A Bad Row
Harry knows the arguing has gotten out of hand when Hermione turns up at his elbow, her hand suddenly on his shoulder as Pansy arrives from out of his peripheral to push Draco a step away from him with the full force of her right hand.
No one reprimands them, too aware that the room is filled with adults whose childhoods have been taken from them. But Harry’s heart is still hammering in his ears, and Hermione’s mouth is downturned at the corner that means she knows he’s in the wrong this time, and the room twists like composition of the air is changing states of matter and no one but Harry is aware of it.
Now five feet away from him, Draco’s standing like he would risk a fist fight he knows that he’d lose, his eyes bright with anger and all the ways that Harry has managed to hurt him within the span of a mere half an hour, and Harry’s gut sinks, falls straight to his feet. He knows he should speak but he can’t get himself to, now that he’s aware that him speaking is what’s fucked up everything in the first place.
Hermione’s hands shuffle at his hair, adjust his collar and his sleeves, a maternal movement that startles Harry in ways it normally wouldn’t. It's the silence, he thinks, the absence of Hermione's words that spears him the most. Outside the kitchen, all their friends are waiting, the first gathering in weeks since everyone has been able to be in the same place, and Harry feels their presence like a million tiny pinpricks across his neck and shoulders.
“Screw you,” Draco says into the silence. Because he always needs the last word in everything, even if it’s something good, and because he knows that Harry will take the bait, will allow the both of them to continue hurting each other because hurt is their baseline these days.
Pansy yanks at Draco’s arm a little and hisses his name, then moves in front of him like she intends to act as a barrier between them in the case that somebody lunges forward.
Harry can’t even remember the argument, too busy moving his gaze between Draco and Hermione’s face. The back of Pansy’s head. The soft light of a too-low ceiling. Then the sensation of the room getting smaller, the air no longer being air. He looks at Draco and the way his posture has become worlds away from the self assured stature he always takes. At the way Harry’s ripped away at this with mere words.
Harry turns to leave.
Ron finds him outside in the hallway, like he’d been eavesdropping or stationed there as an extra precaution, and he falls into stride with Harry with the practiced ease of longtime Auror partners. “You alright there, mate? Draco was really ripping into you.”
No, Harry thinks. We were ripping into each other. We always know the worst things to say.
But the words get lost somewhere on the way from brain to tongue, and when he opens his mouth nothing comes out, and his mind scrambles at this, at not being able to control himself, and then his hands are out. They’re pushing at Ron’s arms gently but firmly, trying to say no, please no, please just give a moment, and Ron, his best friend in the entire world, understands even without him saying it.
But when Ron turns back, all slow movements and hesitant eyes, there are still another set of approaching footsteps, and when Harry picks up his pace, escapes into the side gardens, takes a step—
Draco’s grip is scathing on his forearm, anger still searing the features of his face. Harry’s hand lands on top of his, though he can’t think through why he wanted to do it, and so they stumble backwards as a linked pair when Harry trips, a flash of limbs.
“You’re such an asshole,” Draco says. He’s on his hands and knees, but Harry’s already scrambling up, trying to get away and get a hold of himself and finally just fucking think.
“No,” he’s saying. He doesn’t know if it’s to Draco or himself.
“Oh, fuck you.” They’re both standing again, stalking further into Malfoy gardens, and Draco reached for Harry again like he can pull him to a stop but this time Harry yanks his arm before his grip can get too strong. Draco curses at him.
“Please,” Harry says. If he can just get outside of the wards then he can apparate out. “Please, just—“
“Just what, Potter?” He’s yelling now, and the sound of his voice reverberates into Harry’s ears somehow. In front of him, he can see that he’s nearly to the end of the wards. He stumbles forward with Draco at his back, yelling profanities. “You think that you’re so high and mighty that I don’t even deserve a fucking word from you?”
“No,” Harry says quickly, the sound so definitive and sharp that it rips from Harry’s chest and through his throat. “You know that’s not—“
“I don’t know!” Draco’s fist clenched down on his shirt but Harry still doesn’t turn, doesn’t stop. “You love to hate me because I’m the easiest one to hate. I know that. I know I deserve it. I know you fucking—“
Harry does turn this time, grabs Draco’s wrist so he can pull him forward, put Draco on unsteady ground for a moment so Harry can put his other hand at the base of Draco’s neck and hold him there, stare him in the eye. “You’re wrong and you know it. It’s never been about that." Harry's hand grips him too hard, he's thinking. They're too close. But Harry thinks that if he holds him for just a moment then all the things that he can never say can finally be put between them. But it's not that simple. It never is. "That’s all I’m going to say about this right now,” Harry says, his hands dropping, his hands clenching at his sides.
It’s enough, Harry thinks. This row will end here and then they’ll send an owl tomorrow and the world will be right again after a couple whiskeys at the witching hour and they’ll come back to the next party and do it all over again. This is always how it is.
Harry drops his hand, tries to step backward out of the wards, his wand already poised for the spell, the magic already at his fingertips. Draco and Harry, they never know how to say goodbye. Goodbye for them has always been a sort of violence, and tonight it will be more of the same.
But he sees Draco’s eyes, how the grey explodes out like a storm threatening danger. And then there are Draco’s arms, coming out again, his feet taking him forward, his palms meeting Harry’s shoulders—
And then the world, tilted off its axis.