Together
“Dear Merlin, Potter, is there no chair worthy of your arse?”
True to his word, Malfoy had returned that comfy purple chair to the Eighth Year common room. Harry viewed it as a challenge, and every night since, he had brought down a slightly more extravagant, more popular chair from the common room. There had been a couple of close calls and more than a couple rumours going around the Eighth Years about why the common room furniture kept getting rearranged. It wasn’t Harry’s fault that Malfoy didn’t know where the chairs went, was it?
His most recent loot was a step above. The leather sofa was large enough to fit four people comfortably, and five if they squeezed. It was the kind of sofa that practically swallowed its occupants, much too easy to sink into and fall asleep on. If there were Eighth Years in the common room, it was practically guaranteed to be in use. Harry would feel bad about the well-aimed stinging hexes that had convinced Justin Finch-Fletchley to vacate the couch, but the look on Malfoy’s face convinced him otherwise.
“The last one was squishy, but in a weird way,” Harry answered. He stretched out on the sofa, folding his hands behind his head. “This one might be the one.”
Malfoy rolled his eyes. “You say that every time.”
To be fair, Harry did say that every time, but this sofa had to be “the one” because the common room had run out of new furniture to steal. Each night, he’d bickered with Malfoy over this, that, or the other reason why the previous night’s chair was insufficient for music-listening. It was nice, though-- their insults had lost any real fire behind them, now meant to amuse, not upset. The banter was fun, an easy routine to fall back into.
Harry knew that if he went back to one of the other chairs that he’d so adamantly insisted against ever using again, he’d never hear the end of it from Malfoy. So this sofa was it: the end of the line.
“Afraid you won’t be able to shrink this one enough to bring it back to the common room?” Harry goaded. In all honesty, he had barely been able to do so himself. His magic had been getting increasingly unreliable. One moment, a simple Aguamenti to fill his cup at dinner was flooding the entire table, and the next, he could barely cast an Accio to summon his quill.
“I’m not sure how you were able to shrink it, Potter, what with your accidental magic acting up so much,” Malfoy shot back, then pulled his head back as he saw Harry’s dumbfounded stare. “What?”
“I-- you-- you know about my magic?”
Malfoy was confused. “Was I not supposed to?”
“No one knows about it. Well-- Ron and Hermione did, but I’ve even managed to convince them that it’s under control now.”
Malfoy snorted. “I’m not sure how. Did Granger really not notice when you turned her hair pink during Potions yesterday?”
“You saw that? I fixed it right away!”
“Yes, and even if I hadn’t, you walk in here every night with it swirling around wildly as if it couldn’t give a single fuck about what you want it to do!”
Harry stopped, caught off guard. “You can feel it?”
“You can’t?” When Harry shook his head, Malfoy frowned a bit. “I suppose that makes sense. I would have expected someone else to say something if we could all feel it.” He paused, looking like he was searching for the right words to explain it. “It’s… very alive. Like a storm, almost. It fills the room and has this presence to it--it’s hard to describe. It mirrors your emotions, I think, because sometimes it feels almost happy, or angry, or sad.” He abruptly remembered himself, leveling a smirk at Harry. “Or stupid.”
“Stupid isn’t an emotion,” Harry said, because he wasn’t sure what else to say.
“Yet you’ve somehow made it one.”
Harry opened his mouth, then closed it, feeling stupid. Then he was annoyed with himself for proving Malfoy’s point. He gave up, focusing on the ceiling.
“I thought you knew that I knew,” Malfoy said, voice softer.
“I didn’t.” Harry paused. “So then… the whole time, you knew? About your music? And how it does the-- the thing to my magic?” Merlin, he wished he were better at articulating what he wanted to say, but Malfoy nodded, as if he understood perfectly.
“Yes.”
Something in Harry relaxed. It was somehow better that Malfoy was at least aware Harry was using him to tame his magic. That’s not the only reason you come down to listen, a very helpful voice piped up in the back of his head.
You’re right, he told it. It keeps the nightmares away, too.
And? It asked. He ignored it, just like how he’d been ignoring all the little voices that pointed out things like how long Malfoy’s eyelashes were or how sharp his jawline was.
“Speaking of,” Malfoy said, and Harry jolted back to the conversation, “Your magic is nearly going crazy, so I’m going to start playing, because I’m afraid that if I don’t, you’ll do something idiotic like vanish the piano before I can.”
There was more to say, Harry was sure, but if Malfoy was willing to leave it unsaid, so was he. So Harry nodded, and Malfoy turned to the piano to play.
--
The next night, Draco sat on the piano bench, waiting for Potter. Very patiently, he might add. Potter was as unpredictable as his magic, and that unpredictability extended to what time he showed up each night. Draco wasn’t usually bothered much, but another Tempus charm told him Potter was much later than usual.
He stood-- whether to go find Potter or just go to bed, he didn’t know. He stalked towards the door, pulling it open only to reveal Potter. An out-of-breath, flushed Potter that wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that he’d run all the way down there. His magic pulsed around him like a racing heartbeat. He looked as surprised as Draco was, taking a step back.
“Malfoy,” he panted. “Sorry, it took forever to get down here. Justin fell asleep on the sofa again and I had to--” Potter cut himself off, looking guilty. “Well. Anyways.”
Draco raised an eyebrow. “The sofa, again?”
“I told you it was the one.”
“I had exactly zero reasons to believe you. You had chair commitment issues. Severe ones.”
Potter rolled his eyes. “Anyways, yeah. Sorry I’m late.”
“It’s not a date, Potter,” Draco said, turning and walking back towards the piano bench. “Don’t get your robes in a twist.”
Potter let that hang there for a second, then followed him into the room, magic churning. “You know, I’ve been thinking,” he started.
“Don’t hurt yourself,” Draco said.
“I’ve been thinking,” Potter repeated, ignoring him, “Why do you come all the way down here to play?”
Draco felt like it was a trick question. “Because it’s where the piano is?”
Potter snorted. “No, it’s not.”
Was he missing something? Draco glanced at the piano, making sure it was still there. “Yes, it is.”
“Oh,” Potter said, eyes widening. “I mean, yes, there’s obviously a piano down here. But what I meant was-- it’s not the only piano. Why don’t you play at one of the pianos closer to the Eighth Year dorms? Why come all the way to the dungeons?”
The look on Draco’s face must have conveyed that he had absolutely no idea that there were other pianos in Hogwarts, because Potter laughed. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Calling me oblivious all the time when you think there’s only one piano in this entire castle, and that they decided to put it in the dungeons?”
It was hard to not smile when Potter had that crooked grin on his face. “Why would you not bring up these hypothetical pianos before now? We’ve been coming down here for weeks!”
“They’re not hypothetical! Just because you haven’t seen them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. And, well-- what if you had a reason for coming all the way down here? I didn’t want to put you out even more than I already was…” Potter trailed off, and Draco hated how unsure he looked.
“Potter, I actually enjoy playing the piano, despite whatever nonsense you’re telling yourself up there,” he waved in the general direction of Potter’s forehead. “However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that climbing dozens of flights of stairs every night is my favorite activity.”
“It’s maybe five flights of stairs, you dramatic prat.”
“And you’re the one that started this whole conversation by complaining about how far away this room is from the common room.”
Potter narrowed his eyes. “Point.”
“If you’re so knowledgeable about the locations of all these other pianos, why don’t you show me them?”
“I will. All you had to do was ask,” Potter said, then hesitated. “But maybe not tonight?”
Draco nearly asked why, but then another wave of Potter’s magic swept over him. “Not tonight,” he agreed, sitting at the piano bench.
“Tomorrow?” Potter asked. “We could walk down together.” He was digging the shrunken sofa out of his pocket. He set it on the ground and enlarged it, his magic cooperating for once. After collapsing onto it, he looked over at Draco.
Together, together, together bounced around in Draco’s mind. Yes, he supposed he was amenable to that. If Potter was insisting.
“Where should we meet? I don’t usually go to my room before coming down to play,” Draco said.
“I’ll find you.”