Chapter 4- Harry
Something was wrong with Draco, and Harry wasn't resting until he found out what. He kept avoiding his gaze, so Harry couldn’t see his beautiful eyes. He didn’t really talk to Harry anymore, and Harry hadn’t heard his voice in a while.
This only grew stronger after Harry had happily returned to Hogwarts after Easter. Happy as Harry was from his Dadfoot and Moony accepting his house and friends, it was quickly diminished when he noticed how alarmingly thin Draco had become. It wasn’t like he was fat before, but he was just a sagging mess of skin and bones. His mood was extremely different, always jumpy and scared of something.
“Checkmate! Pathetic,” Pansy declares. In the midst of his thinking, Pansy had beaten Harry again. Every single person that played against Pansy, even older years, lost.
“Sod off. Pansy,” Harry says. Pansy flipped him off and Blaise rolled his eyes dramatically. Harry noticed that Draco wasn’t participating.
Later in their dorm, Harry decided to be a Gryffindor and went up to Draco, as it was just them two, alone.
“Draco? Are you alright mate? You’ve been distancing yourself from everyone,” Harry asks. Draco looks surprised, but Harry can fully stare at his beautiful eyes for the first time in weeks.
“I’m fine ...but thank you for asking,” Draco replied shortly. Harry doesn’t believe him in the slightest, but lets it go.
Harry takes this moment to look at Draco. Merlin, just look at him. He sees a thick, thick shell of a prideful boy encasing a broken nail.
He takes the second to look at his beautiful eyes. Silver and sharp, but with tinges of icy blue too. Takes this second to breathe in the scent of green apples and peppermint radiating off this boy.
“Alright then. But please, talk to us. I-we miss you,” Harry says. Draco nods slightly and smiles at Harry. Harry almost faints. He hadn’t seen Draco’s smile in so long. It was almost like a burden had been lifted from his shoulders.
“Anyway, want to play chess against Pansy with me? Like tag teaming,” Harry asks. Draco's smile widens a bit more.
“Sure, but if we lose it’s on you,” Draco answers. Harry is positively beaming now. He goes into the game confident that they’ll win, but Pansy ends up beating them with something she calls “Loser’s Lurgy”.
The entire common room roars with laughter as Draco pouts and storms off, and Harry couldn’t be happier with his achievement.
His excitement was short-lived however, when Professor Snape assigned 2 rolls of parchment on the properties of Boomslang skin. He wasn’t the only one. Now that they were entering their last term of school, their homework started to pile up, and even for the upper years.
“Draco, can you help me with this History of Magic essay? I can’t remember the names of the goblin rebels and I left my book in the great hall,” Harry asks. Draco looks up from his essay briefly and nods. He comes over and sits next to Harry.
“Alright, so you’ve got Gornok II and Ragnok IV, but you’re missing two more. So Bognire VI was responsible for the destruction of diagon alley, and Ragnire VII was responsible for the damage to the ministry in 1506, got it?” Draco asks. Harry nods and Draco smiles. Harry notices a little crinkle when he smiles.
His eyes are so beautiful, haunted and soft and Harry notices that when he’s happy, the ice blue colour in his eyes becomes stronger and less a tinge, but more. Draco is looking at him, the butterflies flutter at the pit of his stomach, and they slowly keep building and building. Harry doesn’t know when they’ll burst.