Chapter Text

Doubtful

oh my darling, what a mess you’ve made of me/the bathtub’s full of cherry coke, there’s blood between my knees

[virgin - nicole dollanganger]

The morning came, listless and pale, without so much as a whisper.

You were always one of the first to meet the sun, bare feet wet with dew and knees red from climbing over sagging fences that were, once, white. It wasn’t out of any special love of dawn—that riotous spread of gold and white across a still stirring sky. You had little care for the first cicada’s cry, or the calm before the heat broke like sweat over your brow. None of that mattered a damn, because your parents were still tucked into bed, all cozy in each other’s arms, and you wanted a damn cigarette. You didn’t have to hide at all, tucked up on a gravestone that was so worn and moss-eaten, all you could read was the single word “Potter”. The one next to it—that was, probably, some relation, was too obliterated to be a gravestone at all anymore.

This early, and the town was still waking up. Nothing would be open for hours yet—not even the crappy diner half of your friends had worked for at one time or another, nor the run-down gas station without a top at the edge of town. Everyone that worked there was still thinking about getting up, or getting in the car, none the wiser that some little shit was smoking on church grounds.

Silence was a fantastic companion as you sucked in acrid, burning smoke like your life depended on it. There wasn’t any fun in it—just chasing release, that very first cigarette. You didn’t take your time, not when your chest was tight with a burning, ember-hot need . It was getting too hard to sneak these things, and you were getting lazy with covering up the smell. So, withdrawals were kicking your ass something fierce. And you didn’t want to get into another spat with your mother over breakfast about things that hardly mattered. School, work, friends she didn’t approve of.

“Hey.” Speaking of which.

You hadn’t heard him approach, but there he was. A boy of middling height, with scraggly black hair creeping down his neck—no matter how many times he had you cut it. His shoulders cut an angular silhouette, shrugged up as if anticipating some sort of retaliation from life itself—which was fair, given his home life. His eye was still a kaleidoscope of bruise—slightly tinted green, nowhere near black and blue. Still ghastly looking, mind. You never asked, because he never told. But the two of you had, in many ways, transcended speech.

You handed him a cigarette before he even managed to get a word out. Harry had a mouth made for smiling (and kissing, but you tended not to let your thoughts stray that way), and even though you were both barely eighteen—kids still, really—the lines ‘round his mouth said he didn’t get to do it enough. But the sweet, slow-burn grin he leveled you with made everything worth it. The hell of a time you had climbing down the side of your house, the fall down Mather’s Hill over by the elementary school on the wet grass that definitely left your ankle worse off than it was before—your whole, shitty morning. And maybe even your whole, shitty life.

“Make some room,” said your only real friend, “I’m not just standing here the whole time.”

“Yeah,” you said, half-there, scooting over on the grave you’d both been haunting for somewhere approaching five years. Old cigs littered the ground—a shrine to the damned, you’d joked once—around Potter’s grave. You let him smoke in peace for a grand total of three seconds, your own burned down to the filter. You put it out on cool stone, movement down to the exact science of habit, shoulder pressing into Harry’s.

“You got a light? Mine’s almost dead.”

He rolled his eyes. You didn’t even have to see him do it. You had a feel for these kinds of things.

“Yeah,” he rasped, smoke streaming from his nostrils.

He dug around in his jacket pocket and deposited a scuffed Zippo in your waiting palm. You had no idea how he even stood wearing something like that, even in the morning. You’d be burning up in anything more than a tank top and shorts. Even sleeves were unthinkable to you, during the summer.

“Thanks much,” you said, flicking the button and groaning in ecstasy as your second really hit .

After that, you let the silence settle again. Usually, it was just the two of you. It had been for a long time. You’d gotten used to being Harry’s only friend—what with him being quiet and weird, and the town being judgmental and hostile to anyone not of the nuclear family blueprint. Used to feeling important, and needed. A confidant for his every thought, his hopes and dreams.

You craved his attention more than the nicotine, needed it more than the caffeine that your brain would be howling for soon. All of your petty little addictions were dwarfed by your utter loathing of this complication between you.

Because, sure, making out at a party once was nothing. You’d known him since braces. One drunken kiss couldn’t alter the chemistry you’d spent years curating, right?

“You still have detention with Snape after fifth, right?” he asked.

Colder than he had any right to be. Distant.

You couldn’t bear to wonder what he was thinking.

You exhaled a great plume of smoke, lips chapped to hell. “Ugh, don’t remind me.”

He snickered, sounding more like himself. “Your fault for smoking outside his office .”

“I,” you sniffed defensively, “forgot he has a stick up his ass and never goes to the teacher’s lounge.”

“Loser,” Harry snorted. But his voice had more bite to it than you were used to. A hint of derision that hadn’t been present before everything got so damn messed up.

“Yeah, well,” you said, “I just have a couple more, and then my sentence has been served.”

His demeanor softened, just a little. “I’ll pick you up after? Ron and I are going to bullshit some shit for McGonagall’s essay.”

“The one due three days from now?”

He huffed a little. “Not all of us get our homework done the second it’s assigned.”

You pursed your lips. “That’s Hermione. I’m just as bad as the two of you.”

He shrugged—as if it was casual. Yeah, I’m just going to forget my best friend’s habits so I don’t have to think about the fact that I kissed them . But no. He never wanted to talk about anything, anymore. And you were doing your best not to pick at the scabs between you—things were too fresh, if you dug and pressed and picked , both of you were going to bleed. And however weird Harry was set on being, you didn’t want to make anything worse . And you didn’t want to hurt him (again).

“Text me when it’s over?”

“Yeah,” you said, voice hollow as an echo. “I will.”

***

You tugged on shitty earbud strings, knotted beyond all hope, to avoid looking at your awful terrible chem teacher. He didn’t spare you much of a glance—after all, he knew why you were here. He’d won, by trapping you in this room with him. In a silence so sharp it cut you if you tried to speak. Your notebook was splayed open like a frog ready to be dissected, spiral spine shining like vertebrae. You looked at it with no small amount of suspicion, clicking your pen, staring at that blank page. True to form, you had absolutely no idea what to write. Not just for the assignment itself, but for the outline —you had exactly zero ideas to even go off of.

Just to make a dent in the sea of white, you doodled a stick figure making a rude gesture.

You looked at the black and white clock above the door and almost slammed your head into the desk. Five minutes. And already you had to piss. No way this essay was getting done.

“Excuse me?” your voice was a frightfully small thing in the face of Snape’s withering glare.

“Yes?” he said—more of a hiss, really.

“Can I go to the bathroom?”

“I don’t know,” he drawled, nose wrinkled in petty disdain, “ can you ?”

In your head, you could hear a pin drop. What an asshole. You squinted at him, about to say something like, Do you think I’m a literal fucking child you greasy baboon??? when the door clicked open and introduced another person into an atmosphere more like a brewing storm.

Someone you did not expect to see.

Snape narrowed his eyes at the tall, pale-haired boy intruding on his bullying. It was very clear from Draco Malfoy’s expression, and Snape’s drawn brows, that he did not come here often. Wordlessly, the boy slid a meticulously folded slip onto Snape’s desk. He kept his eyes on the ground, did not look at anyone, and took the seat behind yours. If disappointment were a palpable thing, you’d all be choking on it by now. You knew of him— everyone did. Rich son of a rich man, steeped in generational arrogance and particularly cruel all of his eighteen years on this earth. Son of a preacher and his pretty life. Blood of the man that had built this town. Et cetera. What you didn’t know, was what he could have possibly been caught doing , and how he hadn’t gotten away with it.

“Sir?” you hazarded.

“Go,” snapped Snape, all semblance of decency gone. His voice was colder even than the room you scurried out of, shaking almost, with rage. You had absolutely no interest in learning what the fuck was going on there. You took your sweet time, looping around the entire school twice, dodging hall monitors with ease, before you remembered the need to duck into a bathroom and do your business.

You took your time coming back, too.

The period was half over, and the janitors were well into their post-school routine. You felt like a little ghost, skipping over wet floors and enjoying having the hallways to yourself. It was almost nice, without having to elbow your way through the crush of slow, zombie-like walkers. Plus, no one had really looked at you the same after your cousin died. You couldn’t stand the pity, nor the performative sympathy. Better to just avoid—stay away from everyone.

Snape didn’t even look at you when you reentered room 204, furiously scribbling on something that looked a lot like a test. You shuddered at the memory of his comments on your bio and anatomy tests, green ink as scathing as his verbal humiliation. Poor sod was going to have to make up the test, with how hard he was marking up the first of three pages. Your hands ached in sympathy. His tests were renowned for their lack of multiple choice questions. No luck with the teacher mockingly referred to as “Snakebite”. He didn’t really want kids to fail—he just loved watching them struggle.

Like a predator as its prey wriggled its last in its jaws.

You took your seat as quietly as you could, looking with dread at your notebook. Only, when you went to fiddle with your earbuds again—you’d been working on this confounded tangle all day—you found them neatly wound up. Perfectly neat.

What the fuck?

You obviously couldn’t get your phone out—you weren’t keen on another detention—but you really, really wanted to. You hadn’t been able to listen to anything . You wished you could look over at Draco—read his expression, try to find some clue as to why the fuck he’d untangle your earbuds for you. Maybe he was bored? Or they bothered him somehow? Hermione was always fixing your hair when her anxiety was particularly bad. Could be something like that. You ran out the clock pondering the real important questions—because who needed a passing grade in English? Not you, seemingly, as Snape stood and dismissed you with a single muttered, “out” and your notebook was empty, save a small stick figure, smiling at your failure. You erased his head as vengeance, and it only made you feel worse.

The noise of packing your shit up—and Draco doing the same—startled you a bit. After so long in a void of noiseless buzzing, it was almost too much. You drifted from the room in a haze—thinking of absolutely nothing. You checked your phone out of habit, and saw a text reading:

hey srry can’t pick u up, busy

Which was bullshit. You knew he was just with Ron and Hermione, but that the other two had convinced him to leave you out. You didn’t fault them for it—you saw how weird he was when you were around. He barely showed up in the mornings anymore. You’d gotten used to sitting on Potter’s grave all on your own. And the worst part was, you were just tired . Tired of his back and forth charade. If he was going to drop you, you’d rather he do it all at once rather than ghost you slowly. But whatever, you decided, shouldering your backpack and digging around for his lighter. You’d forgotten to give it back, and you wanted to throw it. Yeah, it was petty, but out in the parking lot, there wasn’t anyone to watch you have a minor fit of temporary insanity. Just weeds and pockmarked concrete, and a couple of cars belonging to those still inside the awful prison you’d just escaped from.

“Uh,” said a horribly familiar voice behind you.

Your head snapped around, and you locked eyes with Draco. Standing an awkward distance behind you, very clearly having said something you hadn’t heard.

“Do you need a ride?” he repeated. You had no idea what to say to him—this was one of the first times you’d ever even made eye contact willingly. “You live across town, right?”

You considered just walking away. It would be smart. You had no idea what a Malfoy would want with you, or what you would do if you were seen with this prick. Your reputation would be unsalvageable, surely. Which was only halfway a joke. Then you looked up at rapidly darkening clouds. Weather in Hogsmeade was unpredictable at its very best—you weren’t going to chance drying your books out with a fan, and Harry had yet again ditched you. It was starting to become a pattern. You frowned deeply, hating your shitty best friend and the shitty town you weren’t sure you’d ever manage to get out of. Hating even the boy that had offered you a ride, because nothing came for free.

But you were fine with paying for a lift. Maybe he just wanted to bum a cig off you.

So you said, “Thanks. Sure.”

Draco nodded, and started walking to a car that looked more expensive than Harry and Hermione’s put together. The most you knew about the black car in front of you was that it was a Lincoln, and that was because everyone called it the Hearse, though you hadn’t ever cared to find out why. He opened the trunk with a certain elegance you hadn’t anticipated, dressed almost like a lawyer in a button down and slacks. He looked like some private school kid, especially with the brown leather shoulder bag he used for school. It all screamed money . Especially the meticulously detailed and organized interior of his car. He folded his bag in with infinite care—almost like it was a child—which struck you. You hadn’t seen him express anything other than snideness—though, you hadn’t really watched him closely over the years.

“Here,” he said, which could mean anything. When you didn’t get what he was holding his hand out for, he gestured impatiently for your backpack. Ratty and patched, because you’d had it since middle school and it was on its last fucking legs, you felt like you were handing over a piece of your soul to the devil himself. He took your bag with the same care he’d shown his own—which threw you even more—and shut the trunk with a finality. You walked around to the passenger’s side, and slid into the seat next to him.

“Did you untangle my earbuds?” you asked into the suffocating quiet, not really having intended to ask.

He blinked at you, and a small smirk slid across his lips. “I did,” he admitted without explanation.

You exhaled sharply. “Well, I mean, thanks.”

He shrugged your thanks off and passed you a cord. “Can’t drive without something playing, pick something good.”

You almost laughed at the absurdity. Wished you’d just walked home. “Oh- kay .”

So you put on something he couldn’t possibly like—one of your favorites. Tried to put him off you, because he was too interested—looking at you like he might want to get to know you. Couldn’t have that. Instead, as the bastard reversed and pulled out of the lot, he smiled a little. Not a smirk, not a cunning little grin. A smile. And you hated him then, because it was a very sweet expression. His grey eyes lit from within, like twin stars in a winter sky. You didn’t want to like him. It wasn’t fair .

“I used to listen to this a lot,” he said, like you were friends.

You sighed, tipped your head back and tried to ground yourself with the rumble of the engine. “Yeah, me too.”

You both let the silence stretch out, as the song continued playing. He tapped his long, pianist’s fingers to the beat. You bopped your head.

You weren’t even through the song before he’d turned into your neighborhood. He looked over at one-story clapboard nothings, porches littered with junk and yards untamed and tick-ridden. You knew he didn’t come here often, in his fancy car with his fancy bag and his damn money . It was clear in his curiosity—his carefully blank expression. You were all the more aware of the sagging roofs and cars on blocks, kids running around without anyone to mind them. This is where you and Harry were from, and the kind of place someone like Draco didn’t even need to think about going.

“All the way down,” you said, and he braved the potholes, turned where you bade him, without complaint or any sort of remark.

Until you came to your house, which wasn’t especially bad off. Just old. The lawn had been mowed a couple weeks ago—but because your dad’s back was blown again, no one was going to get to it for a while. You sat there, hand on your seatbelt, feeling too many things all at once.

“Well—” you said, at the same time as he started to say something.

You both ended up blinking at each other—wary and uncertain.

“Spit it out,” you sighed.

“I just wanted to know if you’d started on McGonagall’s essay yet?”

You groaned, despite yourself. “Not that fucking essay —I swear everyone’s fucking cramming for it.”

He shrugged, a little taken aback at your frustration. “Just curious.”

“No—it’s not—ugh,” you dragged your hands over your face. “I’m just tired and I have no idea where to start on the damn thing.”

“Me either,” he said, “I figured you might have something.”

You shot him a look. “Why?”

“Because you always get pretty good marks,” he said, like it was normal to know that about anyone other than Hermione, who was so relentless in her pursuit of perfection that she’d become a school legend for it.

“Okay,” you said, narrowing your eyes. “What do you actually want from me?”

“Excuse me?”

“No no,” you pressed. “There’s no way you’re just going to drive home and say nice shit about me for no reason when we’ve never talked. No offense, but you’re not that nice and you don’t do things for people you don’t know. We’ve never even talked before.”

“Do I have to have some ulterior motive—”

“I mean,” you interrupted, brows raised, “that’s kind of your thing.”

That made him laugh—a surprised little snort. “Point made,” he said. “But I really don’t have some terrible reason for any of this. I’m not so calculated as you think.”

You didn’t believe him, and he saw it on your face.

“Also, I did hear about the party.”

Your face shuttered immediately, and you practically ripped your seatbelt off and exploded out of his car. He sprang out after you, hands out, words placating.

“Nope,” you said, voice cold. “Listen. Thanks for the ride or whatever, but I don’t want your pity or anything to do with your weird feud with Harry. Jesus Christ,” you swore, and he winced.

“I didn’t mean…” he trailed off, and you both knew he absolutely had meant.

“Whatever,” you spat, popping his trunk and grabbing your bag. You didn’t even look back at his bewildered expression—almost like he’d been slapped—as you stalked away and into your house. Didn’t see him mutter something to himself, brows knit with something like self-loathing as he leaned back against his car. In fact, you pointedly did not think about him at all. Not that night, earbuds in as your parents watched a movie together with the sound too loud. Not the following morning, feet tucked up under you, two cigarettes deep and no Harry in sight. You thought about your essay. Only your essay. Stared at that blank page more than you’d ever admit to anyone. And did not think about how nice it’d felt to listen to one of your favorite songs with the person your best friend hated more than anything.