A Wet Saturday Afternoon

It was raining. It had begun as a soft patter at the windows of the castle, vastly ignored, and grew into an insistent downpour, startling students and sweeping them off the grounds into the castle. The sky turned a light gray, and the was sun a mere muffled gold behind the rain.

Harry had watched everyone come through the portrait hole, drenched and drowned. Those who were still dry clustered together, carefully avoiding the cold water their friends had tracked in.

Ron and Hermione fought their way over to him and thankfully stood in front of the fire, letting the heat dry their clothes. They greeted him enthusiastically and began to talk.

It was a ramble of things- homework that needed to be done, the rotten weather- a bicker here and indignant protests there. Harry watched them and waited for them to exhaust themselves and sit. Finally, in a cloud of steam from their newly-dried clothes, they plopped down on the couch next to him.

And that was the cue.

He politely, as always, excused himself, saying he felt tired, needed to work, had to leave, allowing himself to escape to the stairwell and into the deserted dormitory, where the silence enveloped him like an old friend.

He sighed wearily and rubbed his temple absently, as he laid down on his bed, trying to wish away the unfounded restlessness that was burning him from within.

"Bloody stupid he is, always going off to be alone, why the hell does he do that?"

"Oh Ron, Harry is just going through some tough times right now, we have to understand he needs his privacy."

"Privacy, he never wanted privacy before, he always wanted to be with us. He hasn't even talked to me in weeks."

"Nonsense Ron, of course he-"

"He hasn't. He's so different now. He won't look anyone in the eye anymore."

"Yes, well, it'll all pass, you'll see."

Harry walked along the corridor away from Gryffindor tower. The torches on the walls weren't lit, despite the darkened skies, and through the shifting fabric of his invisibility cloak, the hallways appeared to be in twilight, with deep shadows chasing him at every corner.

Their voices rang through his head, distant and muffled as though they came from behind a thick wall.

He needs his privacy.

Harry reached the main staircase and trotted down, avoiding a small group of damp third years. He pulled the cloak tighter.

He won't look anyone in the eye anymore.

Harry reached the oak front doors, and squeezed himself through, careful not to let the cloak snag on a stray splinter.

He never wanted privacy.

He felt the light pressure of each raindrop hitting the cloak, and felt a sense of security, that these faint fingertips couldn't breach his cloak, couldn't seep into his skin. He followed the already muddy path to the small dock at the lake, his favorite spot to watch the summer rains.

He's going through some tough times right now.

Harry stopped short of the dock, shielded by a curtain of low sweeping branches, and watched Malfoy stand on the dock watching the rain.

It'll pass.

Malfoy's pale hair was plastered to his head, and his robe was hanging darker on him, pulling him down toward the ground, causing that sag of his shoulders, and dropping of his head.

It'll pass.

Malfoy reached his hands up and shrugged off his sodden robe, letting it fall to the dock and land there in a dark lump. His shirt was clinging wetly to his back, pressing against his shoulder blades and hugging his hips. His jeans hung low on him from the weight of the water. Malfoy swayed a moment more on the dock's edge, and then, with the sweep of the rain, he dropped into the lake.

A saner and wiser person, a Hufflepuff perhaps, would have rushed down the dock straight to the edge, leant carefully over, and shouted their help.

So different now.

Harry slowly walked through the branches and down the slight hill, onto the dock. His invisibility cloak clung to his clothes and skin as he walked down the length of the wood, thinking vaguely of his potions exam tomorrow, what pudding he might have for dinner, and stealing Malfoy's robe, still laying limply in a puddle at the edge.

He crossed his legs under him, and with vacant care, settled himself at the dock's end.

So different.

A pale head was bobbing under the surface, then came up for air, a white blur on the vast rain-battered lake. Malfoy treaded water for a long time, his eyes closed and face tilted upwards to the sky, with blonde eyelashes that clung together and brushed the top of his cheekbone. Harry contented himself to sit there, dry under his cloak, and watch Malfoy swim. It really was a matter of willpower, he told himself, that his was so weak, and his body so tired, that if he could have, he would certainly have gotten up and gone straight back into the castle.

But, it turned out he was feeling pretty lazy on that wet Saturday afternoon.

After a time, long or short Harry couldn't tell, Malfoy opened his eyes to stare at the flat gray of the sky. His eyes roamed across the deserted, sodden grounds, flying over Harry's cloaked body and following the lake's far shore till he finally closed his eyes briefly and swam a stroke to the dock's edge.

Harry didn't move from his corner as he watched Malfoy hoist himself out of the water. Malfoy's arm was a hair's breadth away from his knee, and his eyes gazed at the muscles, bulging themselves up as the boy slipped gracefully onto the wood. Malfoy's clothes were clinging to his frame, and Harry absently appreciated the fact that those wet jeans would chafe. If Harry felt any surprise when Malfoy, instead of walking back to the school, sat with his legs crossed in the opposite corner of the dock, mirroring Harry's stance, then his surprise was faint.

It felt natural, and it felt like a good way to spend his empty time, to sit with Malfoy at the end of this small dock, on the edge of the huge swollen lake, knees almost touching, one wet, one dry, both gazing at the gray blurriness before them.

So it also felt natural, that when Malfoy began to shiver from the increasingly colder rain, crossing his arms tightly over his chest, that Harry pick up his heavy robe from behind them, and slip it over Malfoy's back.

It didn't occur to Harry that the robe was already soaked and that it wouldn't do much to help, and it didn't occur to Harry that he had been an invisible pair of arms that had draped the robe around Malfoy's slim shoulders. And it didn't occur to Harry, that that action, that gesture, might somehow be wrong and a breaking of the rules, what rules? because the rules seem to have been washed away with the rest of the Hogwarts grounds.

It didn't occur to Harry that he had changed anything.

So different now.

A moment passed, and then Malfoy was tightly gripping the edges of the cloak, hunching his shoulders, and letting his bangs fall forward to drip with the rest of the rain into Malfoy's lap. Harry watched those tendrils of hair for a moment, thinking that the opaque gray of the sky made Malfoy's hair, not shine silver with the sun, or shimmer with the light, but merely made him seem so much more human, and vulnerable. It wasn't impossibly soft silver-blond hair that defied all rules of natural hair genetics, it was merely dripping wavy strands, clinging to his head, becoming one of the most breath stealing moments of Harry's life, right up there with his discovery of harmones and his memory of the Cruciatus curse.

Pain was beauty.

Never wanted.

Harry watched the lake swell with the slipping of the rain, watched the shores recede, little by little as he sat with their knees almost touching - were now touching, and he felt his skin stretch and slide on his nerves, felt a tight ball in his chest squeeze so hard he had to gasp. A small intake of breath was all it was, but Malfoy sitting next to him jumped as though it were a crack of a whip, and then Malfoy hurriedly clenched his knees with his faintly shaking hands. But of course Malfoy's left hand instead grabbed his knee, and closed tightly. Harry didn't look into Malfoy's face, he could only stare at the pale hand that clenched his knee so hard, that the knuckles turned white, a faint mark against the skin.

Harry found he was breathing hard, and couldn't understand why, his helpless confusion grew with Malfoy's sucking in great gulps of air too, the wet shirt pressing against his chest as it rose rapidly.

A faint hum began behind his eyes, and maybe that was why Harry's vision suddenly became clouded, and Malfoy's body came into sharp focus next to his. He was aware of every clinging wrinkle of those drenched clothes, of the hair that was plastered on his head and the way it separated into little strands that curled at the nape of his neck.

Harry couldn't understand it and everything was so wet, so he clenched his eyes shut and ground his teeth and whipped his head around to face the lake once more, because all he knew was that those pale fingers were pressing through his cloak and clothes and somehow were burning like brands into his skin. And that shouldn't have been normal, natural, but it was, and he felt so feverish.

He's so different now.

He should have been thinking what Ron and Hermione would say if they saw him sitting in the rain with Malfoy, he should have been thinking of a near-brilliant insult about Malfoy's inbred family, he should have thrown off that hand and whipped out his wand and run away shrieking, but all he could think about was if Malfoy's skin was burning too, and how repulsed the boy would be once Harry threw off his cloak.

But he couldn't bear not to look, because he was sure that Malfoy's face held the answers to sudden questions that burned in his mind.

So he turned his head to look at Malfoy and opened his eyes and discovered that Malfoy's face did hold all the answers, in the soft curve of his jaw and the sudden edge of his cheekbones and the pale bend of his lips, and the grey-so-much-brighter-than-the-sky, eyes that stared at him with a powerless hunger.

He won't look anyone in the eye anymore.

Harry should have been wondering how Malfoy knew where his eyes were, through the invisible fabric still covering him, but he wasn't. Till Malfoy's hand left his knee, leaving a cold, suddenly windy absence, and began to tug at the fabric of the cloak. And then suddenly Harry was wondering and worrying yes, how could Malfoy look in his eyes, and yes, why was he pulling the cloak, and no, he was the one going to run away shrieking.

But suddenly the cloak slipped so easily off his face and chest as if it never wanted to be there and was glad to escape and then Harry wanted to escape because Malfoy was still looking at him and his expression hadn't changed when he saw the hair, scar, glasses, except he looked hungrier and Harry was startled, breathless, and desperately tried to pull away from that knowing stare.

But Malfoy's hands were circling his wrists and holding him firm, but Harry couldn't look at Malfoy anymore, because that hum in the back of his head suddenly became loud and painful. So Harry wrenched his eyes away and stared determinedly into his lap, feeling his hair being plastered to his head by the rain, and his shirt becoming cold and gripping.

He didn't want to think at all because they hadn't spoken a word but still one of Malfoy's hands had let go of his wrist and he was sagging into a half-anxious defeat, and felt that hand push his chin insistently up. He couldn't think because he had hated Malfoy, and scorned him, and couldn't think of an answer to why he had watched him and touched him and wanted to-

Malfoy's face had been close to begin with, but was moving in with an alarming speed and Harry could feel his eyes widen, and his rain-streaked glasses being plucked off and hysterically tried to imagine how he had wound up in this situation. And now was the time to panic because Malfoy's eyes were an inch away and all he could see was gray and all he could feel was warm, no-hot disturbingly hot breath and soft lips that were touching moving, softly gently, no, that won't do, harder, deeper, silk lips and a velvet tongue and Harry's hands were suddenly gripping those wet shoulders, tangling in that wet hair, and how could it have come to this.

He felt when his brain shut down, and he felt when his legs turned to jelly, but he had been smart he knew to have sat down a long time ago so he wouldn't collapse bonelessly, but he did anyway, into Malfoy's wet cold, shivering warm so warm embrace. Two pairs of hands were flying over wet fabric, tracing on trembling skin under shirts, gripping arms and hair and hips.

And when Harry's breath could no longer hold and he drew back, but only an inch, so he could suck in that wet, cool air, he decided then and there that he never wanted those clouds to clear, never wanted the rain to end, because sitting on this drowning dock, tangled in Malfoy's embrace, and cool wet lips on his throat, had to be a good way to spend his day.

Always going off to be alone.

Nonsense. Never. No longer.

He pressed his lips urgently to Malfoy's again and proved everyone wrong, and he felt frantic hands grab at his shirt and gather the fabric together and pull him closer still.

"Malfoy," he breathed, hypnotized by gray clouds and gray heavens.

"Potter you idiot," he whispers hoarsely back, hands clenching tighter. "Potter, didn't anyone ever tell you, a wet invisibility cloak is as good as a glass box," He tells Harry in a low voice right before he kisses his jaw his throat his shoulder.

Harry swallowed and closed his eyes, "I've been watching you for a long time," he manages, and decides to kiss the tender spot behind Malfoy's ear because he hasn't done so yet and that must be some kind of dreadful tragedy.

"I've been looking too," murmurs a voice against his lips. Harry swiftly kicks a leg out to wrap around Malfoy's waist and watches as his sodden cloak slips from the kick into the water, sinking into the lake like a silvery puddle, but Harry doesn't mind, he doesn't really need it anymore he decides as he presses urgent wet kisses to a pale wet collarbone.

The gray sky thickens and the rain keeps everyone at bay, captives of the castle. But two boys, soaked to the bone and not feeling a drop, claim the grounds as their own on a wet Saturday afternoon.