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The Eighth Year common room was an eyesore, and even after months of exposure it still made Draco wince.
Hogwarts had spawned the lodgings out of necessity, a new Room of Requirement. They’d faded into existence one August morning in a dust-ridden fourth floor corridor. Unlike the Room of Requirement, though, the Eighth Year rooms were indifferent to most requests.
McGonagall championed the space as a place of comfort for students from all four houses. The reality was a clash of colours and styles. Serene study nooks in Ravenclaw-navy velvet rubbed shoulders with atrociously upholstered armchairs embroidered with roaring Gryffindor lions. Plants in cheerful Hufflepuff-yellow pots seemed to multiply underfoot, yet the only apparent Slytherin input was the faint yet ever-present smell of lake water. The room also had the charmless habit of conjuring impractical seating in lurid pinks and oranges any time a student hesitated about where to sit for more than a moment. By November, the space was crowded with chaise longues, rocking chairs, deck chairs, barber’s chairs, and something called a swivel chair that Draco had stubbed his toe on once and promptly sworn vengeance against.
The dorm rooms were little better. A combination of a call for new beginnings and—more practically—an unwillingness on Hogwarts’ part to create more than a few dorms meant that Draco was stuck sharing with all sorts. Weasley (who hadn’t met a Silencing Charm that could beat his snores), Blaise (who was happy to wank without any Silencing Charms, thank you Draco), sodding Zacharias Smith (who was definitely stealing his hair potions), and of course, Potter (where to begin?).
Potter, who had returned to school looking broad and healthy, his curly hair falling to his shoulders.
Potter, sporting dangly moonstone earrings that winked in the light and scattered rainbows over the length of his neck. Potter, who over the summer had given Draco back his wand, and clapped him on the back as if they were friends. Potter, who couldn’t wear a matching pair of socks if his life depended on it. Potter, who without the looming threat of a megalomaniac was passing all of his classes easily. Potter, who like a Doxy in the draperies just always seemed to be there.
Potter, who was up to something, and wasn’t being subtle about it.
Well, he seemed to think he was being subtle about it, if his many hushed conversations with Granger and Weasley were anything to go by, but to Draco their whispering was theatrical, brash, and showy.
The big secret was that Potter was in the process of becoming an Animagus.
Even if Draco hadn’t overhead him discussing it, Potter’s sudden interest in acquiring the chrysalis of a death’s-head hawkmoth was a complete giveaway. Draco had wanted to pinch himself when Potter had approached him about it, under the flimsy guise of needing it for Charms. This lie greatly underestimated Draco’s intelligence, not only given his knowledge of the potion ingredient, but also that he was in Potter’s Charms class.
In any case, Draco had acquired the chrysalis from the Potions stores, access to which was a perk of being Slughorn’s new favourite student. He’d handed the chrysalis over with great smugness. By knowing what Potter needed it for, he was getting one over on him, and Potter was none the wiser. Perfect.
***
As the school year progressed, Hogwarts kept making inane ‘improvements’ to the Eighth Year lodgings. Reaching for a glass of water in the night, a student might find themselves with a chalice of lemonade, a mug of chicken soup, or (in one memorable instance Pansy was still trying to live down) a potion that dyed their skin blue for the next week. In its constant state of flux, the dorms and common room near enough hummed with the eager chaos of unspent magic. It materialised in visible shimmers at the rooms’ borders, around window and door frames. A blur of refracted colours, it softened the edges of things, and made Draco feel rather like he lived inside a soap bubble.
More than once, Draco had returned from lessons to find that his textbooks had been translated into Pixie. It had set him back a week in his independent project for Advanced Potions, the subject of which—randomly assigned by Slughorn—was ‘Dreamy or Dark Arts? The history and function of love potions.’ In using the Pixie textbooks, Draco had almost set off a Devotee Draught in the common room. The fumes alone had had Terry Boot following Draco around for three days like a lost puppy. It had been an absolute nightmare for all involved.
Draco wasn’t alone in his struggles, though. Potter was also running into trouble thanks to Hogwarts’ helping hand. The long and arduous ritual to become an Animagus required complete focus and concentration. To start with, Potter had to hold a Mandrake leaf in his mouth at all times for an entire month, from full moon to full moon. This was hard enough under normal conditions, but Draco had witnessed the armchair Potter frequented suddenly shift into a hammock beneath him, sending him flying back, the leaf reflexively swallowed on day fourteen. He’d seen Potter take a hearty swig of Butterbeer only to spit it and the leaf out, the drink replaced by something sour and spicy on attempt three, day six.
They were both of them fighting an ancient and powerful enemy, one that struck without discrimination via textbooks and soft furnishings.
***
There weren’t formal rules for the Eighth Years at mealtimes, but a routine had cobbled itself together.
Without a set place at their former house tables, the Eighth Years tended to congregate wherever there was space. At first, this had been in clusters of threes and fours, but they soon claimed an always-sparse end of the Ravenclaw table as their own. Apparently, there weren’t many swotty First Years.
To Draco’s left, Weasley and Zabini were engaged in another one of their who-can-eat-the-most-profiteroles-in-sixty-second-competitions. Madame Zabini would not approve. Though, knowing Blaise, that was probably why he was doing it.
Draco set down his spoon, glancing across at Potter, deep in conversation with Dean and Seamus about something (or was it someone?) called Godzilla. Potter was gesticulating as he spoke, earrings set swinging by the movement. A curl kept falling over his left eyebrow, and Potter continued to swipe it away with the back of his hand. Several times, he mentioned a battle with a beast called a skyscraper. Draco pictured it as a hag made of clouds, tearing the sky to strips with her wispy yet powerful claws.
When Dean and Seamus spoke, Potter listened with his whole body. He leaned forward to hear them fully, nodded at their jokes, and smiled as the pair leaned against each other, hands twining together. The smile etched lines into the corner of Potter’s mouth. Draco busied himself by cutting a perfect slice of treacle tart and sliding it onto his empty plate. Then he stopped, blinking down at it.
“I didn’t think you liked treacle tart, Draco,” a voice piped up besides him, echoing his realisation. Draco started, turning to see Luna perched on the bench next to him. Had she been there a moment ago? She was wearing a lumpy gold cardigan held together by ribbons. It reminded Draco of the first time he’d attempted to wrap a Christmas present for his mother.
Pansy peered out from behind Luna, eyeing Draco with an ever-sharp eyebrow raise. “He doesn’t.”
“Well that’s alright, it’s Harry’s favourite,” Luna said, patting Draco’s arm in a consoling gesture. Potter twisted round at the sound of his name.
“Hmm?”
Draco shoved the plate in Potter’s direction. “Here.”
A little furrow crossed Potter’s brow, but he accepted the plate with a nod. That pesky smile line was still there. Draco looked back to Luna. Pansy was staring at him, laughter in her eyes.
Wow, she mouthed. Draco, with the utmost maturity, ignored her.
***
The castle became no less erratic, but by January Draco and the other Eighth Years had learnt to adapt. Everyone knew that on Wednesday mornings you had to stomp on the loose floorboard by the door to be let out of the common room, and that sprinkling a little ash from the hearth on your bedside table each week saved your belongings from unwanted Transfigurations. The rituals became commonplace, as did experiments to discover more such ways to make life easier. Predictably, Granger spearheaded these efforts, but Draco soon found himself swept up into them as well.
Which was how he found himself sat by Potter on the common room floor one February afternoon, set to reorganising their Year’s extensive collection of board games. It was Granger’s hope that if they started “shaking things up” themselves, Hogwarts would be more open to collaboration. First up they’d organised the games by colour, then alphabetically. Now they were working on organisation by what Granger had dubbed their “level of spellwork magnetism”.
Personally, Draco felt that appealing to Hogwarts’ love for whimsy through organisation seemed like a lost cause, but he wasn’t going to be the one to tell Granger that. He didn’t need to be on the wrong end of one of her looks . Not again .
Draco shuddered, stacking a Gobstones set atop an ancient copy of The Knave & The Kneazle, a game that in Draco’s experience only people over the age of two hundred knew the rules to.
“Malfoy, look at this,” Potter’s voice wasn’t even pitched that low, yet he still pressed the toe of his sock (patterned with polar bears) into Draco’s knee to get his attention.
Draco had the urge to grab Potter’s ankle. Instead, he looked up to see Potter holding a Wizard’s Chess board. All of the pieces had been replaced with boiled sweet facsimiles, rendered in incredible detail in lime green and blackcurrant purple. Potter grinned, and Draco saw the same purple on Potter’s tongue. The Mandrake leaf peeked out from behind a canine.
“Potter, you can’t eat the game pieces,” Draco hissed, feeling a flush on his cheeks. It was unseasonably warm for February. At some point Potter had pulled his hair up into a bun using a garish crocheted scrunchie. Luna had made it for him, Draco knew.
Potter laughed, a deep sound. “It’s not a big deal, they’ve been like this for weeks. No one plays with this set anymore.”
“And what if they turn back to marble in your stomach?” Draco was gratified to see the grin drop from Potter’s face, but it returned just as quickly.
“That’s what Madam Pomfrey is for.”
“I think she’d disagree,” Draco said, neatening his stack of games. He picked up a few packs of Exploding Snap.
“Next time I see her, I’ll tell her you were defending her honour,” Potter leaned forwards, and the clean smell of pine hit Draco full force. Had Potter always smelled so much like a forest?
“She’ll be charmed, I’m sure, with you making her sound like a damsel in distress,” Draco would not look up. He would not.
“Hey. Malfoy,” Potter nudged Draco again, with the other foot. This sock was patterned with dancing broccoli florets.
Draco looked up. Potter’s face was closer than he’d been expecting. He fixed his focus on Potter’s glasses.
“What?” Draco’s voice emerged as a whisper. A true whisper, not one of Potter’s terrible ones. Potter glanced over his shoulder across the common room, to where Granger was chatting with the Patil twins and Daphne Greengrass, and then turned back to Draco. He smiled.
“Do you have any idea what Hermione meant by ‘spellwork magnetism’?”
Draco felt one side of his mouth quirk up. Involuntarily, of course. “Potter, I have absolutely no clue.”
They both burst out laughing. It pulled at something in Draco’s chest, unpractised.
***
Potter got full marks on a tricky Charms assignment, and suddenly Draco was thrust back in time.
All anyone could talk about for the week was how impressive Potter was, how powerful, how good. Draco could move no more than five feet through the castle without hearing the murmurs of Potter’s name, an insistent buzzing at his back. It was eye-roll inducing, but it also made him realise that for much of the year so far, Potter had somehow been managing to lay low.
He was popular, of course, and First Years would let out the occasional shriek when they saw him, but for the most part Potter had been able to keep to himself, surrounded only by Eighth Years and other friends like Luna.
Given their similar schedule, Draco had found himself walking perhaps not with but alongside Potter between a lot of their classes.
Now, though, he started to notice that not only were younger students not approaching Potter, they seemed to actually be avoiding him. Taking a shortcut across a courtyard towards Transfiguration, a gaggle of Third Years rushed in the opposite direction, not even making eye contact. On the trek down to the Herbology greenhouses they passed some fresh-faced Gryffindors, one of whom was visibly biting their tongue as they stared at Potter from afar, their friends tugging them along.
It wasn’t until they were walking to Charms that Draco realised what was happening. A little ways ahead of him, Potter rounded the corner first, and Draco heard the building excitable chatter of other students. A matter of seconds later, Draco rounded the corner himself. Potter had stopped abruptly, and Draco bumped into his back. As soon as they spotted Draco, the students fell silent. Potter glanced at him, something of a plea in his eyes.
Draco continued walking.
They arrived at Charms early, entering the classroom even before Flitwick. Draco seized his opportunity, rounding on Potter.
“Are you seriously using me as a human Protego?”
The guilty grin was reply enough. Potter opened his mouth to reply, but Draco pressed on.
“What am I, fan club repellent? A bodyguard? A misbehaving Crup?” Draco wanted to be upset, he really did, but he found himself a little impressed.
Potter winced, looking at least slightly guilty, “No! I just…I just realised, your reputation kind of, sort of, neutralises mine. When people see me with you, it discourages them from getting too close.”
“Charming.”
“I mean, it’s mutually beneficial, isn’t it? Has anyone been bothering you?” Potter upended his satchel onto the desk. A cascade of Charms books, Mandrake leaves, and Honeydukes wrappers spilled forth.
Draco thought about it for a moment. “No. I suppose not.”
Potter smiled, encouraging, then it turned sly. “Promise I’m not just using you for your body, Malfoy.”
It was said in evident jest, but Draco felt the tips of his ears go hot. He moved to his seat and grabbed his own textbook from his back, flipping through the chapters. Before he could reply, Granger and Weasley came marching in, bickering, and Potter turned to them.
It was probably for the best.
***
The next Hogsmeade weekend, Draco returned to the dorm to find an elegant set of quills from Scrivenshaft’s set on his bed, tied with a pale green ribbon. He picked them up with a smile; he’d been lamenting his lack of decent writing tools to Pansy just the other day. But when had she managed to buy them? They’d been side by side for the whole trip.
He twisted around the attached notecard, and let out a surprised noise. It was not, as he had expected it to be, written in Pansy’s swooping hand. Instead, it was penned in a cramped script, the t’s crossed at a skewed angle.
Thanks for keeping the ‘fan club’ at bay. Turns out me and Pomfrey are both damsels in distress.
And below that, if the handwriting and its contents wasn’t enough of a giveaway, was Potter’s monogram. Draco ran a finger over the embossed HJP , the letters threaded through a design of lilies and antlers. The quills were lovely, but it was the card that he tucked into his pocket, close.
***
The new sunlight of spring led Potter and a group of the other Eighth years to start gathering out by the Lake each afternoon to study.
Well, studying was the general idea, but to Draco—attending to keep an eye on things, of course—the weather was already too hot, and Potter’s tomfoolery meant that studying was out of the question. Some of Potter’s friends seemed able to carry on regardless, but Draco put this down to a hard-won immunity to Potter’s antics.
Spring was warm, and the shade of the gnarled trees bordering the Lake did little to subdue the heat. Draco’s wardrobe, meant for withstanding the draught of manors, castle dungeons, and otherwise damp stately homes, was similarly hopeless against the sun. So each day he’d drag himself down to the lake, sweating his bollocks off, just to endure whatever fresh hell awaited him.
In a word, Potter had become…affectionate.
It had become apparent to Draco on the first Lake day, when Potter was surrounded by all of his friends at once. There was Potter, holding hands with Luna as they playfully danced at the Lake’s edge. There was Potter, head rested on Weasley’s shoulder. There was Potter, chatting with Parvati as she carefully braided flowers into his hair. Potter, with Granger and Longbottom and Hannah Abbott and Dean. Draco sat back, observing.
A lifetime of proximity and friendship had made Draco comfortable giving Pansy affection, and he and Blaise would exchange the occasional —very gentlemanly—back pat, but that was the extent of it for him. Potter, on the other hand, seemed determined to share his affection with everyone. Readily, casually, openly.
The first time Potter extended this newfound need to touch towards Draco, he may have overreacted.
He’d been sat a little ways away from the rest of the happy-go-lucky group, actually attempting to study, when Potter had ambled over, dropping to sit cross-legged at Draco’s side. Without any hesitation, Potter had reached out, brushing a finger over Draco’s hand to tilt the book he was holding towards him.
Draco had flung the book down as if it were the Monster Book of Monsters. Potter had just turned to him in response, a quizzical look on his face. Draco had garbled out some excuse about there being a wasp, and fled the scene immediately. He hadn’t even bothered to gather his things.
Since then, he’d tried to be better prepared. It wasn’t that he minded Potter’s new predilection, he’d just been caught off guard. He was doing better, now that he knew what to expect. No more fleeing from illusory insects. In fact, just the day before, Potter had sat next to Draco for a full twenty minutes, the warm line of their arms pressed together, and Draco had reacted completely normally. Definitely normally. His arm had felt hotter than the sun for hours afterwards, and it was like he could still smell the pine-rich scent of Potter at his side, but in the moment, he was one hundred percent normal.
***
The morning of the Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw Quidditch match dawned clear and fine. They were the perfect conditions for flying, but to Draco they were perfect in another sense; they allowed him to have the common room all to himself.
Potter and his merry band of chums attended every match, having finally made peace with McGonagall’s decree that Eighth Years were not eligible for the teams. Potter had whined more about that than he ever had about being hunted down by a snake-faced monster, but he’d always had peculiar priorities.
Even without Potter on the team, Quidditch remained as popular as ever, and each match signalled a migration of students and teacher alike down to the pitch.
Draco, on the other hand, was quite uninterested in the sport if he wasn’t playing it (he meaning Draco himself, not Potter, no matter what Pansy insinuated). In any case, Draco relished the chance to sit in the quiet.
The common room, even sullied with wince-inducing upholstery as it was, had become agreeable to him. He’d discovered the best place to sit—a wingback armchair in bright patchwork as ugly as it was comfortable—and had spent each match day of the year so far lazing away the hours with good books and pastries pilfered from breakfast.
He started off the Gryffindor - Ravenclaw match day in much the same way, food acquired, books balanced on a spindle-legged table.
He’d just polished off his third almond croissant when something exploded.
An air-rending crack from the direction of his dorm sent Draco running toward it, croissant crumbs trailing behind him like a fairy tale urchin.
He stumbled into the dorm with his wand raised, only to find the right-side door of Potter’s wardrobe blown from its hinges, billowing a deep blue smoke.
Draco flicked his wand at the windows, flinging them open as he approached. Chromatic light filtered in, coloured by the magic hum at the room’s periphery.
The smell of the smoke hit him full force; bitter herbs, damp earth, and bluebells, all smothered by a scent like burnt toast. He coughed, siphoning some of the smoke away with a muttered spell, until it revealed the culprit.
A potion vial. Or, what remained of one, its jagged edges seeping into the blue-grey sludge of what Draco knew was a failed Animagus potion. The potion itself, which should have been a gold-tinged green, had stained the wood of Potter’s wardrobe and splattered his hanging robes.
A wealth of emotions swirled through Draco’s mind. Panic. Frustration. Bewilderment. A moment of childish glee. And then, glancing at his watch, determination. Bloody Potter.
***
Draco’s trip down to the Potions classroom was a long one.
Luckily, he had use of Slughorn’s Acceler-O-Cauldron, as without it the brew time for an Animagus potion was thirty-seven hours. The special cauldron brought that time down to three hours and seven minutes, but it was still an intricate brewing process.
As far as Draco had been able to tell, Potter had fucked up in one of two ways. He’d either used a shoddy vial, instead of the Mirror Glass required, or he’d allowed the temperature of his wardrobe to fluctuate too much, making the potion destabilise. In any case, he’d be needing the potion soon for the next stage of the Animagus transformation, and that could be any day now.
Once he’d counted out bluebell petals and fetched another moth chrysalis from Slughorn’s supply, Draco consulted his personal notes on the potion. Adding an extra sprig of thyme would help with the stabilisation, even if Potter mismanaged it again. Waiting an extra thirteen seconds to stir after pouring in the honeywater would lessen the astringent taste.
As he crushed and chopped and pulverised, he spared a moment’s thought for the realisation that his carpentry project in Sixth Year had made repairing Potter’s wardrobe a simple task.
As he stirred and simmered, Draco wondered why he was bothering. Some young part of his brain remained adamant that he’d be blamed if the wreck got discovered, but it wasn’t very convincing.
As he poured and corked the Mirror Glass vial, he heard the first signs of approaching students.
“Oh, bugger.”
***
As he made his way back to the dormitory, students were starting to file back into the castle. With the vial safely stored in an inner pocket of his robes (under Stasis and Cushioning Charms), Draco reached the fourth-floor just in time. A group of Eighth Years led by the Patil twins approached from the other direction as Draco slipped into the common room. He heard Padma’s cheers, followed by her sister’s heckles. A Ravenclaw victory, then.
Draco got the vial situated in Potter’s newly-mended wardrobe, ensured Potter’s now-clean robes were hanging correctly, redoubled his Stasis Charm, and shut the door firmly on a long exhale.
“Alright, Malfoy?”
Draco did not let out a shrill yelp. Certainly not. Instead, he gathered his composure and turned. Weasley stood looking in the mirror, removing that last traces of Gryffindor-coloured face paint from his jaw. Draco must have walked right past him.
“Yes, fine,” Draco’s voice came back to him as a squeak. He cleared his throat. “I was just-“
Weasley held up a hand, as if waving away whatever lie Draco was concocting. “Nope. I’m not getting involved in whatever this is. Word of advice. Just talk to Harry, yeah?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yeah, alright.” And then, for the first time in his life, Weasley actually smiled at him. Draco fought against his instinct to grimace. Judging by Weasley’s answering laugh, he’d only been semi-successful at curbing the urge.
“See you, Malfoy,” Weasley said, heading out.
Draco swung back around to face the wardrobe. Peeked inside. The potion, of course, was perfect.
***
Potter still had the disagreeable habit of sneaking out at night.
Draco often woke in the stillest, darkest hours to see Potter’s bed hangings flung open, his bed empty. It would usually remain that way for hours. On a few occasions Draco had checked the common room—not an uncommon gathering place for people on sleepless nights—but it had always been empty.
Tonight, Potter’s return came just as Draco started to fall back asleep. Sweeping into the dorm wreathed in shadow, Potter let his outer cloak drop to the floor without ceremony. Draco shifted a little, pulled back to wakefulness by the verdant smell of night air that arrived on Potter’s heels.
Potter glanced in Draco’s direction, “Sorry, did I wake you?”
Potter was still terrible at whispering. Draco cleared his throat. “That racket was you? I thought it was a mountain troll.”
“Maybe you were dreaming,” Potter’s voice sounded distant. Draco’s eyelids were heavy.
“I can assure you Potter, I do not dream of mountain trolls.”
“No? Not your type, Malfoy?”
“Not enough ear hair.”
Potter smothered a laugh. The sound followed Draco into his sleep.
Where he dreamed of mountain trolls with moonstone earrings.
***
It was a particularly hot Saturday at the Lake, and Draco’s cooling charms were failing him.
He was wearing his lightest pair of trousers, and his coolest shirt, but it still wasn’t enough. Today, though, Draco wasn’t alone in feeling the heat. Weasley was wading into the lake in a pair of swim shorts, his freckly back exposed. Luna and Dean followed him at a distance, while the rest of the Eighth Years cheered them on from the safety of dry land. Even Pansy and Blaise were there, given that the day’s gathering had no pretence of studying. From this angle, Draco couldn’t spot Potter, but he was probably underwater, battling the Giant Squid for glory or something.
Granger, the only other sensible one, sat near Draco in the shade, alternately tutting and smiling at their classmates, but he didn’t imagine this would last. Over the past few minutes she’d been gradually inching closer towards the Lake and the sunshine. Draco closed his eyes against the bright glare of the light on the water.
It could have been some time later, or no time at all, when Draco was jolted awake by the touch of something bitingly cold against his forehead. He opened his eyes to neon rainbow packaging, which was pulled away to reveal Potter. The rainbow materialised into a proffered ice lolly. Two, in fact.
“Whirligig Watermelon or Rambunctious Raspberry-Peach?” Potter gestured with each flavour in turn.
“I’m not feeling very rambunctious,” Draco took the watermelon lolly from Potter with a nod of thanks, then paused. “Where did you get these?”
“The kitchens,” Potter unwrapped his own ice lolly. It was shaped like a Hippogriff in mid-flight and appeared to contain glitter, which it shed from its icy wings at irregular intervals.
“The kitchens have ice lollies?” Draco started on his own pinwheel-shaped treat. His lacked glitter, but it did turn like a real pinwheel, which somewhat slowed him down. In any case, it was instantly more successful at cooling him than his lacklustre charm had been.
Potter shrugged in reply to Draco’s question. Even if the House Elves didn’t stock them usually, Draco suspected that ice lollies would have quickly been found for Potter. In that solitary moment, though, Draco couldn’t bring himself to care about how unfair that was to all the other students.
Potter slumped down onto the grass, and began absentmindedly tapping the toe of his trainer against Draco’s dragon hide shoe. Draco glanced around. No one else in their group appeared to have an ice lolly.
***
“How many incantations are required to complete a Wolfsbane potion?”
NEWT exams on the horizon, Draco and his classmates had buckled down, putting the common room’s abundance of chairs to good use to gather and study. After an unseasonably warm spring, summer had arrived with rain, falling endlessly for days at a time.
“Eight,” Draco replied. Pansy nodded, looking over his notes.
“Why not seven? Why not nine?” Potter asked from his perch on the sofa opposite. He was reading a battered paperback titled A Wizard of Earthsea . It was not, Draco now knew, a memoir.
“Because they represent the phases of the moon,” Draco stifled a yawn. Pansy patted him on the knee.
“Oh,” Potter said cheerfully, turning a page. Despite Slughorn’s pleading, or maybe because of it, Potter had opted out of taking his Potions NEWT. No wonder his Animagus potion had ruptured.
As had been the case out by the Lake, Draco had yet to see Potter study. As most of the Eighth Years settled in for a day of work, Potter would simply take out a Muggle novel and read. Draco expected Granger to say something, at least, but she hadn’t so much as given him a disapproving look.
In their shared classes, Potter was neither loud nor quiet. He’d answer questions correctly when asked, but he never raised his hand. Draco wondered if he was any different in Care of Magical Creatures, but the only person he could ask about that was Blaise, and he’d never hear the end of it if he did.
So everyone around Potter studied, and Potter read. Or else left the common room completely, broom in hand, to return rain-bathed and bright.
***
Draco exited his Potions NEWT feeling confident.
He strolled across the grounds to stretch his legs and back, stiff from hours spent at a tiny desk. The rain had subsided, but the grass still held its memory. As he skirted the edge of the forest, Draco felt eyes on him.
Slowing his pace, he inclined his head towards the tree line, half-expecting a centaur, or one of Hagrid’s many creatures. His hand rested over his wand holster as he scanned the forest’s camouflage.
There, peeking out from a branch just above Draco’s head, were two dark eyes. Half-shadowed, he got the impression of round ears and dark fur. The eyes blinked, steady. Draco blinked back. He felt held by the moment, the seconds spread out beyond their natural reach. Something about the constant gaze urged him forwards. The swing of a long tail blurred into view, brown and yellow.
A flock of crows startled from the forest, bellowing their noisy song.
Draco instinctively stepped back, shielding his face to look up at them.
After a moment, he turned back to the trees. The eyes were gone.
***
For once, Draco woke just as Potter was making to leave in the night. He lay still as Potter pulled on a jumper and his trainers, as he pocketed his wand and slid on his glasses.
Having waited for ten long seconds once Potter left the dorm, Draco stood, grabbing his own clothes and shoes with haste. He cast a quick Muffling Charm over himself, then followed in Potter’s wake.
The halls of Hogwarts at this hour were populated by shadows and ghosts. Now and again, Draco would slow his pace to maintain the stretch of blank space between himself and Potter. He paused to watch the Grey Lady fade through the walls of a second floor classroom, pursued by a hazy shimmer.
Potter treaded his path with familiar ease. There was no outward consideration given to the fact that he was breaking curfew, though that could be thanks to years of practice. Though, Draco couldn't think of a single teacher who would give Potter detention this year. Saving the world had to have a few perks, he supposed.
Draco kept a careful distance from Potter as he walked out into the grounds. The night air was bracing but not chilly. Potter traced the same path that Draco had followed after his Potions exam. Rather than skirting the edge of the forest, though, he headed right for the trees, their branches limned by splendid moonlight.
Crossing the threshold of the forest changed Potter’s whole demeanour. His shoulders, which were far from tense before, fell to a new softness. His hands unfurled, fingertips brushing over leaves and bark. His footsteps landed lighter, with renewed purpose. Draco trailed him into a small clearing, ringed by towering ancient pines. And then, quick as a Snitch, Potter whirled round.
Draco froze.
“Hello,” Draco said, feeling Stupefied. Immediately, he wished to Disapparate. Could he break through Hogwarts’ wards if his embarrassment was strong enough?
“Hi,” Potter adjusted his glasses with the brush of a knuckle, a huff of amusement. Draco watched. A breeze swirled the pine around them. “Keeping an eye on me, Malfoy?”
Suddenly, Draco was tired of denying it. “Let’s call it returning the favour. Between the two of us, you’re the expert.”
Potter tilted his head, as if conceding the point. Sixth Year flashed through Draco’s mind, Potter’s approaching footfalls the constant. Potter’s smile lines quirked into place, clear even in the dark. Draco moved closer.
“I know you’ve been training to become an Animagus,” Draco said, voice quiet.
Potter’s smile widened. Impossibly, Draco felt it in his throat. “I know you do.”
“But-,” Draco paused. “I thought it was a secret. A terrible secret, from how much time you spent talking to Granger and Weasley about it in earshot, but a secret.”
“It is.”
“I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you, Potter, but you’re terrible at hiding things.”
Potter’s grinned, and somehow, it was directed at him. Draco’s ears went hot.
“Well, I wasn’t trying to hide it from you,” Potter said, as if it were obvious. Infuriating. Draco wanted to reach out and touch him.
“Oh,” Draco’s voice emerged quietly.
“Just… other students. The teachers. I do not want McGonagall to know,” Potter continued with a frown. “I don’t fancy being on some Ministry database.”
Draco nodded.
“I’ve spent the whole year sat out here, night after night,” Potter turned around in a circle, looking up at the forest’s canopy. “Most of the process isn’t even spell-work. It’s about finding a harmony between your magical core and the natural world.”
Potter was talking with a reverence Draco had never heard from him before.
“How do you do that? Connect your magic to nature?”
“Honestly? It’s a lot of sitting about,” Potter said, eyes bright. “Getting used to the space. At first I’d get so bored I started bringing my textbooks out here. I read through them all twice over by Halloween. Then, I got the hang of it. Meditating. Focusing.”
That solved the mystery of Potter’s perfect grades.
“How are you not exhausted?” Draco scanned Potter’s face. He’d never looked more awake.
“Believe it or not, I’ve had more sleep this year than I have for the last seven,” Potter shrugged, ran his hands through his hair. There was ink smudged on his inner wrist.
“Thanks for the quills,” Draco blurted out. Potter smiled again, smaller. If Draco didn’t know better, he’d have called the expression shy.
Potter ducked his head. “You’re welcome.”
Draco thought of the notecard, squirrelled away in the pocket of his favourite cloak. He thought of the Animagus potion, remade. He wasn’t ready to blurt out that secret though, not today.
“So you’ve done it?” Draco asked. Potter looked up at him. “You’re actually an Animagus?”
In answer, Potter transformed.
A dark blur materialised where a moment before a wizard had stood. It bounded forwards, screeching to a stop just in front of Draco. In his surprise, Draco let out a whoop of delight. In Animagus form, Potter was a pine marten. Around the size of a cat, and shaped similarly to a weasel—Draco would not think ferret—Potter had deep brown fur, a patch of yellow under his chin, and a long, full tail. Playfully bouncing around Draco’s feet, Potter’s new round ears twitched as he regarded Draco with intelligent, familiar eyes. Draco laughed. He’d really done it.
A blink later, and the wizard Potter was back. He stumbled a little in the transformation, and Draco automatically reached out to steady him, grabbing at Potter’s elbows. Potter laughed, breathless and so near.
“Well, that certainly got my attention,” Draco said. He was standing still, but he felt a little breathless too. Potter visibly swallowed, holding onto Draco’s forearms.
“I’ve been trying to get that all year long.” Potter whispered. A true whisper now, not one of his theatrical ones. “Everyone’s been teasing me about it.”
Draco’s eyes darted over Potter’s face. He decided to tell him the truth. “You’ve had it. My attention. Surely you know that.”
Potter kissed him.
It wasn’t gentle, it wasn’t urgent. It was a long-awaited meeting, an inevitability to sink into, to savour. Draco cradled Potter’s jaw with one hand, pressed his thumb to the corner of Potter’s mouth. He felt the smile lines bloom under his fingertips. Potter’s hands slid from Draco’s arms to pull him closer, one clasping the fabric of Draco’s shirt, the other settling at his hip. Each point of contact was a star of heat. Potter made a soft noise, like an exhale, as their tongues met. Draco felt something touch his eyebrow, and reached up to sweep it away. His hand met the lushness of Potter’s thick curls. He brushed them back, holding them in place with a little tug. Potter moaned, pressing down on Draco’s hip, biting at his bottom lip. Potter’s mouth was a wonder, both heady and fresh. Draco dropped a hand to Potter’s shoulder, feeling the muscle there, the rapid beat of Potter’s pulse. His own was a hummingbird behind his sternum. His mouth felt slick and dazzlingly hot.
They both pulled away, breathing hard.
“Potter, that was-“ Incredible. Fantastic. Not enough. Everything. Potter blinked at him.
“Surely you can call me Harry after that.”
“It wasn’t that good of a kiss,” Draco lied, staring at Harry’s mouth.
Harry saw right through him. “Prat.”
Draco kissed the word from his lips.