Love At First Sight

Love At First Sight.

It was a mystery to the wizarding world, and surprisingly enough, the wizarding world did not like mysteries. It was a world where magic reigned, yes, but magic did not run free. It was not allowed to. Wizards and witches focused it through their wands or bound it with spells and incantations, circumscribing its purpose and intensity in a way that approached Muggle science. Of course, if prodded, any wizard worth their wand would have protested indignantly that they were not like the Muggles who sought to tear the universe down around their ears in order to find out their place amongst it. Their researches were sensible, understandable, constrained in comparison. And if pressed, they would have admitted that they did not like mysteries.

One such inexplicable mystery was the relationship of Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. All concerned - including themselves - admitted freely that they had hated each other at school, were sworn enemies (or would have been, Harry pointed out, if Harry hadn't had bigger things to worry about at the time.) Draco hated Harry, that much was certain, and Harry said time and time again that Draco was perhaps his biggest annoyance at school, bigger than Snape, because at least he knew to trust Snape, and Draco was just a nasty little shit at the time. Which everyone also agreed on, except Draco, but that was somewhat expected.

Now, however, it seemed hatred was not an option, at least not a preferred one. There were tales of the occasional fight or row, but nothing concrete. House elves could be bribed for information and their few human staff were steadfastly loyal, to say nothing of their very small group of close friends. (The joke ran in fashionable political circles that the household gave Hufflepuffs a place to go after they finished school.) The relationship drove both the political gossips and the celebrity reporters wild; not only could they divine nothing about its present, or predict any possible future, but its past was a mystery to them as well.

As far as anyone could discern, they were still enemies when the War ended. Draco had in the end been a double agent during the last few months, although he had done little to stop actual atrocities being committed by the Death Eaters. What he had done - the only thing he had done, some said after the war - was calmly and coherently turn state's witness for the subsequent war crimes trials. Thanks to his testimony, many leading Death Eaters were sent to Azkaban, and worse. Of course, Draco's name was never actually mentioned as the witness, nor was he ever asked to sit in the actual court, because of concerns over his own safety.

There was always the chance that someone would work out, from the evidence given, the clearances required to know such things - and Draco's life would be in danger. Harry had defeated the Dark Lord. Harry was their best Auror. It had to be Harry. Everyone was in agreement at this - except for Harry, and that was understandable. So Draco Malfoy had moved into Number 12, Grimmauld Place, which was Harry's home now, and no-one was the wiser. As far as the press or the civilian public was concerned, Draco Malfoy was simply one of many Death Eaters who had vanished by the end of the war. The Ministry spread information around that he had fled under a false identity to a country that harboured Death Eaters, such as Italy, most of North Africa, or Russia.

Five months later, Harry was giving a rather terse interview to a reporter from the Daily Prophet with the express purpose of answering all her questions very curtly and getting her out of the house as quickly as possible. He had become notorious when it came to guarding his privacy. Most interviews were refused point blank; this one had seemingly only been granted to dispel rumours that had grown up post-War about Harry Potter, The Man Who Was Apparently A Grumpy And Paranoid Bastard now. Just when the interview was finally closing up (and Harry had confirmed the rumours more then dispelled him) a figure clad in a deep green, silken robe wandered into the room and sat down on Harry's lap.

The journalist was quite flustered. Harry seemed torn between amusement and a long-standing, long-suffering quality, gently lifting Draco Malfoy from his lap and placing him back on the floor. "Excuse him," Harry murmured, as Draco stood by the chair, one hand sinking into Harry's hair, fingers curling around the black strands. "He doesn't get out much."

Draco pulled tightly on the hair, drawing Harry's head up sharply, and smiled thinly at the journalist. "And who's fault is that?"

"Yours," Harry deadpanned, reaching up to Draco's wrist and firmly wrapping his fingers around it, squeezing until his own fingers were white against Draco's skin and Draco let go of his hair.

"Exactly...what is your relationship?" the journalist asked, her quill hovering at her pad, wet with ink.

"Well," Draco began, but Harry hushed him with a finger.

"We're lovers," Harry explained matter of factly, trying not to smirk after the journalist dropped her quill. "Draco's my boyfriend, really." He picked up the mugs of tea that he and the journalist had finished during the course of the interview and set them in the sink of the house's kitchen, returning to usher the blinking woman towards the door. "Thanks for your time. Much appreciated."

It was front page news the following morning and the world went mad.

One of the first things every single journalist worth their copy did was try to find out how it began. No-one would tell them, at least no-one who knew. Hermione Granger threatened to put anyone who asked her again in a body bind and leave them there for days; she had work, now, as a wizarding barrister, and did not wish to be disturbed. Ronald Weasley, former war strategist with a thoroughly disreputable reputation for wine, women and wassail (and the occasional man, according to the gossip) punched the lights out of the first journalist who pestered him that night in the Leaky Cauldron.

They would talk, admittedly, the both of them, if pressed, but only about certain things. Ramble on long and hard about anything to do with school, before the War. They would paint Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy as distinct opposites, with no common ground and no reason for any form of communication beyond name-calling and the occasional punch-up. And so the newshounds and the gossips turned to more unreliable sources for their stories. Hogwarts had many students, after all, and even if they were not known for being close to Harry and Draco at the time, the amount of former best friends they both had blossomed overnight. Blaise Zabini. Justin Finch-Fletchley. Colin Creevey. All of them came forward, and many others who'd served with them during the War, or in the rebuilding and aftermath. People who'd glimpsed them across the street had revelations to offer about their relationship, not to mention the stories their neighbours told.

Neither Harry nor Draco would confirm or deny what had been said, and met all inquiries with a level, cold gaze and a refusal to answer. They, and their friends, would talk about the past as much as certain others would ramble on about a present they claimed to have seen, and in due course, every single person who could be interviewed seemingly was, and every moment of their childhood and adolescence was sprawled out on ink and paper for the pleasure of the paying public. Anyone who was anyone (and many who were not) took turns at mining their public thoughts, their reported conversations and known actions for any hint of subtext, constructing theory after theory of why and how and who and where this mystery had come about. It became the illicit relationship that everyone spoke of at all the right social occasions and dinner parties.

Always, however, the newshounds remained intent on getting what they could from the source of the matter, or in this case, sources. Within a week of the initial revelation they were camped outside Harry and Draco's small London townhouse, recording charms and cameras fixed on the whitewashed exterior, nestled amongst mostly-dying plants. Over the next few months, as nothing much happened and the story continued to frustrate them, one journalist decided to branch out on his own, as it were. When Harry Potter found him, climbing over their garden wall at the back, he translocated the journalist a good sixty-five miles away south-east to Dover. When asked why, Harry said that he'd liked the cliffs, and thought the journalist might appreciate the view. A few days later and very publicly, Draco Malfoy was heard to say that he would have translocated the journalist over the cliffs.

The following morning, the crowd outside their house had thinned noticeably.

Six months of query and stonewalling and search and the journalists largely gave up hope of ever finding any truth to the matter, and so it fell into the hands of the experts. Biographers, psychologists and sociologists all gave their esteemed opinions, in tomes which contained more footnotes than was previously thought possible, and Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy went about their days, seemingly uncaring, or else oblivious. It still remained a good news story, and of certain academic interest, guaranteed to raise readership every now and then when there was something that could be added to the pile of speculation: rumours of a fight, an entanglement, an affair. Draco taking the rubbish out in a waistcoat, what could it ever mean? There was always something further that could be explored, and typically was.

But after all the suppositions and assessments and sheer innuendo, one theory became more widespread, more popular than the others. Most of the articles and weighty academic discourses boiled down to a similar conclusion in the end. The wizarding world did not like mysteries after all, and this theory was a popular belief that fit some of the available facts and what did not fit, could be excused or twisted until it did.

In the end the world solved its mystery, and concluded that when it came to Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy it simply must have been love, at first sight.