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Harry was not aware of releasing George. One moment he was gripping his arm to keep him from going after Malfoy, the next Harry himself was stomping towards the Slytherin. He wasn’t thinking about the teachers in the spectators’ stands, or about the entire student body watching. The only thing on Harry’s mind was the powerful desire to grab Malfoy by the collar and make him choke on his insults.
Harry ate the distance between them, fueled by fury, and Malfoy had the nerve to open his smug little mouth again. Harry didn’t give him the chance to utter another jab at his or the Weasleys’ ancestry; he’d reached him in seconds. The image of himself punching the bastard on his thin lips flashed before his eyes fully formed. Nothing would have satisfied him more. Still, something stayed his hand, even as the rage boiled in his veins. Perhaps a tiny part of Harry recognised that punching Malfoy on the Quidditch pitch would be high on the list of his dumbest decisions.
He stepped closer to him instead—uncomfortably close—and stared him down. He almost hoped the image of the Slytherin with a bloody lip would be reflected in his eyes. Regardless of any last-minute resolution about not letting his temper get him in trouble, Harry didn’t think he could’ve kept from punching a bruise on that pointed jaw if Malfoy hadn’t lost his superior smirk. As it was, he exerted commendable amounts of self-control to slam his pointer finger against Malfoy’s chest instead.
“Fuck you,” he snarled, breathing hard with rage.
Because of how close they were, Harry could see the slight shift as Malfoy’s muscles tensed up at the physical threat. Otherwise, Malfoy didn’t react overtly, composed enough to look down his nose at Harry and scoff.
“You wish, Potter.”
Harry fumed at the deliberate misinterpretation and took one more step forward. His knee knocked against Malfoy’s as his foot settled in between the Slytherin’s.
“You,” Harry spat, “are nothing but a bigoted, inbred Slytherin. I wouldn’t touch you if my life depended on it.”
Harry had a front-row seat for the play of emotions on Malfoy’s face as he processed his words. The narrowing of his eyes, his lips curling to bare his teeth, the deep breath he took before opening his mouth to retort. Harry was sure it would have been a scathing remark for the ages, but he saw Malfoy’s hand rise—to knock his finger from his chest maybe—and reacted with prejudice, pushing Malfoy on the chest before another word could be exchanged.
The blow was hard enough to make Malfoy stumble, but rather than going arse over teakettle, he flung out his arms and grabbed at Harry’s shoulders.
Harry felt the fabric of his Quidditch robes drag almost painfully against his skin as he was pulled forwards in Malfoy’s desperate attempt to stay upright. Harry’s leg, still between Malfoy’s, gave out at suddenly having to support so much shifting weight. Faster than they could react, they were sprawled on the frozen grass of the Quidditch pitch.
Harry’s elbows dug into the ground on either side of Malfoy’s head to maintain an inch of breathing room between their faces, but their legs were tangled together, and Harry could feel Malfoy’s rib cage expanding against his own chest.
Grimacing, Harry tried to take advantage of the fact that he hadn’t slammed his head into the ground to get up to a kneeling position, at least, but when he tried to get a knee under himself he dragged one of Malfoy’s legs with his.
Malfoy’s instinctive reaction at having his legs spread, apparently, was to reach up and cling, and Harry faltered at the unexpected weight around his head and neck as one of Malfoy’s hands sank in his hair and the other curled around his nape.
His head dipped forwards, following the pull. Suddenly, there wasn’t enough space for a breath between them. They shared the same air. Their noses bumped each other. Between one moment and the next, they were kissing.
Although kissing may be a misnomer. They didn’t come together as much as attack each other—with open mouths and closed eyes.
Harry’s mind was empty of any thought. Implacable heat drove him, mounting from deep within him. For a glorious moment, he lived one second to the next. Nothing existed outside of the tilt of Malfoy’s head and the way it allowed him to thrust his tongue into his mouth.
His bodily perceptions came in waves—wet lips, shifting hips, grasping hands.
Malfoy tugged on his hair and the pain lit something in Harry. He sank his teeth so deeply into Malfoy’s thin lips that he tasted blood. Malfoy’s hand around his neck tightened and his nails dug into his skin, scratching lines that burnt like fire in one of the only points of naked contact they could have with their Quidditch uniforms on.
Harry abandoned the stability granted by having both forearms on the ground to grasp at Malfoy’s sides, hands sneaking inside his robes to clutch at his waistband. In such a position, Harry had no leverage to stop Malfoy when he rose on an elbow and rolled them across the muddy grass. Harry ended up sprawled under Malfoy, grabbing onto him for dear life—his hair still in Malfoy’s fist as the blond brought his favourable position to bear, leaning fully onto Harry and constricting his chest with his weight. His lips kept him almost too occupied to breathe.
The ground under his back was cold, wet, and uncomfortable, and shifting brought the bludger-sized bruise forming on his lower back into stark relief. The unwelcome reminder of Crabbe targeting him after he’d already caught the snitch brought back to mind what a bunch of sore losers and cheaters the Slytherins were. He remembered that he wasn’t rolling around with Malfoy because he liked it, but because he was furious. The emotion that warmed him all the way through, allowing him to ignore the cold, and surged within him when Malfoy settled between his legs, was fury. But hiking his hips to try and overthrow Malfoy backfired—the sensation of their groins making full and forceful contact made Malfoy tremble on top of him, and Harry groaned at the feeling of Malfoy sinking further into him.
There was no recourse; Harry was pinned to the ground by Malfoy’s full weight. He could think of nothing else to do while still being kissed within an inch of his life, and his traitorous hands sneaked deeper into Malfoy’s shirt, naked skin against naked skin as his arms curled around Malfoy’s waist through no conscious choice on his part.
When Malfoy recovered enough wherewithal to raise his head the necessary inch for both of them to avoid dying asphyxiated, Harry saw a chance. He slashed his head to one side, displacing the hand that had been curled around his neck nails-first. Malfoy, unbalanced, dug his hand into the cold grass next to Harry’s head, and, with a clear path to his goal, Harry stretched his neck and sank his teeth into Malfoy’s thin wrist. Malfoy growled, twisting the hand he’d managed to keep in his hair, and attacked his scratched neck with lips and teeth.
Harry released Malfoy’s wrist, abandoning his head on the ground and shifting so he could get at Malfoy’s neck too. Biting him, holding onto him with his teeth, satisfied Harry’s need for retribution in a primal way, while for some reason Malfoy seemed to enjoy licking him. It wasn’t doing much for Harry at first, but the traces of spit left on his skin made him more sensitive to the cold air, and goosebumps rose across his skin while every point of contact with Malfoy felt scorching.
The different temperatures across his skin played havoc with Harry’s perceptions. They left him feeling feverish and unmoored, at the mercy of the opposing feelings as his body trembled. He reacted by grasping at Malfoy, fingers clenching tight where before they’d only caressed. His hands roamed Malfoy’s back under his Quidditch robes and undershirt, grabbing hips and shoulders and keeping him as close as their bodies would go.
They’d warmed the air between them enough that Harry’s gasps didn’t create condensation when Malfoy pulled his hair further back, dislodging his lips from the pale jaw he’d meant to bruise. Harry had no choice but to bare more of his neck to Malfoy’s ministrations. He looked at the leaden sky, clouds preparing for snow, and realised his glasses were fogged up and had been digging into his face.
Without the distraction of Malfoy’s skin under his mouth, he focused on his wandering hands. A moan escaped his lips when his fingers slipped below Malfoy’s waistband, followed by his palms. An answering moan resonated against his neck.
Harry had no idea how long they spent snogging, nor how far they would have gone if reality hadn’t come crashing in. But in this particular instance, reality took the form of Madam Hooch spelling them apart.
Harry found himself lying alone on the ground, cooling down now that Malfoy wasn’t draped over him like an over-enthusiastic blanket. His head spun as he panted—he hadn’t even been that out of breath when he’d first jumped off his broom.
Finally getting all the oxygen he needed helped Harry’s rational mind reassert itself. After that, it took him a second to realise that his previous condition of self-engineered obliviousness (and partial oxygen deprivation) had been a blissful state to be in. The moment he regained enough control of his limbs to push himself up on his elbows and look up, his stomach fell. He had somewhat expected Madam Hooch, with her whistle in one hand and her wand in the other, but Snape was advancing towards their position with murder in his eyes, resembling nothing more than all Neville’s nightmares from first year come true. McGonagall was also stalking in their direction, Gryffindor scarf whipping behind her almost like an angry tail. Her lips had never looked thinner.
Harry tried to muster up some shock at the fact that the professors had had all the time to get down from the stands and invade the pitch, but something else caught his attention. To take an already dangerous situation all the way to cataclysmic levels, Umbridge was taking quick steps towards them, already hemhemming.
With mounting dread, Harry turned away from the catastrophe that was the conjunction of McGonagall’s disappointment, Hooch’s indignation, Snape’s murderous intent, and Umbridge’s saccharine hate. His eyes strayed towards Malfoy. It hadn’t been planned, but if Harry had thought about it at all he’d have resolved to keep it brief. Staring at his hands in penitence throughout the imminent lecture, nodding when appropriate, would have been the only way to avoid making things worse for himself, according to Harry’s estimation. But the way Malfoy looked made Harry choke on his tongue and he couldn’t have ripped his eyes away from the spectacle if the Mirror of Erised had been standing on his other side.
Malfoy was still a lump on the ground, groaning with squinted eyes like he’d been knocked about one-too-many times. His usually-prim hair was a mess, short strands standing up in all directions, blades of grass stuck behind his ears. His bottom lip bled lightly, the vibrant red of blood standing out against his pale skin. Harry had somehow managed to leave love bites all over his neck and up to his jaw, where the collar of his uniform wouldn’t hide them. Harry admired the purple bruises for a second before dragging his eyes back up. Malfoy was still panting like he’d run a marathon, cheeks rosy from the exertion and eyes big and liquid like Harry had never seen them—his light grey irises were the thinnest circles around his black pupils. Harry couldn’t have averted his gaze even had he wanted to—Malfoy chose that moment to push himself up and look straight at him.
Their eyes locked in a staring contest. Malfoy’s appearance screamed of pleasure given and received and it left Harry destabilised—the fact that he couldn’t be the first to break eye contact his sole certainty.
“What did you think you were doing, Potter, Malfoy? I’ve never seen such behaviour on my pitch—” As Madam Hooch berated them, incredulity thickening her voice, Snape reached them and planted himself behind Malfoy, black cloak snapping in the chilly wind.
Malfoy was startled when his Head of House reached down and heaved him up by an arm, and Harry scrambled upright as well, feeling like losing eye contact dissolved the spell that had kept him frozen in place.
He debated stepping closer to Professor McGonagall, although she didn’t look like his biggest fan at the moment. If it had only been Snape and Malfoy he wouldn’t have risked her temper, but with Umbridge hastening towards them in her ridiculous kitten-heeled, pink shoes, Harry decided to give into the need to present a united front. He set himself as close to Professor McGonagall as he dared, plastering a contrite look on his face.
Snape sneered at the scene and released Malfoy to cross his arms forbiddingly, interrupting Madam Hooch’s lecture about the sanctity of the Quidditch pitch to try and pin all the blame on Harry as was his wont.
“This is outrageous,” he hissed, dragging out the word. “Potter has assaulted my student in full view of the teaching body as well as every Quidditch fanatic in the castle. Serious sanctions must be—”
Umbridge, who’d got close to the group by shoving members of the two Quidditch teams still lingering on the pitch out of her way, tried to insert herself in the discussion. Professor McGonagall prevented this by cutting Snape off herself.
“Excuse me? I will be the last to deny the disgraceful nature of the exhibition we’ve been subjected to, but I would say our students share culpability—”
“Everyone,” Snape spat, talking over Professor McGonagall, “saw Potter physically attack Mr Malfoy out of the blue—”
This interpretation of the events seemed to be too much for Professor McGonagall, whom Harry had rarely seen as livid. He was unspeakably relieved to see Snape sign up to take the brunt of her temper.
“What everyone saw was Mr Malfoy dragging Mr Potter to the ground. Unless we weren’t watching the same altercation from the spectators’ stands?”
“Look at my student!” Snape cried, grabbing Malfoy once more and forcing him to expose his neck to present as evidence. “Potter mauled him like a wild beast—”
“Hem, hem,” Umbridge tried again.
“I believe—and I dare say witnesses will corroborate my understanding of the situation—that Mr Malfoy instigated the disagreement. Not to mention what he’s done to Mr Potter. My student will have to go to the infirmary to treat those scratches.” Harry almost jumped to put some distance between them, but Professor McGonagall gestured broadly towards his neck instead of manhandling him like Snape was doing to Malfoy. His eyes wandered in that direction, and Harry lost a few seconds to the flush of indignation on Malfoy’s cheeks. He refocused on the discussion at hand when Umbridge managed to drown out the professors’ bickering.
“Excuse me! May I offer my help in resolving such a… tricky situation,” Umbridge said, a large smile splitting her face.
Snape drew himself up, looking like a giant, offended bat, while Professor McGonagall took a deep, calming breath before turning to deal with her colleague.
“Your… help?” she asked, admirably restrained.
Harry fidgeted at the rising tension in the air, starting to feel the sweat cooling all over his body in the November wind. His teammates, who’d been scattered around the loose circle of professors, drew closer to him, assembling messily around Professor McGonagall to follow along.
“Yes,” Umbridge said. “I think this unruliness is nothing less than a demonstration of the Gryffindor Quidditch team's penchant for violence and disregard of proper conduct. I did try and stop you from re-forming such an explosive team, if you remember.”
A frisson of true fear shook Harry’s spine. Would the Quidditch team be disbanded because of him? Surely Umbridge didn’t have the power…
“Utter nonsense. Potter and Malfoy are the only guilty parties and the matter is easily resolved, as this squabble was so public we saw what happened from the stands,” Professor McGonagall laid out matter-of-factly. She turned towards Snape and Malfoy, and away from Umbridge, rather pointedly.
“Hem, hem.” Umbridge stepped forward, and Harry imagined what they must look like from the stands—he couldn’t have come up with a weirder mix of people to be huddling together on the Quidditch pitch. But wondering about the crowd made him realise he couldn’t hear any noise from the rest of the stadium, and he couldn’t begin to guess at how much time had passed since the end of the match. Umbridge smiled in a way that had spelt misery for Harry all term, and said, “The view from the stands was surely too far removed to give an accurate representation of the incident. Fortunately,” she continued with the most sickly and ominous expression Harry had seen on her face—which was saying something. “We have here some… closer witnesses—” She gestured behind her, where Madam Hooch had been trying and failing to get the Slytherin Quidditch team to move on since Professor McGonagall and Snape had taken over the scolding. The Slytherins’ insistence to stay and gawk at them suddenly turned more sinister. “Mr Montague, for example, surely observed everything from a vantage point—” The Slytherin Captain stepped past Madam Hooch and closer to Umbridge, a glint in his eyes that showed exactly how far he would go to make sure the right version of events emerged.
He didn’t have the chance to utter a single word, as the other Gryffindor players saw the danger just as clearly as Harry did. With the continued existence of their team on the line, they exploded in a chorus that supported Harry at the expense of Malfoy, and occasionally, of the truth.
“Harry didn’t touch him!”
“Malfoy pushed him!”
“Harry was assaulted!”
“Malfoy attacked Harry!”
“Malfoy started it!”
The Slytherin team started jeering loudly as well, but their usual offensive tactics were defanged by virtue of thugs like Crabbe and Goyle being unable to hide behind Umbridge’s green tweed cloak and wave their Beaters’ bats around to intimidate the opposition at the same time. This didn’t stop them from making some very explicit gestures, but they would have had to trample Umbridge and go through an already ticked-off Professor McGonagall to make good on the threats, so Harry wasn’t worried. Neither were the Gryffindor Chasers, their higher voices rising over the Slytherins’ grunting. They obviously resented the way the Slytherin Beaters had harassed them during the match, and Katie in particular looked fearsome, screaming about dirty cheats with blood on her face from when Goyle had hit her with a Bludger.
The scene descended into chaos as both teams yelled variations of the truth towards the cluster of professors. In reality, all arguments were somewhat moot. No one could have seen exactly what happened on the pitch without Omnioculars except for the other Quidditch players, and not even they had been close enough to affirm with absolute certainty who had turned the fight physical.
This didn’t stop anyone from giving it their best shot, of course, and the Gryffindors managed to drown out the competition by a wide margin. The team had rallied behind Professor McGonagall, and they screamed about Malfoy’s culpability at the top of their lungs, knowing that if they lost ground it wasn’t only their star seeker who would go down hard.
Fred and George took advantage of the confusion to get some of their own back for the way Malfoy had insulted their family and their home, yelling invectives that would have landed them in detention at any other time. But even Angelina, who had looked like she wouldn’t spit on Harry if he were on fire every time he had to miss practice because of detention, was fired up and screaming her lungs out in his defence.
Harry didn’t remember the last time he’d felt so much support from other members of his House. It hadn’t been recently, what with the smear campaign against his name. He could only be grateful that the confrontation with Umbridge was happening in such a public place and with his team in high spirits after their victory against Slytherin. And with the threat of disbanding the team fresh in everyone’s mind, the lure of playing a part in curbing Umbridge’s megalomaniac tendencies was a potent motivating factor.
Harry couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard what sounded like a slur coming from the Slytherin side just a fraction of a second before Madam Hooch raised her whistle, blowing into it sharply enough to make the students closest to her clutch their ears.
“This is enough!” she bellowed. “Everyone who’s not directly related to the matter at hand, off of my pitch!” Seemingly persuaded that the Head of Houses and the High Inquisitor could deal with two unruly students on their own, she gathered all other Quidditch players in front of her by waving her wand and dispensing threats. Then she escorted them to their respective changing rooms, not trusting them not to escalate the argument between themselves if left to their own devices. She didn’t sheathe her wand.
With no biassed witnesses to call upon, it all ended quite anticlimactically for Umbridge. Anyone could see she’d been chomping at the bit to punish Harry to the full extent of her powers, grown beyond compare according to the latest Education Decree she’d waved around, but Professor McGonagall stymied her at every turn.
“You must see he’s a danger to his fellow students,” Umbridge urged. “If you won’t expel him, banning him from Quidditch is the only way to prevent a repeat of such dreadful behaviour.”
Snape’s face twitched, and Harry focused on the darkly satisfied glint in his eyes instead of his own emotions. Malfoy was as still as a statue next to his Head of House, not even gloating at the double standard that would see him get off scot-free.
“If that is the only punishment we can agree on,” Professor McGonagall said. “I will inform my Captain she’ll have to find another Seeker, just as Professor Snape will have to inform Montague of the same.”
The gleeful smile that had been spreading on Umbridge’s face froze, and Harry felt like he’d just re-learned how to breathe. There was no way Snape—or Lucius Malfoy!—would accept that. Professor McGonagall had found a way to save Harry from any truly unbearable fate by insisting that she would accept any punishment Umbridge deemed necessary for Harry—as long as Malfoy got the exact same.
“I don’t believe we were talking about my student.” Snape’s face could have been carved in stone.
Umbridge tried to bring her increased authority to bear, and Snape protested against Harry and Malfoy sharing the same sentence until the clouds overhead threatened snow. Even with the incentive to wrap things up, Professor McGonagall wouldn’t be moved, and Harry gained all the more appreciation for his Head of House. When Snape’s accusations became too pointed, she brought things back into perspective, pointing out that “Uninformed speculation is worthless. If we can’t trust our students’ words we must look at the facts, and Madam Hooch had to spell Mr Malfoy away from Mr Potter, not the opposite.”
After more back and forth than Harry wished to keep up with after the day he’d had, Umbridge settled on having them both in detention on alternating days until the end of term—which would mean torture for Harry and probably tea parties for Malfoy.
Snape, cheated out of a prime opportunity to make Harry’s life worse than everyone else’s because of something as trivial as the facts, was the first to turn towards the castle, holding out an arm to indicate that Malfoy should follow post haste. Malfoy, looking mutinous at the overinflated punishment, didn’t heed him, making a detour to pick something up from the ground before following. Harry’s eyes narrowed. That was the spot where they’d fallen together—he could see the indentation in the frozen grass—and he recognised the golden glint.
The bastard had stolen his snitch.
His fingers itched with the desire to snatch it back, straight from Malfoy’s hands, but Professor McGonagall looked at him, unimpressed, and said, “Walk with me, Potter,” so he did. At the pace Professor McGonagall set, they left Umbridge behind before too long, and Harry didn’t think it was a happy coincidence.
Professor McGonagall accompanied him up to the entrance of the castle, where his Quidditch team was loitering and failing to look unconcerned. They’d all showered and changed in the changing rooms but refrained from going up to join the celebrations before learning the professors’ verdict.
Professor McGonagall directed Harry to stand with his teammates and addressed the group.
“The Gryffindor Quidditch team will not be disbanded.” She had to pause right away to allow for the cheers. “Today’s incident was unfortunate, but only the instigators will be punished, as it should be,” she concluded with a loaded look in Harry’s direction. He lowered his eyes.
The moment she left, everyone turned towards him, and Angelina looked like she would shake him if he didn’t start talking right away.
“Well?” she prompted.
“Detention until the end of term.”
Fred and George guffawed, jumping on him to slap his back. The relief of having avoided the worst of Umbridge’s threats—disbanding the whole team, expelling Harry, banning him from Quidditch for life—buoyed them all the way up to Gryffindor tower as Harry recounted the twists and turns the conversation had taken since the others had been sent packing. He found he could remember many of Professor McGonagall’s verbal slaps almost word for word, and his teammates cheered for each one. It wasn’t every day that they won the match against Slytherin and their Head of House put Snape and Umbridge in their place, and Harry was glad they were too riveted to question his momentary lapse of judgement.
Once they climbed through the portrait hole one by one, they were immediately besieged by Hermione and the Gryffindor members of the DA.
“Harry!” Hermione called out, throwing her arms around him. “What happened? We saw you and Malfoy fall to the ground from our seats.”
Katie giggled from behind him, startling Hermione. She realised they were blocking the entrance and dragged him to the sofa in front of the fireplace to interrogate him in comfort. The rest of the Quidditch team settled around them, and his roommates and the other DA members found spots on the squashy armchairs or on the rug, in the case of Colin, Dennis, and Nigel. Harry could see McLaggen hover nearby, and many of the housemates he’d never had a single conversation with lingered at the fringes of the group to listen in. He wasn’t crazy about the number of people, but Hermione tapped her foot impatiently and Harry sighed. She hadn’t been with the team earlier, so she hadn’t had the tiniest scrap of information to base theories on while she waited, and Harry knew how that frustrated her.
“I’ve got detention with Umbridge for fighting,” Harry admitted. “Every other day until the end of term, and that was after McGonagall stood up for me—the bitch threatened to expel me.”
“Harry!”
“Let it go, Hermione. The boy spent an hour in her presence, fighting expulsion. He’s owed a moment to vent,” Fred, hanging over the back of the sofa, said.
“No, Hermione’s right. Sorry. I didn’t mean to insult dogs everywhere. Umbridge’s just an evil toad.”
“Evil’s right,” Lee Jordan commented from his armchair. “Who’s ever heard of getting more than a month of detention for fighting? You didn’t even have your wands out, did you?”
George, who’d been standing next to Fred, leaned down to drape an arm around Harry’s neck. The movement was a bit too aggressive to be friendly.
“Funny you should ask that, Lee,” he said with a grin that set off alarm bells in Harry’s head. “We were a bit closer to the action, see. And I don’t know if I would call what Harrikins did fighting.”
“What was it, then?” Ginny asked right away, looking curious and ready to fight for her right to be included.
Harry shifted in his seat, and George tightened his hold on his neck.
“Yeah, Harry, what was it?”
Harry opened his mouth, decided a sarcastic answer wouldn’t help his case, and closed it again.
“Go on, Harry,” Fred prompted, taking up speaking duty from his brother. “Help us answer the question. Things are a little fudgy around the time you stalked towards Malfoy. I do remember he was insulting our mother.”
“Fairly awfully at that,” George specified.
“Why, with an effort, I may remember him insulting your mother too.” They kept up the painfully-lighthearted tone, but Harry had never felt so judged. The worst part was that they were right. Harry could remember with crystal clarity the abuse Malfoy had been spewing before his lips had become otherwise occupied, and his actions had no justification that held any water.
“We would just love to know what passed through that head of yours.” George reinforced his point by dragging his knuckles across his scalp, which was still feeling tender from Malfoy pulling his hair every which way. Harry tried to squirm away from the attack with no luck.
“I have no idea what came over me,” he finally admitted.
Ginny, across from him, started frowning.
“Would you three stop being coy? What happened?”
Katie, who’d been suppressing her giggles on the other side of Hermione for most of the exchange, sent Harry an apologetic look at seeing his trepidation.
“Angelina, Alicia and I were holding Fred back, because he looked like he really wanted to hurt Malfoy,” she explained. “And Harry was holding onto George for the same reason. But—I guess Malfoy went too far or something, because Harry just let George go and rushed Malfoy on his own.” She turned towards Harry. “I called out to try and stop you, but I don’t think you even heard me.”
Harry confirmed that he hadn’t.
“Well, Alicia—she was the closest—she saw the problem right away and jumped on George like a—like a gazelle or something!”
Harry felt the vibrations of Alicia’s laugh against his right arm from where she was pressed to his side so the sofa could accommodate five people.
“Right,” she said. “I had to practically sit on him to keep him from running after Harry!”
George finally let Harry go to invade Alicia’s personal space instead. He didn’t have to travel far.
“The only enjoyable part of the experience, I assure you.” He winked.
“And then?” Ginny asked again, impatient.
“Did Potter trip over Malfoy?” Harry heard the dull thud of someone hitting McLaggen in the stomach.
“Oh, no,” Katie assured. “He was looking very dangerous, actually. He stared Malfoy straight down—made him keep his forked tongue behind his teeth. Everyone thought you were going to hex him,” she concluded, addressing Harry.
“So did I,” he confessed. “Or maybe punch him. Then I got closer and…” Harry trailed off, grimacing and trying not to look at anyone in particular. The entire mess with Malfoy had already been more public than he thought he could stand.
Ginny looked ready to vibrate out of her skin if someone didn’t come out and say what had happened, and Harry fixated on her twitching leg to avoid doing exactly that.
“Everyone saw you on the ground with him, and you got detention for fighting. If you didn’t punch him… Did you shove him?” Hermione was analysing the situation with the few hints she had and coming uncomfortably close to the truth, but Harry ignored her.
Angelina let out an explosive sigh from Alicia’s right side.
“This is getting ridiculous. They snogged, alright? They rolled around the grass and snogged like they hadn’t just played Quidditch against each other.”
Harry abandoned his head against the back of the sofa, closing his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see Fred’s expression even upside-down, and contemplated death.
After a meagre second of quiet, their side of the common room exploded. Everyone had something to say, and they all had to say it at the same time. Questions were coming faster than Harry could have answered them even had he had any inclination to. Amongst the excited chatter, Harry heard Lavender’s delighted voice ask, “With tongue?” He flinched. It was a shame that Voldemort had been silent for a few days—this seemed like the perfect moment to get a vision.
Hermione grabbed his left arm, and he had to cover her hand with his to avoid finishing his day with more scratch marks than he already sported. Hermione put her mouth right next to his ear and started hissing like a neglected kettle.
“Is that what the bruises on your neck are?” she asked, voice going up and down with her emotions. “Did Malfoy assault you?!”
Harry’s head snapped up and he looked at her with wide eyes.
“No! Er—” For a moment, he questioned whether he really wanted to say it, but he couldn’t leave Hermione with such a terrible misconception. He lowered his voice. “It was rather more… mutual than that.”
Hermione stared at him like she didn’t know him, and Harry felt a tight knot of despair settle in his stomach. His face must have telegraphed his feelings loud and clear, because Hermione rushed to comfort him.
“Oh, Harry. It’s fine if you’re gay!” she said, hands fluttering around his shoulders. Then she continued like the words were being pulled from her throat. “Just, Malfoy?”
Harry reacted to the only thing he had an answer for.
“I’m not gay!” The few people who hadn’t already quieted down to listen in on his conversation did so and turned to stare at him. His voice broke. “At least, I didn’t… think… I was?” Would this day ever end? It felt like it’d lasted a year already. “You know I like—” Harry hoped Hermione understood both what the wiggling of his eyebrows meant and the need for discretion.
Her brown eyes shifted quickly as she looked into his own one after the other. Her whole demeanour softened. She laid a hand on his upper arm.
“Do you?”
“Yes!”
“Well, this has been quite sudden. Maybe you’re bisexual.”
Harry grimaced, but the last thing he wanted was to get into… his sexuality in front of everyone.
Alicia, steadfast, dependable Alicia, nudged him with an elbow and rescued him.
“Hey, nothing wrong with being bisexual. I’m bisexual. I’m more interested in the fact that you’re in detention for fighting, of all things. Did you even lose points for snogging?”
Harry shook his head.
“You’re lucky. Last time McGonagall caught me, she docked 20 points each.”
“Alicia!” George cried. “When was this? Why wasn’t I invited?!”
Alicia answered with a rude gesture. Almost everyone laughed. Harry felt his shoulders unclench a tiny amount and he tried to shrug unconcernedly.
“Madam Hooch was the one to, er—But she treated it like a fight,” he concluded before he could put more of his foot in his mouth.
“Four professors on the scene and not one mentioned the fact that you were snogging? Not even after Madam Hooch threw us off the pitch?” Alicia sounded amused. “They just sanctioned you as if you were rolling around punching each other?”
“Professor McGonagall called the whole thing a disgraceful exhibition and Snape accused me of mauling Malfoy,” Harry said. “I don’t know if Umbridge saw anything. Otherwise, they all ignored the, er—specific circumstances. They just wasted time trying to agree on a punishment. And I wouldn’t say we were lucky, considering all the evenings I’ll spend in actual detention while Malfoy’ll end up doing his homework supervised,” he muttered under his breath.
“That’s just perfect.” Harry glared at Angelina, who could have tried harder to sound sarcastic. “What? Our match against Hufflepuff isn't until February, so you having detention until the holidays works out great. You'll be able to train properly during the lead-up to the match, while Malfoy will have to play against Ravenclaw in January, right after the break.”
“No need for all the machinations, Angelina,” Fred said. “Our Harry’s a better Seeker than that ponce anyway.”
Harry thanked his lucky stars, knowing that Fred’s vote of confidence was as good as a declaration of continued friendship.
“Yeah,” George added. “Harry will just annihilate the competition.” The ‘if he knows what’s good for him’ was implicit. So the price for not having the twins as enemies after his behaviour on the pitch would be to fly rings around Summerby in their next match. Harry thought he could live with that.
“Are we really going to sweep this under the rug?” McLaggen called out, addressing the room before turning to Harry with a belligerent expression. “How long have you fancied Malfoy, Potter?”
“Shut up, McLaggen,” Harry snapped. “I don’t like him.”
“Your Captain just said you snogged him in front of everyone, and you haven’t denied it, have you? Can’t, with all the witnesses.”
“I told you, I have no idea why I did that!”
Harry was reaching the end of his rope, and Hermione looked like she regretted not being on his right side so she could hold his wand arm down if necessary.
“Wait,” Seamus, who hadn’t apologised for calling him a liar and a nut job, but had at least stopped behaving like he believed it, mused aloud. “Maybe Malfoy’s a rare male veela and Harry got into his lure.”
No confrontation could have survived such a comment. McLaggen was speechless. Harry just tried to be grateful that Seamus had deflected everyone’s attention so effectively.
Dean, incredulous, leaned away from Seamus to stare at him properly. “Where do you get this shit from?”
Stunned silence broken, McLaggen opened his big mouth again, and most of Harry’s teammates looked ready to leap at him to shut him up. Hermione cleared her throat, prepared to argue.
That was the scene Ron walked in on when he clambered through the portrait hole, looking miserable in his dirty Quidditch uniform, now covered in snow. Harry realised he’d taken off on his own right after Harry had caught the snitch so he didn’t know… anything.
Ron stopped dead in his tracks when he saw everyone assembled around Harry, who was the only other Quidditch player with his uniform still on. It was grass-stained and didn’t hide the red scratches on his neck. Eyebrows climbing towards his hairline, Ron opened and closed his mouth a few times, as if thinking of several comments and discarding each one. Finally, he settled on something neutral.
“What did I miss?”