m uninterested in being here, it was me acknowledging that it is quite the turn of events."
Harry goes quiet, his expression reserved and almost put-off. He stands from the chair and for a moment Draco's worried he said the wrong thing and ruined whatever it is they have going on before it even started, but instead of pulling his wand like Draco half-expected, Harry sits down on the floor, back leaning against the foot of his four poster.
"Come on, then."
Draco swallows thickly and obeys, sitting down next to Harry and mirroring his fixed position. He’s mindful to keep about six or so inches of space between them and holds the vial out. "You ready?"
"Yeah." Harry says confidently, plucking the veritaserum out of Draco's hand and popping the small cork out of the top. He lifts it to his nose to smell it, and grimaces slightly. His eyes meet Draco's and he gives a small shrug, then tips his head back to drink half the vial. Draco's heart rate increases impossibly more, the reality of the situation flashing neon in front of his face.
Harry grimaces again, "Suppose it would kill them to make it taste a little less like goblin shit?" He hands the potion to his right and Draco takes it warily.
He eyes it like it's going to explode in his face, and Harry frowns, leaning his head back against the wood of the bed, and Draco pointedly does not look at the pale stretch of neck the action revealed. Instead, he screws his eyes shut, shoots out a prayer to any God listening, and drains the rest of the vial. Merlin, help him.
Harry's head swivels to the side, eyes landing on the side of Draco's face. Draco follows the movement and leans his own head back, turning it to face Harry. Despite the space he left between them, his breath hitches when he sees how close Harry's face is to his. Harry's eyes sparkle an earth-shatteringly bright green behind his glasses and his black hair rests against the top of the frames, covering his famous scar.
"Your hair covers your scar,” Draco says matter-of-factly.
"Yeah." Harry breathes, and before Draco can stop himself, his right hand is reaching up. He pushes Harry's ink-black hair back, parting it to expose the lightning scar. He pushes the strands up and to the left, his hand delicately brushing the soft skin of Harry’s forehead in the process. The scar stands out red and raised, and it takes everything in Draco not to trace it with the pad of his thumb. Harry's staring at him through thick lashes, and the warm light emitted by his desk lamp washes the room with a murky solitude that makes someone contemplate doing something stupid.
Harry opens his mouth to say something, but Draco clears his throat and moves his hand away. He wants to blame his stupid, overwhelmingly intimate behavior on the veritaserum, but even he knows the potion doesn't affect decision-making. That action falls right onto his shoulders.
"Anyway," he says, hoping to change the subject before Potter can ask him something stupid he can't lie about. "Do you think it's working yet?"
"Probably. Ask me a question." Harry says, and adjusts himself so he's sitting with his legs crossed under him and facing Draco more. Draco mirrors the position and silently thanks the Gods that Harry wants to move on from the moment as quickly as he did.
He thinks back to the questions he mentally prepared, "Are you and your friends in a fight right now?"
Harry looks down at his hands folded in his lap. "Yeah," He furrows his dark brows, "I mean, kind of."
"How come?" Draco prompts, unable to deny his curiosity.
Harry still doesn't meet his eyes, "It started over the summer. 'Mione wanted me to see a mind-healer, which I'm not against, but I can't go anywhere without them spending the session congratulating me. I told the most recent one I died, right, and the fucker said, 'at least you won', like that would make me feel better! They assume I'm not fucking traumatized because my side won."
"You died?"
Harry nods. "Yeah. It's a long story...but you know how Voldemort split his soul into seven pieces, right? Horcruxes?"
Draco nods, ignoring the chill down his spine from the use of The Dark Lord’s name.
"Well, when he tried to kill me that first time, he turned me into one. And I'm not going to get into the prophecy, but–”
"Prophecy?"
Harry frowns. "Let me finish, will you? Anyway, all the horcruxes had to be destroyed for him to really die. And, well. That included me."
Draco gapes at him, brain swimming hard to keep up. "I had no idea," He looks at the man, all eye bags and messy hair, and feels for the first time genuine pity. It wasn't something he thought about at all when he was younger (and even now only sometimes when he's really down the rabbit hole), but the idea that Potter was thrown into all of this without even wanting it gnaws at his stomach. "I'm sorry."
Harry shakes his head. "Don't do that. Please. I hate the praise but I hate the pity even more. It happened, it's done. Are you and Pansy dating?"
Draco splutters, the abrupt topic change feeling something like whiplash. "What?!"
"You and Pansy. Are you together?"
"No," Draco huffs, "And that seems stupid to talk about after what you just told me. Don't you want to ask me about the… about everything that happened? Especially when I can't lie?"
"Nah," Harry shrugs, "I can ask you about that another time. I want to know things you would lie about."
"How do you know I wouldn't lie about that?" Draco asks incredulously.
"I just do. Not to me at least. Right?" His gaze meets Draco's again and the only logical explanation for the alluring bat of his eyelashes is a spiked potion. Surely.
"Right," Draco confirms. "Why would I lie about Pansy and I, anyway?"
"It would be a cover up."
"A what?"
"You heard me."
"Yes, and that's the problem. What are you on about?"
Harry smirks, it's a small thing, but Draco's stomach does a flip anyway.
"You're gay, right?"
"What? How do you even know that?" His voice comes out faint and he can hear his heartbeat in his ears. The only people who know that about him are Pansy and Blaise.
"I didn't. But now I do." The smirk is lethal now, and there's a venomous glint in his eyes.
Draco pales, "Did you just—Did you just trick me into admitting that? You git!" He holds back the urge to hit Potter on the arm.
"I was supposed to be in Slytherin,” Harry shrugs.
"You were not."
"Was."
"Prove it."
"We're on fucking veritaserum, Draco. It's already been proven."
"You–" Draco.
"Next question. Are you and Zabini together?"
This time, Draco rolls his eyes, schooling his expression into disinterest, but his heart pounds loud and hard against his chest. Potter accidentally called him Draco. "Salazar, no. Blaise is straight as a wand."
Harry moves from the floor and stands. "I need to move," He says when Draco shoots him a questioning glance. Then, once standing, his eyes light up like Christmas trees. "Actually, I have a brilliant idea."
"That cannot be good."
"No, it's perfect. Trust me."
"I do," Draco says before his brain catches up with his mouth, and Harry's face transforms into something even more wicked. Draco presses his lips together in a line, the confession was surprising even to him.
"I'm flattered," Harry says, and moves a dramatic hand over his chest. He stands like that for a second longer—mock sincerity in his eyes—and then moves to take something out of his wardrobe.
"You're taking the piss," Draco says when he sees the unmistakable fabric of the invisibility cloak. "You have an invisibility cloak," He asks, but it comes out deadpan.
"I do! I think we should go for a walk. Or, we could go back to the Black Lake and see what everyone's up to. I don't think it's over yet."
"I'm not speaking to a soul whilst on this shit," he motions to the discarded vial lying on the end of Harry's bed.
"You're so fucking thick. That's what the cloak is for, Malfoy."
Malfoy stands at the insult. "I am not thick, Potter."
Harry waggles his eyebrows and pointedly leaves them raised, and the insinuation is enough for Draco to snap his mouth shut and cross his arms defensively over his chest.
"I'll have none of that. Are we going or not?" His voice comes out impatient, but it's his lame attempt to dress up his nerves in something palatable.
"Waiting on you, pretty-boy."
He knows it's a jab at what the painting had said to him earlier, but those words coming from Potter's mouth directed at him send his stomach to the ground, and he uses every ounce of strength to ward off the embarrassment itching to make itself known on his cheeks. He wins the battle, but only just.
Harry throws the cloak up and around them, and the proximity between them is something Draco hasn't prepared himself for. They're standing so close their arms are pressed snugly against one another, and Draco tries to move, but Harry's hand comes out and holds him in place. "Don't." He doesn't elaborate, and Draco doesn't know if it's because he can be seen if he does that, or if Harry just doesn't want him to move. Something devilish in him hopes it's the second option.