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Draco had woken up on Tuesday morning in a pool of stinking, sticky liquid, covering the floor of the boys’ dormitory in a layer at least half a foot thick and splashed onto the beds. His trunk was open, clothes scattered across the room and drenched from when he was in a hurry to get dressed the day before. Goyle was standing on top of his desk, holding a horribly lumpy, bruised-looking plant a foot away from his chest and muttering frantically under his breath.
“What the hell is going on,” he shrieked, starting to rub his eyes and freezing at the sight of the yellow goo covering his fingers. “It smells like a swamp in here!”
“Sorry Draco!” Goyle shuddered and huddled closer to the wall. “I borrowed Longbottom’s Mimbletonia for my Herbology paper, but he forgot to tell me how much bloody Stinksap it would make. Every time I try to get off my desk or reach for my wand, it makes some more. See!” He slowly took one foot off the desk and the plant twitched violently, letting out a spray of Stinksap onto Goyle’s bed, a fair amount landing on Draco’s next to it.
“Alright, alright,” Draco said hastily, reaching for his wand and cringing when he found that it, too, had suffered a similar sticky fate. “Stop moving, will you?” With a wave of his wand and a Scourgify, the Stinksap vanished, although the room was still filled with an overwhelming scent of boiled cabbage. The plant kept shivering in Goyle’s clutch. Draco carefully stepped out of bed, relieved to find the floor dry and relatively un-sticky.
“Draco,” whined Goyle, fidgeting anxiously by the wall. “Help me! If I’m late for Charms again, Flitwick is going to curse me into a teacup.”
“Yeah alright,” Draco muttered, stepping anxiously towards the plant, which had suddenly gone very still. “Hold on, I’m going to try and levitate it out of here.” With a swish and a flick, the Mimbletonia had been lifted out of Goyle’s hands, and started to float very, very slowly towards the stairs out of the dormitory. Goyle let out a sigh of relief, and made to get down from his desk.
“Wait,” Draco said anxiously. The plant had twitched once more, turning to where Goyle was standing at the foot of his bed. It started to swell. “Don’t move-”
Too late. Draco closed his eyes just in time to feel a burst of sticky sap cover him from head to toe. He sighed. It was going to be a long morning.
—-
All in all, it wasn’t entirely his fault that he was late to Potions again. Double Potions, with the Gryffindors no less, as if an extra-long lesson stuffed in the dungeons breathing in cauldron fumes wasn’t bad enough. He supposed that it wasn’t so bad with the Gryffindors anymore, not after the war. Most of them had stopped throwing him murderous glares in the hallway, and he hadn’t had someone try to slip a Hair Removing Solution into his pumpkin juice in quite some time. Things were more important, as everyone seemed to realize, than hating on Slytherin house.
But either way, bursting through the doors a good five minutes into the lesson meant that every head immediately turned his way - no doubt taking in his disheveled hair and crumpled robes, ones he had borrowed from Goyle’s blessedly clean trunk of clothes, but were at least six inches too long for him - and he heard more than one person snicker softly. He probably still had Stinksap somewhere on his face; casting Scourgify and waving his wand at random as he ran desperately through the halls definitely wasn’t the most accurate way to clean something. He was looking forward to a nice, long, hot shower after class.
Slughorn didn’t seem to mind that he had walked in late, or maybe he just didn’t notice Draco slide quietly into his seat on the left side of the room. He saw a shock of red hair in the row in front of him as Weasley turned around to see what everyone was looking at. His eyes took in Draco’s appearance and he turned back around and leaned to his right, probably whispering to that nuisance of a boy - and sure enough, a moment later, Potter turned around in his seat to glance back at him. His eyes widened just the slightest amount, and yes, Draco had to concede that seeing him at anything less than his finest was indeed a very rare occasion. That didn’t stop him from wanting to reach across and smack that stupid expression off of Potter’s face, though. He ought to close his mouth - he looked like a frog, gaping at him like that. He sent a scowl back in Potter’s direction, hoping that it correctly conveyed his feelings of shut up before I hex your eyebrows off , but Slughorn’s shout of “pay attention everyone!” snapped Potter and Weasley’s eyes back up to the front.
“Today,” Slughorn said, brandishing a vial of something pink and vaguely glittery, “is going to be a bit of a challenge for you all. You’ve seen this potion before in my class, of course, so can anyone tell me what it is?”
He saw Granger’s hand shoot up on Weasley’s left, which everyone probably saw coming, but to his surprise, Weasley raised a tentative hand as well. Slughorn’s eyes settled on him with a strange mixture of fear and pity, as he gave him a nod. “Well,” Weasley said, sounding as if he immediately regretted his decision to speak, “that’s Amortentia, isn’t it? You showed it to us in our sixth year.”
Draco vaguely remembered a rumor going around their sixth year, that Weasley had spent two weeks in the hospital wing after being poisoned by a love potion - or something to that effect. He hadn’t entirely paid attention; he did have more important things to keep track of that year anyway. The first thought that popped into his head was that he couldn’t think of anyone who’d want to spell Weasley into falling in love with them, and then he remembered someone saying that Weasley had admitted his love for Granger in the hospital wing, turning into a messy breakup with that other girl he was seeing, and he wondered, momentarily, whether…
No, Granger was too smart to use a potion like that anyway.
“Yes it is, Weasley, well done,” Slughorn was saying, sounding somewhat apologetic. “Now if you all remember, Amortentia smells different to each person depending on what attracts them. This means that to make an antidote most effective, it will have to vary slightly from person to person. Of course, you can use a general antidote, found on page 213 of your books,” he added, holding up another vial of clear liquid before passing it carefully to someone in the front row, “but some minor effects may remain. Occasional bouts of dizziness, loss of appetite and sleep, mildly obsessive behaviors, the like. I’m going to walk around and ask you all to tell me what you smell, so that I can grade your potion and its ingredients accurately. You will spend the rest of today’s class brewing the general antidote. Your homework is to research common antidote ingredients, and present me with a recipe by the next class period. Take any ingredients you need from the cupboard, and good luck!”
Yeah, love potions were a tricky business, but not exactly the kind of tricky business Draco preferred to be wrapped up in. That mushy-gushy, ogling-each-other-over-dinner business wasn’t his style. Something more low-key, he thought, as he poked through the shelves of ingredients, maybe he would be interested if there was a potion to make someone want to help you with your homework, or give you sweets, or maybe even hold hands…
“Basil,” muttered Draco to himself, pushing back the jars of dried herbs. He needed one sprig of fresh basil, which was nowhere to be found. “Where’s the damn basil?” He turned around, intending to inform Slughorn that they were out, and found Potter’s face barely five inches away from his own. “What-”
“I heard you say you needed basil,” said Potter, holding up what was definitely more than the required sprig. “I took the last few in case I messed up. Which, you know, I usually do. Anyway, here,” he added, pressing three sprigs into his hand, speaking much faster than the average person could probably make out.
Malfoy stared. The two of them were on amicable terms, sure, but that usually referred to nods when they passed each other in the halls, or neutral silence when paired together in class. He looked down at Potter’s hand, still touching his, and back up at his steady stare. Did Potter ever blink? He decided that a polite thank you , would be the best way to go about this conversation, but when he opened his mouth, what really came out was, “you never mess up at Potions, Potter.”
Potter’s eyebrows shot up towards his unrealistically messy mop of hair - since when was it that curly - which definitely wasn’t like that before, was it? His mouth twitched into what might’ve been a smile. “Are you kidding, Malfoy? Snape told me every day how shit I was for five years and he wasn’t entirely wrong.”
Draco frowned. “You were excellent in sixth year, though. Slughorn loved you.”
“Not for all the right reasons, though,” Potter said, leaning a little closer, an expression that was close to guilt on his face. His eyes really were green, in the low, pale light of the dungeons. Draco took a stumbled half step back, not quite sure why Potter was reaching for his face, maybe to poison him, or hex him, surely, or-
“You’ve got some Stinksap on your face, did you know?” asked Potter, and stepped back with a quick swipe of his sleeve across Draco’s cheek. Ah, yes. Draco felt the side of his face immediately start to get warm where Potter had wiped the Stinksap away, and he reached up to touch it. Was Stinksap poisonous? Did it leave a rash? He didn’t remember Professor Sprout saying anything about that, but for all he knew, Goyle accidentally cursed the plant before spewing its sap everywhere. He would have to remember to ask Professor Sprout the next time he saw her. He turned around to walk to his desk and stumbled into the corner of the cabinet.
“Thanks for the basil, Potter,” he muttered, resisting the urge to sprint back to his table. He focused all of his energy on chopping the basil into very fine, even strips, and when he looked back up, Potter was hidden behind Finnigan’s head and out of his line of sight. He breathed a sigh of relief. What the hell was his problem?
He was busy stirring his potion and very determinedly not looking over at Potter and his friends when Slughorn’s dragon-hide loafers appeared in his field of view. He looked up to find him holding a vial of the shimmery pink potion and a piece of parchment. “Good day, Mr. Malfoy,” Slughorn said, with a quick peek into his cauldron. “Your antidote seems to be coming along nicely, although I would increase the heat by just a touch. Now, if you could tell me what this potion smells like to you?”
Draco took the uncorked vial hesitantly, held it up to his face, and took a whiff. At first, it smelled like nothing at all, and then-
“Ginger,” he said, surprising himself, but it was definitely ginger, like his grandmother’s favorite recipe for ginger snaps, back when he looked forward to going home for the holidays. “My favorite ginger cookies. And,” he took another gentle sniff, “rain, I think. And jasmine flowers, and,” he frowned. Stopped. “I’m not sure what that is. Apples, maybe? Or some kind of pear? It’s really really very familiar but I-” he took another cautious sniff. Yes, he had certainly smelled this before, in classrooms and the halls...maybe some cleaning solution, and certain spells tended to affect the senses in different ways… if one used a spell often enough it could start to become familiar in that way...“I can’t entirely place it.” He handed the vial back, feeling suddenly very vulnerable as Slughorn looked at him with a curious expression on his face. A quill was hovering in midair, jotting notes down on his piece of parchment, but it too had stopped, and was turned towards him as if it were also giving him a look. “What?”
Slughorn shook his head. “Nothing at all, m’boy. Remember to turn your heat up.” His shoes clunked loudly against the stone floor as he walked away, and Draco could've sworn he saw a little smile on his face.
That was weird, Draco thought, but then again, Potions teachers weren’t known for being ordinary. It must be spending all day locked up with those fumes, that would be enough to affect even the most clear-headed person. Even Snape...Draco may have been his favorite but it didn’t take a genius to notice that he could get rather... unhinged , sometimes.
With a sigh, Draco pointed his wand at the flame and it grew just barely bigger, and his potion started bubbling gently just as described in his book. With a pleased grin, he chanced a look over at Potter as he was reaching for his dandelion root, just to find that the other boy was staring at him again, with another weird look on his face, but this time, he glanced away the second their eyes met, staring very pointedly at his own potion, which Draco could see was turning the exact crimson color which the book noted meant the potion was almost complete. Draco frowned and went back to stirring his potion, which turned a rather odd shade of puce when he dropped the dandelion root in.
Maybe it was just the light of the flame, or the reflection of his potion, but he could’ve sworn that Potter had turned a little pink.
---
The wind howled like a Whomping Willow outside the castle, and although the Slytherin common rooms were underground, it really wasn’t much quieter in there. The sound reverberated through the walls and bounced happily around the room for a good few minutes before reaching Draco’s ears, and at this point, he’d had had enough. With a groan, he pulled the hood of his cloak tight around his ears, as if that would keep the noise out, and looked around for the quill he had lost amongst the sofa cushions. The pile of scrap pieces of parchment, broken quills, and hastily repaired bottles of ink on the table in front of him was growing larger by the hour, but his essay for Charms stubbornly refused to get any longer.
It really was dreadful weather outside. The storm wailed at a pitch that would’ve made Peeves jealous as rain pelted the windows. Draco had already tried to cast Silencio on the windows, but to no avail. He had even attempted to go upstairs and charm the rain itself, but the only thing that had happened was the flash of lighting that struck the wall opposite the window he had been looking out of. The rain was angry today, absolutely raging, and it was clearly not taking no for an answer.
Not that strange weather was unusual here, of course. Weasley had an irritating habit of making it snow on everyone within a four-foot radius whenever Granger kissed him in the halls, and rumor had it that the girls’ bathroom nearest the Astronomy tower had been closed for a month because a fourth-year attempted a Freezing Charm on the faucet and ended up causing a blizzard that stubbornly refused to be banished. Even an incorrectly prepared potion could affect the weather if uncorked and consumed outside, although rarely to this degree. The thing was, though, that strange weather never really happened on its own. So the question was, which incompetent idiot was making it storm so hard that Draco couldn’t hear himself think?
The common room had grown quite cold with the storm, and this was one of the rare times Draco despised being stuck down here. He had been in the other houses’ common rooms before, even if just momentarily, and right now he would give anything to be sitting comfortably in a plush couch, listening to the crackling of firewood drown out the incessant shrieking of the storm outside, surrounded by his friends and perhaps even clutching a warm butterbeer, because no doubt they were being smuggled in on the daily.
He rubbed his eyes and blinked furiously. It must have been well after midnight by now, but the nearly blank piece of parchment stared up at him from the table, taunting. What’s the matter, Draco, it said, Wrackspurt got your brain?
“Oh shove off,” he said angrily, picking up a quill and splattering ink across his paper by accident, of course. Pansy looked up at him from where she was sitting near the window, and frowned. Who are you talking to, she mouthed at him, and Draco momentarily wondered whether it would make him sound more crazy if he said he was talking to himself, or to his irritatingly stubborn homework. Never mind, he mouthed back, and stared at the three lines of hastily scrawled research he had written down. Meteorological Charms and Their Unpredictability, read the title. No kidding, he thought, as another crack of thunder echoed through the room. Pansy seemed unbothered like always, and the two second-years sitting next to the fire were so heavily bundled up in their dressing gowns, robes, and hats, that Draco doubted that even a banshee’s wail would’ve pierced their ears. Whoever spelled that rain was going to have hell to pay.
“Alright, that’s it,” he said loudly, standing up so fast that his books toppled off his lap and onto the stone floor with a crash . Pansy looked over at him with a confused expression on her face, as Draco started sending bits of scrap parchment flying into the fire with a newfound ferocity. The second-years stared at him with wide eyes and immediately booked it towards the dorms, tripping on their too-long pajama pants. “I can’t-can’t fucking hear myself think with this storm. I’m going for a walk,” he said, standing up and summoning his coat and hat from his room. “D’you want to come?” he asked Pansy, tidying up his remaining books and sending them floating away to his room. He’d finish them at some point; he probably wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway, with this blasted storm raging on.
Pansy grimaced. “I’m sorry Draco, I can’t,” she said, and she really did sound sorry about it. “I have to finish Binns’ stupid essay about the Mer-Revolution of 1490.” She gestured at her own piece of parchment, where about half was filled with her neat cursive writing. “I need another foot of parchment after this, too.”
“No worries,” replied Draco, pocketing his wand and making his way to the door. “I’ll see you later, then.” Damn, a Charms essay was one thing, but Binns’ class was another kind of boring. He was suddenly very glad he dropped the subject the year before.
Outside the common room, the castle was as quiet as always. He could hear the steady creaking of the staircases moving in the background, the occasional murmur from the portraits on the wall. They all stared at him as he walked past, and he guessed he must have looked a little odd - hair a mess, dressed in a full winter coat and hat, blonde hair probably reflecting the light from his Lumos all over the walls. There was a time when he would have worried about being caught out this late, would have listened for Filch or his sorry excuse for a rat, terrified of being subjected to Snape’s questions about where he was going, terrified of losing points for his house… but that was a long, long time ago. When his biggest problem was being scratched by that hippogriff in third year, and yes , it hurt like a bitch, but he supposed he had acted like a bit of a diva, trying to get Hagrid sacked like that, and he definitely hadn’t meant to get the hippogriff executed… he was definitely more than a little rude when approaching it, but how was he supposed to know that his father would suddenly start caring about him? Most of the time he threatened to write to his father, he was making empty promises - his father never really wrote back. It would usually be his mother, fussing over whether the food was adequate and whether or not he was too cold at night, usually advising him to order the house-elves to make him feel more comfortable, wheedling over his arrival back home for Christmas…
That seemed like a lifetime ago. Draco found himself in front of the Astronomy tower, and started climbing the steps up to the top. The storm was raging louder than ever here - he could see the rain pelting the castle through the windows. He could smell it here, too, that rich, earthy, metallic scent that reminded him of lazy days at home, napping in front of the fire and drinking hot chocolate from earthen mugs, strolls with his mother down Diagon Alley, before everything got complicated. If the storm quieted down by just a touch, he’d be perfectly content to curl up with a cushion and a blanket, and pass out here on top of the tower.
With a final step into the alcove, Draco peered out the window, stuck his hand out to catch a stray drop of rain, closed his eyes for just a moment-
“Malfoy?” A voice floated out of the dark corner behind him, so soft that he wouldn’t have heard it if it weren’t for the sudden lull in the rain. In a flash, his wand was drawn and he spun around on his heel, trying to see who it is- “ Lumos,” said the mysterious voice in a whisper, and the blue light fell upon the face of none other than Harry fucking Potter.
Draco didn’t put his wand away, but he did lower it. He took a step back towards the window. “Potter?” He scowled. Leave it up to him to ruin Draco’s quiet nighttime walk, he needed some peace and quiet, not to run into the one person in the entire castle who could drive him insane without any effort at all. “What are you doing up here? It’s the middle of the night.”
“Lumos maxima,” said Potter, completely ignoring Draco’s question. He put his wand away and stared at him like a deer in headlights. “I could ask you the same thing,” he said quickly, turning away from the window and slamming closed the book he was holding - Elemental Charms for the N.E.W.T Student - and looking for all the world like he was a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
“Oh relax, Potter,” Draco sighed, looking around the room and the soft blue illumination of the spell. “I won’t rat you out because then I’d have to explain why I’m walking around as well.” He had a brief recollection of their first year, when he thought it would be a genius idea to catch Potter and his friends roaming about. That had ended disastrously for them all.
He spotted Potter’s bag in the corner, filled to the brim straining the seams with unnecessarily large books like the one he was holding - Common Muggle Plants and Their Uses, Potion-Making in the Kitchen: A Guide to Household Ingredients, and a copy of Doting on Antidotes , which, consequently, Draco had been looking for in the library earlier that day. He couldn’t see any parchment or quills. “Just doing some light reading, then?” he asked, gesturing to the books.
Potter scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah,” he replied, “the common room was too loud and Seamus and Dean are having a row in our dormitory.” To Draco’s surprise, he blushed a brilliant red. “I just had to, er- I was just researching for Slughorn’s assignment.” He pointed at Doting on Antidotes. “And I’m sure you know about Flitwick’s essay on Meteorological Charms,” he said, holding up Elemental Charms . “And, well,” he looked at Potion-Making in the Kitchen and trailed off, seemingly unsure of what to say, looking back at Draco as if, what, he expected him to judge him for reading a book?
Draco had stopped paying attention halfway through, anyway. He was looking out the window, at where the rain had significantly calmed down; it was no longer roaring with the force of the wind, but falling in gentle showers and a calming pitter patter sound. The thunder had stopped, along with the lightning. “How were you concentrating up here with the wind? And the storm?” he asked incredulously, turning back around and looking at Potter’s seat, which was nestled right up next to the window.
Potter raised his eyebrows and stared at him, confused, and then reached into the pocket of his sweater and pulled out two pieces of bright orange foam. “Earplugs,” Potter said, squishing one between his fingers. “A muggle invention but they’re pretty neat, you just shove it in your ears and everything gets quieter.”
Draco stared. “You put them in your ears ?” That couldn’t be safe. What if they had gotten stuck?
“Yeah, it’s kind of strange but it works in a pinch. I tried casting Silencio on the rain but that didn’t exactly work,” Potter replied sheepishly, pointing to a scorch mark on the bannister where lightning must have hit it. “I shouldn’t have- that is to say,” he corrected himself, “that was a dumb idea.”
“Well,” Draco admitted, “I tried that too and almost died, so suffice it to say that we’re both dumb.”
Potter laughed, suddenly and unexpectedly, the sound echoing through the stone corridor, and Draco was taken aback by how much he liked the sound; he rather expected Potter to sound like a toad when he laughed, yes, a toad, to match his ugly toad-y eyes and his horribly messy hair and his gross, clammy complexion and his disgustingly green eyes - eyes that were, contrary to what everyone else seemed to think, not gorgeously bottle-green, but the kind of green one would expect algae to be, or the ooze covering the toilets in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom - yes, Harry Potter did not have any business in having a laugh that nice. Something warm and fuzzy bubbled up in Draco’s stomach and he frowned, willing it to go away , because he and Potter were nice enough to each other, but he had absolutely no need for warm and fuzzy bubbles.
None.
Potter stopped laughing but his eyes were still wide with something bright and happy. Gross, Draco thought, and he immediately tries to come up with something to make that look go away. He could insult Potter’s hair, perhaps, but it looked pretty much the same as it always did (horridly messy, and he did not want to touch it at all), and he wasn’t wearing anything other than a pair of black pajama pants and a sweater.
“Malfoy?” asked Potter, frowning and waving a hand in front of his face. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Draco realized that his face had been pulled into a sort of grimace, and he straightened up, shrugging. “Just mad that I have to go find a new spot to be alone in,” he said, extra emphasis on the word alone .
Potter stared at him for a moment, and then leaned down to grab his bag. “It’s okay,” he said, “really. I was just about to leave.” He hoisted the bag over one shoulder and made to walk towards the stairs.
“Wait,” Draco blurted. He hesitated.
Potter waited.
“You don’t have to. Really, you were here first.”
Potter smiled, and bugger , there were the warm and fuzzy bubbles again. “Seriously, it’s fine. I’m tired and if Seamus and Dean haven’t finished chucking their books at each other then I’m going to give them both a triple dose of the Draught of Living Death. Thanks anyway, Malfoy.” He looked at where Draco was blocking the entrance to the stairs, then put his hands on his shoulders and with a smooth step, turned them around. “‘Night,” he said, and with a little wave, turned the corner and was out of sight.
Draco frowned, staring at where Potter was standing. The rain had almost completely stopped now, the air cool and calm from where it was coming in through the window. He stood there, breathing in that soft, earthy smell that he loved. He shook his head to himself and started back down the stairs. He did have an essay to finish, after all.
---
“Are you kidding me,” said Pansy at breakfast the next morning, slamming closed her copy of 101 Wars That Shaped Non-Wizard Rights , and picking up A Complete History of Mer-People Culture . “I got my entire middle paragraph on the Mer-Revolution wrong. The position of High Chieftain was created before the revolution, not after! And,” she added, checking her watch and letting out a groan, “class starts in 20 minutes, no way I can fix it now!”
Draco let out a sympathetic noise, eyes still fixed on the back of Potter’s head across the Great Hall. He looked… well… terrible, to be blunt. Tie knotted off-center, hair even more unruly than normal, and he had missed a button on his shirt. He wondered if Potter had gotten dressed in the dark. He kept nodding off over his eggs, which Dean Thomas kept laughing at before poking him awake again.
“Draco!” Pansy swatted his arm with A Complete History and glared at him. “Are you listening? Or are you too busy ogling Potter to even notice that you’ve just tried to butter your goblet?”
He looked down to see that indeed, he was smearing butter on the side of his glass of pumpkin juice. He shook his head and picked up his toast. “I wasn’t ogling him, Pansy. Just wondering how he managed to look worse than usual. Pass me the jam, will you?”
She gave him a very pointed look, but picked up the bowl of raspberry preserves and slid it over to him. “If you say so, but I’d like you to know that you’re a terrible liar because you’ve just turned even redder than this jam. Anyway,” she continued, as Draco lifted his hand up to his cheek to find that yes, it was approximately twenty degrees warmer than it should have been, “do you think I’ll get too many points taken off? My mum said that I need an Acceptable in this class for the first term or she’s sending me to tutoring lessons during Christmas break.” She frowned, expression suddenly turning somber. “And my tutor is kind of a huge creep.”
“Hey,” Draco said, nudging her in the shoulder as he took another sip of juice. “You’re averaging at least an Exceeds Expectations in every class you’re taking, and you’re up until three in the morning every day working your arse off. If you don’t get an Acceptable, I’ll eat a flobberworm. And,” he added, holding his hand up like he was taking an oath, “I’ll personally curse your creep tutor’s buttocks off myself.” Sometimes he thought that Pansy would have been really good friends with Granger, in another world, maybe.
Pansy laughed. “Thanks Draco,” she said gratefully, standing up and gathering her books. “Have fun staring at your boyfriend. He’s staring at you too, you know.” She said the last part in a conspiratorial whisper, and flounced off with a wink, before Draco could make any sounds of protest. He looked up casually, trying to play it off as if he were examining the contents of his goblet - he was looking for more Hair-Removing Solution, he could say if anyone else insisted that he was making eyes at Potter over breakfast - to see that indeed, Potter had a stare fixed on him with the intensity of a hippogriff. Instead of looking away or scowling at him like he normally would, though, Potter gave him a tentative smile and a wave when their eyes met, making Draco start to turn pink again. You know, he really hated being pale sometimes because he ended up blushing a hundred times a day for absolutely no reason at all.
“All right, Draco?” Blaise snickered at him from where he was sitting a few feet away, clearly having had noticed who he was looking at.
“Shove off, Blase,” he muttered. He grabbed his book bag and stood up from the table, trying his best not to run from the Great Hall, and staring determinedly at the ground the entire time.
---
His next Potions class with Slughorn was in a day, and Draco still hadn’t started his antidote recipe. Potter hadn’t returned Doting on Antidotes to the library yet, and in a fit of desperation, he approached Granger after lunch to ask her if she knew about any other books that might be worth his time.
“Well, Doting on Antidotes is undoubtedly the most comprehensive,” she said, not looking up from where she was rummaging around in her book bag for something, “given that it has the most in-depth section on Amortentia I’ve seen so far.” Draco saw Weasley and Potter lurking around the corner, clearly trying (and failing) to act like they weren’t watching the whole thing, probably waiting to see if Granger needed saving, as if he was about to hex her or something. He wondered why they were bothering; out of the three of them, Granger was absolutely the most terrifying.
“Well, yes,” Draco replied, not bothering to hide his impatience. “Clearly, that’s why I wanted it in the first place. But Potter hasn’t returned it to the library yet and I need to finish Slughorn’s assignment now-”
“Hang on,” Granger interrupted, finally looking up and clutching a piece of parchment. Her eyes narrowed carefully. “How do you know that Harry borrowed that book?”
Ah, shit. Potter probably hadn’t told them about meeting Draco in the Astronomy tower last night, then, or that he had left to go study. Not that there was anything to tell, of course, but he just didn’t want to create any more drama than was necessary. For Potter’s own good, of course. “Just assuming,” Draco stammered. “You know, because he’s always messing everything up for me.”
Granger stared at him for another moment, suspicious expression not entirely gone when she handed him the piece of parchment. “Alright,” she said slowly. “Anyway, here are some of my favorites. You might have to do research using multiple ones, depending on whatever it is that you smelled, but you should be fine.” She suddenly fixed him with a strange, unreadable expression, much too similar to the one Slughorn had on his face. “You know,” she said, eyebrows raised. “I was wondering…” she trailed off, eyes never leaving his face. Draco fought the instinct to squirm under her gaze - she reminded him of his mother, sometimes.
“Yes?”
“Ah, never mind,” she said, starting to walk past him towards where Weasley and Potter were very unconvincingly pretending to inspect the torch on the far side of the wall. “Good luck, Malfoy.” She was still looking at him weird though, and as she passed him, she rolled her eyes and muttered something that sounded like boys , before shoving Weasley and Potter around the corner and out of sight.
Draco looked down at the list, eyes widening at the long list of books crammed onto the small piece of parchment in cramped, tidy handwriting: A Love Affair With Love Potions, 99 Potions Ingredients and Their Antidotes , and at least fifteen more for good measure. Merlin, did Granger just walk around knowing the names of all these books? Maybe there was a reason she had gotten better O.W.L. results than him… but there was no need to tell his father that.
---
He stopped by his room after dinner, really just to put away his books and get a few moments of rest before spending the next four hours scouring the library for books. Aside from his Potions assignment, he also had a brand new essay for Transfiguration, two new spells to practice for Charms, and a star map to begin charting for Astronomy. He groaned, reaching for some extra parchment and quills when he noticed the letter sitting neatly on his desk.
An owl must have brought it to him when he was in class, or maybe it had just appeared. It was clearly from someone in his family, as it was folded into a rich, cream-colored envelope that his parents used to write their letters and the Malfoy family crest was stamped into a wax seal on the back. Maybe it was from his father, who rarely ever wrote to him unless it was very important, and clearly this was important if it couldn’t wait to be delivered with the rest of the post the next day.
Darling Draco , read the heading, and with a sudden bittersweet feeling, realized that the letter was from his mum. He hadn’t heard from her since the beginning of the school year three months ago, which was highly unusual, but he couldn’t say that it was unexpected. The Ministry had put a watch on the Manor, probably to make sure that his parents weren’t hiding any more Dark Lords in their basement, but that meant that all of their correspondence was being tracked and his mum couldn’t so much as send him a parcel of mince pies for Christmas without a team of Aurors knowing every ingredient she used to make them.
Darling Draco,
I hope this school year is treating you well. You know I didn’t like the idea of being separated from you for so long, especially not after everything that happened, but I can realize that there’s no point in stalling your education and your future to make me feel better. In that case, I trust you are working hard. Snape is no longer there for me to write to when I need to, and so I’ve had no contact with anyone at Hogwarts for well over three months now.
That being said, I’m incredibly sorry, Draco, but I’m afraid you can’t come home for Christmas this year. The Ministry has placed us under such tight surveillance that it’s a hassle for me to step outside into the gardens for some fresh and completely impossible to even leave the grounds for a walk around the village. Your father is going nearly out of his mind, but there’s nothing he can do about it either. He’s close to being at the very top of the Ministry’s Watchlist, and it hasn’t been easy keeping him stable. To be honest, I’m afraid he’s not doing too well; he spends days on end locked up in the study, talking to himself, spelling objects at random. The Floo network has been disconnected and I’m not the most compelling company. Even the house elves barely come out anymore; they prefer to set the table and cook by magic, because they’re probably scared he’ll hex them out of frustration. Really, Draco, the only thing I think might help him feel better is if he can leave the house, and that’s not going to be possible for a very long time.
It’s not a very enjoyable time at home, dear, and I’m afraid that if you come back, they’ll subject you to the questioning and scrutiny that we’re going through. Although you were acquitted during your trial, the Ministry isn’t looking too kindly upon you and no doubt they’ll be looking for a reason to keep you from going back to school come the new year. I want nothing more than for us to be together for Christmas, but it will have to wait for another time. Have a wonderful holiday at school with your friends, love. I’ll see you as soon as I can.
Love,
Mum
He read through the letter once more, and with a sinking feeling in his stomach, realized that he would have to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas this year. Truth be told, he had never had to do that before, and Christmas break was always something he looked forward to. It was always quiet at home, in stark contrast with the constant noise at school, whether it be students in the halls or the clattering of Peeves creating wreckage in a classroom. He was never home long enough to get lonely, and he rather enjoyed being with his relatives and sneaking a second glass of his father’s favorite mulled wine. This year, however, he just wanted to see them again, really, just to make sure they were alright…
Of course, some things would never be the same, and even if he went, chances were that the Aurors would pounce on him the second he walked in the door. Dear Mum, he scrawled on the piece of parchment he was holding, It’s all right, really. I’ll be okay here - I have Pansy to keep me company. Christmas won’t be the same without you but I’m glad you’re safe. Give father my best wishes and
He paused. What he really wanted to say was tell him to write me back himself, the bloody bastard , or maybe remind him that it wouldn’t hurt to act like he cares about me , even if it’s just pretend, or even just tell him I hope he feels better , but he couldn’t bring himself to write any of those things. Give father my best wishes and tell him merry Christmas from me , he finished. Best, Draco.
Something had risen in his throat, hot and thick and entirely unpleasant. He could see his mother pacing around the living room, sipping tea by herself in an armchair by the fire, flipping through a book like she did all things, gracefully and poised, while his father shut himself up in his study, throwing books around and slamming doors. Shut up, he thought. Yeah, your dad’s a prick but that’s not new information .
“Goddamnit,” he groaned aloud, folding up the note, grabbing his books, and slamming the door to the dormitory shut without looking back.
---
He had stopped at the Owlery before making his way to the library, the sky gone dark outside and the cracks in the windows that had not yet been repaired letting in small bursts of the December chill. Madam Pince had given him an owlish glare as he entered the library, and sharply reminded him that “the library closes at eleven!” to which he had to remind her that it was not yet seven-thirty before ducking behind a shelf of books in the Runes section to avoid the book she had sent whizzing in his direction.
“Potions,” he muttered to himself, working his way towards the back of the library. For all his time at Hogwarts, he had rarely come in here to sit down and work, preferring the cool quiet of his common room as opposed to the crowded tables of students who spent most of their time shuffling away from him and his Slytherin friends, as if he’d hex them in the middle of the library. Most of them were still at dinner now, though, or were probably walking around the halls trying to catch themselves under the mistletoe and Christmas decorations that had been put up, and the library was blessedly empty and quiet. He passed the Herbology books, then Charms, and finally found a cozy table in the Potions section at the back. He looked at the list of books Granger had given him, and summoned the first three with a wave of his wand and an Accio! 99 Potions Ingredients came zooming around the corner and hit him squarely in the side of the head, and he nearly fell over with a soft grunt.
“Fucker,” he muttered loudly, glaring down at the book where it lay innocently in his hands. The other two had settled nicely on the table in a neat stack next to his bag.
“Malfoy?” came a familiar voice from the bookshelf next to him. “You alright?”
Potter was sitting at a table right next to the Charms section, once again surrounded by a gigantic pile of books, wearing comfortable worn school robes that looked two sizes too large and an infuriatingly amused expression on his face. Malfoy scowled, rubbing his head and setting the book down. “Yeah,” he said, “this book’s got an attitude, though.”
Potter glanced at it and nodded knowingly, stupid wiry glasses slipping another millimeter down his nose. “Yeah that’s a tricky one,” he pointed out. “I was trying to use it except I flipped to the page on rosewater and it nearly took my finger off. It was a good read though, very useful. The trick is to keep from touching it - just use your wand to flip the page.”
Draco stared. “You’ve...you’ve already done Slughorn’s assignment, then?” Was he just thickheaded or was his potion just unnecessarily complicated?
Potter blinked at him. “Slughorn’s- oh, yes. I mean, some of it was pretty basic stuff, but then there was one thing- well, er, Hermione helped me figure that out pretty quick. You know how she is.”
“You’re turning into her, though, aren’t you,” Draco said, rolling his eyes and gesturing at the books Potter had scattered all over his desk. “What’s with the sudden burst of motivation to be smart, Potter?”
Potter looked down at the desk, eyes widening like he just realized how many books he had taken. “Oh, no,” he said, suddenly sounding very flustered. He tried scooping them into a pile, jumping when they fell off the table and into his lap. “I couldn’t find what I was looking for and I forgot to put them back- ah, shit, hang on-”
With a wave of his wand and a compulsory eye roll, Draco sent the books settling into a neat stack on the table. He sat down. “Honestly, Potter, are you always this clumsy or are you just nervous because I’m around?” He smirked. “I tend to have that effect on people.”
Potter scowled at him. “Shut up , Draco.”
Hearing Potter say his first name made his stomach do weird things, like the two of them were friends , or that they were going to be friends, or- “Since when do you call me Draco?” he blurted out, and by the look on Potter’s face, he wasn’t doing a very good job hiding his confused expression.
“Oh,” Potter said, turning a delicate pink. “I dunno, I thought… Since we’re kind of friends now, or y’know, since we don’t hate each other anymore… I just thought I’d try it out.”
“Hm,” Draco replied, turning towards his book and pulling a fresh sheet of parchment towards him, trying and probably failing to not look like hearing Potter say Draco like that was having any effect on his heart whatsoever. “I’m not going to call you Harry, though. But that’s… that’s fine.”
The two of them went silent after that, and the only noise coming from Potter’s table was the steady swish of a page being flipped and the occasional scratch of a quill. Draco worked steadily through the page of parchment, writing down and crossing off ingredients as he flipped slowly through the first book, and the second, and the third… rosemary, he decided, for the ginger, and ground talcum for the jasmine. The rain would be remedied by a cactus flower and he made a note to add two drops of beetle essence to counteract the dizziness that cactus flower often made the drinker feel (a helpful note in the Regional Flowering Plants chapter of 99 Potions Ingredients that he had found after it had, to Potter’s word, tried to rip the fingernail off his thumb.
All that was well, but he couldn’t help thinking about the last thing he had smelled...something like apples and pears but also not quite… he supposed he could try and find an ingredient pertaining to apples but that was such an unremarkable and strange ingredient that he doubted there was much written about it. Was it something Filch used to clean the halls? It could have been, seeing that he definitely spent hours crooning over his cupboard of cleaning supplies.
“Hey, Potter,” he hissed, glancing towards where Madam Pince was eyeing them from two rows away.
“Yes?” Potter replied, not looking up from his newest book.
“Do you, er. Well, what ingredients did you use for your Potions assignment?”
That got his attention. Potter frowned. “You can’t copy off me, you know. These are supposed to be different for each of us.”
“Well, yes I know,” Draco said exasperatedly. “I just, there was something I smelled that wasn’t something I recognized and, well. I was just wondering if you know how to find something for um. Something like that.” It sounded dumb when he said it like that. Of course Potter wouldn’t know about something that vague.
To his surprise, Potter pursed his lips and nodded slightly. “Er, well. I dunno, there was something for me, but it was pretty unconventional, what Hermione told me to do, so I don’t think it would apply to you. You could always just leave it out, though, I’m sure Slughorn would understand. Plus, the antidote would still work fine and all.”
“Thanks for the help,” Draco replied flatly, even though he knew full well that there was no real way for Potter to help him. “I guess I did everything I could, then.” He cleared his table with a flick of his wand, ignoring Madam Pince’s glare when the books flew haphazardly back into their respective shelves with a soft thud . “What are you, uh, working on?” He had no idea why he was trying to make conversation, really, but suddenly, the idea of returning to his common room alone was entirely unappealing. It was much nicer here in the library, really, where the lamps had dimmed to a soft amber glow and it was warm and smelled nicely of cracked leather. Potter made a good study partner too, not that they were studying together at all, but Draco found that he enjoyed someone else’s presence near him, just staying quiet as he worked. Pansy was smart and organized, but she kept interrupting their study sessions with some jibe or another, or even just letting out loud exclamations out of frustration.
“Nothing,” Potter said, much too quickly. He covered his parchment with one arm. “Erm, nothing that’s important. Just writing a letter. To my aunt and uncle. Wishing them a merry Christmas and all.”
That was complete bullshit, and Draco knew it, and Potter knew Draco knew it. They hadn’t talked about their families, but Draco knew that his aunt and uncle weren’t the kind you wrote letters to, much less ones with good wishes about the holidays. “Alright,” Draco said at last, gathering up his books and standing up. “Good luck with your letter Potter. And um,” he hesitated. “have a nice night.”
“You too, Draco,” said Potter, sounding somewhat confused and also bemused, as Draco turned and resisted the urge to sprint away.
---
The next day was completely and utterly exhausting, to say the least. The castle was full of the kind of festive jollies that would usually have Draco counting down the days until he could go home for Christmas, but this year, he simply slumped along to class behind his classmates, trying to plaster a smile on his face when Pansy gloated about the E she had achieved on her History of Magic end-of-term exam and nodding along with some semblance of enthusiasm when Blaise and Goyle discussed the Christmas dinners their families liked to put on. He handed in his Potions assignment to Slughorn in a rush, shoving his scroll of parchment under the pile of others on his desk, rushing back to his cauldron without acknowledging Slughorn’s exclamation of “ well done!” and hurriedly flipping open his Potions book and gathering ingredients for the day’s lesson. “Very well done, Harry,” Slughorn was saying to where Potter was sitting, only two seats away from him that day. The Weasley wasn’t there, and neither was Granger, for some reason, and several others had left for break a day early.
“Thanks, Professor,” Potter was saying. Draco stirred his potion harder, feeling Potter’s eyes on the side of his head. He had added too much peppermint, on accident - usually he had a light enough touch at potions, but the extra sprig had fallen in when he was stirring, and now the air around his cauldron smelled exactly like Christmastime. He sighed, something heavy settling in his gut. All he really wanted was a plate of his grandmother’s ginger cookies and a warm mug of tea. And his mother. Not that he would admit it to anyone, in fear of being called an utter and complete mummy’s boy , but he had sworn in his childhood that her hugs had healing powers, and, well, to be frank, Draco could use a little bit of healing right now.
“Oh dear,” Slughorn tutted above him, startling Draco enough to almost make him jump. “Too much peppermint, I see. Not to worry, my boy, just add three drops of lavender oil and stir four times. No harm done, eh?” Slughorn clapped him on the back and quickly strode off to where Patil was stirring her cauldron anxiously, fumes causing her neatly plaited hair to frizz in odd patterns.
Draco added. He stirred. The overwhelming peppermint scent faded away and he sighed, breathing in what now smelled exactly like a warm, comforting mug of hot cocoa. Merlin, he had to get a grip on himself.
When he looked up again, Potter was looking at him with the strangest expression on his face - not quite smug, almost pitying, but mostly just a little sad.
---
When he returned to his dorm that evening, he was famished, despite arriving straight from dinner. He hadn’t eaten much, mostly had just nibbled on some mince pies and sipped some pumpkin juice. Blaise and Goyle had left in the middle of the day, Flooing straight out of McGonagall’s office because their houses weren’t under Floo lockdown like Draco’s, but they weren’t people whom the Ministry were looking too favorably upon, either. That left him and Pansy, really, out of their group of close friends, to spend Christmas together. Briefly, Draco considered going and looking for her, to see if she maybe wanted to goad the house elves into giving them a platter of cakes and that warm drink he was craving so much earlier, but he also didn’t feel much like being around other people at all. The dormitory was empty for now, four-poster beds done up all neat and tidy and the other boys’ trunks packed and taken away. He felt almost abandoned , which was a completely silly thought. “Shut up, Draco,” he said aloud. “Get over yourself. Find a book, read it, and go to bed.”
When he approached his bed, though, he found sitting on it a shining china plate, stacked with none other than his grandmother’s signature ginger cookies. What, he thought incredulously, looking around as if there might have been someone lurking under his bed who brought him cookies. He looked closer. They were done just as his grandmother would have made them, cut in neat circles with delicate white frosting swirling around the edges. He could smell them from here, sweet and sharp and a little bitter. He thought for a moment that they might be poisoned, and muttered Revelio! and tapped the plate smartly with his wand. Nothing happened. The cookies didn’t move. Alright, so not poisoned, then. The house elves must have brought him a plate; they could actually be highly intuitive sometimes, and maybe Dobby had told them about his favorite before… well…
He picked one up carefully and bit into it, and the flavor was so familiar, so comforting, that he had to hold back a sob. It was just as he remembered.
It wasn’t until later, with all of the rest scarfed down and cleared up, that he noticed the neat little note placed on the plate:
Happy Christmas. Feel better soon.
---
Alright, so the cookie incident was definitely strange, but Draco reminded himself that he went to a magic school, where the castle had a particular fondness for being very difficult. This was proven in part that one morning when one of the staircases gleefully deposited him on the east end of the castle, when he was trying to get to the Great Hall for breakfast. Random shit happened all the time that most people didn’t even know of, so it was entirely possible that the castle just manifested him a plate of cookies to wish him a merry Christmas.
Right?
Christmas morning dawned bright on Hogwarts, and the people who had stayed behind seemed uncharacteristically cheerful. It made sense when Draco thought about it, since the months after the war had been gloomy and depressing, to say the least. Obituaries had filled The Daily Prophet for months on end, as bodies were found and then slowly identified. Talking about the war was like treading on eggshells, because everyone knew someone who died, or everyone knew someone who was close to someone who died, but you didn’t know which of the two categories someone fell into until you saw them either tense up or burst into tears.
Pansy greeted Draco in the common room with a cheerful “Merry Christmas!” and a peck on the cheek. She handed him a small parcel wrapped in shiny red wrapping paper, and he took it, feeling immediately bad that he hadn’t gotten her anything - “I’m so sorry, we didn’t have any Hogsmeade trips this year - but she waved off his apologies. “Don’t worry,” she said, “it’s really small and I just asked mum to owl it here because I saw it in a catalog, but anyway go on! Open it!”
Inside was a gold clasp for his cloak, in the shape of a snake curled into an infinity sign, and roughly the size of his thumb. As he watched, it swirled and writhed, occasionally flicking its tail or flicking its miniature forked tongue. “I love it,” he said, and he truly did. She waved again, dismissively, as he pinned it carefully to his cloak.
“Like I said, it’s nothing. Come on, I’m starving.”
Hogwarts had outdone itself, surely, this year. The Great Hall was lined with evergreen trees so tall that they seemed to disappear into the enchanted sky, which was softly flurrying. The teachers had donned their Christmas best, and the tables, which had been pushed together in the center of the hall, were heaped with so many glistening gold decorations that it was hard to see the enormous platters of food around them. The two of them took a tentative seat between two Ravenclaws, and Pansy began piling food on her plate with admirable gusto. “What?” she asked around a mouthful of bacon. “I’ve been working my buttocks off the last month so I wouldn’t get shipped off to Richard Rimble's tutoring lessons. I’m hungry.”
Draco shook his head, laughing at the fleck of butter on her chin, and helped himself to some sausage.
---
Pansy retired after dinner, claiming that she was too full after the pudding to do anything but lie in bed and groan to anyone who would listen about how full she was. He had already walked her to the common room and was now wandering aimlessly around the courtyard, reveling in the crisp, cold air and the way it made the tip of his nose turn a bright red. Draco had to admit that the food was nice, albeit nowhere near the same as a proper dinner at home, and wondered briefly whether he should send an owl to his mum, wishing her a merry Christmas.
He wondered what the two of them were up to, whether his father had gotten drunk off wine and sherry like he did every year, whether his mum had enchanted the fire to give off the smell of roasted hazelnuts like she enjoyed. At this time, he would usually be up in his room, asking the house elves for an extra plate of fixings he was too full to eat earlier and a sickeningly sweet cup of hot cocoa - the kind his father always scolded him for drinking. He wondered for a moment if he’d be able to convince the house elves to smuggle him some wine, but before he could properly mull over this idea, he turned the corner and collided with something very hard, very warm, and very much Harry Potter.
“Ugh,” said Potter, smiling and reaching a hand to where Draco had fallen, sprawled surely very gracefully on his arse. “Why do I keep surprising you like that?” He was bundled up in three cloaks, which was unnecessarily excessive, but Potter was often very unnecessary like that. His hair was also unnecessarily tousled and his face unnecessarily flushed with the cold, but he didn’t seem to notice. On the contrary, he was beaming down at Draco, who was still sitting on his arse on the freezing cold ground like an idiot, like he was the one person whom Potter wanted to see the most.
Draco grabbed his hand and hauled himself up with a soft grunt, dusting off his cloak. “Why do you keep sneaking up on me, is the question,” he grumbled, trying to ignore how warm Potter’s hand was, even without a glove on. He had nice hands, he noted, calloused from years of playing Quidditch but still very soft. He made a mental note to see what kind of moisturizer Potter used.
“One might start to think that you’re following me, you know,” Potter said, falling in step beside him. “If they see us together this much, they might even think we’re friends. Actually friends.”
“That wouldn’t be so bad,” Draco murmured quietly, almost hoping that Potter hadn’t heard him, until he heard his steps falter.
“It wouldn’t?” Potter asked, softly, after a very heavy pause. “I thought. Well, to be frank, Draco, I thought you hated my guts. I thought you… Well, I thought you wanted me dead. Until…” He trailed off, suddenly looking resolutely at the ground in front of them. He didn’t need to finish his sentence; Draco could hear the unspoken words: until you saved me at Malfoy Manor, Potter was going to say.
Draco didn’t reply. What was he supposed to say? He had spent the last seven months avoiding that question, hoping desperately that it would never come up, because the truth, the raw, aching, honest truth was that he never did hate Potter, admired him, in fact, and admired that thing that burned in his eyes when he looked at his friends or that stupid, redheaded Weasley girl. He admired that and the kind of courage that had nothing to do with being in Gryffindor and also everything, the kind of courage that someone needed to try and befriend someone who tried to kill them, the kind of blind, dumb bravery one had to have to have their heart broken like that and bounce back every single time-
The real truth was that when he saw Harry Potter kneeling on the floor of his sitting room, restrained and jinxed and tortured stupid, scared out of his mind and close to tears, he was still ten times stronger than Draco could ever even dream of being.
He couldn’t put that into words, though, not even if he tried. “Yeah,” he mumbled lamely, hoping that it would convey whatever words his stupid, verbally inept brain refused to sound out. “I don’t, though.”
They walked in silence for a few more minutes, and Draco was shocked at the lack of awkwardness between them. It was nice, he thought, although they did get strange looks from a group of Hufflepuffs huddled in a corner, but one glare from Harry had them blushing and scattering. “Hey,” said Harry, suddenly, stopping under a ledge in a dry patch of ground. “I don’t suppose…”
“What?” Draco asked. Or, he had opened his mouth to ask before a bucket of water upended itself out of nowhere, and splashed all along his robes, soaking him completely from head to toe. It was close to freezing outside, and distantly, he heard Peeves’ grating laughter from ten feet above him and the muffled snickering of other students in the courtyard.
“ Langlock!” cried Potter, and Peeves’ laughter turned into a panicked, gurgling, choking noise before he zoomed away.
“Oh no, Draco,” Potter said, clearly resisting the urge to laugh. “I’m sorry, you must be freezing.”
“N-not at a-all,” Draco said, wholly unconvincingly, even as his traitorous teeth began to chatter and he started shivering uncontrollably. “I-I’m fine, r-really.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Potter said at once, and with a muttered spell and a wave of his wand, Draco felt a welcome rush of warmth spread through his body, until the tips of his ears down to his toes were tingling nicely. “You’re still wet, though,” he noted, and with a soft rustling noise, pulled off one of his three cloaks, and handed it to Draco, who begrudgingly admitted that maybe three cloaks were not so unnecessary after all. “Here,” he said, pulling Draco to his feet after he had, once again , ended up sprawled on his arse. “It should keep the cold from coming back. You should get inside.”
Draco waved a hand at him, still clutching the mercifully warmed cloak. “Don’t baby me, Potter. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.” Still, he wrapped the cloak around himself, trying his hardest to pretend that the Gryffindor seal wasn’t etched over the breast, and that Potter’s cloak wasn’t warm and soft, and that it didn’t smell like-
Hang on.
He took another breath in.
No way. Oh, there was no bloody way-
“Draco? You all right?” Potter looked concerned, and for good reason, because Draco had probably been sniffing his cloak and staring at him like a madman, so he dropped the handful of fabric and sniffed distastefully.
“I’m fine. Your cologne smells like something a troll would use, though. I’d be happy to take you shopping for something more human .”
Potter winked , he winked, that bloody bastard . “Are you asking me on a date?”
Draco’s jaw dropped. “I-”
“I’m teasing , Draco, don’t get your knickers in a twist. C’mon, let’s get you inside before Peeves comes back with a box of Zonko’s Instant Blizzard Powder.”
---
So.
An hour later and Draco hadn’t moved from where he was sitting in front of the fire, one hand clenched up in a fist and other clutching Potter’s robe to his face, the one that smelled way too familiar, that scent of apples and pears and sandalwood , that was the musky, sharp tang he hadn’t recognized before. His head was spinning and a couple of third-years were definitely giving him a weird look from the staircase.
Alright , he thought, standing up and brushing off the front of his robes. He straightened up and stuck his nose in the air as he walked up the stairs. You are a Malfoy, he said to himself. You do not get worked up over boys, and especially not skinny little Gryffindors with appalling hair and toady eyes, except that was the thing, wasn’t it: that Harry wasn’t even that skinny anymore, and he was actually rather fit under those robes - these robes, he corrected himself - and that his hair was atrociously messy but the kind of messy where Draco could’ve spend hours twirling it idly between his fingers, and his eyes were the very opposite of toady, and it probably meant something that Draco could recall exactly the shade of green they were.
“Ah, fuck me,” he groaned aloud to his empty dormitory as he threw the door open, fully ready to collapse on his bed and pray to Merlin that this was all a dream,
And then he froze.
The entire room, the headboard to the cracks in the stone under his dresser, was covered in a thick, richly blooming, heavily perfumed layer of jasmine flowers.
“What the hell,” Draco whispered, as he walked towards his bed, trampling a load of flowers in his wake, but they seemed unharmed. He set Potter’s cloak down and brushed a hand over the petals; they came away smelling like he dipped them into his mother’s perfume - a scent he usually enjoyed but was now enough to almost make him feel sick-
The flowers, the cookies… even the storm that had raged that one night had started as a gentle shower, which Draco remembered because the dungeon was filled with a pleasant, earthy scent for maybe ten minutes before the thunder began to boom…
What the hell was going on here?
And to top it all off, Draco had to find out that he was apparently, head over arse in love with Harry Potter.
With a huff, he picked up the cloak again, intending to send it to be laundered and sent back to Harry’s room, when he saw a neatly folded, unsealed piece of parchment flutter slowly out of the pocket of the robes. From the messy scrawl at the top of the page, he recognized it as a letter, possibly the letter Harry said he was writing the other day in the library, and he picked it up. His fingers itched to open it. Don’t you know it’s rude to read others’ mail! screeched a little voice in his head. What would your mother say?
Draco hesitated. Yeah, it was rude, and sure, his mum wouldn’t be pleased, but at the same time, the universe was probably playing a big, cosmic joke on him right now, maybe to get back at him for being a pathetic excuse of a person, so he figured that reading one of Harry’s letters to his aunt and uncle wasn’t the worst thing he could do. He unfolded it.
It wasn’t addressed to Harry’s aunt, though.
Dear Narcissa, read the heading, and Draco almost dropped the letter in shock. Why was Harry writing to his mum?
I wanted to thank you for sending me your mother’s cookie recipe. I know it was an odd request, but Draco’s seemed really down recently and I heard him mention how much that tradition meant to him. I thought it might cheer him up over the holidays. Your son and I haven’t been on the best of terms in the past but I was hoping that might change, and that in time, we could put everything behind us.
That isn’t the only reason I’m writing, though. I remember what you did for me at the battle, and suffice to say, I wouldn’t be here writing this letter if you hadn’t. There aren’t words to express that kind of gratitude, but when I say that I owe my life to you, and also to Draco, I don’t mean it lightly. I wish you best of luck over the holidays. I hope one day I can thank you again in person.
Best wishes,
Harry Potter
---
Harry was standing outside the Owlery when Draco found him. “No, go on,” he was saying to Dean Thomas, who was waiting down the hall for Harry, who was rummaging around in the pockets of his robes. Draco waited for Dean to turn the corner and disappear from view, before approaching.
“Looking for something?”
Harry’s head shot up so fast, it might have been funny. His jaw dropped and he turned pink. “Oh,” he said. “I thought I had an owl treat in my pocket.”
Did Harry know that he was, in fact, a terrible liar? His face got kind of blotchy and he always tripped over his vowels and he had a tendency to scratch behind his left ear when he got nervous.
“I see,” said Draco, taking another step forward and pulling the letter out of his own pocket. Harry’s eyes tracked the letter, widening ever so slightly. “You see, I thought you were looking for this. I found it in the robes you lent me.”
Harry looked like he wanted to smack himself. “Oh,” he said again. “I was wondering where I put that-”
“You know,” Draco interrupted him. “I thought it was strange that you’d want to write to your aunt and uncle, but I thought it was even more strange that you were writing to my mum. Of course,” he added, “you can imagine my surprise when I found out that you were responsible for the very delicious platter of cookies I found in my room the other day. Cookies I remember mentioning only to Professor Slughorn, when telling him what Amortentia smelled like to me.”
Harry had blushed such a brilliant shade of crimson at this point, that it was really a surprise that he was still breathing. “I have no idea what-”
“It was you, wasn’t it,” breathed Draco, covering the distance between them in two large, hasty steps, so close that he could tell that Harry’s eyes were definitely not a toady green. “The flowers, the cookies. I’m willing to bet that the storm was you too, wasn’t it? That’s what Amortentia smells like to me - rain and jasmine and ginger cookies. And, well,” he started, but he didn’t get the chance to finish his sentence before Harry leaned forward and sort of mushed their lips together, and the initial sensation was so jarring that Draco didn’t even have time to think whether it felt nice, and then Harry made some sort of noise and moved his head just slightly, and oh yes-
And then he was being kissed, thoroughly and properly kissed, a hand coming up to grip shakily at his waist as he was backed up against the wall, right in front of the Owlery, Harry’s lips were firm against his own, other hand warm where it rested against his cheek, and in some distant, faraway part of his brain, he felt himself respond, felt his own lips start to move and felt something start to bubble up inside his chest.
Every instinct he had was telling him to calm down! but it was rather hard to do that when all he could feel was the clasp of his cloak pressing against the spot on Harry’s sternum, the soft, curly strands of Harry’s hair tickling his nose and the soft pressure against his bottom lip. He exhaled so forcefully that he really did think that he was going to pass out, and it took everything he had to bite back a particularly revealing moan - Harry had none of these restrictions, it seemed, because Draco’s hand seemed to have wandered its way under the hem of Harry’s uniform shirt, which had also blessedly come untucked from his trousers, and he let out the kind of sigh that made Draco admittedly a little weak in the knees. It seemed that any and all space between them was completely gone, and they were pressed up from lips to toes in one beautiful, glorious, line.
They broke apart as Draco trailed kisses down Harry’s jaw, and yes, here it was, apples and pears and sandalwood, god he honestly didn’t know how he missed it, any of it.
“I was never good at Meteorological Charms,” Harry admitted somewhat sheepishly, with a shaky breath that had Draco wanting to press him up against something and kiss the satisfied grin off his mouth.
And so he did.
---
RE: Stupid, Idiot Boys
Dear Pansy,
Finally.
-Hermione