Chapter 6
Once, in Third Year, they laid on the snow of Hogsmeade, one of Draco's hands raised to make the air glow with fireflies. From here, he can see Harry's face; the wonder half-formed around his lips, his green eyes quiet with contentment. He is lying sideways with his red beanie riding up against Draco's ribs, the two of them perpendicular, like a T.
"Draco?"
"Hmm?"
"I think I want to feel this way forever."
It's him Draco has been looking at, all this time, the yellow of fairy lights dancing over his skin and in his eyes, how happy he looked. There's a curl that's escaped from the hem of his hat. Draco takes it and slides his fingers across it.
"Me too," he says. Harry looks up at him and smiles, sweet and crinkling in his eyes.
That is the first time he manages to name it; the overwhelming way he feels at times about him.
That is the first time he thinks to Harry, I love you.
Draco hadn't ever thought he could love a friend. Everyone he has ever known speaks of love only in the romantic sense, and maybe he still doesn't truly know if that's what it isn't, but it doesn't matter. He just loves Harry. That's all he knows.
*
Many things have happened in these last two years, among the most important being Dobby being freed from Lucius (Draco would miss him, but he was happy Harry managed to do what Draco hadn't been able to all his life. Now he works in the Hogwarts kitchens and he and Harry visit him often), and Draco having lost all respect for his father once he learned that he was behind the events of the Chamber of Secrets; that he was the reason Harry nearly died, as well as Ron's sister, Ginevra.
It has caused chaos in his house, has made him rebellious and all the more determined to renounce his father, who is certain that this is all Harry's fault, that he has influenced him wrongly, and so Lucius tried to force him to cut Harry off, warded against all his owls over the summer. But he can't do much about what Draco does when he's at school.
It only makes Draco push back even harder. He is his only heir, and he takes full advantage of that.
Third Year is full of loose Dementors and, as it will turn out, surprises. Harry meets two of his father's best friends, Remus Lupin who comes to teach DADA and Sirius Black who escaped Azkaban after twelve years, having been framed for the Potters' murder. They learn about Peter Pettigrew, disguised for years as Ron's pet, Scabbers, and his part in bringing about Harry's parents' death, and the infamous enmity between the Marauders and Severus.
Over these two years, Harry has grown fairly close to Severus, he and Draco so often meeting him in his Head office for tea and a conversation. Severus used to take an hour of every weekend tutoring Harry in potions and helping him improve his reading and writing speed until he's about caught up to his peers. It's sad to see the people Harry cared for so in conflict, but neither side holds it against him for wanting to bond with the other out of care for him.
So Harry continues to visit Severus in his office for their afternoon tea on the weekends whilst at Hogwarts and now often writes to Sirius and Remus.
Near the end of summer, the Weasleys come to get him for the Quidditch World Cup, piling into the scared and angry Dursleys' living room with special permission to access a muggle fireplace by floo. At the game, Draco is there too with Severus. There, they meet Cedric Diggory, kind and handsome, captain of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team.
The game is cut short due to a horrible raid. They all lose each other in the chaos, diverging ways. Harry finds Ron first, running through the woods, coincidentally coming upon Draco curled protectively around Hermione between a barrel and a tent, the two of them drained of colour from terror.
Then the glowing green skull and serpent in the sky. Morsmordre. The Dark Mark. That's where they learn it's the Death-Eaters, come to kill muggleborns.
Bill tells them that the Death-Eaters that came tonight have, strangely, fled. They manage to make it safely to their tents. But Harry does not stop thinking about it; that something bad is going to happen, that this may be Voldemort's attempt to regain his powers.
*
All through the years, and now running through Fourth Year, Draco has made a habit out of waking Harry in the mornings this way; jumping on his bed, nose to his, his silver eyes crinkling into a bright grin when Harry huffs a small laugh.
If it were anyone else, Harry would have been far too annoyed, since he wasn't a morning person and he remembered one too many mornings of Dudley waking him by stomping on the stairs (he sure woke up, alright, but he always made sure to spit in his food after).
Somehow he doesn't mind when it's Draco.
Dare he say it, some mornings are made brighter by waking up to his smiling face. Some days it's softer. Other days are like this:
"Wake up, sleepyface," Draco says, and messes up Harry's curls even more so until it's all over his face. Harry laughs and shoves at him and Draco tries to get at his face to wipe his hand all down it, Harry gripping his wrist and trying to keep him off.
"Fuck off!"
"Get up and I will, shitehead. Your breath smells like death by the way." So he says, but it never stops him.
Draco is half-way ready (as always the early riser) in his school uniform and open tie. He backs out of the bed, and Harry burrows further into the bed. "Oh no you don't! Come on, get up!" He pulls at the pantleg of Harry's pyjamas, glowering at him. He pulls at him harder. "Get up."
Harry stares at him imploringly, half his face hidden in the pillow.
Draco huffs and rolls his eyes and wrenches the curtains closed, giving Harry five more blessed minutes.
Theo clicks his tongue. "You're going to suffer for that."
Blaise snorts a laugh. "Seriously, why don't you just leave him there? Just try it. Just once."
"He'll die in there without me," Draco's muttering, a scoff, half-distracted. His voice is coming from the direction of the mirror, likely fixing up his hair. If he gets too into it, he might accidentally let Harry have another five minutes. Harry doesn't get why he tries to wake him so early anyway. All he has to do is roll out of bed, brush his teeth, wash his face and put on his uniform, all in the span of ten minutes.
*
Harry begins to notice how tall Draco has grown over the summer. He used to have a bit of baby fat in his cheeks, pudgy fingers that used to wrap around his, and now he's lost it all, his bones sharp, the lines of his face symmetrical, his hands elegant. His eyes are greyer somehow, even though they've always been the same, and his laugh lovelier.
Harry begins to notice, in a way he didn't before (beyond an objective observation), that Draco is pretty.
Though at first, Harry assumes this is still a perfectly objective observation.
"You think so too, right?" Harry asks Hermione and Ron, who is shaking his head and mouthing exaggeratedly, no, but well, he's Ron. He and Draco have come to be civil with each other, but Ron Weasley would never say, Draco Malfoy is pretty, even if it was the only thing that would save his life. Harry looks to Hermione instead. "I mean. He is quite pretty. Objectively, I mean."
"I don't think there's such a thing as 'objective' when it comes to beauty, Harry," Hermione says, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all? I mean, yes, you can think someone good-looking without being attracted to them but... obviously you know..." She trails off there, as if waiting for him to magically understand, which he does not.
"Well," Ron says, looking very put-upon, sighing. "It's not like we didn't see it coming."
"See what coming?"
Hermione and Ron stare at him.
Hermione opens her mouth. Ron clamps a hand over it, and she sputters, trying to tug it off.
"Tell you what, mate," Ron says, struggling to keep Hermione quiet (Harry is so confused), "if you figure it out on your own, I'll pay Malfoy three compliments."
Well, Harry would pay to see that.
Hermione shoves Ron off and whacks him hard on the head with a rolled up parchment. Ron yelps, gripping his head.
"You arsehole!" Hermione yells, wiping furiously at her mouth and glaring at him, "Do you ever wash your hands?"
"What the bloody hell do you mean by that? Of course I do!"
Harry puts his chin to his hand and watches them bicker, with the strange, morbid interest of watching a spider curl its web around prey. It's so obvious. How can they not see obvious it is?
*
Many things were natural between him and Draco last year, easy as breathing, and most of their friends having stopped batting an eye after the initial awkwardness or teasing.
Now there is an underlying layer to them all that makes it feel different than it used to, more intense.
Draco does things like tie his tie for him, and fix up his hair by running gelled hands through the front of it. These are nice things, things Harry nearly likes to get out of bed for. At breakfast, Harry peels his oranges and gives the pieces to Draco because he knows Draco does not like the way the leathery skin feels on his fingers and he likes how clean Harry makes them, and he takes the caramel at the end of his pudding because Draco thinks they make it too bitter (Harry, on the other hand, likes it alright).
Draco does things like give him his back to nap against, sitting on the grass with Blaise, Theo, Daphne, Ron and Hermione (who have all merged together as an occasional group of sorts over the years. Though they were not present, Blaise, Daphne and Theo know all about their wonky adventures by now). Harry will turn around and line up his back with Draco's and put his feet up to the tree and sleep, or simply close his eyes and listen to their low chatter.
Draco does things like bury his grin into Harry's shoulder, and look at him through the length of his jokes to see Harry laughing (now Harry thinks he laughs more because it's Draco, and wordlessly so that he doesn't hear, this is how he begins to tell him: I love you).
Draco does things like lay his head on Harry's lap on the settee whilst they study by the fireplace, Harry's hands in his silken hair, or the other way around.
Draco does things like hop onto Harry's back some nights, when he's had one too many butterbeers. He locks his arms around Harry's neck and puts his cheek to the nape of his neck so that Harry can carry him back to the dorms with his hands hooked under his thighs, amused and a little sick with love as Draco is groaning, muffled, over how much he's drank and gouged on sweets (the perils of his sweet tooth: he never knows when to stop himself).
*
Harry never really gets to collect the bet from Ron. His name comes out of the Goblet of Fire and Ron is so angry at him that he doesn't speak to him for weeks in the hallways, and when they do speak, it's a jab at Harry, and Harry snapping right back, and then missing him badly when he is away from him, wishing he could tell him all the things he's missed (and that, yes, he's realised it now, and he sort of did it on his own).
"I suppose Gryffindors don't read faces very well," Theo says the time Harry tells his housemates about Ron, the four of them gathered in the commons. Draco has his hand on Harry's knee, silently reassuring.
"We saw yours," Blaise says. "We know you didn't do it."
Harry is so grateful that he doesn't know what to do with it. In the face of the entire school shunning him, this means the world.
"I didn't do it," Harry says to Severus too, over their afternoon tea.
"I'm well aware," Severus says, sipping at his tea. "I know you well enough by now to understand you're not so fond of attention."
Harry swallows, glad. If only Ron knew too. "Why doesn't anyone believe me?"
"I can't say," Severus says, "People only believe what they see, perhaps. Paradoxically, any attempts to convince of the contrary only seems guiltier to them. I suppose it doesn't help your case to see one of your best friends so publicly turn his back on you."
Later, after his and Ron's relationship worsens due to Rita Skeeter's inaccurate, hyperbolically attention-seeking articles, Hermione taking him whilst he is under his invisibility cloak to The Three Broomsticks in order to relax, and Hagrid leading him secretively into a meeting with Maxime and the dragonkeepers to see the dragons, a clue for the first task of the Triwizard Tournament, Sirius floo calls Harry and Harry fills him in on everything that has happened.
*
The First Task, what with Harry fighting a dragon and all, leaves Ron so terrified for Harry's life that he realises it's no joke, and who would ever want to put their names in for such a dangerous tournament if they haven't been trained and prepared?
Ron apologises to him and asks how he can make it up to him. Harry forgives him and doesn't really need Ron to make up to him for anything.
That doesn't mean he doesn't have a bit of fun with it.
"You make... Harry happy," Ron says, with much difficulty.
Daphne, Blaise, Theo, Hermione and Harry are looking at him keenly, all of them squeezed together and on the edge of their booths.
The silence stretches on forever after.
"Yeah, that's all I've got."
Draco is staring at him across the table, his mouth curled in bemused what-the-fuckery.
"Ron," Daphne says. "You said three."
"Did you have to bring in everyone for this?" Ron snaps at Harry. In his defense, most of their presence wasn't planned. They all just sort of overheard and went, oooh I've got to see this!
"Keep going," Harry says. Ron heaves a big, annoyed sigh.
"Your...your hair is the same colour as your face."
"Not true," Draco says. He leans back and folds his arms. "And that doesn't sound like a compliment."
"Take it however you want, mate. I don't care."
"Also, the first one doesn't count. It has to be about me."
"Like everything else," Ron mutters under his breath. "I bet you can...stab people with your chin."
"What the fuck does that even... oh forget it!" Draco stands abruptly, hands on the table. "This is just annoying and a waste of my time and I don't know why I'm being brought into the middle of this." Harry flushes at the original conditions of the bet. Nobody knows how it started. They all just think this is Ron 'making it up' to Harry.
"Ron," Harry says, grabbing Draco's shoulder and sitting him back down. "If it's not this, then you have to kiss three of us."
Ron recoils. "I don't want to kiss any of you."
"Oh." Harry raises his brow, glancing quickly in Hermione's direction. "Any of us?"
Ron looks at him, confused.
"You know I'm gorgeous," Blaise pipes up.
Ron narrows his eyes. "Besides the point."
"Ohohoho," Daphne says, her hand under his chin.
"Three proper compliments. And then we'll let you go," Hermione insists, the corner of her mouth pursed into a repressed smile.
It goes on so long that Ron eventually has to break.
"Alright! Fine! Good Merlin. Fine!" He is flushed and flustered by now, running a hand through his hair, puffing out a hard breath. He finally looks at Draco after a long time. "Look. That first one... that was about you. You've always made Harry happy, and I get why he... you know, whatever... not only because of how he is when he is with you, but because of how you are with him. And... and I am glad that you're better than your dad."
The curl on Draco's mouth is falling away slowly, surprise and something else.
"Like, I bet that's been causing you shite at home, and I'm glad you don't let it stop you from growing. And... and I don't think I even know anymore why I don't like you."
The table is hushed.
"And...I — oh fuck it — you've got nice hair."
The table breaks into roars of applause. Harry is grinning. Draco is flushed so pink he can hardly look Ron in the eye anymore.
"You did it!" Theo says, shaking Ron's shoulder.
It's bizarre how, after years and years, this would be the start of them growing on each other. Neither of them will know it, of course, and neither of them will ever say it either, but Harry will notice.
Right now, before Ron gets up, red to his ears and all but ready to flee, Draco says, "Weasley."
Ron stops, surprisingly, despite being jumpy and like he already has one foot out the door.
"I suppose I don't know anymore why I don't like you either."
*
"Viktor Krum's quite handsome, isn't he?" Draco says offhandedly, a quick glance at Harry as he's digging through his trunk for one of his bazillion night pyjamas.
Harry remembers thinking that too, when he saw Viktor. Now he can't remember why he thought so.
"He's okay," Harry says, not looking up from his parchment that he's writing on. He is pressing his quill too hard. Draco is changing into his pyjamas.
But Harry has spent weeks being terrified that Draco will find out how he feels, that he will ruin something between them. Even if Draco feels the same, what if it all goes wrong?
He forces himself to relax, worried his reaction is obvious. He says, watching Draco pull his socks on, "I think, um. I think Cedric's more my type, you know?" Well, it's not a lie, but he's more his type in a secondary way. Someone else is his first.
"Oh," Draco says, and the silence is long. He clears his throat.
"He's really good-looking."
"Hmm. He's okay."
*
"Nobody's asking me to the Yule Ball," Draco announces one day in the common room, draping himself dramatically across the settee with his arm across his eyes.
Theo, Blaise and Daphne stare at him.
"Why aren't you doing the asking?" Theo says, bemused.
Draco removes his arm from his face, throwing his hands up wide. "I thought I wouldn't have to! I'm charming, I'm gorgeous, I'm a bloody joy! People should be swarming around me of their own accord!"
Daphne's chewing on her lip, thoughtful.
"Okay," she says. "Draco. I have one thing, and only one thing to ask you, and if the answer is yes, then you might want to rethink your image of yourself because you might be less attractive than you think."
Draco huffs, folding his arms. "Impossible. But go on."
"Has anyone asked Harry yet?"
Nobody has asked Harry yet either. It was strange and curious, really, both their predicaments. Harry is far too shy and awkward to do the asking. He keeps complaining about how all the girls travel in packs and the boys don't even look his way, which is not really true. Draco has seen more than one of them look Harry's way and linger. But then they see Draco's face and their eyes just sort of dart away quickly.
It's... it's possible his face might have been doing something to scare them off.
Harry is a handsome boy. He is the handsomest boy Draco may have ever seen.
And yet, nobody's asking him either.
"No," Draco says, squinting. "What does that have to do with me not finding a date?"
Blaise swallows, his face doing something very weird. His lips are twitching and he looks like he's trying not to shite his pants.
"Well, your attractiveness is intact then," Theo says, and that's all he says, and he looks blandly innocent.
"How are they so stupid?" Daphne mutters under her breath, which is insanely rude coming from her. She's supposed to be the sweetest of them all. Draco doesn't even understand what she means by that.
"I don't understand," Draco says as much, narrowing his eyes.
"Good day," Theo says, grabbing Blaise, who really looks about this close to shitting his pants, and dragging him out of the room. Daphne follows after them.
"What?" Draco calls after them as they're rushing out the door. "What! For the love of—can somebody fill me the fuck in—"
The door slams shut.
Draco puffs a hard breath, frustrated and annoyed.
About a minute later, there's a ruckus outside, "What are you all — let go of me!" the door bursts open, Blaise throws a very ruffled up Harry inside, then shuts and bolts the door from the outside.
"Is it just me or is everybody being really weird right now?" Draco whispers to Harry, his brows furrowed, wide-eyed.
Harry gestures wildly in the general direction of their idiot friends, as if to say, what do you think, genius?
"This is just ridiculous at this point!! THE WHOLE SCHOOL KNOWS BY NOW EXCEPT YOU TWO!"
"What's gotten into her?" Harry whispers. Daphne's never acted so crazy before.
*
"Draco?"
"Hmm?"
Harry shifts his head against Draco's shoulder, who is holding a book high and reading, his back against the headboard of the bed they still share most nights. The door's still locked and Harry is sure they've all forgotten them in there, and neither of them know what this was even about.
"What if I die alone?"
"You're fourteen," Draco says dryly, not budging his gaze from his book, "Just because you can't get a date to the Yule Ball doesn't mean you'll die alone."
"But what if I die alone?"
Draco sighs and puts his book down.
"You're not going to die alone. You'll have a spouse and a Quidditch team of kids and maybe a crup or whatever, and..." He trails off.
"And?"
"And you'll always have me. As long as I'm here, you'll never die alone."
Harry has always imagined Draco in his life whenever he thought of the future. The possibility of it not being so has never even occurred until now, and still, what a strange thought. He can hardly even imagine it.
He's only fourteen but he sort of thinks maybe he might like to have Draco and a Quidditch team of kids and a crup. But it's too early to say, obviously, and all he knows is that he wants Draco to be there, always, even if he will never be in love with Harry right back. They don't have to be lovers to be together forever, do they? They could be best friends that live together and fall asleep in the same bed for the rest of their lives.
(Maybe that's just stupid, wishful thinking, and someday Draco will find someone else he wants to live together with and fall asleep in the same bed with for the rest of his life, have a Quidditch team of kids and a crup with. But it doesn't hurt to dream right now.)
"Maybe we could have our own place," Harry says, suddenly, Draco's arm loose and casual across his collarbones, warm and solid; a stylishly squared sleeve, the coolness of a silver watch, the subtle and dizzying scent of his cologne. He's so pretty, always cleans up nicely, compared to the mess that's Harry. Harry doesn't know how nobody could ask Draco to the Yule Ball either. "When we graduate, we could have our own place."
"Hmm." Harry can hear small smile in his little hum. "Where would it be?"
"I dunno. Some quaint little village. Something like Godric's Hollow, maybe, where my mum and dad used to be. But I don't know if you'll like that."
"I'll like anywhere with you."
Harry smiles slightly, tilts his head back over his shoulder to look at him. "But I'm imagining something modest-sized, and you've lived in a Manor all your life."
"Well, I won't be living in one all my life, since Father always seems a hair away from disowning me."
"You're his only heir, so there's that."
"Hmm. Somewhere pretty, with a lot of greenery."
"Somewhere open, so we can see the sun rise and set."
"Yellow string lights. Like one of those fairytale cottages from my storybooks when I was a child. I always thought I'd like to live in one of those."
"Maybe stone walls."
"Stone walls, yes. And you and I."
Draco has leaned his head against the side of Harry's temple, somewhere along the way. Harry pretends not to notice, as if it's all still normal and nothing.
It felt that way, once. It feels special now. Draco has never been this way with anyone else.
Neither has Harry, for that matter.
"Harry?"
"Yeah?"
"Maybe you should go to the Yule Ball with me." Draco's voice is very quiet, a near whisper, as if it's just for the two of them. "Since we're such unattractive trolls and all."
Harry laughs, and tries not to feel so sad that that's the only reason Draco might want to go with him. "Come on, you know you're not an unattractive troll."
"My self-image has been severely shaken this day."
"You know what you look like. And I'm probably the beast between the two of us."
"You're the most beautiful person I've ever met."
Harry looks up at him, and they are so close he can put his forehead wholly to his, and kiss him if he tried. Draco's looking back at him quietly, and this feels like something irrevocable, the point of no return, and the way Draco is looking at him feels like Harry really can kiss him now and Draco wouldn't move away from him the way he has been fearing he would, mistaking it all for something it wasn't and breaking them apart.
But what about later. What about all the stories he's heard of people who grew up together and fell in love and then hated each other because things didn't work out?
"I'm," Harry says, and now he is; pressing all of his forehead to Draco's, closing his eyes, "I'm afraid of ruining what we have." Still, here he is, just a breath away from ruining everything.
"I don't think it will. I think I'll love you for a long time."
He says it so easily. Harry can believe that; that it will be the easiest thing to love him for a long time too.
"Promise me we'll never hate each other? No matter what?"
"I promise."
It's strange, how the calm comes over him so suddenly after that; how his heart soothes to a slow beat and he doesn't feel the sweaty and nervous fluttering of a first kiss the way he'd so often heard. Draco frames his cheek entirely with one hand, as if he is holding something precious, and he leans down and kisses him, soft and chaste, and it feels like it has always been meant to come to this. It feels like he has always known — not love at first sight, something different. Like someday. You'll be the one I love.
He must have felt this for ages, not remembered how it even began, so blurred between friendship and romance. He has only come aware of it now.
Draco is pink across the cheeks after, and his hand is a bit sweaty and trembling when Harry takes it in his own, entangling their fingers together. He's trying to hide it away, looking down, biting his lips. He breathes, something half-way through a laugh, a grin, something almost shy and overwhelmed. Harry keeps on looking at him, smiling, unseen until Draco lifts his head, meets his eyes, his smile quirking the rest of the way.
*
It turns out the reason why nobody is asking Harry and Draco to go to the Yule Ball is that everyone's already assumed they're going with each other.