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They’d been cutting each other with their words for as long as they’d known each other.
Though Potter had been the first one to draw blood at their meeting in the Great Hall all those years ago with his stinging rejection, Draco had ensured that the first cut hadn’t been the deepest.
They’d continued to attack each other relentlessly with insults, accusations, and spells through the years. But never with their hands, though they’d both walked away with their own scars. Potter had been one of the very few constants in Draco’s life.
He wasn’t exactly sure when the switch flipped in his mind, when his hate had dulled into something he didn’t have a word for. Maybe when Potter had his wand pointed at him, arm shaking and angling nearly to the floor? Or when Voldemort had carried his limp body across the battlefield, hand dangling lifelessly.
No, it had definitely been long before that.
He’d tucked away the feeling and did not try to define it.
Six months later and back at Hogwarts for an eighth year, Draco trudged up the steps, back hunched despite his every etiquette lesson. He did not want to be here.
Draco would have run straight into him if he hadn’t looked up when he did. Weary green eyes framed in tarnished silver stared right back, and just below a barest hint of a smile graced his lips. A hand reached out to him, finally bringing his attention back to the man, rather than the sum of his parts, as nice as they were.
“Harry, Harry Potter,” he said, hand still hovering, waiting.
Swallowing around the lump that was absolutely not in his throat, Draco forced himself to straighten his spine.
“What is this?” he bit out, though the words contained no venom.
The crowd of new and returning students milled around them as they stood on the steps, but Potter didn’t seem to care. Draco didn’t either, he found.
“I’m introducing myself.”
“I know who you are.” Did he really, though?
“You do?” Potter asked curiously, seemingly reading Draco’s own thoughts. His smile was no longer a small thing, it had grown into something infectious.
Draco was never one to turn down a challenge, especially one presented by Potter.
“Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t.”
“Just take my hand, Malfoy,” Potter huffed.
Arching a brow, Draco raised his hand at a glacial pace, enjoying the way lines danced across Potter’s brow. When he finally grasped Potter’s palm, it was warmer than he expected. Softer, too.
He was too conscious of the way his sleeve rode up his arm from the reach and exposed his scar that had been forced upon him. Potter didn’t glance down, though he surely saw it in his periphery.
Scars adorned both of their bodies, many of them hidden by clothes, but Draco knew not all were visible to the eye. After all, they’d both learnt and taught one another that words cut just as deep as any Diffindo.
This touch was a re-introduction, but it also felt like an apology.
Draco didn’t want to let go, and feared he never would because he’d never stop being sorry for all the things he’d said and done.
A soft puff of air that almost sounded like a laugh brought Draco back to the moment, back to those devastating emerald eyes.
“What?” he scoffed, though he didn’t let go.
“My hand is getting sweaty,” Potter responded, not pulling away either.
An unspoken challenge of who would break first. Well, it wouldn’t be Draco, that was for certain.
“Feel free to let go,” Draco said as he tightened his grip slightly. Another test.
“And turn my back on you? Not a chance.” It was oddly reminiscent of one of the barbs they’d thrown at each other, but again, the words held no sting like they had before. If anything, it felt like a balm.
Jostling against his robes and pointed coughs from passing students reminded Draco that if they didn’t get moving, they would be late for the Sorting Ceremony.
And Draco knew that Potter knew this feeling intimately. Having to watch it play out in second year had been awkward enough. A shiver ran through his body at the memory and rippled down to their joined hands.
With a sigh and backwards tilt of his head, Draco finally let go and moved to stand beside Potter. Draco’s first thrown white flag.
“Your hand was sweaty,” Draco said, sniffing, as they made their way to the bustling Great Hall.
“Told you.” Potter’s shoulder brushed his, and Draco tried not to linger on the phantom touch that remained, or the thought of its intentionality.
Splatters of red, blue, yellow and green scattered throughout the hall, specific House tables were no more in the name of interhouse unity. It made the decision to follow Potter easier.
They claimed two open seats across from one another at a random table, and though they were surrounded by near strangers, Potter remained the same constant he’d always been.
The ceremony and welcoming feast passed too quickly, conversation flowing easily. They clapped together, congratulating every first year who walked away from the dais with new house colours, and each sidled over to make room for a pair of Hufflepuffs. They’d both moved in the same direction, Draco one spot to his left, Harry a scoot to his right.
All night, words fell from Draco’s tongue in such a way that he wondered what the last seven years could have looked like if his natural instinct hadn’t been to lash out. They would each have a few less scars, at least.
The food eventually disappeared, the students dissipated and filed out to their dorms, but Potter stayed, so Draco did as well.
“Still afraid I’m going to throw a jinx at your back?” Draco teased.
Potter hummed a pleased little sound and lightly tapped his shoe against Draco’s.
And what was he to say to a non-answer like that?
Their extended handshake in the hall had been a truce. His shoulder brush could have been an accident, a domino effect from the tight space of a full corridor. But this? The creases at the corners of Potter’s eyes told Draco that this couldn’t be anything other than intentional.
Draco really tried to ignore the way it made his heart beat that much faster from all this contact. What the fuck was happening to him?
They’d gone years without crossing this boundary, the clear line drawn in the sand that separated them on two different sides of the war. Well, they’d gone and trampled over it, hadn’t they? That had apparently left Draco a man starved, nevermind the feast that had just been in front of him.
Draco couldn’t think of anything to say to Potter’s searching eyes, so he didn’t, like the coward he was. He’d grown used to dishing out disappointment.
Bracing his hands on the table and his heart for worse, Draco stood first, throwing his second flag of the night. He turned his back to head to the dungeons but a tug at his sleeve halted him in his tracks.
“Same time next week?” Harry asked, voice lighter than air, eyes too earnest.
Want curdled in Draco’s stomach, travelled up past his beating heart, and out of his mouth, speaking hope into existence when he shouldn’t dare. Too bad he’d always been branded as a useless cause. He couldn’t stop the words even if he wanted to before they came tumbling from his lips.
“How about breakfast tomorrow?”
Time seemed to stop, then Potter released his sleeve and stood with him, lips curling.
“Even better.”