Chapter Text
“I think Cedric Diggory just tried to hit on me.”
Draco didn’t look up from the cuffs he was unbuttoning on his dress robes or react to the statement in any obvious way, but Harry could see the corner of his left eye give a small twitch. It made him smile, the way he and Draco were able to communicate silently with the smallest of looks and shrugs.
“And you’re surprised?” Draco drawled, moving his hands to the top of his robes, loosening the collar. “I’ve been saying it for months.” On the dresser next to him, a small pile of flashing badges concurred, sending ‘Support Harry Potter—even his stalker does!’ across the room, alternated with a picture of the older Hufflepuff boy’s face, looking longingly into the distance.
“I’m serious, Malfoy. I think he really did try,” Harry said, slumping down on his bed and starting to remove his shoes. “And would you stop with the badges, already? They weren’t funny the first time, and being spread all over the school hasn’t improved them any.”
Draco scoffed, but pulled out his wand and sent the remaining badges falling into an open drawer. He let his robes slide off his shoulders and turned around, walking over to the large closet near his bed to hang them up properly. “What did he do?”
Harry wondered whether he was imagining the tension in Draco’s voice, because when he looked over, Draco looked as unaffected as anything. Harry swallowed. “He cornered me after the ball, said something about how I should take the egg for a bath.” He trailed off, wincing slightly at the memory. “And then he gave me the password to the prefects’ bathroom. Told me to go there. For the privacy.”
Draco dropped the hanger he’d been holding. It fell to the floor with a muted thud, bouncing slightly on the thick carpet.
“Oh,” he said, and Harry did a double take.
“Not your most impressive comeback,” he said, frowning slightly. Draco spluttered and turned his back. Harry’s frown deepened. “Malfoy? You alright? I need your brain to help me out here.”
“I’m fine,” Draco started, closing the heavy oak doors and moving towards his bed. “I—Really? He actually said that?”
“Practically whispered it in my ear,” Harry confirmed glumly. “You have to help me.” He gave Draco his most pleading look, the one he usually saved for help with Potions theory and History of Magic essays. He expected Draco to roll his eyes and then relent and was surprised when he came over to sit down on the bed next to him, sliding an arm around Harry's shoulders.
“Tell me what to do,” he said quietly, pressing his face to Harry’s hair as Harry leaned into him, resting his head against Draco's shoulder. The tension in Harry’s back lessened, and his arm went around Draco’s waist, fingers digging into the pale, bare skin.
“Come with me?” he murmured against Draco's neck. “I could just avoid him, I know, but it’s less than two months to the second task, and I’m getting desperate enough for almost anything.”
Draco smiled against his hair. “Including fending off Pretty-boy Diggory in one of the most infamous groping spots in all of Hogwarts?” he teased. “Ouch!”
“Don’t even joke about it,” Harry muttered, going in for another pinch. “I could never be desperate enough for that.”
“Now, Potter—”
“There is always a point of desperation where any price is acceptable, I know,” Harry intoned, turning his face to press against Draco’s neck. “I’d just rather take on another dragon than deal with Diggory right now.”
“Fair enough,” Draco said, letting go of Harry and jumping off the bed. “Well, are you coming?”
Harry blinked. “What? You mean, right now?”
Draco walked over to the trunk at the foot of Harry’s bed, rummaging through it with practiced ease until a shimmering cloak came into view.
“No time like the present. Now, come on before Nott and Zabini get back. Besides,” he took Harry’s heavy golden egg from the trunk and tossed it to him before donning a bath robe and sweeping the Invisibility Cloak around both of them, “if Diggory’s there, we can just drown him.”
***
But the prefects’ bathroom was empty when they arrived, and Harry breathed a small sigh of relief. Perhaps he’d just overreacted after all. Perhaps there wasn’t anything more to the glances he could feel burning against his neck whenever Diggory was around than simple competition. Jealousy. Irritation. Anger. He could deal with all of those things without problem. He got worse from the Gryffindors every single day.
“Oh, I’m definitely making prefect next year,” Draco exclaimed beside him, letting the cloak fall off their shoulders and walking over to the shimmering pool in the middle of the room. “Just imagine coming here after Quidditch practice instead of having to endure the tepid showers down at the pitch.”
Harry followed him, grabbing a few fluffy, white towels on the way. Draco was fiddling with the taps, sending jets of brightly-coloured foam spilling into the pool, filling it up in a matter of minutes. Harry grinned and went over to the dressing area, removing his half-opened robes and folding them into a haphazard pile. A soft splash replaced the humming of the taps, and he turned around just in time to see Draco break the frothy surface, shaking foam out of his hair. Taking the egg with him, Harry crossed the cool tile to join him.
***
“Close it! Circe's Warts, close it!”
Harry threw himself at the egg, slamming it shut and ending the horrible, wailing sound that had come pouring out of it, just like every other time he had tried to get the bloody thing open. The sound was ringing in his ears and still echoing faintly across the room. He met Draco’s eyes, and, in the blink of an eye, they shared a look that outlined elaborate plans for a very painful death for Hufflepuff’s golden boy. Then they turned in perfect, slow synchronisation, and their eyes fell on the enchanted object.
“Now what?” It was Harry who spoke, but Draco nodded the same question along with him. The curling feeling of desperation began to renew its coils in his gut. Another dead end.
“I’d try putting it in the water if I were you.”
They turned as one, surprised yelps breaking from both of them as they came face to transparent face with a rather unattractive ghost.
“Who are you?” Draco demanded, moving closer to Harry and shifting them both back against the side of the pool.
The ghost sniffed. “No one ever knows!” she exclaimed, sounding rather put-out. “No one cares. No one! You would think that dying horribly in the middle of the school would make people remember you, but no! Not me, apparently. People find it perfectly alright to forget all about me.”
Harry shook himself slightly, trying to get his brain from ‘er, what the—’ to something more articulate. Next to him, Draco was rolling his eyes, clearly exasperated. Then something seemed to click in his mind, and Harry saw his gaze narrow slightly and a devastatingly charming smile spread across his face.
“I’m sorry,” he said, sincerity thick and smooth in his voice. “I’m sure your death was very tragic, and I’m personally appalled that the professors would have neglected to inform all of us of such an important point in the school’s history.”
Harry did his best not to grin as the ghost visibly preened. “Oh, that’s just what I think!” she crooned, floating closer to Draco with a wide smile on her face. Draco’s sincere expression never faltered, even as he collided with Harry, drawing back from the onslaught of bubbly-ghost-murder details. His hips were pressing Harry into the tiles, and Harry slid his arms easily around him, putting his chin against Draco's shoulder and watching the ghost gesticulate wildly as she re-enacted what seemed to be every wrong ever committed against her. Draco’s hands wrapped around his, pressing a subtle warning into the backs of his hands, and Harry bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Finally, the ghost made a pause to draw an imaginary breath, and Draco saw his opening.
“So, about the egg,” he said casually, smiling winningly at the ghost (Myrtle, she had told them, flicking her incorporeal hair). “When you came in, you said to put it in the water. What did you mean, more precisely? I mean,” he added quickly, when Myrtle’s face lost some of its shine, “you seem to know a great deal, having lived in the castle for so long.”
Myrtle beamed at him. “Well, that’s what the other boy did,” she said. “Put it in the water, and it sang, and rather prettily too. Though, I didn’t get to hear what it said because he chased me away.” She screwed her face up in a scowl at the memory. “He was rude. I didn’t like him.”
Harry couldn’t hold back a chuckle this time. He pressed his mouth against Draco’s shoulder, trying to muffle the sound as his body shook slightly in mirth at the ridiculousness of the situation. Myrtle looked deathly affronted, and Draco squeezed Harry's hand warningly beneath the surface of the water. “He’s not laughing at you,” he assured the ghost with a serious look on his face. “Harry would never be rude like that.”
Harry did his best to pull himself together and shake his head. Myrtle stopped scowling, so he figured it was good enough.
“No,” he said, swallowing another chuckle. “I wouldn’t laugh at you, Myrtle. Of course I wouldn’t. It’s just nice, you see, hearing you say that. I don’t like that boy much either.”
The ghost looked as though she could kiss him, and he felt a cold spark go down his back, hoping fervently that she wouldn’t. He’d accidentally brushed against the Bloody Baron once, and the feeling of connecting with the departed soul had been a lot less than pleasant. He shivered at the memory.
“Go on then, Potter,” Draco said, turning in the circle of his arms to lean over and pick up the egg from the edge of the pool and hand it to him. “You heard what Myrtle said. Put it in the water and let’s hear what it says.”
***
“An hour.” Harry said weakly, slumped against the side of the pool. A long time had passed; the bubbles on the surface of the bath were almost gone. Noting the increasing chill of the water, Draco moved away from him momentarily, turning on some of the taps again. The quiet spluttering felt loud in the empty room. They hadn’t spoken much since they’d managed to talk Myrtle into leaving.
“Draco, how will I breathe?” Harry could hear his voice rise to a slightly panicked pitch and did his best to moderate it. “I mean, have you heard of anything like this before? Anyone we can ask?”
Draco racked his brain.
“Not off the top of my head,” he admitted reluctantly, shaping the new, thick foam into little toppy mountains. “The only thing I’ve heard of for holding your breath’s—” He trailed off abruptly, cheeks flushing.
“What?” Harry urged. “Tell me.”
Draco’s cheeks deepened in colour, and Harry could see the blush beginning to creep down his neck.
“It’s nothing that’d work here,” Draco tried, studiously refusing to look away from the foamy shapes he was busying his hands with. “Forget I mentioned it.”
“How do you know it wouldn’t work?” Harry demanded. “If there’s a chance it might help me, you know, not drown, I think we should try it at least. We could test it out right here—What?” he exclaimed, when his best friend made a strangled, choking sound beside him and disappeared under the surface of the water. Harry pulled him up again, a little roughly from the increasing irritation he was feeling.
“Harry—come on… Oh, al-bloody-right then!—remember when we found that enormous room off the seventh floor corridor when we were hiding from Filch?” Draco started, throwing him a quick, embarrassed look. Harry nodded, somewhat impatiently. “Well, among the things I picked up in there was this… magazine, right?” The blush was deepening, Harry noticed as he crossed his arms and waited for the point. “And there was this article in there. On spells to use to, um…”
“Just spit it out, Malfoy,” Harry sighed, unfolding his arms to reach out and comb some foam out of Draco's hair with his fingers. Draco’s eyes fell closed, and another choked little sound came from the back of his throat.
“It was—there was… Fine, they were sex spells, alright?” he half-snapped, words tumbling out of his mouth. “And one was for letting you hold your breath for a long time, to, you know, with your mouth…”
The hand in his hair stopped moving, freezing in mid-stroke.
“Oh,” Harry said, blushing hotly. “Oh.” The hand fell away, and an embarrassed silence descended. Draco busied himself with the foam around his hands, pushing it into little piles in front of him.
“We should try it.”
Draco’s head whipped around, mouth agape. Harry’s eyes widened, and he quickly took a step back.
“No!” he spluttered, trying desperately to back-pedal. “No, I didn’t mean—of course not!—The breathing! I meant that we should try it to see if it works on not breathing under water.”
“Right,” Draco said, swallowing. “Right. Of course. The lake.”
“Draco…”
Draco evaded his touch, moving away to fiddle with the taps again.
“Draco, come on. Don’t be weird.”
Harry followed him, reaching out to draw Draco back towards him.
“Don’t—”
Harry didn’t listen, just grabbed hold of his arm and pulled, bringing Draco’s front flush against his own for a burning, electric second, before Harry stiffened in shock and Draco managed to push away. Quickly deciding that this was a moment for fleeing rather than bravery, Draco scrambled out of the pool, snatched up his robe and underwear from the floor and was out the secret doorway before Harry’s brain could grasp what had just happened.
When realisation came, all air went out of his lungs, and he slumped back against the tiled poolside, breath hitching in his throat.