Part II
The very first morning of Holidays, Harry returns to the Great Hall for breakfast after dropping off a plate for Ron.
“Stay away from the other houses if you can. Especially Slytherin. Especially Malfoy,” Hermione had told them both. She had actually told Harry this more than once. Hermione never called out Harry out on his excursion to the hospital wing but he knows that she suspects. Ron, for his part, plans to take her words and all his meals to the extreme.
It is far emptier than usual – to be expected during the holidays. Yet, Harry had never seen so many of his own year stay behind. Houses had started to sit at whichever table they pleased during meal times, at Dumbledore’s command. Think and act as though there is nothing that divides them, they were advised.
Malfoy is sitting by himself with a cup of tea, picking at his food. It’s weird to see Malfoy eat without his usual cronies.
Many of the Slytherins in their year had left for the holiday regardless of gender. It turns out sharing close quarters with someone for years makes it easier to tell if there is any hidden feelings brewing beneath the surface. And that’s how Slytherin became the only house where any of the sixth year boys were brave enough to try.
Harry had watched several Slytherin boys present their black and white roses with no incident after Hermione’s rejection. And it also turns out many of the older Slytherins had been presenting their roses this whole time, favoring the still public but safer Slytherin common room, a venue only they were afforded.
Malfoy handled the last onslaught brought about by Hermione’s rejection well enough but he had looked ready to pass out from exhaustion by the end of that day. Of course, none of his housemates are friendly with Hermione. Malfoy’s reaction during her rejection seemed to tell the remaining 6th year Slytherin boys all they needed to know. Draco’s beloved is definitely not in Slytherin.
Today, Malfoy looks a bit forlorn and worn down sitting by himself. But that was also to be expected. Lately, every time Harry saw him, he was coughing up rose petals and sometimes bloody thorns. And this was on top of the series of confessions and rejections that had left him without his beloved’s attention.
Malfoy was alone in every sense of the word. No more full blooms lately though, thankfully.
Never one to follow a rule he could get away with breaking, Harry marches confidently over to where Malfoy sits and plops down across from him.
He expected Malfoy to sneer at him or tell him to leave. Instead, Malfoy glances up at him cautiously. He blinks rapidly for a moment, taking a moment to comprehend what has just happened.
“Good morning, Potter,” he says in a dispassionate tone as though this turn of events was completely normal. He then casts his eyes downward and begins fiddling with his shirt.
“Morning Draco!” Harry replies cheerily, grabbing a green apple from the basket on the table. He takes a generous bite but, after a few moments of chewing, swallows hard and exclaims, “Gah! That’s so sour. Why would anyone eat that?”
Malfoy looks back up at the boy across from him incredulously. He opens his mouth and then closes it. There are several questions on his mind but also several answers that threatened to strangle him from the inside. So, instead he settles on the least dangerous among them.
“It’s not sour, it’s tart. Have you never eaten a Granny Smith before, Potter?”
Taking advantage of catching Malfoy fully off guard, Harry reaches over and swipes Malfoy’s cup of tea. He brings it to his lips and takes a sip.
Without thinking, Malfoy steals the cup back and defiantly drinks the rest of it. When he glances back up at Harry, he is met with both a smirk and a raised brow that, even Draco has to admit, is a fairly decent impression of himself.
Draco watches Harry’s eyes fall slightly from his eyes to his lips, where a bit of tea had failed to make its way in. In response, Draco licks his lips to rectify the situation, which only causes Harry’s smirk to grow and Draco feels his cheeks warm under Harry’s curious gaze.
“No, not really. Never bothered with apples of any kind,” Harry says finally.
“I… um. Er- wha… Not even at your par-, um not even at home?” Draco asks, breaking eye contact to instead stare at the spot on his cup where both their lips had been. Interesting. Draco never stumbles over his words. He also never blushes. Except now, he’s doing both.
Harry scoffs. “I’m lucky they even let me eat, much less something as frivolous as fresh fruit.”
“What?” Draco responds more forcefully than Harry expected, causing him to flinch. However, finding that that statement had forced Draco to look back up, Harry smiles. Was he mad for Harry? That’s also new.
Maybe he really had meant the olive branch.
“It’s not important,” Harry says.
“Not important,” Draco deadpans, followed by, “why did you join me for breakfast?” His question holds no spite.
“Oh, well, I was told I had to stay away from you, so...”
Harry isn’t sure he’s ever seen Malfoy genuinely laugh at something other than another’s misfortune. Until now. It’s a day for firsts, it would seem.
“So naturally, you had to prove them wrong?”
“Exactly. What are you up to after this?”
“Why do I get the feeling that regardless of my answer, I’m going to be spending the day with you?”
“Because you are smarter than I give you credit for,” Harry says sweetly.
When Harry had sat down, Draco half expected Harry to hand him a black rose and watch him die right then and there. Or ask him questions about the Hanahaki that he’d be unable to answer without hacking up most of the garden that was slowly replacing his insides.
But while it was clear that Harry was eager to drink in every bit of information that Draco would give him, someone must have explained to Harry that he should not do either of these things. Apparently there are still some rules that matter to the Golden Boy.
They end up going for a walk outside, though Harry wears his cloak. The whole thing reminds Harry of his first trip to Hogsmeade.
It’s snowing lightly and when Draco shivers, Harry shakes off the cloak and tosses it over the other boy who mostly vanishes. It does not cover him completely.
“This defeats the point of nobody seeing us” Draco whines.
“You’re still mostly hidden,” Harry replies pointedly.
“Yes because anyone watching us would forget that they were watching me talk to seemingly no-one when suddenly a boy who famously owns a cloak of invisibility appears in my place and I vanish. Also, we ate breakfast together.”
Draco purposely chooses not to remind Harry that he has yet be excluded from being his beloved and should not be outside.
Harry shrugs, “I’m willing to let them tell Hermione and deal with her lecture after the holidays if it means you don’t die of pneumonia.”
Malfoy drops the hood and gives Harry a look. Harry’s expression warps to one of fear.
“Is it dangerous for you to been seen with me?” Harry asks, the panic in his voice growing as he adds, “Are you going to be okay? Did I hurt you? I’m sorry-”
Draco smiles despite himself.
“Not at all,” Draco says, “if anything, it...”
“It what?”
“Most people have been … avoiding me lately. It’s nice to … not be avoided. If you’re really that bored, I’m happy to entertain you, I suppose,” Draco says, struggling with his choice of words.
“Happy to entertain me? Could this year get any weirder?” Harry smirks.
In response, Draco pulls the hood back up before taping Harry’s shoulder and crossing to his other side. Harry looks at the empty space and asks, “what?”
“Boo!” Draco shouts from behind him. Harry jumps at the sound and turns around to pull the cloak away.
“Draco!” He scolds, suppressing a laugh.
“Harry,” Draco whispers and straight up beams at him, a playful glint in his gray eyes. He looks almost…
Something about hearing his given name in Malfoy’s voice, clearly on purpose this time, gives Harry pause. They are standing close enough that Harry can smell Draco’s perfume. Or maybe the floral scent is part of the Hanahaki.
“You know we can go back in if you’re worried about the cold?” Draco says when it’s clear Harry isn’t going to speak.
“R-right.”
The rest of break flies by peacefully. Harry spends every meal with Draco and most of his free time as well. He follows him to the library and through the halls. Draco, true to his word, seems delighted to entertain him. They even visit the Astronomy Tower, where Draco had failed to assassinated the headmaster.
Harry tells him he saw the whole thing and when Draco looks mortified, Harry tells him it was incredibly brave and noble to lower his wand that night. Harry isn’t sure what he’d do if Dumbledore had died.
And even though Harry still admires him, he’s still angry at the headmaster for not helping Draco, not offering sooner. Dumbledore knew and did nothing to help Draco. All Dumbledore offered during the entire war was riddles. And death sentences. Dumbledore was generous with those. Harry tells Draco how he died at the end of the war.
Draco recoils when Harry describes his own death but Harry just tells him with a smile that if he could cheat death than why can’t Draco?
They’re becoming fast friends and Draco is getting worried. Because as wonderful as this all feels, Draco IS going to die and if Harry ever figures it all out, it’s going to break him.
Still, he’s not strong enough to turn Harry away. Not when he wants this so much and not when just being near him makes him forget how much everything hurts. Usually.
Unfortunately the next really bad fit happens when Harry is around. They come randomly now but Harry’s convinced that he’s said something wrong. The result is an entire rosebud.
“Ah! Draco, I’m sorry I didn’t-”
“S’not your fault Potter. It’s mine,” he gasps.
“This is not your fault!”
Draco shakes his head and gives a sad smile. “Only I could turn something as pure as love into something as awful as this.”
“Draco...”
“Want a flower? I grew it myself,” Draco says, handing the bloody rose toward Harry. Harry’s eyes go wide and Draco grins at him like this is the funniest thing he’s ever said, blood still staining his lips.
“Oh relax,” Draco tells him, “I am the only one in the whole school who can say whatever they please. This isn’t a confession, Potter. It’s a joke. You make them all the time.”
“Wait, you can say whatever you want? So you can tell us who...”
“Okay. There’s one thing I can’t talk about,” Draco says with a laugh that dissolves into a cough.
Harry tenses at this. “If I ever figure out who did this to you, I’m going to kill him.”
Draco’s smile vanishes. “Please don’t. Promise me you won’t, no matter what you find out, even if it’s after I’m dead. For me?”
“Even after you’re…” Harry mutters bitterly.
“Promise me. I can’t stand the thought of anything bad happening to my beloved. I… want him to be happy. He deserves to be happy. He’s a wonderful person.” Harry hasn’t seen Draco look this desperate in a long time.
“You still … fine. I won’t. For you,” Harry says quietly.
“Thank-you, Harry,” Draco replies, relief washing over him. Then after a moment he adds, “also, maybe don’t tell anyone about this. Pansy will insist you stop hanging around me if you do.”
“Oh so you want to keep me around now? I thought you were entertaining me out of the goodness of your heart,” Harry says trying his best to sound playful and not sad.
“It turns out you are very entertaining when you’re not trying to get me in trouble,” Draco says. The smile is back and, for now, Harry reasons, that is enough.
Hermione returns to the castle looking almost normal. She’s catching up with a nervous Ron when Neville greets her.
“Hermione, you came back,” Neville says with a sad smile.
“Of course I did, Neville. I am not going to let you boys go through this alone,” she says, “speaking of which, things seem better, don’t they? Did something happen?”
“Yeah, things have been surprisingly okay. Malfoy is looking a lot better these days, even if he’s still coughing up …. you know,” Neville says.
Dean Thomas cuts in to add, “he’s actually smiling. Maybe things are going to be work out and the tournament will end smoothly.”
Hermione is about to reply when Lavender and Parvati come down from the dorms.
“Hermione!” They say in unison.
“It means a lot to us that our Gryffindor girls have our backs,” Sean Finnegan says.
Lavender swings an arm over his shoulder. “Of course we do. We’re family.”
“Where’s Harry?” Hermione asks.
“Probably following Malfoy around again,” Parvati says.
“What?!”
“Not like he used to. They’re kinda friends now. I told him to be careful but you know he gets ‘Mione,” Ron says.
After Hermione drops her bags off, she goes to find him and she doesn’t have to go far.
Harry is giving Draco a piggyback ride to the Gryffindor tower. Draco dismounts clumsily and Harry steadies him. They’re both laughing.
“I suppose I should have taken you back to the dungeons instead, now that I think about it. I still have time to, if you want?” Harry muses.
“I can still walk by myself. I’m not dead yet, Potter,” Draco says, looking away.
“Hey!” Harry says fiercely. Draco jumps at the volume.
He doesn’t look back though so Harry reaches up and gently guides his chin till they’re facing each other again.
“Hey,” Harry says in the softest voice Hermione has ever heard him use, “don’t talk like that. He’s going to fall for you. How could he not?”
“Is that so?” Draco drawls.
Hermione inhales sharply and Harry turns to look at her. By the time he looks back, Draco is already retreating.