Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Harry James Potter had defeated lord freaking Voldemort, yet couldn’t seem to handle a stroll through Hogsmeade.

This was the thought that ran rampant through his mind as he sprinted away from a gaggle of girls and boys wielding wands, love potions, and scraps of assorted parchment for him to sign. Harry’s breath came in short huffs as he fought to put distance between himself and the stampede and he would’ve apparated if he wasn’t so tired, but he didn’t want to risk splinching himself. It wasn’t that he was out of shape, it was the fact that after running for fifteen minutes being chased by an ever-growing pack of pre-pubescent, hormonal teenagers with nothing to lose, just happened to be quite draining.

He leaps around the corner hoping to lose them in the Hog’s Head and curses his own stupidity. How could he had been so daft as to leave without his cloak?! McGonagall had been quite clear about what could happen if Harry decided to return to Hogwarts for ‘eighth year’ but he decided he could handle the masses as long as he scored well on his Newts. When McGonagall had realized his mind was set, she told him that it would be a good idea to keep his invisibility cloak with him at all times in case he needed to make a quick getaway. Harry now realized the flaw in his brilliant idea of going to Hogsmeade when he assumed it would be safe without his cloak.

Looking back on it he had been very wrong.

He sees the street ahead split into two paths ahead and begins to swerve to his right when a hex hits the small of his back. He lets out a gasp of pain and surprise before casting a disillusionment charm on himself, leaving the confused horde screaming behind him as they try to find him.

Harry runs all the way back and as he nears the entrance of Hogwarts he almost runs straight into Draco Malfoy. Before they collide, Harry leaps out of his path and lands heavily on the cobble stones, right on his back. He winces and watches in horror as Malfoy with draws his wand with a suspicious glare before clutching at an area near his collarbones, which are covered by a green and silver scarf.

Harry silently thanks himself for using the disillusionment charm and holds his breath, heart racing. Malfoy, scowling with a fearful glint in his eye, swallows as his gaze sweeps right over the area where Harry sat, still as death. Malfoy stands for a few moments longer before putting his wand away and walking down to Hogsmeade.

Harry lets out a sigh of relief before walking back up to the castle, his lower back still aching a little.

He wondered what that hex had done to him.
***

“Harry are you insane?!”

It had taken him two hours to work up enough courage to admit what happened and he was regretting it. He winced as Hermione told him off, but then again, he deserved it. Ron spared him a sympathetic glance as he dealt with Hermione’s wrath.

“You mean to tell me, that you went to Hogsmeade without the cloak? You could’ve been killed or- or worse-”

Harry watched as Ron, standing behind Hermione, mouthed to him ‘expelled!’ and Harry fought the urge to laugh as Ron grinned.

Hermione suddenly rounds on Ron and the smile vanishes, “And you! You should’ve gone with him!”

“But, ‘Mione I didn’t even know he left!”

“It’s no excuse.”

Harry stepped forward, knowing he was about to regret what he was about to say, “Look, it’s alright! I didn’t get hurt and I was only hexed once!”

She spins around to face Harry so fast that he’s afraid she might have whiplash, “Only once! Only got hexed once! Harry are you out of your mind!”

“Well it didn’t do anything bad! It hit me in the back and hurt a little but I don’t feel anything now.”

“Harry, you got hit by an unknown hex that has yet to do anything. That’s pretty bad! And have you checked to see if it had done any damage?”

“Er, well, no, bu-“

“Harry!”

Ron stepped forward, “Look why don’t we just check? That way we can see if any harm’s been done and if not we can leave him alone. I doubt there’s anything there at all. ”

Hermione just nods, “Harry pull your shirt up. It could’ve just been a weak stinging hex, but there’s no way to be sure.”

As Harry lifts up the back of his shirt he hears Hermione gasp and Ron weakly mumble, “Bloody hell.”

“What is it?”

“Harry go look in the bathroom mirror, you have to see it for yourself.”

At a loss for words he tears out of the empty Eighth-Year’s common room and into the showers for the boy’s dormitory. On his way bumps into a flustered Malfoy wearing a thin shirt and, oddly, his scarf over it.

“Watch it, Potter.”

Harry frowns ignoring the barbed comment and calls after him before he can leave, “What’s with the scarf? Chilly, Malfoy?”

Malfoy snarls, “Mind your own business, Potter!” before hurrying away.

Harry stares at him as he leaves, wondering why he was being even more of a git than usual, but dismisses it as nothing. Harry shakes his head and quickly rushes into the showers then hitches up the back of his shirt and a lump forms in his throat as he looks at his back in shock.

A brilliantly pale white iridescent dragon was curled on his back, dozing away in the form of a tattoo. Every scale seemed to be edged with silver and shimmered as the light bounced off it. As Harry looked closer he could barely see the steady rise and fall of its flank and the pale wisps of silver smoke as it left the dragon’s nostrils with each puff of breath. From around the sleeping form of the dragon vine tendrils weaved around its body and a few had begun to stray away from it and search outwards on Harry’s skin. The budding leaves seemed to rustle as if stirred by a non-existent breeze. Harry stared at it for a few seconds longer, trapped in a daze when he heard footsteps approaching.

He wrenched his shirt back down as a disheveled Draco burst into the bathroom, without his scarf this time, and he notice the edge of something peeking just above his high shirt collar resembling a black tail that looked suspiciously like a tattoo. Harry frowned, when did Malfoy get a tattoo? His eyes flit to the other boy’s hair, not used to seeing it so messy as it usually was styled to perfection. Harry liked Malfoy’s hair, it looked soft and he wanted to touch it and mess it up even more.

Malfoy notices Harry’s meandering gaze and self-consciously smooths his hair down then sneers, “What are you still doing here, Potter? Trying to figure out how to tame that bird’s nest of yours?”

Harry smirks, “No, but why do you keep returning? Did something you eat disagree with you?”

Malfoy keeps his voice even, “No! What I’m doing here is none of your concern, Potter!”

With that Malfoy rushes out again, silently fuming, fists clenched.

Puzzled at the sudden strange behavior, Harry ponders if Malfoy is hiding something; he certainly seemed like it. But what could it be? Voldemort had been defeated, everything was calm, sure a few people picked on Draco, but it was nothing too serious.

Harry decided to ignore it and instead lifted his shirt and twisted around to look at the tattoo and frowned. Over the past minute a few more vines had sprouted and the smoke coming from the dragon’s snout seemed to be denser. A strange idea popped into Harry’s mind as he examined the tattoo again, in earnest. The school’s motto, as Harry remembered, said ‘never tickle a sleeping dragon’, but why? What would happen if he did? The repercussions couldn’t be that bad for a tattoo dragon.

Feeling rather silly, Harry nervously holds out a finger and tickles the sensitive skin where the dragon lays and immediately its sharp, grey eyes snap open, revealing them to be surprisingly human. He feels as if he should recognize them, and vaguely does, just not well enough to identify them. The dragon then elegantly leaps to its feet, tearing the vines away and begins to breathe fire down the length of his spine. Harry lets out a yelp of surprise as what can only be described as a trail of boiling water blazes on his skin. Wincing, he chances a glance back at the dragon only to find it higher up on his back, nestled between his shoulder blades with it’s wings proudly flared, their tips barely brushing his ends of his shoulders. Was it just his imagination, or was it bigger now? Maybe it just looked bigger because it’s wings were spread. As the dragon went back to sleep he noticed the trail of vines and flames in its wake, which didn’t seem to disappear and danced slowly as they undulated in waves, like lapping water. He stared at the trail of tattoos running down his spine for what seemed like hours before sighing and leaving the bathroom.

He trudged into the shared dormitory and opened the chest sitting at the foot of his bed and removed his cloak, remembering how stupid he’d been to not carry it.

When he returned to the common room he was surprised to see Malfoy sitting in one of the armchairs by the fire with a book in hand unaware of Harry’s presence. He looked… serene. Malfoy’s permanent scowl wasn’t stuck to his face as he read and without it he seemed a lot calmer, more pleasant. His grey eyes, made a burning silver by the flickering flames of the fire, were sharp as ever as he read, but they somehow seemed to make him look even more tranquil. His hair, also lit by the flames, shining like strands of silver cast and ethereal glow upon him, and he looked… nice?

Malfoy didn’t notice him for a few moments, but when he did the innocent serene expression was replaced with one of loathing, “What do you want, Potter?”

Harry sputtered for a moment and Malfoy gave him a confused look before Harry finally managed to get out, “Have you seen Ron and Hermione?”

Malfoy sighs, “Granger just ran off in a tish muttering excitedly about the library, which is nothing new, and the Weasel ran with her off spouting some nonsense about dragons. Now if you could kindly sod off and leave me be.”

Malfoy returned to his book glancing up at Harry as he crossed the common room to go to the library.

***

Harry flopped down on his bed and let out a puff of air, running his hand through his wet hair. Showering had given Harry time to think, but it did little to help the jumbled mess of ideas in his head.

After three ungodly hours in the library Hermione, Ron, and himself determined that Harry was affected by one of three spells, one of which they’d found in a book from the restricted section with the aide of Harry’s cloak. Either a spell that animates a regular tattoo, a torture spell that caused a tattoo version of an animal to ravage it’s victim, or a spell used to reveal a ‘soulmate’. Considering the first two options were obviously impossible and the circumstance in which he had been cursed, it was definitely the soulmate spell, which was also dark magic.

Hermione’s matter of fact, word for word, account of the spell returned to his mind,

‘Animus Requaero, commonly known as the soulmate spell or “Soul Seeker” is an old spell that is almost never used and is currently banned by the ministry of magic. The spell, when cast, causes an animated magical tattoo to appear that represents the person’s soulmate, or most compatible match for them. This spell not only affects the person its originally casted upon, but will also cause the soulmate to receive a unique tattoo as well, even when never exposed to the spell, or even the person it was cast upon. The spell will also force the two soulmates together by almost any means necessary, which is the reason it is now banned.’

As they read further Harry had discovered that the Tattoo would only keep growing in size and complexity until a counter spell was uttered by the original caster, of course the spell would only work if his soulmate kissed him to seal the ‘bond’. Not only that, but it had the potential to make him go insane according to many accounts.

That would potentially, no definitely, become a problem.

***

Harry woke with a start, trying to calm his unsteady breathing and screwing his eyes shut as Sirius fell through the veil.

He rubbed at his eyes and shoved his glasses on before casting a quick tempus, which revealed it to be around three in the morning and Harry groaned softly. He’d never be able to get back to sleep at this hour! If it had been just a bit earlier or later he could’ve been spared a few fitful more hours of sleep. Sighing, Harry wordlessly cast a soft lumos and silently padded out of the dormitory and towards the bathroom. As he got ready to open the door he noticed the light was on and he frowned; surely no one was taking a shower this early.

Harry hesitated as his hand hovered over the doorknob, and he pushed the door open.

At the sink stood the last person he expected to run into at this hour. He stood stone still, at the sink, knuckles white against the porcelain, hair and clothes ruffled, eyes intense as he stared at his own reflection with a look of malice. His face looked even more gaunt than usual, his eyes had dark circles under them, and his breath came in ragged short puffs as he fought whatever his silent battle was. Harry stands in the doorway waiting for Malfoy to move, for this calm before the storm to break, or rather this taut tension to spring back and hit him in the face like a rubber band.

Not knowing what to do Harry just ends up clearing his throat causing Malfoy to jump. His eyes move to look at him in the reflection of the mirror and Harry is reminded of another time when their eyes met in the mirror, going rigid. Malfoy instantly has his wand out with a look of fury and when he opens his mouth Harry thinks it’s to hex him, but instead he asks with a croak, “What are you doing here, Potter?”

“I- I had a nightmare.”

Draco sneers and puts his wand away as his eyes move to Harry’s arm, “Well I’m not your babysitter. What’s that?”

Draco gestures to Harry’s arm and he looks down to see a very thin trail flames flickering down his bicep, moving with the same rhythm as before when they roiled and writhed like a giant serpent. Harry looked away from the tattoo, cursing himself that someone saw it, even if they didn’t know what it was, and cursing the fact that it was Malfoy. The one person who would gladly sell his every secret to the media just for kicks, but Malfoy doesn’t seem malicious, merely curious.

“Uh, a tattoo?”

Malfoy scowls and rolls his eyes, “Well I can see that, you dolt. What is it of?”

Harry decided to play it safe and pretend to be clueless, “I don’t know, it appeared yesterday.”

Malfoy’s look suddenly became caged as he fiddled with his shirt sleeves and collar, which were tightly buttoned up as far as possible and said in a clipped voice, “That’s strange.”

Harry nodded, “Did you have a nightmare?” and was suddenly struck with the peculiarity of this entire situation. Of being up at this hour having a civil conversation in the bathroom with Malfoy.

Malfoy’s eyes clouded over with some unrecognizable emotion and he snarls, “Why would I have nightmares? I’m not like you, Potter! Always crying out loud every night, honestly I can’t ever get any sleep!”

With that Draco shoved passed him and ran out of the bathroom, expression unreadable.

Harry stared after him for some time in shock. Did he really cry out? Maybe he needed to get some dreamless sleep from the infirmary. He looked at himself in the mirror for a second, debating if he should check to see how bad his tattoo had gotten, but decides that he didn’t really want to know. Instead he splashes cold water on his face and goes back to bed, managing to sleep by some miracle.

***

Draco had no clue what was happening, and it terrified him to think that something was out of his control again.

So he laid in his bed with the curtains drawn, staring up into the pitch black, willing his heart to stop pounding. Because, it wasn’t anything too serious, right? He lightly sighed into the darkness, Draco knew that wasn’t true, Draco knew that whatever happened was going to end up taking a turn for the worse.

It had happened yesterday, when he was on his way to Hogsmeade to buy himself another scarf. He had just been walking out of the castle when the skin on his chest began to burn, of course with his own stupidity he had just covered it with his scarf dismissing it as the cold. In the courtyard, he could’ve sworn that someone was there, but dismissed it as paranoia. Of course, when he returned and removed his scarf he discovered it.

Lazily sprawled along the length of his collar bones was a very messy looking black lion, with what appeared to be streams of water and storm clouds surrounding it. This had been rather terrifying, so Draco naturally panicked thinking that someone obviously cursed of hexed him. He had casted Finite which did nothing, so moved on to trying to cover it up with a glamour, which in retrospect had not been a great idea. The glamour simply seemed to awaken the tattoo lion, causing it to open it’s emerald eyes and playfully claw its way down his chest leaving a trail of running water and storms in it’s wake before going back to ‘sleep’. This theoretically wouldn’t have been a problem if the tattoo hadn’t insisted on expanding over his skin as he slept. When he had been shocked awake by yet another nightmare, he took the time to look at how it seemed to expand over his skin. Now a band of tattoos wrapped around his shoulders and a little under his neck, that constantly moved and writhed all over his skin. In the thick of it all was the lion, snoozing away as water brimmed over his collarbones and storms pressed at his ribs. It really couldn’t have gotten worse, but he was wrong.

Oh, and of course just as he was ready to leave Potter had to show up, nearly scaring him to death with his wild hair and general disarray. Honestly, Potter should have better sense than to sneak up behind people in mirrors! Draco shivers as he remembers the Sectumsempra incident; he still couldn’t bear the sight of the long slashes on his chest. Potter’s marks all over his chest, countless other scars from numerous Death Eaters, the dark mark that hadn’t faded completely, and now this. Too many people had left their mark on Draco, he may not know who had left this most recent one, but he hoped that whoever did payed for it.

And as unsettling as a giant tattoo appearing out of nowhere seemed, it was a hundred times worse when apparently the same thing happened to someone else, someone else that just happened to be Harry Fucking Potter.

Of course Draco couldn’t be sure, he could’ve been seeing things, dreaming about the encounter, imagining it, but he really couldn’t be sure until tomorrow in potions. He scowled, Slughorn had partnered him up with Potter for the entire year, most likely to keep an eye on him. He would’ve taken the chance to gladly ruin all of Potter’s potions, but Slughorn always had partnered brewing classes, so if Draco fucked up Potter’s potion, he would also be ruining his own grade, which he couldn’t afford. But every steamy potions class Potter would take off his outer robes, exposing his t-shirt underneath, not that Draco paid attention to what Potter wore or thought about what was under his robes. Nope, never! Anyways, he would be able to see if he still had the tattoo and then he would probably overhear something from Granger (she could never keep her mouth shut) and voila! he would have this worthless thing gone and be able to get on with life.

He would need to go to the library tomorrow as well, it was a lot more likely that he would find answers there. He remembered some myth his mother told him that sort of reminded him of his sudden tattoo, but he knew it wasn’t possible. It was an old dark spell meant to find a soulmate, often used among pureblood families to see if an arranged marriage was more ideal than not, but Draco knew it wasn’t even up for consideration, the spell had been banned long ago even before the new restrictions. The spell if not acknowledged, would do anything to drive the ‘soulmates’ together, going as far as to murder spouses in the process or to other extreme lengths, the tattoo was merely a side-effect.

He was beginning to convince himself it wasn’t the soulmate spell and Potter’s lack of a tattoo was certain.

***

Harry was not feeling so great by the time he made it to potions. It was after lunch and he had a pretty bad headache, which would only get worse when he had to deal with Malfoy.

Potion’s class wasn’t all that bad, Harry was actual pretty good at potions and always got decent marks on everything, it’s just that he didn’t really have a passion for it, or really appreciate Malfoy jabbering away about how he was messing up their potion by not following the instructions to a tee.

“Potter, it says to chop the beetle, not to crush it. Honestly, can you not read?”

Harry grits his teeth, “Malfoy, I’m crushing it so more beetle juice mixes into the potion before the solid parts, that way it can react with the dragon’s blood quicker and we’ll have even more time to stir it before it can congeal.”

Malfoy stares at him for a second in shock before setting his jaw, “I didn’t think of that, but couldn’t we have even more stirring time if we just lowered the flame and chopped it into smaller pieces?”

Harry stops for a moment and sighs, “Yeah, probably, but the flame would have to be hot enough to boil the dragon’s blood and the mermaid tears also have to be above a certain temperature, so they don’t negatively react with the fire beetle, so...”

Malfoy seems to stand in a sort of stupor before throwing his hands up in exasperation, “Whatever, just remember it’s both of our grades.”

“Yeah.” Harry crushes the still moving beetle with the flat of his knife then tosses it in the cauldron and almost as if he read Harry’s mind began to turn up the flame and stir madly.

Harry, met with the sudden wave of heat, strips off his outer robes in favor of the t-shirt underneath and lays his outer robe in his chair. As he begins to prepare the other ingredients he notices Malfoy staring at him and glances at his bicep, wondering if the tattoo returned before sighing in relief.

Overnight, his tattoo had taken over the entirety of his back and begun to lace over his ribcage and down his hips, but had completely shied away from his arms and neck. Not even a single tattoo-leaf had remained on his arms and as he slept the dragon had moved down to the small of his back, right above his arse.

Harry begins to carefully slice equal increments of daisy stems and as the minutes passed their work station continued to grow even more stifling. He uncomfortable tugged at the collar of his shirt and glanced at Malfoy, wondering how he was still able to wear all his robes in the stifling heat. A bead of sweat drips down Malfoy’s temple and he wipes it away with the back of his hand still stirring, his high arching brows furrowed in concentration. He watches him a bit longer, entranced by the way his long, deft fingers carefully stir the potion and casually flip through their potions book. The flames set his eyes alight, glowing in the dark of the potions classroom almost reminiscent of the way the common room fire danced in his eyes, the silver tinted orange, the colors mixing like a pool of lava and molten lead.

“Potter, stir this. Potter?! Potter, will you stop drooling like a fool and stir this?!”

Harry snaps out of his trance and scowls at him before taking the glass stirring rod from him, “I was not drooling.” He muttered.

“Hmmm, maybe not, but it can’t be healthy for you to stare at a single point for so long.” Malfoy shrugs his robes off and drapes them over his chair, revealing a black dress shirt with it’s collar buttoned up as high as it would go, and turns back towards the cauldron to examine their potion. “Well would you look at that, Potter hasn’t ruined the potion. What a delightful surprise.”

Harry smirks, “Malfoy, was that a compliment I heard, from you?”

Malfoy snorts, “In your dreams Potter, now give me the stirring rod.”

Harry hands him the rod and slices the last bits of daisy stem and tosses them into the cauldron, where Malfoy then stirs clockwise five times and scourgifies the rod, setting it beside their cauldron. Harry skims over the instructions again, seeing that now all they had to do was wait until the concoction turned a shade of shimmering magenta and smelled like ‘autumn’, whatever that meant. He carelessly runs a hand through his messy hair and wordlessly begins to gather up the leftover ingredients while Malfoy vanishes the abandoned scraps, messes, and spills.

On his way to the potions cabinet a large bang shakes the classroom, making his dissipating headache return to its previous severity. Harry winces then twists around to see the stunned, soot covered faces of Neville and Goyle blinking in surprise at their cauldron. He sighs and shoots a sympathetic look at Neville who is already being assaulted with barbed comments from Goyle who was most likely the cause of their massive fuck up although, judging by the guilty look on Neville’s face, it was possible he was the culprit. Neville wasn’t all that bad at potions anymore, but still wasn’t very good and when paired with Goyle, who was absolutely wretched at it, so they often had the most spectacularly terrible fuck ups.

“I told you not to turn the flame up!”

“Well not soon enough!”

“Oh so you think that-“

Neville is cut off by the Slughorn when he attempts to restore order. Harry just sighs at the new spectacle unfolding before him and trudges into the confined space of the cabinet, avoiding the jars of pickled newt eyes and chicken feet and instead carefully returning his ingredients to their rightful places. He stops for a moment and stares at the jar of daisy stems, charmed to keep them fresh, and the smear of undried blood on it’s side. Harry gasps at a sudden slashing of pain on his thumb and brings it into the light to reveal a long, uniform cut, like a knife had sliced it. He stares for a moment, he hadn’t accidentally cut himself, had he? He didn’t think so, and if he was sure he would’ve noticed it sooner.

He carefully examines it once more in the light and as he does the small wound miraculously closes leaving little beads of blood in a straight, uniform line. Harry blinks, he must be going mad, or had just cast a wordless, wandless, healing spell. He gives himself a shake, it didn’t matter, he had more important things to worry about, like his grades and this stupid soulmate curse. Wordlessly, he casts a cleaning spell on his thumb and the jar before strolling back to his work station where Malfoy was cradling his hand and holding his wand in the other.

“Potter, where were you? I almost chopped my thumb off when Goyle’s and Longbottom’s potion exploded!”

Harry’s blood ran cold, but he managed to choke out a strangled, “You seemed to handle it fine.”

Malfoy arches one perfect brow, “What has you all choked up?”

“Nothing.” Nothing is wrong with him, its not the stupid curse, its just a coincidence. “What’s with the shirt?” he blurts out.

Malfoy reddens then snarls at him, “What do you mean by that?”

Shit. What did he mean by that? “Er, its just that you seem to be trying to cover up more, that’s all. I mean first it was the scarf over a regular shirt and now you’ve got your shirt buttoned up to your throat.”

Malfoy’s face hardens and he snarls, “It’s none of your business why I do things and why do you care all of a sudden?” Draco evilly smirks, “it’s almost as if you want to see as much of me as you can.”

Merlin no! He didn’t want to see more of Draco, didn’t want to see him shirtless, picture him completely naked, picture him…

“No! No, not what I was thinking, I just wondered why you were dressing so strangely all of a sudden.”

Was it his imagination, or did Malfoy look disappointed? He snorts “I dress strange? You need a mirror.”

Harry just rolled his eyes flipped through his potions book, and by the time their perfectly brewed potion had been turned in and class ended, he forgot all about the sudden cut on his thumb.

***

Draco’s headache grew worse as he left the potion’s classroom and it didn’t seem to get better after a dull hour of arithmancy, if anything it grew worse. Of course, Draco ignored it, and went to the library to research soulmate curses, but when he left, it grew so painful that he began to walk to the infirmary.

The headache, according to his research, was most certainly not a harrold to good fortune. Almost every account of the soulmate spells recorded negative effects started with a headache. There were numerous paths the spell could take too, depending on what needed to happen to bring the soulmates together. Some of the more disturbing effects had been, temporary blindness, a forced proximity curse manifesting itself, body and gender swapping, and mind link similar to a two-way legillmency spell. None of these seemed very appealing, but the mind link seemed to be the worst. Draco did not like the idea of a complete stranger having access to his thoughts, but knowing his luck, this would be the exact effect that would manifest. Or worse someone he knew, but if it was someone he knew it couldn’t be too bad, and he knew it wouldn’t be someone who loathed him, like Potter.

Draco half-heartedly scowls, but he doesn’t feel the same way about him anymore. Before, he had been so easy to hate, being so perfect at everything, having everything, and all that rot, but now? Draco didn’t know what to think, he wasn’t cold hearted as he once thought. Harry had pleaded on his and his mother’s behalf much to everyone’s surprise, Draco’s especially, and after revaluating his entire standpoint on him, he didn’t seem so hate-able anymore. After looking at him from a new perspective he seemed kind, caring, and like a warm, heartfelt person. He wanted to hate him for how damned likable he was, but couldn’t. His glittering eyes, the messy hair, the kindly smile all of it looked different, it felt like he was just seeing him again for the first time, like he still had a chance at being Potter’s friend, maybe more.

No.

It could never happen, and it never will.

“Arghh!”

A brief pain flashed behind his eyes and he quickened his pace to the infirmary and collided with a very frantic Potter, falling back onto the floor.

“Potter!” he spat.

Potter rubbed at his temples and groaned, “Malfoy.”

Without thinking, Draco tugged his collar up higher, just in case his tattoo had grown larger during the day and had spread up to his chin, and hissed, “Watch where you’re going, Potter!”

He scrambled to his feet and dashed off to the infirmary, not noticing how his headache had subsided.

***

Two days and nights had passed, and his problem had worsened.

Harry’s tattoo covered him from his shoulders down to his waist and had begun to wind past his elbows. The dragon had grown in size too, and seemed to be drowning in the other tattoos, always indignantly scrambling to keep above them and whenever Harry looked at it, the dragon always glared back with a familiar gleam in its eye. He stared in the mirror at it now, while it slept with its entire body covering his back and its wings wrapped around his ribs, meeting at the center of his chest where a woody plant followed his ribs, branching like a tree, making him look like some creepy skeleton. The flames and plants weaved all around the tattoo, tree-ribs making it look as if these things were really in his chest, creepily moving in time with his breathing and heartbeat, everything except the dragon. It seemed to live to make chaos, even if it wasn’t the dragon’s intent.

Harry sighed, he knew his tattoo was the least of his problems.

Last night he found a book about soulmate spells in the eighth year common room, most likely left there by Hermione, and had begun to read about certain effects the spell had. His persistent headache, which Madam Pomfrey couldn’t help, was just the beginning of it all, the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

Also, Dean and Seamus had set the boys dormitory on fire again, so they would all be split up into separate rooms with one other person who would, supposedly, cause them the least trouble as their roommate for the rest of the year and each person was handpicked by McGonagall.

Harry gives his tattoo one last withering look before he pulls on a long sleeved shirt; with only one roommate and bathroom it would be much harder to hide his tattoo. And most of all, he hoped his new roommate was someone he could get along with like Ron, but McGonagall made it clear that it was unlikely for friends to be paired and to not hope for it. He sighed again, levitating his bags and walking to his new room.

***

“You have got to be kidding me.”

Harry whirled around, wand in hand, to face a dead-eyed Malfoy with two suitcases bobbing in the air behind him. Feeling foolish, he lowered his wand, “She roomed you with me?”

Malfoy scowls, lacking some of its regular venom, “Brilliant deduction Potter, it appears she has, although why she thinks that the two of us are less likely to cause trouble than literally any other pairing, I don’t know.”

Harry frowns and turns back to his bags, unpacking his things and gathering his shower items, “Well, I won’t cause problems as long as you agree not to as well.”

Draco arches a brow, “I believe this oh so, brilliant thing your suggesting would be called a truce, Potter.” The blond sticks out his hand, “Truce?”

Harry stares at it uncertainly and is flashed back to his first time on the Hogwarts’ Express when Draco offered his hand and Harry had rejected him, for good reason too. He swallows back the memories and takes his soft hand in his own a little startled by the jolt of electricity and magic that precedes to run through him, “Truce.”

Draco stares at Harry for a second with what looks like the beginnings of a smile curling his lips and slight shock, but its gone as soon as he realizes its there and he drops his hand. Draco’s gaze drops to the floor and he licks his lips, Harry stares for a moment, intrigued, before clearing his throat and hurrying into the bathroom with his shampoo and other things, blushing madly. As he shuts the door behind him he sighs, and begins to get ready to shower.

As he undresses he notices something strange about his tattoo; all of the designs on his right arm, from the elbow down, were in color. The fire was roaring among the green leaves in different shades of red and orange along with flickering tongues of blue flames, and all of the designs along his body absolutely writhed. He stared a moment absolutely transfixed on the marks, he rushed to look at himself in a mirror and when he did it absolutely took his breath away.

Everything was moving, everything except for the tree at his center which stood strong with its branches that rigidly curved out and around his chest, following the same path his ribs took. But everything else looked alive and followed the same rhythm as his heartbeat and breathing, the leaves swishing to and fro, the flames flickering between it all, and flowers blooming, losing their petals, and re-growing them in a matter of seconds as he drew in each breath. Then there was the dragon which followed none of these rhythms, it climbed along the tree, pushing between the branches, disturbing the leaves, never rising above his shoulders which was a no-go zone for the tattoos, the dragon with its glittering silver eyes. It’s eyes which reflected a kaleidoscope of colors from his arm, dancing as they stared back at him.

He was so enchanted by the changes to his tattoos that he didn’t notice how they had spread down the sides of his legs at first. As he looked he noticed the thin lines of plants and dimly flickering trails of fire that stretched all the way down to his ankles, slowly curling outwards and growing as he watched.

Well that wasn’t good.

He grimaced at how quickly it was spreading and clambered into the shower, dreading the day he couldn’t cover it up anymore. When that happened, everyone would be running after him attempting to kiss the golden boy, to see if they were soulmates, kindly avoiding the question of if they had a soulmark like he did. He groans to himself as he thinks about the kind of publicity it would get, what the media would say. He could picture the headlines now, ‘Golden Boy with a soulmate Tattoo?! See how good your chances of snogging him are!’. He groans again; he had enough trouble avoiding crowds as it was, if word ever got out about this tattoo, it would be a whole different level of unbearable.

He stares at the shower rack in front of him and jumps when he hears muffled banging on the door and the irritated voice of Malfoy, “Hurry up and stop playing with your prick! I need to take a shower before tomorrow Potter!”

Harry’s face heats up and he hurriedly begins to rinse the last bits of shampoo out of his hair, “I’m not playing with my prick you tosser!”

He steps out of the spray, cuts the shower off, grabs a towel out of his bag and frantically dries off then pulls on a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt. He glances down at his ankles and curses; he would have to wear socks to bed, which was something he usually didn’t do because it feels like sweaty hell when he does it. He hastily pulls on a pair of socks thinking ‘fuck it!’ then brushes his teeth in record time and shoves his glasses on.

He gathers up his school robes over one arm and wrenches open the door to an impatient Malfoy who immediately scrunches up his nose. His gaze slides to Harry’s wet hair then back to Harry’s eyes. Malfoy arches a brow and the corners of his lips barely move up, “Potter, are you going to move and let me shower or are you going to stand there dripping all over the carpets?”

Harry felt the tips of his ears heat up, “D-dripping?”

A slight pink colors Malfoy’s cheeks and he rolls his eyes, pointing one slender finger at Harry’s sopping hair, “Your hair, Potter.”

Harry blinked and mutters “Oh.” as he pushes out of Malfoy’s way

Harry doesn’t turn, but he can feel Malfoy’s eyes on him from the doorway as he begins to unpack a few of his things. When he does chance a look the blond has an expression of confusion stuck on his face and he was fiddling with the collar of his shirt which was buttoned snugly up to his chin. Draco stared at him for a few seconds longer before jutting his chin out and strutting into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him with an audible click.

***

Draco felt clueless. He felt like he had all of the pieces of the puzzle he was trying to solve, but just couldn’t fit them together properly and didn’t have any picture or clues to guide him. All Draco had were heaping multitudes of blank and broken pieces and if he couldn’t fit them together soon he was going to start forcing them into place and shoving them in places where they didn’t fit or belong.

He had to be missing something, because right now those little pieces were all starting come together and those pieces seemed to lead to Harry Potter, or at least someone in the Eighth Year. After all, he had left his book about soulmates in the common room and now it was gone, so obviously someone found it useful or more likely one of his book-mad peers (Ravenclaws, cough, cough, Granger) had taken it for extra reading. ‘Or Potter’ his mind supplied; he sighed.

‘Or Potter’, indeed.

Was it possible that his one destined true love just also happened to be his long-standing rival, Savior of the wizarding world, the insufferably kind, good-hearted, messy, Harry Potter? Not Bloody, Fucking, Likely! He scoffed to himself; he was most certainly being paranoid. So, what if never wore anything but long sleeved shirts anymore, so what if Harry always stared at Draco, so what if Draco’s headaches all subsided when he neared Harry, so what if he saw some random disappearing tattoo on Harry’s toned bicep, so what?

Fuck. Fuckity fuck.

Draco was going mad. Harry Potter, his soulmate? Ha, no. But, Draco was going to expose him at some point, right after he figured out how to glamour his own tattoo. Then the idiot couldn’t hide from him.

Draco smiled into his pillow and tugged up the high collar of his pajamas and begun to dream of lions and bright, green eyes.

***

When Draco woke, it felt as if a hazy fog was pressing at the edge of his mind. This fog seemed to be completely independent from the rest of his mind and separate in both behavior and ideas, but it was comforting. He lazed in the comforting feeling at the edge of his consciousness and slowly became more and more aware of his surroundings.

He was in his new room shared with the golden boy himself and lacking even more in privacy than the dorms. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and yawned quietly, but stopped when he saw his hands.

No.

Not this early, it couldn’t have spread down his arm to his hand overnight. As he stared at the streams of water and storms that lay cradled in his hands he feels the presence at the edge of his thoughts begin to wake and he panics, fleeing into the bathroom and locking the door behind him.

Shit.

He had been prepared for this, just not so early. He had gloves and an excuse, but not the state of mind needed to handle this situation. He doesn’t dare take off his clothes, or look in the mirror and instead feels the fear coming from the edge of his mind. The unknown consciousness was now just as awake as he was and also panicking. He takes steady breaths and begins to undress thinking of ways to hide the tattoo if it went above his chin, makeup would be the best option, no matter how muggle, and he could put a stasis charm on it to keep it in place.

He braces himself and steps in front of the mirror then almost stumbles back into the shower at the thing on his chest.

The black lion, with its emerald eyes, was sporting a pair of goddamned antlers.

He gawked at it and then noticed the two patches of white fur on the tattoo lion and almost began to bash his head against the wall. One patch was on the beast’s head and shaped like a bolt of lightning, the other was a starburst shape on the creature’s chest. Two killing curses.

He didn’t even have room to doubt, his soulmate was Harry Fucking Potter.

***

Harry woke up with a stab of fear that was not his own and confusion began to hover over him like a thick cloud. He grabbed his glasses and shoved them on and stared at Draco’s empty, messed up bed, feeling a jolt of panic run through him, equal parts his own and someone else’s.

Draco could’ve seen his tattoo, oh god. Harry was bolt upright now with his wand in hand staring at the exposed skin beneath his sleaves.
His hands were covered in tattoos and they were all moving.

They churned about, twisting around his fingers and flickering in his palms. A sense of horror bloomed in his stomach and the mind at the edge of his own seemed to absolutely panic. Harry tried to comfort it, thinking that it was most likely his soulmate, and it seemed to work then in turn a wave of calm washed over him, allowing coherent thought to rule his mind.

There was a simple charm that George showed him that made it look like his hands were covered in burns, meant for simple pranking or skipping class, but it should be able to cover up the tattoo or at least give him an excuse to cover his hands in bandages. Harry had tried to use a disillusionment charm before, and it had done nothing, but this technically was not a variation of a disillusionment charm so it may work.

As he cast the charm, he felt his hands itch and soon the skin of his hands were covered in what looked like recent burn scars, with not a single part of the tattoo showing. He sighs in relief, the charm takes six hours to wear off and then he’d have to reapply it, and reaches into his trunk pulling out a roll of bandages.

He bandages each hand carefully before cursing; he hadn’t showered yet, he’d just have to take them off again.

With a scowl, he unravels his hands just as Draco bursts out of the bathroom, showered, clothed, and with his hair styled to perfection.

Harry is hit with a tantalizing, strong citrus scent as soon as Malfoy stops staring at Harry’s hands and face, his face contorted in an angry, pissed off scowl, but his eyes filled with a paralyzing fear. Malfoy’s glare moves back down to Harry’s hands, “How did you manage to injure yourself in your sleep, Potter!” He spat. The malice on his face makes Harry internally cringe and his insides wither up a bit. The hovering cloud of thought seemed to resemble a brewing storm, with anger, envy, fear, and a touch of admiration all swirling into a coalescing mass of emotion, too overwhelming to attempt to handle.

“Well Potter, to noble to answer?” he snarls with an indistinct emotion glimmering in the depths of his storming eyes.

“I, uh, no, um… I don’t know. I just woke up with my hands burning so I healed them, I just have to keep them wrapped until the scars go away.”

“You just woke up with them? Kind of like how a magical tattoo just appeared on your arm, right?” Malfoy growls.

Harry feels his blood run cold and dread begin to weigh at him. The haze of thought seems smug and Harry grits out, “Well, Malfoy, you sure do know a lot about magical tattoos, considering all of your experience.” Harry pointedly glares at Malfoy’s forearm and then back into his eyes.

The haze suddenly grows bone-chillingly cold and tendrils of ice meet the metaphorical storm in his mind, Malfoy’s glare pierces through him as he takes a few deliberate steps towards Harry, “You think you know me, don’t you? You think that my marks define me?” he hisses, voice rising. Malfoy is now towering over Harry’s sitting position barely on the edge of screaming, hatred seething from his voice, whether directed towards Harry or himself he doesn’t know, “You think that every mark and scar that covers my body is a reflection of myself? You think that I wanted the mark, your slashes across my chest, countless scars I received in my own home? You think I wanted to become this?” Malfoy gestures over his lean frame, darkened eyes, “If you think I wanted any of this, any of this bias, any of the torture then perhaps you should take a closer look in the mirror, Potter. Because while you may love your scars and all of their attention, I most certainly do not love my own.”

With a flourish of his robes Draco exits the room and Harry breathes out a sigh of relief as the tightness in his chest vanishes slowly being replaced with guilt and hysteria, then chokes out a strangled gasp as something prickles at his forearm.

Harry yanks up his shirtsleeve on the way to the washroom and stares at his tattoo. A vine, more specifically a bramble, was prickling at his skin and three clean droplets of blood had welled up where the tattoo thorns had gauged his skin. The prickling vine had broken from under his own skin, leaving a terrible gash; he stares in horror and shudders as the plant disappears under his skin, fading back into ink.

Harry’s breathing comes in short gasps for a few seconds as he stares at the skin of his forearm, bleeding slightly still and a sharp pain slashes at his chest. Crying out he barreles through the door of the bathroom and launches himself in front of the mirror. Ignoring the buttons on his shirt he Harry rips it open and stares at his chest with fear pulsing through his veins, clouding his mind.

On his chest something sharp and pointy had cleanly sliced through his skin, but no remnants of what had done it were showing on his skin. The tree was shudering and the leaves were madly swirling with an invisible breeze, and the flames were absolutely roaring; it was a terrifying sight, his tattoo.

Everything was voilently thrashing on his skin, churning and writhing in waves of relentless motion, and among it all was the dragon. It’s silver scales gleamed dully as it ripped apart brambles and vines, as it quelled flames with its mighty wings, and wherever it went tattoos shied away from its sly, cunning glare. As he watched in awe he noticed a black blur on one of its legs and several pale slashes on its chest alongside many other pale spots all over its hide.

Harry frowns and tugs off the rest of his clothes, before stepping into the shower.

***

Draco was freeezing.

The transfigurations classroom felt like it was in the tundra and the air was cold as ice.

Or maybe it was just Draco.

Draco glances around at the other students, acting as if everything is normal and comes to the conclusion that it was probably just him. Well except for Potter. Potter was sitting with his outer robes removed looking rather miserable, which he deserves.

Potter. If only Potter knew how much he hated the marks marring his body. Of course the golden boy wouldn’t understand, his scars were all greatly appreciated by the entirety of the wizarding community. He had nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to hide.

Draco sighs, if there was one good thing about the soulmate tattoo, it had to be that it covered all his scars. Although, the replacement hadn’t been much of an improvement.

Without thinking he rubs the sore spot on his forearm right over where his dark mark is. After the mysterious gouge appeared it had almost instantly healed itself, but to him it still felt like it was there, still taunting him. He had read about soulmates sharing wounds in “Soul Binding Magics” (from the restricted section of Hogwarts’ library) and he hadn’t inflicted the wound upon himself, so Harry must done it. He glared at the back of Harry’s head, eyes flitting over his damp curls of hair, stupid git; he was harming himself and Draco couldn’t do anything about it without revealing himself.

Draco glances down at his forearm and sighs, it wasn’t like he himself could scold Harry. Draco shivers, equal parts from the cold and revulsion over himself, the things he has done to himself and others.

He blankly stares at the chalkboard at the front of the room and blinks. Who even said that Harry was hurting himself? It could just be what had happened with the tattoo.

Draco’s thoughts flashback to earlier in the restrooms where he had stopped and looked at his chest, it had been terrible, surreal, terrifying.

Ice was running through his veins, his skin was covered in thunderclouds, streaks of lightening, worst of all was the misshapen mass of ice on his chest so life-like that it looked as if he was melting from the inside out, his frozen heart hanging alone in his empty frame. He tried to process what he was seeing, his heart beating too fast, his breaths coming in short gasps, his hands turning ice cold. Then a shard of something had stabbed outward from his chest It was joltingly cold, clear as crystal and when Draco barely slid his fingers on the shards sticking out from his chest he knew immediately what it was.

Ice.

Draco was uncontrollably shivering now as he recalled what had happened, he had seen his own terrified eyes in the mirror and for a moment it really looked as if he were made of ice, as if he were so fragile he would shatter at any second.

Draco wraps his cloak around him tighter and clasps his gloved hands together before casting another useless warming charm.

Draco quietly groans and lets his head fall to the desk with a soft thump.

Stupid Potter, with his gourgous tousled hair, glimmering eyes, and stupid Gryffindor kindness.

What a git.

And he was so easy to read! He had absolutely no tact or subtlety about anything, whether it be talking to Draco or sneaking ‘covert’ glances at him in class. Right at the moment Harry turns around slightly and glances at him out of the corner of his eye; the stupid tactless idiot looking at him with so much concern and caring and-

Draco’s cheeks go pink and he pulls at the collar of his robes, Harry didn’t care about him, did he? Granger glances between Harry, who is still glancing (cough, STARING) at him and Draco who knows the tips of his ears are probably bright red right now, despite the cold, and nods to herself. FUCKING NODS, like its okay and normal for the golden boy and a former death-eater to be exchanging heart-felt glances.

Wait, no… Harry was exchanging heartfelt glances, not he… or was he?

He frowns to himself as Granger elbows Harry and whispers something in his ear that makes him flush even deeper than before and start looking at his shoes like they’re the most interesting things in the world.

Draco can feel Harry’s embarrassment and smirks at him from across the room when he turns around again. This just makes Harry even more flustered and he whips back around to face the front of the room. Ah, so easy to rile Potter up, whether it be by making him angry or flustered.

Granger shoots him a distrustful glance and whispers something to the blissfully oblivious Weasley, who barely turns to scowl at him.

The blood drains from his cheeks as he realizes what this could mean. Harry, being the loyal idiot he is, probably told his little friends all about his lovely tattoo as soon as he received it, which means they probably knew what it was. That’s why they were all in the library that one evening right after he received it. All his blank puzzle pieces were beginning to makes sense and repair themselves then fit together, which would logically reveal the picture on top or supposedly. But worse than not being to solve the puzzle, or having the pieces to do so and no guide to put it together, had to be being able to solve the puzzle but unable see the outcome.

And as he glared at the back of the golden boy’s head, he had to admit, that he honestly had no idea what to do next.

***
As the lesson finally came to a screetching halt after another half an hour of a tedious lecture Draco began to quickly pack away and head for the door, but before he could exit he was cornered by Granger.

With nevousness and agitation fluttering in his stomach, he scowls, “Granger, what is it?”

Without speaking she just grabs him by his robes and pulls him outside, casting a silencing charm.

“Granger! What are you doing? Let go of me at once!” Forboding was hanging around them in a cloud and Draco felt on edge, like he knew what was coming.

Granger let go of his robes and swirled around to face him just outside the classroom, her face deadly serious, “I know, Malfoy, and don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

Draco, already suspecting this, weakly mutters in a slighty sarcastic tone, “I don’t know what your talking about.”

Granger just smirks, “Don’t play dumb Draco, you can’t fool me. I’ve suspected you since the first day when he showed us the tattoo. But now I’m certain, with the way you and Harry have been acting, your stupid gloves, Harry’s fake burns, the other ridiculous clothes your wearing. It’s obvious if you’re really looking for it.”

Draco just stares at her, sincerely dumbfounded, just beginning to realize that either she really was the brightest witch of her age or maybe he had just been an utter fool this entire time.

She just smirks at his expression and continues, “Don’t worry, I’m sure he doesn’t know, although he probably suspects it’s you. I mean he may be completely oblivious to everything around him, but I’m sure that he must see the symbolism of a silver, grey eyed dragon on his back.”

Draco just stands there holding his breath, for a second completely at a loss for words before unsteadily saying, “Well, it can’t be more obvious than a black lion with antlers and a lightning bolt scar.”

Granger stares at him in shock and begins to laugh, “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

“I’m completely serious, although its lack of spectacles dissapoints me to no end.”

Granger light heartedly laughs a bit more before growing serious again as the silence begins to stretch, “You are going to have to do something about this, if you don’t I’m going to have to tell Harry its you.”

Draco stares at the floor and miserably says, “I know.”

Granger just stares at him, “Do you? It hurts him you know, the tattoo. It pyhsically hurts him, it leaves him-“

“With gouges in his arm and slashes on his chest, yes I know Granger because it hurts me too.”

She just sighs, “Then you know how important it is to just tell him or if you’re not interested in him just kiss him one day out of the blue and pretend this never happened. Although if you kiss him right now he is likely to hex you or punch you or-“

Draco cuts her off, “Granger, seeing as how both of those options are terrible, couldn’t I just be his friend for the time being or literally anything else with him other than romantically involved? I mean, all the spell requires is contact of some kind or at least companionship to keep it from worsening.”

Granger gives him a strange look, “Well yes, the spell works off proximity and emotion coupled with skin to skin contact, however since it was made for pureblood purposes in a time where skin to skin contact was scandelous, you could easily just be near him and treat him with hospilitiy instead of actually touching him. In “A Complete Guide to Dark Love Spelles” I read that if you become closer to the actual goal of the spell its effects will lessen even if you don’t kiss.”

Draco frowns, “I read something similar to that, but it mentioned that it would only work for the tattoo problem, not the other interesting side effects that go along with the spell.”

Granger looks sheepishly at the ground, “Well, yes, but the tattoo is reactive to the proximitive state between a pair of soulmates, while any other effects purely rely on emotional health as well as any other thoughts and feelings towards the partner.”

Draco winces at the words ‘soulmate’ and ‘partner’ but says nothing which causes the silence to ramble on.

After a few beats, Granger tentativly says, “Would you like to do research with me in library? I’m sure we could find more information.”

Draco stares at the floor, this may be his free period, but he sure wasn’t going to spend it with Granger in the stuffy library, “No, Granger I’m busy enough as it is and I’ve been told that unless I want to die of embarressment, humiliation, or by terrible tattoo, that I should immediately cuddle up to our saviour Harry Fucking Potter. So, goodbye.”

Without seeing her reaction Draco ran off back to his shared dorm, finding it oddly convient that McGonagall just happened to room them together, perhaps Granger had some involvement in that too. Scowling, Draco opens the door to find Harry sitting on the couch in front of the small hearth with a magazine of some sort in his hand, no doubt reading about himself. Harry didn’t even look up from his reading, until Draco shut the door behind him and he jumps with surprise.

As Draco begins to shuck off his robes he hears Harry behind him, “I’m sorry you know, about what I said. I didn’t -I didn’t mean to upset you like that.”

Draco doesn’t turn to face him and instead just sighs and carefully folds his robes before replying, “Apology accepted, Potter, although I’m sure that the copious amounts of staring in transfigurations was enough to tell me.”

He turns to see Harry’s reaction and is not dissapointed because the dark flush on his face is quite visable despite his tan skin. Draco just smirks and gracefully slides down onto the sofa beside him, with his transfiguration book in hand, choosing to ignore Potter’s obviously flushed face and gaping mouth.

Harry doesn’t stop gaping until Draco says something about it, “Honestly Potter, there’s no need to be gaping like a fish at me and for fucks sake… Also, where did you hide the quilt that was here and why is there no fire? It’s freezing!”

Potter snaps out of his stupor, but still seems slighty shocked before making a disbelieving face at Draco, “Freezing?! It feels like hell in here!”

Draco arches an eyebrow and grumbles, “Yeah, maybe if it froze over, besides I think its just you. I can practically feel the waves of heat coming off of you.”

Draco feels his cheeks go pink and Harry stares at him with a look of confusion and embarassment as his face flushes an even deeper shade than before then mumbles, “Well, its as if I can feel your lack of warmth.”

Draco smirks as Harry swallows and looks away, obviously embarassed, “Calling me cold hearted? How flattering, Potter. And anyways, I don’t believe you, there is no way you can’t be freezing right now.”

Harry takes the bait and a competative smirk appears on his face, “Oh yeah? I bet you’re secretly boiling, over there.” He says, and without warning lunges across the couch and grabs Draco’s hand.

Stifling a yelp of surprise, Draco’s eyes widen as a jolt of magic crackles between them and as Harry’s warm, but not sticky hand, envelopes his cold thin, gloved one. Draco doesn’t even have to be looking at his tattoos to know that they’re writhing all over his skin in a kaliedescope of colors. He stares into Harry’s eyes for a moment, not wanting to remove the warmth of his hand from his own, not wanting to break the fragileness of this moment, the moment in which he realized he didn’t have a chance, he never did. Draco was going to fall for him and hard.

Just as he reaches this realization, Harry’s eyes widen more and he quickly wrenches his hand away and roughly runs his hand through his hair and mutters, “You really do feel freezing.”

Draco feels a bit stung by the remark but ignores the feeling and harshly whispers, “And you feel like a damned furnace.”

A cautious smile flickers on Harry’s face and Draco’s mouth slightly turns up at the sides in response. Draco opens his book from where he left off then carefully takes his off shoes and props his legs up next to Harry’s. Harry squirms about, squemishly, but doesn’t move, before returning to his magazine, his glances flitting back to Draco regularly.

As he continues to read he realises that he doesn’t feel that cold anymore.

***

Harry just couldn’t tear his eyes away from Draco. Draco and his stupid perfect hair, his elegant hands and fingers, and his stupid little half smirk that seems to constantly be stuck to his face. That haughty little smirk that seemed to be angry, nervous, calm, and amused all at once.

And Harry was losing himself over it.

Just then Harry sees Draco barely glance up from his book and then back down and then he bites his lip.

Bites his fucking lip.

That handsome, lovely, intelligent, git knew what he was doing to Harry and it just wasn’t fair. Harry looks down at his quiddich magazine with a blush heating his face and out of the corner of his vision he sees Draco smiling to himself and he loses it.

Merlin’s stinky socks! It had probably been Draco this entire time!

It would certainly make sense, the caged way Draco was acting, his even stranger wardrobe choices, his stupid gloves in particular, and what he’s doing right now. This entire flirting business was getting out of hand, but Harry was going to change that.

To be continued...
(hopefully)

Chapter Text

Part 2:

Later on in the evening after visiting the library and discussing this entire soulmate business with Ron and Hermione, Harry had finally resolved about doing something. He had learned from Hermione that Draco apparently already knew, so the only thing that Harry had left to do was go for it. It, being the kiss, and quite possibly the reason that he may get a stinging hex to the privates later this evening.

But that wouldn’t happen, he wouldn’t be kissing Draco today, he would just be teasing him.

A little smile grows on his face as he steps into the spray of lukewarm water of the shower. Draco, won’t know what hit him.

His smirk grows when he hears Draco pounding on the door for him to, “Get out of the shower and stop wanking!”

Now was his time to shine.

***
Fucking Potter, always takes forever for him to fucking shower and afterwards it always smells like his stupid sweet, musky cologne afterwards. Stupid Potter.

He’s been standing here for a minute now, a minute of silence, “Potter, will you fucking hurry-“

Right before he can finish his sentence the door to the bathroom swings open and Draco finds himself face-to-face with a shirtless Harry Potter.

His eyes travel down his chest and land on his tattoo, his beautful tattoo, the tattoo which writhes on his skin swirling in masses of orange and green around the centre of the design. In the centre, which was shimmering starkly against his dark skin, was a dragon. A dragon with long limbs and sleek scales, a dragon with skin that seemed to cling to it’s frail bones, a dragon scattered with scars and a single evil blur on its arm. A dragon so marked and pitiful that it seemed to be the most pathetic looking thing on Potter’s skin. It seemed so pale and lifeless among the flames and flowers; it seemed to be leeching the life from everything around it.

How could Potter not know?

Draco glanced up at Potter’s smirk, and thought that maybe he did. Maybe Potter knew, knew just how pathetic he was and was taunting him. Of course he knew, he had seen what Draco was really like, he had seen him. Potter’s smug smirk faltered for a moment, but was quickly replaced with a grin.

Draco couldn’t do it.

Just as Potter began to open his mouth Draco pushed past him and slammed the door behind him, colapsing against it.

Draco buried his face in his hands.

***

Harry’s smile fell from his face and his heart wrentched pitifully. Was he really that bad? He fell onto his bed and silently cursed his own stupidity. Harry should’ve known that Draco didn’t share his feelings, he had after all hated Harry for years and the war certainly wasn’t going to change things.

Harry rakes a hand through his messy hair, shoving his glasses askew, and wonders how he could’ve been so stupidly rash. Grabbing a shirt, he pulls it on over his head, managing not to snag the fabric on his glasses, and cradles his head in his hands, massaging his temples, attempting to rid himself of the growing pain in his head. If he hadn’t been so reckless things could’ve gone differently, he could be in Hogsmeade with Draco right now instead of sitting on the rumpled sheets of his bed staring at the hangings and thinking about him. Draco who is just beyond that bathroom door, probably cursing his name as he gets ready for classes that day.

Harry rubs his eyes and sighs, before grabbing his wand and bag from beside his bed; there wasn’t much reason to wallow in his self pity all day, he had to go to class afterall.

Harry begins to walk towards the door, but as soon as his hand brushes the knob he turns back and walks to stand in front of the bathroom door.

“Draco, I know you probably don’t like me much, but I showed you my tattoo for a reason, so if you could just please come out of there and talk to me…”

Harry waited a few moments his apprehension building, and then breaking when he hears running water from the showerhead signaling that he would not be talking to Draco until much later.

He sighs and his head droops, as he shuffles dejectedly out of his shared room and down to the great hall for breakfast.

***
Draco stared numbly at his forearms as he watched the tattoo slowly creep back down his pale skin until it reached his wrists, the clouds stormy and gloomy and spiting tattoo rain all over his skin. Flickering light came from within the gloomy greys, as if the storm was trying to decide if it wanted to send dazzeling electric bolts dancing across his skin.

Draco sighed deeply and hunched over under the spray of the shower and shivered; Harry had definitely been making fun of him earlier, mocking him. Then the git had the nerve to come back and pity him, Draco had almost fell for it too. He had stood, his back against the door, listening to his every word, hearing his unsteady breathing, but at the last moment he reined in his emotions and turned on the water, hoping to drive him away or at the very least block him out with the noise until class started.

Draco finishes his regular morning routine sometime later with minty breath, carefully styled hair, and a cold resolve not to lose his façade of indifference today. Draco skips breakfast in the great hall altogether, not really feeling hungry and instead hurries to his first class barely noticing the tingling sensation on the backs of his hands.

***

Harry’s first class that day was charms, a class that he shared with Draco. Harry had been worried when he didn’t see Draco come into the great hall and Hermione, Ron, and even Ginny seemed to notice that something was off, pestering him endlessly. Well not Hermione. Hermione just stared at Harry from time to time with a slight frown upon her brow before giving the wall in front of her a disdainful look. Ron asked him a few times what was wrong, but quickly became distracted with the mention of Quiddich and bagan animatedly talking about the Chudley Cannons. Ginny however, the most concerning, responded to his mood in a completely different way, that struck a little to close to home by teasing him about Draco, but oddly enough was silenced by Hermione with a stern glare. Ginny had just barely shrugged and started talking about her experience of hunting Nargles with Luna instead.

Harry messed with the strap of his bag as he walked into the charms classroom flanked by Hermione and Ron on one side and Ginny and Luna on the other. Harry was worried about Draco and hoped he would talk to him, even if their feelings for each other weren’t mutual.

Before he knew it, he was standing in front of Draco’s work table, the rest of his companions nowhere in sight. And there Draco sat, determinedly staring straight ahead, his face blank and unreadable, every aspect of his appearance immaculate, excluding the dark circles under his eyes.

Harry stared a few moments too long, his heart wrenching, his stomach churning, swallowing back the lump of something painful in his throat. He realeased the shaky breath he was unaware he was holding in and sat down beside Draco who looked as unaffected as ever, who didn’t even look slightly bothered by any of this.

Harry didn’t really pay any attention to Slughorn during the lecture, it wasn’t like he was able to anyways. His mind was far to occupied with thoughts of the person sitting beside him with his face showing less emotion than a brick wall, but he had to be feeling something, had to be thinking something at the very least.
Even if Draco didn’t have a tattoo, he had to at least be thinking about what had happened outside of the bathroom.

Harry screws his eyes together and tries to stop himself from thinking about it, about the look on Draco’s face, the rejection, the humiliation. How could Harry had been so stupid! Why couldn’t he had just put on his clothes and left the bathroom, and pretended to not have the stupid soulmate tattoo! He had been so fucking stupid and careless!

Harry doesn’t realize he has his robes balled up in his clenched fists until he hears a quiet little cough from Draco beside him and is snapped back to reality.

Harry stares straight ahead and ignores him, releasing a few calming breaths and listening to the boring, consistant drone of Slughorn’s voice as he praddles on about one of his favorite students from many years ago and how they cured some disease. Harry breathes out and smoothes down the wrinkled fabric of his robes, puposefully ignoring, Draco’s sidelong stare.

Before he realizes it, potions class is over and it’s off to the rest of his day.

***

Draco floats through his classes in a sort of dazed fog. It’s as if he is there, but at the same time a hundred miles away, thinking about something else, doing something else. His hands have been prickling for the past thirty minutes, but he has elected to ignore it, much as he had been doing with everything else today. So of course when he sees the ink moving freely on the back of his hand, he feels a spike of panic course straight through him.

Draco plunges his trembling hands into his bag and pulls on the silkly black gloves he had on earlier, thankful for them now more than ever. Draco leaves as the class ends, luckily and unfortunately, the last one of that day. He trudges down to the great hall, as if walking to his last meal before a certain execution. He barely tastes anything that passes his lips and when he leaves the great hall he can feel at least one pair of eyes boring into his back and registers that something is awfully wrong.

He walks quickly an tries his hardest to ignore the pain prickling down his arms.

He walks quickly and tries to ignore his peircing headache.

He walks quickly and tries to ignore the abnormal thrumming pounding in his ears.

He walks quickly and tries to ignore everything.

He walks quickly into his dorm room and shuts the door behind him.

He walks quickly towards the closest bed, and he colapses.

***

Harry feels a searing pain behind his eyes and winces, before noticing Draco’s quick effiecient stride as he leaves the great hall. Harry feels small pinpricks running down his arms and his stomach flips.

Something isn’t right.

Harry stands up abrubtly capturing his two friend’s attention, “Ron, Hermione, I uh, just remebered I had some homework I needed to catch up on, so…”

Ron just nods and goes back to listening to Seamus, but Hermione stares at him for a few moments, her eyes occasionally flicking back towards the great hall entrance. She seems to come to a conclusion of sorts and nods to herself, “Well, remember to study, after all it’s never too early to study for the NEWT exams!”

“Great! Yeah, I’ll uh, make sure to do that!”

With that Harry sprints off, not hearing Ron’s response to Hermione as he dashed out of the great hall and into the corridors. The sound of his footsteps echoed all around him as he ran back to his room. His skin itched with that odd feeling and only one thought ran through his head on reapeat over and over again.

Somethingswrongsomethingswrongsomethingswrongsomethingswrongsomethingswrongsomethingswrong.

He came to the door of his and Draco’s shared room and wrentched the door open to find him draped over Harry’s bed, like he had just passed out there.

He stood still as a stone, uncertain, fear creeping into his voice, “Draco?”

He didn’t stir, Harry couldn’t move.

He spoke louder this time, “Draco!”

Nothing.

Like that, the spell was broken, Harry surged forward and carefully rolled Draco over so that he was face up and gasped in shock.

Every part of his skin had to be covered in tattoos, because his neck and face were absolutely swirling with them. The storms swirled around his exposed jawbone and over his eyelids, the jagged ice lined his eyes, his jaw, his brow bone. Lightning flickered seemingly from within, casting strange shadows on his face. Everything was thrashing and storming voilently all other his skin, twin trails of tattoo water streaming from his eyes down his face, continuing until it dissapeared beneath his shirt collar.

Harry stood, shocked. He didn’t know what to do. Should he touch him?

Harry’s hand seems to move on it’s own, he watches his tattoo covered hand reach down, with trepidation, with the slightest tremor, to brush the hair away from Draco’s forehead. The tattoos burst into color around the places where his hand barely touched his skin and then spread outward in a ring, leaving pale, unmarked skin behind it. It was like watching a piece of paper burn from the center out; color, then nothing. It was as if his touch was dissolving the film of magical tattoos covering Draco, but it was only so effective. It stopped working once it reached his eyebrows, leaving the rest of his face covered in swirling colorful storms, mutlicolored trails of water, and patches of ice.

He barely hears the little sound that Draco makes, and reaches out to gently cup Draco’s cheek in his hand, fascinated with the way the tattoos burst into color and then dissapate into nothingness before his very eyes. He carefully runs his hand down Draco’s jaw, under his chin, barely brushing the bottom of his lips with his thumb. He watches the storms, the water, the tattoo turn to color then fade to nothing, but before he can continue Draco’s eyes snap open.

Harry can feel the tension build in those few heavy seconds, those seconds in which Draco’s eyes flit through several emotions in an alarmingly short amount of time before finally settling on wonder.

It’s the wonder that Harry sees when Draco reaches up with one hand to cradle Harry’s cheek, it’s the amazement he sees when Draco’s eyes widen just a fraction, it’s the beauty he sees when Draco’s face is finally openly displaying what he feels. It’s something stirring in his chest waiting to explode when he realizes that Draco doesn’t feel uncomfortable being near Harry anymore.

It’s something new when Harry’s voice forces the words out, “Can I see your tattoo?”

Draco stops running his hand down the side of Harry’s cheek and stares at him, uncertainty dancing in his eyes for a fraction of a second, before a gentle nod is given.

Draco leans back and props himself up using his hands and Harry slowly unbuttons his robes, then his shirt, a thick calming silence hanging in the air as a strange sort of anticipation washes over them both. He carefully undos each button slowly revealing more and more of the great tattoo writhing all over his chest and the great beast that acted as a center piece to it all. Harry finally has every button undone and very carefully he removes the shirt, sliding it over his shoulders and down his arms, his fingers barely brushing against his arms and sending localized bursts of colors everywhere, with everything, then nothingness.
***

Harry’s fingers are hesitant and fleeting over every part of Draco’s skin. His fingertips barely brushing over him like butterfly kisses, leaving trails of color in their wake, then behind that little patches of pale white skin, contrasting with Harry’s wandering hands. Draco looks up at Harry’s face as he traces the lines of his icy insides, he stares at the half of his face covered in color, the half with emerald vines twisting about, the half with swirling ruby flames. Every part of Harry was so lively, everything about him was alive, moving, breathing, living, growing. It was like looking into the eyes of a god; even his green iris’ seemed to swirl with color as they stared into Draco’s own.

Harry’s eyes suddenly scrunch up with concern at Draco’s chest and he looks down to see the pale skin, the pale scar-littered skin. Draco looks up, looking for disgust, hate, pity, but sees nothing but respect. Draco lets out a sigh of releif and cups the side of Harry’s face, watching the tattoos slowly burn away before tracing his hands down the tendons of his neck and latching his fingers onto the clasp of his robes.

Draco slowly removes his robes, then his shirt, his touch leaving small bursts of red, orange, and green all over Harry’s skin. Draco traces his fingers over his ribs, down his sterum, then down to his naval, causing a shudder to run through Harry’s body as his fingertips barely skate over his toned midsection. The tattoos turn to color then nothing fading away until only his tan skin remains. As the tree at his center slowly fades Draco notices the mark that the killing curse left over his heart. This one in starburst shape spreading outwards towards the bottom of his ribcage. Draco traces the outline of it and watches the tattoos melt away. Draco watches as a dull, grey dragon slinks into veiw with even paler patches of skin criss-crossing over it’s flank.

He traces the muscles, the bone, the tendons of his body, swirling closer and closer to the dragon which lies just below his clavical now, covering a good portion of the killing curse scar.

With a steady, yet hesitant hand, Draco barely touches the flank of the dragon, watching as it’s dull grey scales burst into a shimmering irredescant silver, each one individually reflecting the color from the rest of his tattoos. He can hear Harry’s sigh of content and his muscles untense even more. He has both of his hands on Harry now and he runs them down the sides of his body, starting from the place where his hipbones jut out and moving up until Draco is just barely tracing Harry’s collarbones. Harry realeases a small hum of happiness and cups Draco’s shoulder, pulling him even more flush towards his body, until Draco is so close that he can see the individual flecks of gold in his green eyes.
Draco doesn’t quite realise whats happening until the rough pad of Harry’s thumb is being dragged along his bottom lip, and a ragged breath escapes him.

Then it’s nothing, then it’s everything.

Harry’s lips are moving against his in some unknown rhythm, perfectly timed, never missing a beat as his mouth moves against his. His lips are agonizingly soft and slightly chapped, warm and perfect, slightly clumsy as their noses bump, but so unimaginably perfect. Then just when Draco can’t imagine it getting better Harry’s tongue tentatively touches his bottom lip and he moans. His senses are on overload, overloaded with Harry, with the little breathy sounds he makes, with his soft springy hair running through his fingers as he cradles his head, with his scent, his taste.

After another moment of bliss, so agonizingly short, he pulls away, face flushed, lips numb, breathing a little harder than before. Harry is breathing hard, his hair ruffled, and looking absolutely wrecked for Draco, his eyebrows drawn together just slightly, and the want, the caring, the love, is written on his face clearer than anything else Draco has seen before in his life.

Draco slides his fingers between Harry’s and speaks so quietly that if one wasn’t listening they could’ve missed it, “You know, I’ve wanted to that for a while.”, the passion was obvious in his voice, if not even a little shy in a way.

Harry gives Draco’s hand a little squeeze and quietly murmurs, “I’ve wanted to do that too.”

And Draco leans his head onto Harry’s shoulder, hands still entwined.

And like that they stayed, for a good while. Finally understanding, not needing their words for the first time in a lifetime, only eachother.

Their lack of words meaning nothing, then everything.