Beautiful World

Beautiful World

Chapter Six

His body aching from a long day of digging, Draco fell into bed after his shower that night feeling strangely satisfied. They’d finished the garden by dinnertime, and Sprout had come out to inspect their work just as they’d finished. She beamed at them. “Lovely, just lovely.”

“Are you planting herbs?” Harry had asked from where he was sprawled out on his back on the ground.

She grinned and took out her wand, casting a few charms as she filled the hole with soil. “No, I’m casting a winter wildflower garden.”

“Wildflowers don’t bloom in winter,” Harry had informed her.

“That’s why I’m ‘casting’ it and not ‘planting’ it. I’m warding the ground so it doesn’t freeze and charming it so that they will. It’s a project that my first years will be helping me plant,” she had said. “It’ll bloom this coming winter.”

Harry had looked suddenly sad and almost wistful. “I’d love to see it,” he’d decided softly, and she’d smiled at him, inviting him to come back in the wintertime.

“After all,” she had told them brightly. “You and Mr. Malfoy put your sweat and time into this garden, it practically belongs to the both of you.”

“I don’t like wildflowers,” Draco had said delicately.

“I do,” Harry had whispered, smiling and kicking at the dirt in the garden thoughtfully.

Now, lying on his back in bed, still damp from the shower, Draco smiled a little sleepily. He was so exhausted, he doubted he’d dream tonight.

But he did.

Draco had had a few erotic dreams before, of course. He’d never been very impressed with them though, had never woken up any different than how he’d fallen asleep. The way the other boys talked about in the changing room sometimes, he had almost thought, before having experienced them, that having a dream of that nature was some Rite of Passage into adulthood and he’d be changed when he woke up. He’d never woken up sweating or breathing heavily or turned on the way boys his age were always snickering about. However, this was different.

This was about Harry.

The strangest part, though, was that this dream was not even erotic in a blatantly sexual way, and Draco still woke up short of breath, his body painfully aroused.

In the dream it was nighttime, and he was walking over a field he’d never seen before. The sky was clear and there was no wind; it was silent. And then he’d come to a large, rectangular hole: the flower garden they’d dug. Harry was lying on his back inside it, his arms stretched over his head, his eyes opened and staring at the sky. There was a smudge of dirt along one cheekbone.

“There are worms down there,” Draco said.

“I’m not afraid of worms.”

“What are you afraid of?”

Harry smiled, his eyes on the skies above, not focusing on Draco’s face in a way that unnerved him. “Do you want to fight about it?”

“About what?”

“What I’m afraid of. How about we fight, and whomever wins gets to choose what I fear.”

“And if you win? What will you choose?”

“This. I’ll choose to be afraid of this.”

In the dream, Draco knew that Harry was not talking about holes that looked oddly like graves, or still summer nights. He was talking about Draco and Harry and their strange sort of friendship that was not friendship at all, and all of this seemed perfectly logical.

And then the dream shifted, the nighttime sky lightening like the dawn. Draco realized moments later that it wasn’t the sky at all any longer, but a roof, with dancing torchlight that had only seemed like sunlight. They were in a hall at Hogwarts, and he didn’t question how they had gotten there so fast. It was not the nature of dreams to be questioned.

Dressed in their school robes now, though Harry still had the smudge of dirt on his cheek, they faced each other, wands in hand.

Harry jerked his head a bit, a strange smirk on his lips. “You’re not going to touch me,” he taunted.

“I don’t want to,” Draco replied, because it was expected of him to do so. He raised his wand but Harry was faster, and a curse came hurling out of nowhere. Draco knew without knowing how he knew that it was the Killing Curse, and he dodged it.

He countered with a tickling curse that missed and ricocheted off the stone wall, leaving a black scorch mark. Tilting his head back and laughing recklessly, Harry sent another curse and then another, easily dancing out of reach when Draco responded to them.

Snarling at the ineffectiveness of magic, Draco began to stalk him instead, ducking the spells Harry shot at him, and finally cornering him at a dead end. It was a hall that went nowhere.

Their wands twisted like snakes in their hands and they were holding swords suddenly; Harry’s had Gryffindor etched into the blade, but Draco’s was strangely blank.

Swinging his sword up over his head and bringing it crashing down in what would have been a killing blow if Harry hadn’t countered, Draco hissed, the sword echoing the sound as it sliced through the air. A sharp ring of steel on steel and then a grunt as Harry met the blow, the swords held mere inches from his face. He wasn’t laughing now, he was gritting his teeth, his eyes squinting with the effort it took to keep Draco from slicing his face open.

“I’m not going to fall in love with you,” Harry had panted.

This time it was Draco’s turn to reply with a reckless grin, and a whispered, “That sounds like a threat, Potter…”

And then the swords were gone and the floor disappeared and they fell for what seemed forever.

When they landed, it was Harry on his back and Draco on top of him, pinning him to the ground. A small, playful smile lifted the corner of Harry’s lips in a graceful curve and he whispered, “That was different.”

And then Draco woke up.

He was lying on his back, panting raggedly, his body sticky with sweat. He closed his eyes and moaned a little as the details replayed themselves in his mind, and Draco started shaking with an instinctive sort of terror.

That wasn’t normal, that wasn’t right. He’d just dreamed about Harry Potter and he’d… he’d reacted to it in a way he had never reacted to a dream before.

“Oh god,” he whispered, covering his face with his hands and feeling sick with fear. “That wasn’t real, I didn’t… I didn’t dream that.”

But it was a lie and his body was evidence enough to the contrary. He now understood what the other boys meant when they talked about waking up turned on, only he hardly thought it was something to laugh over. It was embarrassing.

Of course, they’d never woken up from dreams of Harry Potter this way.

“Oh my god,” he moaned, burying his face in his pillow.

Draco was late to the library because he didn’t think he could stomach the idea of walking in and seeing Harry, sure the other boy would take one look at him and know. It was Sunday and they’d agreed to meet and study all day for exams. Approaching the doors and chickening out at least three times, he was just walking quickly away from the library, intending to never return, when he ran into Harry, who, apparently, was running late as well.

“Oh. Draco.”

“What?”

“I was just startled, I thought you’d be inside already.”

Flustered, Draco glanced at Harry and then away quickly, before darting another hesitant look at him and clearing his throat. “Umm,” he said. He would have commented on the strangeness of Harry calling him Draco, but he was valiantly fighting a losing battle with his mind to keep images of the dream from dancing through his mind. He should not have been turned on by a dream about dueling with Harry Potter!

“Are you alright? You look terrible, I think you’ve got a fever,” Harry said worriedly.

“Fine,” Draco croaked, turning and dashing into the library.

By the time Harry followed him in, Draco had dumped his books on the table and opened one, holding it up in front of his face and pretending to read it.

He heard Harry sit across from him and set his own books down as well, and then there was silence. Slumping a little so that he was completely hidden behind the book, Draco was alarmed to notice he was shaking.

And that, apparently, whatever had possessed him last night and inspired that dream and that morning’s discomfort was still… there. Because being close enough to hear Harry’s breathing was making it rather hard to focus on anything else.

When Harry touched his hand, he dropped the book with a strangled yelp and shot him a hurt look. “What?”

“Are you mad about something?” Harry asked, biting his lip. Draco stared at it for a long moment, white teeth worrying pink skin, and he flushed and jerked his eyes away.

“No.”

“Then what’s the matter?”

Harry seemed to be in a strange mood that morning: wistful, thoughtful, and sad. Draco studied his face before staring at the table and mumbling truthfully, “I had a weird dream last night and it’s just making me jumpy.”

“A nightmare?”

“No…” Draco grimaced.

“What happened in it?” His eyes had brightened considerably and Draco did love it when they shone that particular shade of green. He sighed.

“Well… there was this hole and you were lying at the bottom…”

“Was I dead?” Harry looked so honestly distressed that Draco hurried to reassure him.

“No, you were just… it was just weird. We fought. With swords. And then we fell from the sky. That’s all.”

Lifting his eyebrows skeptically, Harry said, “That’s it? Why are you so jumpy over that?”

“I’m… not. Let’s just forget about it, alright? I have to study.”

Harry looked a little hurt but obediently let the topic go, dropping his chin onto his hand and letting his eyes wander restlessly. Relieved, Draco picked up his book again and this time tried to actually study it, rather than just pretend to. It was hard, however; he’d never been so aware of another person as he was of Harry Potter right then. Every time the other boy sighed, shifted uncomfortably, ran his hand through his hair, Draco’s eyes would lift up off the page and flicker over to watch him.

“You could study,” Draco snapped finally.

“Oh, no, I don’t intend to. I’m going to fail every one of my O.W.L.s.”

“On purpose?”

“No. Don’t see the point in passing, really.”

Draco just rolled his eyes and turned back to his book. Moments later, Harry got up and wandered away from the table, disappearing behind a shelf. Sighing loudly, Draco set his book down. If having Harry at the table was distracting enough, having him away from the table was worse.

He waited until Harry had returned, carrying a huge book, before returning to his own.

Managing to read an entire page before curiosity got the better of him, Draco set his book down and said, “That’s not another book on death, is it, Potter?”

Harry looked up and then closed the book, reading the title. “‘Ancient Burial Rites of Cultures Around the World’.”

“Ah, I see. I never would have thought the Boy Who Lived was so morbid.”

Harry shrugged, two bright red spots rising to his cheeks. “I’m not morbid. I just want to know.”

“Why does it matter? When it happens to you, you’ll be dead and won’t care.”

He looked almost angry now, and Draco was intrigued. “Shut up, Malfoy,” he snapped. “You don’t know what you’re going on about.”

Draco shrugged, and Harry went back to reading; Draco didn’t. He wondered if Harry was aware that, when he concentrated, the tip of his tongue stuck out the tiniest bit between his lips, or that he tapped his first two fingers on the upper left hand corner of the book. Or the way he’d flick his head three times to get his hair out of his eyes before he’d get annoyed enough to reach up with his right hand and smooth it back. Or even the way, every so often, his eyelids would flutter as he gazed off into space to consider what he’d just read.

Of course, anyone who noticed these things, especially a boy noticing them about another boy, had to be mad, Draco decided, reluctantly forcing his eyes away. But returning to his dry and boring textbook hardly seemed worth it after studying Harry that way, and he sighed a bit.

“I heard about this one type of funeral where they put your body in this flat-bottomed boat,” Harry said suddenly, glancing up to see if Draco was paying attention. Of course he was. “And then they push you out onto the river or lake or ocean and shoot burning arrows at the boat until it catches fire.”

Draco blinked slowly, the words scarcely processing. He’d been staring at Harry’s lips. Oh god, what was wrong with him?

“Do you know which culture that is?” Harry asked, after a long moment had passed. He shifted uncomfortably.

“Why?”

“Because when I die, that’s what I want. But I don’t know which culture it was.”

Smirking a bit, Draco said, “I bet they wouldn’t let the body of a hero like you be treated that way. They’d probably want to display it for a bit, and then entomb it or something, under a giant memorial listing all your good deeds.”

Harry looked nauseous and Draco felt a faint stirring of remorse. However, before he could say anything, Harry whispered, “Do you think so?”

A little ashamed of himself for making Harry turn that pale, ashen colour, Draco said shortly, “How the hell should I know what they’ll do with you?”

He still looked ill, pale, and very small, and Harry said shakily, “But what if I don’t have enough good deeds to make a whole monument out of?”

He snorted. “The great Harry Potter not save the world at least twelve times before he died? Hell, Potter, even I’d be disappointed in you.”

It had been meant as a flippant joke, but Harry’s eyes were welling with what looked suspiciously like tears, and Draco felt like he had just killed a little boy’s favourite pet. “Harry,” he said in a subdued tone. “I wasn’t serious.”

“It’s alright, it doesn’t matter.”

Draco sighed in frustration and reached over, touching Harry’s hand lightly, a peace offering. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

Smiling faintly, Harry turned his hand over so that they were palm to palm. “Forget it,” he said lightly.

But his eyes were still shadowed, and Draco couldn’t quite get them out of his mind.

***

“I saw you in the library today,” Hermione said, when Harry entered the common room later that night.

He paused, startled. “Did you? I didn’t see you there.”

Lips pursed strangely, Hermione said slowly, “No, I don’t suppose you would have, Harry.” She seemed incredibly perplexed by something, and was speaking carefully, delicately.

“What do you mean?”

“You were there with Malfoy.”

“I told you, Dumbledore says we have to study together.”

“But Harry…” she cleared her throat and glanced around to make sure no one was close enough to overhear. “Harry, you were holding his hand.”

So surprised that he nearly choked, Harry cried, “What are you going on about, Hermione? I was not!”

“I saw you!” she insisted.

He frowned, confused, and then sudden realization made him laugh. Her eyes widened and she opened her mouth to comment, but Harry said quickly, “He wasn’t holding my hand! He’d upset me and he was just… apologizing.”

“Draco Malfoy doesn’t apologize,” she said stiffly.

“Mmm, no, he doesn’t,” Harry replied sweetly. “And he doesn’t hold hands with boys in the library.”

She smiled reluctantly at that and shrugged. “You have got a point. Still, it was strange, the way he was looking at you.”

“What do you mean?” Harry asked, frowning.

“Nothing. It’s just…well. Never mind, I’m probably just still jumpy over the fact that you’re spending so much time with him. It doesn’t seem real. But I’ve been so busy lately, maybe that’s why you were forced to spend time with him. Ron and I have both been busy, what with O.W.L.s and that bloody weapons club.”

Harry glanced away, suddenly realizing how terrible Hermione was going to feel after… after his birthday. Really, unless Dumbledore pulled off some miracle, he’d probably never see Hermione and Ron again after this last week and a half of term. He nearly felt sick to his stomach at the thought. He couldn’t tell them, of course. They didn’t need the distraction… didn’t need to have Harry and his Boy-Who-Lived status once again pulling them away from having a normal life.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said firmly, quietly, sitting beside her. “None of this is your fault. Remember that, alright? No matter what happens?”

She laughed nervously. “Why do I feel like you’re saying goodbye or something?” Her eyes narrowed and she peered into his eyes, biting her lip. “God, Harry, when did that happen?” she whispered.

“When did what happen?”

“Your eyes. They’re so much darker than they used to be.”

He pulled away skittishly, laughing darkly as he remembered that days before he’d found out he was going to die, he was furious because no one noticed the change in his eyes. Now, he wished she’d look anywhere but there, because he was afraid the darkness was more than she could stand, that it would corrupt her somehow. “It’s just the lighting,” he said lightly.

Ron came in then, his clothing heavily grass stained, beaming and anxious to tell them both about the latest weapons club meeting. They’d been learning about guns.

He’d missed them, Harry realized painfully, as he listened to Hermione suggest that perhaps studying for O.W.L.s would have been a better expenditure of time. And he’d miss them even more, afterwards…

It was suddenly too painful to bear, and he found himself wishing desperately that Draco was there, because he was feeling like things were crumbling around him again and that this wasn’t real, and only having Draco there to distract him made things solid again. But he couldn’t go find Draco now, because nothing could force him, at that moment, to walk away from Hermione and Ron, so familiar and safe and perfect in their bickering and their fighting and their friendship.

Which meant, of course, that he couldn’t cut his arm either, so he supposed it was alright.

They went to dinner together soon after that, Harry doing his best to keep up with the conversation, enjoying just being with Hermione and Ron for the first time in weeks, not listing their faults over and over in his head but remembering why they’d become friends in the first place and how he didn’t ever want that to end. He ignored the looks Hermione was sending Ron over his head, and it was easier to do, seeing as he was so much shorter than they were. They’d obviously been worried about him, and he didn’t want to know that they thought he was better. Because he wasn’t, and most likely wouldn’t ever be. Unless Dumbledore discovered some magical charm to make him live forever.

He laughed bitterly at that, and Hermione bit her lip worriedly. “What is it?”

“Oh. Nothing.” He smiled and she looked relieved.

Harry sat between them at the table, glancing around at his housemates for the first time in weeks. Guilt was coiling in his stomach, at what he was so willing to give up before, before he knew it was going to be taken from him. His housemates, his school, his professors, his life.

He felt like a fool for ever wanting to let this go.

And just as he thought it, Draco entered the Great Hall, his eyes falling on Harry immediately, and before Harry had even registered this, a soft smile curved his lips upwards. Draco grinned in reply, and the entire exchange was over before Harry could even wonder about it.

He glanced at Hermione, who was involved in a heated debate with Neville about something they’d learned in Herbology that day, and Harry was glad she hadn’t noticed the exchange with Draco. He still wasn’t quite over the fact that she had thought he had been holding hands with him in the library.

It was nearing the end of dinner when Harry happened to glance up to find Draco staring intently at him. He choked a bit on a bite of pickle and then looked about nervously. No one was paying any attention, so he frowned and mouthed, “What?”

Draco grinned and jerked his head towards the door before turning and saying something to Goyle, who was sitting beside him. With meaningful glance at Harry, he got up and walked casually out the door.

“I, umm, I’m finished,” Harry said abruptly. “And I’ve just remembered a bit of studying I’ve got to do. I’ll catch up with you guys later.” He hurried from the hall.

Draco was waiting impatiently just outside the door and when Harry came out of it, he said, “Right then, come on,” before turning and walking purposefully towards the front doors.

“Umm, what?” Harry asked, startled, even as he fell into step beside Draco. “Where are we going?”

“Out,” Draco said, grinning over his shoulders.

“Why?”

“Well, I’ve decided that I’ve got to use my limited time left to get out more. Have more adventures. See the world. That sort of thing.” He sounded cheerful, and Harry’s eyes narrowed.

“Your limited time left?”

“Yeah. See, I’m gonna die this summer.”

He stumbled and nearly fell, whimpering low in his throat and then saying harshly, “What?”

Draco turned, frowning. “Are you alright?”

“What did you mean, you’re going to die this summer?”

“My dad. I finally got up the guts to read that letter he sent me after he heard about those detentions, and he’s really angry. You couldn’t tell from the letter, of course, but the threat was there. He’s going to kill me.”

Harry wanted to sit down and cry. “Oh,” he said faintly.

“Are you alright?” Draco asked again, frowning.

“Fine.”

“You look sick.”

“I’m fine!” Harry snapped, pushing passed him and out the front door. After a moment, Draco followed him.

“No need to get so upset, I wasn’t serious,” he said.

“I’m not upset.”

Draco grinned. “What, were you worried about me? That I was really dying?”

“No. Trust me, no.” Things were spinning and Harry could feel a panic attack coming on. He did not want to be having this conversation.

“Hey. Alright, I’m sorry, calm down,” Draco said, sounding alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m…sick,” Harry said finally, squeezing his eyes shut. “Dizzy.”

“Oh. Umm. Come over here, I think there’s a bench.” He took Harry’s arm (Hermione would think they were holding hands, Harry thought hysterically) and led him a short distance away. Harry didn’t even think about the trust it took to let Draco lead him blindly, because he didn’t want to open his eyes and see that the world was still spinning too fast for him to keep his footing. “Sit,” Draco commanded, and Harry did, dropping heavily onto the bench. There was a long silence, and gradually the panic attack faded, replaced by something more strange. Draco was still touching him, only his hand had slipped down from his arm, so it was resting over top of Harry’s hand.

Unnerved, Harry moved his fingers a bit, hoping to draw Draco’s attention to his hand incase he hadn’t noticed that he was doing it.

Draco only stroked Harry’s wrist with his thumb. Opening his eyes, Harry glanced at him nervously and knew that Draco was completely unaware of it. He was studying Harry’s face worriedly. “Better?” he asked.

“Sort of,” Harry replied shakily, because he still felt dizzy but knew somehow that it wasn’t because of the panic attack. It was because Draco’s thumb was still stroking his wrist.

He carefully pulled his hand away, and Draco blinked a bit as he did, glancing down at where their hands had been touching. Watching his face, Harry saw his eyes widen the tiniest bit and colour bloom in two small patches on his cheeks, but Draco didn’t comment on it, and Harry couldn’t help a small grin from lighting up his face.

Glancing around, he said finally, “We’re in the formal gardens. So Draco Malfoy would spend one of his last nights on earth in a formal garden?” he teased lightly, having forgotten all the reasons why he should not be joking this way, lost in Draco’s touch and his blush and the strange terror in his eyes.

Draco looked around and smiled brightly, seeming grateful for the change of subject. “Of course,” he said cheerfully. “There’s a lot of artistry in a formal garden. You should see the ones at my house. They’re way better than these.”

“Are they?” Harry replied, trying to sound interested. “At my house, we’ve just got flower beds with petunias in them. Aunt Petunia only plants them because, well… She was named after them and thinks it’s cool, somehow. I hate petunias.”

“We don’t have any at my house. Mother loathes them, calls them ‘peasant’ flowers.”

“Peasant flowers?” Harry laughed.

“Yes. As are daisies, dandelions, carnations, sunflowers, and a few types of lilies. She likes subtler flowers, like irises and snapdragons.” Draco laughed a little, a different sort of laughter than his usual. It wasn’t a snicker or a snide laugh at all, but almost gentle. “That’s where I got my name, you know. Snapdragons are her favourite.”

Harry couldn’t help it; he burst out laughing. “All these years I thought you were named that because you were a monster,” he snickered. “Because you were awful and evil and mean, and just a little scaly.”

“Scaly?” Draco cried.

“I have seen you naked, remember,” Harry pointed out.

Draco’s mouth was hanging open and it took him a long while to reply, and when he did, it was little more than an indignant snort.

“Snapdragon,” Harry said with a smirk. “What’s your middle name then? Rose?”

“Potter!” Draco howled, shoving him. “Don’t make me hurt you!”

Harry glanced at him out of the corner of his eye to see how serious he was, and the look of outrage on Draco’s face caused him to burst out laughing. “I’m sorry!” he cried defensively, when Draco shot him a menacing glare and lifted a fist threateningly. “But honestly! Snapdragon?”

“If you tell anyone, Potter…”

“I won’t,” Harry snickered. “Your secret’s safe with me, Draco…” It took an extreme burst of willpower to keep from calling him ‘Snapdragon’, but Harry managed, his lips only slightly twisting upwards in a smirk.

“Why should I trust you?” Draco asked warily, lowering his fist and flattening his hand on the stone bench.

For a long time, Harry said nothing, and then he slowly slid his hand along the smooth surface, until it was lying over top of Draco’s. He stared at their hands for a long moment and then glanced up through his lashes at Draco’s face nervously. He didn’t know what he was doing, didn’t know how Draco would react, and he whispered shakily, “For the same reason I trust you.”

There was a breathless moment, where Draco just stared at him with dark, unreadable eyes, and then his hand turned over under Harry’s, so they were palm to palm, like in the library. Draco’s fingers slipped in between Harry’s, and he smiled slightly, before nodding once.

It was strange; Harry had never seen Draco look anything but indignantly outraged or coolly confident, but right then, he looked almost shy. Harry grinned at him and the shyness was gone in an instant as Draco smirked in reply and rolled his eyes.

***

Harry lay awake for a long time that night, not thinking about the things that usually kept him up at night. Instead, Harry watched the shadows on the roof and thought about Draco. He was scared, the nervous sort of fear that feels like butterflies and made him want to constantly keep moving to pretend they weren’t there. The shaky sort of excited nervousness that made him sick to his stomach yet unable to stop grinning all at once.

“What am I doing?” he whispered once, turning over in his bed and burying his face in his pillow. He was smiling, his face slowly heating up, and he laughed a little, muffling the sound by pressing his mouth to his arm. “God. This is crazy.”

He’d just been holding hands with Draco Malfoy in the formal gardens.

That thought made him laugh harder, until, desperate not to wake his housemates up, Harry was forced to throw his blanket up over his head and dive under his pillow as helpless laughter crashed over him. He couldn’t have stopped it for the world. It was like the nervous butterflies in his stomach were all bursting from his throat and the sound of their wings was his laughter. And it was nice. He hadn’t laughed like that in forever.

Finally, when the giggles had subsided and he wasn’t so nervous after all (the butterflies had left now), Harry, still buried under his blanket, let out a small sigh, his smile fading. The other things Harry had to fear came back now, slowly creeping into his mind, and he closed his eyes, pressing his fist to his lips to prevent a low cry from escaping.

He didn’t like to think of that. Of his birthday or his mother or his life, none of it. It wasn’t real, it couldn’t be. But his eyes flew open and he ran a finger over the healing cuts on his arm and whispered, “It’s real…”

That terror spilled over to his thoughts about Draco, and Harry’s nervous excitement was gone in an instant. What was he doing?

He remembered then how Draco had flippantly claimed that he was going to die that summer, and a strange burst of longing hit him so hard that all the breath hissed out of his lungs. If Draco did die that summer, maybe they could die together…

And then Harry was crying, painful, harsh sobs that burned in his throat.

***

Draco was worried. He hadn’t slept much and now, sitting across from Harry in the library, all the thoughts he’d had the night before were pushed form his mind, the thoughts about forgetting everything in the garden and going on as if they were still blood enemies and not whatever the hell Harry seemed to think they were. Harry was pale, his eyes bloodshot, dark and distracted. He looked like he’d been crying all night.

“Harry,” Draco said finally, after watching Harry stare out the window for a long while. The other boy didn’t react to his voice, and Draco reached over and touched his hand.

Harry’s head snapped around, his eyes widening a bit, and his lower lip trembled, just a little. “Oh,” he said, and even his voice was husky, as if he’d been crying. “Sorry. What?”

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah.” Harry moved as if to turn back to the window, and Draco touched him again.

“You look ill or something.”

“I’m not.”

Chewing his bottom lip nervously, Draco said falteringly, “It wasn’t…wasn’t what happened in the garden, was it? That made you cry?”

Tears glittered in Harry’s eyes and he smiled, thought it was a wane, weak smile. “Who ever said I was crying? I never cry.”

“Harry.”

Sighing, Harry closed his eyes and turned his hand over underneath Draco’s. Palm to palm again. “No,” he whispered. “It wasn’t that. It was… I was remembering. How you said you were going to die this summer.”

A strange sort of thrill ran through Draco, and he licked his lips nervously. Harry cried at the thought of Draco dying? “Oh. I’m not…going to,” he said awkwardly.

Harry nodded. “I know.” His voice had gone softer, and his eyes flicked to the window, like he was looking for some sort of escape.

Confused, Draco studied him for a moment and then said, “You were always better at Defense Against The Dark Arts. Come here and teach me this, I don’t understand it.” He gestured to the page opened in his textbook, and Harry turned back.

“What is it?”

Pulling the chair out next to him, Draco said, “Come here and see. It’s frustrating me.” He didn’t even remember what he’d been attempting to study, but it was an excuse to distract Harry from whatever was making him sad, and an excuse to have the other boy sit beside him. Which shouldn’t matter, given that Draco had decided, during his own sleepless night, that they were blood enemies still. But it did.

***

Draco procrastinated going to the library after class the next day as long as he could. There was a simple reason for it: he was terrified. Lying awake late into the night and staring at his roof, he had carefully thought things over, mentally plotting the strange course events had taken recently and the destination he was arriving at, and he had panicked.

He did not, would not, and certainly did not want to have what was amounting to a schoolboy crush on Harry Potter.

There could be other reasons behind it, he had decided, because ‘schoolboy crush’ and ‘Harry Potter’ in the same sentence had so panicked him, that Draco had started shaking. Other reasons why he liked to watch Harry, talk to Harry, wanted Harry close enough so that their arms brushed while they studied. Dreamed about Harry. Thousands of other reasons to explain this strange behavior away. Like he was ill, he’d gone mad, he was under a spell. Because he hated him, wanted him dead, loathed him with the fire of a thousand suns.

Lies, of course. Claiming hatred was ridiculous because Draco had hated before and never, in all his years, had that hatred included having his stomach flutter every time the object of his hatred glanced up, brushed his hair off his forehead, met his eyes, and smiled.

Not hatred then. But certainly not a crush.

Procrastinating his inevitable meeting with Harry seemed the best alternative to liking and possibly being just a tiny bit in love (Draco didn’t believe in love, he didn’t, he never had, he couldn’t, especially not with Harry) with him. Impossible, really.

The only thing, actually, that kept him writing a babbling, hysterical owl to his father about having a crush on a boy was that the boy was Harry Potter, and somehow that made it seem…safe. Draco couldn’t explain that. Had he found himself having strange dreams about Blaise or Goyle or Professor Snape, he would have owled home right away begging for a holiday at St. Mungo’s.

But this was Harry. It made it somehow different, and kept the core of him calm, as if this were somehow inevitable. The rest of him, the thinking, breathing, rational part that was not his subconscious and had no control over his dreams… that part of him was a wreck, however.

He was not so nervous as to relish the thought of Dumbledore’s fury should he skip out on this study session, and Draco screwed up his face into a desperate scowl and threw the library door open, sweeping into it with a cold sort of determination not to care that he was just a little looking forward to this.

His cold facade lasted until he found Harry with his face resting on his books (still closed, of course), facing the window, fast asleep.

Pausing, Draco blinked slowly and then rolled his eyes, a reluctant and oddly tender smile flickering over his lips. The sun was hitting Harry’s face, glinting off his hair, and he had one of his hands under his cheeks, pillowing it.

Draco slid into the seat across from him and contemplated what to do. Part of him whispered temptingly that it would be quite pleasant to sit here and watch him sleep all afternoon and even all through the night.

Reacting to that idea like he’d been stung, Draco left the table quickly, his hands shaking. He wandered through the shelves of books, trying to calm himself down and focus on the idea that he did not enjoy watching Harry sleep. At all.

He found himself in the aisle that Harry frequented often, with the books on ancient cultures and traditions. Sighing a bit, he took a smaller book off the top shelf and went back to the table, glancing hesitantly at Harry to make sure he was still asleep.

An hour later, a page of notes in front of him and a satisfied smile on his lips, Draco set his quill aside and looked at Harry again. Still sleeping, breathing deeply, his eyelids flickering as he dreamed.

“Harry,” Draco called softly, smirking a bit, “This is getting ridiculous, wake up.” Harry didn’t, and Draco leaned across the table, resting his chin on his arm and reaching out with one hand, running his fingernail up and down the bridge of Harry’s nose, causing him to wrinkle it and twitch a bit. “C’mon,” he laughed, amused at the sleepy scowl on Harry’s lips. “Time to get up. C’mon, Potter…”

Moaning and flinching away from his hand, Harry turned his face and buried it in the crook of his arm. Snickering quietly, Draco tugged a bit of his hair that had fallen over his arm, twisting the dark lock lightly. Harry finally lifted his head, blinking a bit and looking sleepily ruffled and confused. Draco let his hand fall to the table.

“What?” Harry asked huskily, running his hand through his hair to tidy it.

Draco laughed. “You slept forever!”

“In the library?” He glanced around again, frowning thoughtfully.

“No, I snuck into your common room and found you asleep in an armchair and carried you here,” Draco said sarcastically.

“I remember,” Harry accused suddenly, his eyes, still a little glazed from sleep, narrowing as they flew back to Draco’s face. “You were late.”

“I didn’t realize that your life is so boring and meaningless without me around that your first instinct is to fall asleep.” It was better than explaining why he’d been late, of course.

“You probably welcomed the chance to study without me distracting you,” Harry grumbled, still huffy at being woken up.

“You think you’re not distracting even when you’re sleeping?” Draco winced; the words were out before he’d had a chance to reconsider.

Frowning, Harry asked slowly, “What do you mean? I was asleep. I couldn’t distract you.”

Desperate for a subject change, Draco said suddenly, “I think it was the Vikings.”

“That distracted you?” He looked even more sleepily confused and Draco’s stomach did not get all fluttery at the adorableness of that.

“The Vikings. With the funeral barges. You know, the boats with the bodies and the fire? I don’t know if they used arrows, but a lot of ancient cultures used that tradition, for a while. Saxons, Germanic tribes. There’s even a rumor that King Arthur was laid to rest in a funeral barge.” Draco reported it all in a practically toneless voice, like he was reciting something from a textbook. Nothing like quoting dry facts about funerals to make his stomach stop doing that. Damn it. He was going mad.

“You… you researched that?”

Draco shrugged, refusing to admit the fact that the surprise and gratefulness in Harry’s eyes in anyway mattered to him. “I had a bit of free time a few days ago.”

“Oh. So it was the vikings?” Harry said softly, a smile tilting the corners of his lips, though it wasn’t happy, but rather wistful. Nodding once, he whispered, “Thank you.”

Sliding his parchment of notes over to Harry, Draco suddenly felt awkward. He hadn’t known Harry would react to it that way or he probably wouldn’t have done it. It was dangerous to his whole ‘you do not think Harry’s cute’ idea. “Yeah.”

For a long while, their eyes held, some strange tension growing between them. It grew so strong that it was like an electric tingle on his skin, and Draco was relieved when Harry flicked his eyes away nervously.

Oh god. Draco closed his eyes and took a deep breath, reaffirming to himself that there was no way he was doing this, despite evidence to the contrary.

He opened his books and stared sightlessly at them, tracing the same sentence over and over with his eyes and not registering a word. When Harry kicked him under the table, Draco jumped a bit and raised his head. It was like he’d just been waiting for an excuse to look at Harry again, but Draco didn’t like to think about that. “Yeah?”

“What’re you reading?” Harry asked, playfully. He seemed to have gotten over his irritation, and the parchment of notes on funeral barges was gone, tucked away somewhere.

“History notes.”

“Yeah, but what part? Because you’ve been staring at the same paragraph for ten minutes.” Harry smirked.

“But to know that, you had to have been watching me for all that time, which is even sadder, really, Potter.” He kicked him back under the table lightly, grinning at him. “Besides, it’s a fascinating passage.”

Before Draco could react, Harry had snatched his notes away, reading aloud. “’Traditionally, a hand-fasting between a male and female goblin lasted only until they had consummated the marriage, thereby destroying their lust for one another.’ Hmm. Fascinating.”

“Indeed. I happen to find the mating rituals of goblins incredibly fascinating,” Draco drawled, stealing the pages back and smiling challengingly.

Harry laughed, and Draco’s smile faltered a bit into a rather confused frown. “What?” Harry asked.

“You. You were upset yesterday, bitchy a minute ago, and now you’re laughing. Why?”

Shrugging, his eyes slipping away nervously, Harry said, “Sometimes I don’t like to think about all the things I’m supposed to be upset over.”

“Like what?” The mood had changed abruptly, from playful to something incredibly darker, and it felt like trying to walk carefully across ice that was cracking beneath their feet.

“Like… All of them. I can’t quite list them now, can I? I’ve forgotten them, like I said.” He spoke lightly, but his eyes were focused on the table, and Draco let it drop. It was hard to have a conversation like that, where it was obvious one bad step would blow up in his face, especially if he didn’t know what it was he was supposed to be walking around.

“You are singularly the most complicated person I’ve ever met,” Draco decided finally, smiling ruefully.

“How do you mean?” Harry cried. “I’m a terribly simple person, really, just like you!”

“Oh, and you think you’ve got me all figured out, do you?” Draco sounded almost…flirtatious. His smirk faded and his eyes widened as panic, hit him.

But it was somehow alright a second later when Harry’s eyes flew to Draco’s face and a small, almost shy smile curved his lips. He ducked his head and glanced up nervously, a slow flush rising to his cheeks, and then he mumbled, “Well, yes, actually. And I thought you’d had me figured out too.”

Draco snorted, but he was grinning. It was easy to forget the terror, though, when Harry smiled at him like that.