Chapter Text
The dormitory smelled faintly of dust and polish, like the castle was trying too hard to scrub away the war. Everything had been repaired—the beds replaced, the curtains mended, the windows cleaned until they almost gleamed in the fading light. It should have felt fresh, maybe even comforting, but it didn’t. If anything, it made the room feel stranger.
There were only two beds now instead of four, and that somehow made the silence worse.
Harry set his trunk down beside the bed nearest the window and left his hand resting on the handle for a moment. He hadn’t wanted to come back. Not to Hogwarts, not after everything that had happened here, not after the battle had turned every corridor into something he could barely look at without remembering too much. But McGonagall had insisted. One final year, she’d said. Finish your education. Find some closure.
Harry almost laughed every time he thought about that word.
Closure. As if Hogwarts had ever been kind enough to give him something so simple.
The castle looked repaired, but it didn’t feel healed. The stairwells still seemed full of echoes if he let his mind wander too far. The Great Hall would never just be the Great Hall again. It would always be the place where Fred had lain cold and still, where bodies had been lined up in rows too neat to feel real. Even Gryffindor Tower, which should have felt safe, only felt quieter now, as if the walls themselves remembered what had happened and didn’t quite know what to do with laughter anymore.
Harry almost hadn’t come back at all. He had seriously thought about refusing, about sending McGonagall a short letter and being done with it. But Hermione had that steady, stubborn way of talking when she knew she was right, and in the end she’d worn him down.
“Just one more year,” she had said. “We’ll finish properly. Together.”
Ron had nodded too, looking tired in a way Harry knew wasn’t going away anytime soon. “For Fred,” he’d said quietly.
That had ended it.
So here Harry was, back in a room that no longer felt like his, standing in the middle of polished wood and fresh curtains and memories he would have rather left alone.
The door creaked open behind him.
Harry’s stomach dropped. He didn’t even need to turn around. He knew that voice before it came.
“Of course,” Malfoy said. “Out of everyone in this miserable castle, I get you.”
Harry turned slowly.
Draco Malfoy stood beside the other bed, looking just as sharp and put together as ever, with neat robes, pale hair, and that cold expression he wore like armor. But there was something else there too, if only for a second. Tiredness, maybe. Strain. It was gone so quickly Harry could almost pretend he imagined it.
He glanced toward the doorway, half-expecting someone to step in and tell them there had been a mistake.
No one did.
Harry let out a dry breath. “Trust me, I’m not thrilled either.”
Malfoy’s mouth curled. “Good. Then we agree. This is hell.”
They unpacked in silence, but it wasn’t peaceful silence. It was the kind that felt stretched too tight, like it only needed one wrong word to snap. Every sound in the room seemed louder than it should have been—the click of Harry’s trunk, the rustle of robes, the scrape of drawers opening and shutting. Harry caught himself watching Malfoy’s wand hand out of the corner of his eye and looked away immediately, annoyed with himself for even noticing.
It still didn’t take long for one of them to start.
“Still playing the hero, Potter?” Draco asked, not even looking at him. “Or are you done now that everyone’s finished praising you?”
Harry’s jaw tightened. He stared at the desk for a second before answering. “Still bitter you lost, Malfoy? Must be hard, knowing you picked the wrong side.”
Draco looked at him then, grey eyes sharp. “Better than pretending you’re some kind of savior when you can’t even save yourself.”
The words hit harder than Harry wanted them to.
His grip tightened on the edge of the desk, and for one ugly second every buried thought rushed up at once—every person he hadn’t saved, every moment he’d been too late, every face he still couldn’t stop seeing when the castle got too quiet. He forced it all back down before it could show on his face.
“Nice try,” Harry said, though his voice came out tighter than he meant it to. “You’ll have to do better than that.”
Draco leaned against the bedpost, folding his arms. “Don’t worry. We’ve got a whole year.”
Harry turned away before he could say something worse.
The tension followed them all the way to dinner.
The Great Hall was full enough to look normal at first glance, but not full enough to feel that way. Too many students hadn’t returned. Some were still too shaken. Others were simply gone. The empty spaces at the tables stood out more than the crowd did, and even with the floating candles overhead, the hall felt different—thinner somehow, like the warmth had never fully come back.
Harry sat beside Ron and Hermione at the Gryffindor table and kept his head down. He could feel people watching him as he reached for his cutlery, and he hated how normal that feeling still was. Across the room, Malfoy took his place at the Slytherin table. A few younger students shifted away from him almost immediately, leaving a small but obvious gap around where he sat.
Harry noticed before he could stop himself.
“Still can’t believe they let him come back,” Ron muttered, stabbing at his potatoes.
“Ron,” Hermione said quietly, though she didn’t sound fully certain either.
“What?” Ron shot back. “After everything?”
Harry didn’t answer. He looked down at his plate and realised he hadn’t taken a bite. Hermione brushed her fingers lightly against his wrist, and he forced himself to start eating, slow and mechanical at first.
The whispers started not long after that.
“Malfoy’s back?”
“They actually let him stay?”
“Should’ve been expelled.”
“Lucky he didn’t end up in Azkaban.”
Neville made an effort to stop it. “McGonagall’s giving people a second chance,” he said. “That’s kind of the point of this year, isn’t it? Rebuilding?”
But nobody really listened.
Harry glanced up once, just once, and saw Draco sitting perfectly still, posture straight, expression blank enough to look unaffected. But his fork hadn’t moved. His food was untouched. Then Draco looked over too, and for a brief second their eyes met across the hall.
Harry saw something there before it disappeared. Something tired. Something raw.
Then Draco’s expression shifted back into that familiar smirk, cool and practiced, as if nothing had slipped at all.
A goblet scraped sharply against stone somewhere nearby.
Harry flinched before he could stop himself. His shoulders jerked, and his fork clattered against his plate. His pulse jumped hard enough to make his chest ache, and he looked up too fast, scanning the room on instinct.
No one seemed to notice.
No one except Malfoy.
From across the hall, Draco was watching him. His face looked faintly amused, but there was something strange in his expression before he finally looked away.
Harry clenched his jaw and focused on his food again.
Potions the next morning was exactly as bad as Harry expected.
Slughorn was in a brilliant mood, which only made things worse. He clapped his hands together and announced something about unity and cooperation, and Harry knew immediately he wasn’t going to like what came next.
“Potter and Malfoy,” Slughorn said brightly. “Perfect. Two of my brightest students.”
“Your worst idea so far,” Harry muttered as he moved to the table.
Draco sat down beside him with an annoyed look. “Try not to ruin this in the first five minutes.”
Harry gave him a flat look. “That was my line.”
They worked beside each other in brittle silence, each clearly trying not to snap first. Harry chopped ingredients a little too hard. Draco measured powders with infuriating calm. Their elbows brushed once and both of them pulled away instantly.
Then Draco added a powdered root too early.
The potion hissed violently.
“For Merlin’s sake,” Harry snapped, grabbing the stirrer. “You’ve ruined it.”
Draco looked offended. “I’m not the one panicking.”
“I’m trying to fix your mistake.”
“Your need to control everything is the actual problem, Potter.”
Before Harry could fire back, the potion bubbled over the edge of the cauldron with a foul-smelling hiss.
Slughorn hurried over, horrified. “Really? On the first day?”
Neither of them answered.
“Detention,” Slughorn said with a heavy sigh. “Both of you.”
Harry pinched the bridge of his nose while Draco looked far too pleased with himself.
Detention was held in an old classroom that smelled of ink, dust, and damp stone. McGonagall had assigned them lines, no magic allowed, which felt very deliberate. The room was quiet except for the scratching of quills and the occasional drip somewhere in the corner.
Harry bent over his parchment and wrote the same sentence again and again, trying not to think about the fact that Malfoy was sitting across from him. It didn’t help. Every little movement was distracting—the shift of robes, the sound of a sigh, the scrape of another quill across paper.
Eventually Draco broke the silence.
"You know," Malfoy said at last, voice quiet but dripping with disdain, "if you keep scowling like that, Potter, you'll end up with wrinkles before you're twenty-five."
Harry didn't look up. "Better than looking like I swallowed a lemon for sixteen years straight."
"Sixteen? Please. I mastered the look by twelve."
Harry's quill pressed too hard, blotting the parchment. He bit back a retort, but Malfoy saw it anyway and smirked, satisfied.
The silence stretched again, brittle as glass. Somewhere down the corridor, a door slammed. Harry's quill stuttered mid-line, his shoulders tensing before he forced them down again. Harry glanced at Malfoy but he had been too busy fixing his hair to notice.
Neither spoke again until McGonagall returned to dismiss them, her voice clipped and brisk.
As they left, Malfoy smirked, "Charming as always, Potter."
Harry shot back, "Go to hell, Malfoy."
"You're predictable," Draco replied coolly. He stepped closer, lowering his voice. "You think everyone buys your 'perfect saviour' act, but you're transparent. Cracks everywhere."
Harry froze. For a moment, he couldn't breathe. The smirk widened, but Harry didn't see the way it faltered once his back was turned.
Later that night, in the common room, McGonagall summoned them both.
"Potter. Malfoy. A word."
They exchanged identical scowls but followed her.
"Given the need for cooperation this year," she said briskly, "the two of you will be paired for study and shared responsibilities. Perhaps by working together, you can set an example."
"Absolutely not," Harry blurted.
"You can't be serious," Draco said at the same time.
McGonagall's eyes narrowed. "I am always serious. You will make it work, or you will both answer to me. Understood?"
They muttered reluctant agreements.
As she swept away, Draco leaned close, voice a low hiss.
"This year is going to be unbearable."
Harry should've agreed. Instead, his chest burned with something he didn't want to name.
Maybe... Fear? Guilt? "You have no idea."
When Harry finally crawled into bed, he yanked the curtains tight, so no crack of light could slip through. It was the only way he could sleep. And on the other side of the room, Draco Malfoy lay awake, listening to the faint rustle of fabric, watching shadows move where they shouldn't.
Both pretending the other didn't exist.
Both failing miserably.