The Thin Line Between Love and Hate

Chapter 1: Brawling and Bathtubs

Harry yawned, sucking gently on a sugar quill as Professor Snape drawled on and he copied notes absentmindedly. "Mr. Potter, might I inquire as to why you are sucking on one quill while writing with another?" the professor inquired in those scathing tones he always used.

Malfoy and his over grown cronies, along with the rest of the Slytherins were chuckling, wondering how many points the teacher would take from Potter when he'd threatened them with the loss of a hundred at the beginning of class if their notes weren't accurate. "It helps me relax without disturbing my notes," Harry replied smoothly, nearly startling the professor out of his glare; nearly. "Give me your notes, Potter," he barked, not bothering to put the usual sneering "Mr." at the beginning of his name, letting Harry know that his lie had worked.

He handed over the notes he had copied word for word, though they had doodles of snitches on them. He had been so relieved at the beginning of the year to resume his position as seeker on the condition that his grades improved that he had begun to put actual effort into his classes rather than simply allowing what stuck during his note taking to show on his tests. So far he'd surpassed everyone in his class other than Hermione, and he was quickly catching up to her.

Malfoy smirked with glee as Snape sneered, just knowing that his rival was about to lose enough points from Gryffindor to plunge the house into second place in the running for the house cup. "Ten points from Gryffindor," Snape snapped, obviously peeved at not being able to take more because of the care Harry had taken with them, making them not only thorough, but legible as well. "And don't let me find any more doodles on your notes. This isn't Advanced Art, Potter. You'll need more than bits of fluff in that thick skull of yours in here."

Malfoy's jaw dropped and Harry smirked at him behind Snape's back, grateful that his notes hadn't been destroyed for the doodles when the professor had returned them to him no worse for the wear. He quickly wiped his expression blank though as the teacher turned on his heel and continued his lecture, his cold eyes sweeping over Harry as he looked for further mishaps.

~~~~~

"You're dead, Potter," Malfoy drawled from behind Harry, Ron, and Hermione as they were exiting the classroom, Ron cursing about the sheer amount of homework that Snape had given them. Though, as usual, his desire to become an Auror kept him from simply dropping the class. Harry held his arm out to stop his friend as Hermione clung to his arm to keep him from lashing out at Malfoy.

"And just how is that, Malfoy?" Harry asked, a vicious smile coming to his face as he spoke. "Everyone here knows you won't kill me. Are you counting on Daddy," he spat the word out like a curse. "To do you the favor of ridding the world of me?" His smile grew colder as he taunted the silver haired boy. "Or perhaps you've become good chums with Voldemort and he's promised you that he'd do it."

Everyone who had gathered winced at the name but Harry ignored it, his eyes on his tormenter as he too flinched in response to his adversary's words. In the state that he was in currently, however, no one bothered to correct the-boy-who-lived with even a whispered "he-who-must-not-be-named."

~~~~~

Malfoy was glaring. How could Potter, he thought with a sneer, take his threat and turn it to his favor? He could hear people whispering around him. Even some of the Slytherins were wondering if Potter was right. Malfoy did let his father do his fighting a lot they whispered. Would he let the Dark Lord do the same? And if he did was he to be respected or scoffed at for doing so?

Malfoy knew that if he didn't fight this battle he would be punished by his father for losing followers to the enemy more harshly than anything his fellow sixth year could pull out. Years of practice allowed him to hide his thoughts as he worked all of this through, keeping a sneer on his face the entire time Potter taunted him.

"Please, Potter; I could best you any time," he scoffed, making Harry gain a look of triumph that Malfoy was flustered enough not to have a better come back than that. "Oh," he began with mocking thoughtfulness. "I suppose that's why you've never won a Quidditch match against me, why you set Filtch on me in first year rather than facing me yourself when you're the one who challenged me to a duel, despite bragging constantly about all the curses you knew when I didn't know any. That HAS to be why when your little minions aren't with you you can't bring yourself to face me. That MUST be why any wrongs you attempt to do me are only done in the full sight of others where I can't retaliate without getting detention because if the darling child of the Malfoys reports anything that the troublemaking bloody Boy-Who-Fucking-Lived did to his biased head of house no argument the 'famous Harry Potter,'" he sneered the title, mimicking the way Snape said it, "could possibly be good enough to avoid at least a week of detention. Blow me, Malfoy. You're so far beneath me you're not worth my time. Come on guys; let's leave this slime-covered toadstool to stew in his own juices. We've got Advanced Potions homework to do."

Harry turned on his heel, ready to walk away leaving stunned Gryffindors and Slytherins in his wake when Hermione made a small noise to warn him. He turned drawing his wand as he did so, diving to the side as he narrowly missed a curse aimed at him. "Expelliarmus!" he shouted, divesting Malfoy of his wand as it flew down the dark corridor, the sound of wood hitting stone reaching them as it landed.

There was no warning this time though when Malfoy lunged at him, fists flying as he tried to beat Harry into a bloody pulp. The attack came as a bit of a surprise to the boy-who-lived. Before today he never would have expected anything so... Muggleish to come from the other male.

He recovered quickly, glad that they had made Muggle fighting techniques a part of how DA trained. Harry brought his hands up to protect his face, having already earned himself a black eye and a split lip for his lapse in defense. He kicked Malfoy off of himself, his muscles well toned from his training so he had no trouble doing so. He rolled on the floor as the Slytherin dove at him once more, getting to his feet as he got away. He was just pulling back to punch Malfoy when someone cleared their throat behind the other boy. Harry's eyes darted up to meet with the cold eyes of the potions master, distracting him long enough for his foe to land a hard punch in his stomach that would have sent him to his knees had he not wished to save face in front of everyone.

He grunted instead, tears no one but Malfoy saw coming to his eyes as he dropped his fighting stance. He calmly nodded to Snape. "Hello, Professor. Lovely evening for a walk don't you think?" The blonde boy whirled on his heel, the other sixth year catching the mortified look in his eyes before it was hidden behind his usual cool demeanor.

"You two come with me. The rest of you disperse," Snape ordered curtly, his voice dripping with such scorn and cold anger that it scraped against the nerves of everyone present, except apparently the two who had inspired him to use such a tone.

~~~~~

Later that night, long after everyone else in the dorm had gone to sleep, Harry lay tossing and turning as he thought of what had happened earlier that day. Surely he'd been imagining the look in Malfoy's eyes when they'd been caught brawling. Draco Malfoy, teacher's pet extraordinaire, having done something without thinking through the consequences of getting caught doing it? Unthinkable... and yet... he was sure he hadn't mistaken that look.

Harry crawled out of bed, picking up his invisibility cloak and wrapping it around his shoulders, pulling up the hood, and checking his lack of a reflection in the mirror. Satisfied that no one would see him were they to come across him in the halls he sighed, walking the corridors of Hogwarts as he had grown accustomed to doing on the nights where sleep was slow to find him.

He was slightly shocked when the door to the room of requirement appeared to the side of him. He opened the door curiously and went in, wondering what his subconscious had told the room he needed. He laughed as his eyes took in a bathroom that put the prefects' to shame. Without question he stripped out of his pajamas and put them and his invisibility cloak on a shelf where they wouldn't get wet before slipping into a tub of steaming water that had already been run just the way he liked it.

He sighed as he sunk into the water that flushed his pale skin and looked around, wanting to take in more of the room. The tub he sat in wasn't quite so large as the prefects' tub as that one had made him feel a bit too dwarfed for his tastes. The floor showed the confusion of houses within him as every other tile was done in the silver and green of Slytherin while the others showed his own house's scarlet and gold. In one corner of the room there stood a canopy bed, hung with dark green curtains that were embroidered with scarlet and gold threads. He rather liked the look, though he'd let Voldemort kill him before he admitted such to his housemates.

Harry was so absorbed in the appearance of the room that he nearly jumped out of his skin when another figure broke the surface of the water. He stared at the other person, mesmerized by the way the light shimmered off their silver-blonde locks... until that is he realized who the other person was.

"Malfoy?!?" he exclaimed, his voice breaking as it hadn't since his voice change during the summer after second year. "Potter." Draco sneered, his voice oozing displeasure at having come up and opened his eyes to find the other boy in the tub with him panicking. "What. Have. You. Done. TO MY BATHROOM?!?" he questioned Harry, his voice full of the cold anger he had learned so well from the potions master as he surveyed the damage that had been done to his lovely Slytherin themed room.

"I didn't do anything!" Harry protested, blushing as it finally hit him that he was sitting in a tub with Draco Malfoy completely naked. "Bed, have no place in a bathroom, Potter," Malfoy replied with a bored tone without mentioning the colors, as, on second thought, he found he was rather fond of the way they looked together. It was classier than the Ravenclaw and Slytherin colors that Flint had insisted on doing the dorm in which had come off looking rather like a three day old bruise.

"Fine, Malfoy," Harry spat, his lightened mood completely gone at this point. "Have your stupid bathroom!" Without thinking about it the boy sent a surge of angry emotion at the room, returning it to its original colors and destroying the bed as he climbed out of the tub and marched over to the towel cabinet. He pulled out the only towel that wasn't green or silver and tied it around his waist, picking up his clothes and tossing his cloak around his shoulders. He pulled up the hood and stormed out, paying no mind either to the fact that he was leaving wet footprints everywhere as he made his way to the Gryffindor bathrooms to finish his bath or that he had just left a very stunned Draco Malfoy staring after his starkly nude rear, for once at a loss for words.

~~~~~

After the door had opened and shut once more, Draco sat there for a moment before sputtering. That couldn't possibly have just happened. There was no way that the person occupying his thoughts as he rinsed his hair had been sitting in his bathtub when he'd come up. It wasn't even probably that he'd covered his panic with his usual frigid demeanor and managed to chase the boy from the room despite the fact that Harry Fucking Potter had gained a lightness to him in the bathroom that he'd been missing since he showed up on the Quidditch pitch with Diggory in his arms, dead. Not that he cared or anything. He would wake up the next morning and everything he'd just experienced would just be a cruel joke played on him by his subconscious.

Draco allowed his thoughts to drift once more towards his encounter with Potter that had passed earlier that day. He'd actually been impressed with his enemy when he'd pulled what would have constituted as a sucker punch if he'd realized Snape was standing directly behind him before throwing it. He scoffed slightly; Severus always had had impeccable timing. Draco had known that since the first time he'd tried to snitch a cookie before dinner while the man was visiting. He hated that he'd been caught throwing punches at an obviously distracted opponent though. Two weeks of detention with Potter would be walk in the park compared to what his father would do to him over holiday for his lack of discretion. After all, hadn't Lucius taught him that so long as you didn't get caught you could do whatever you wished?

The blonde boy grimaced as his thoughts returned to the Potion Master's office, musing over how Potter had stood there bleeding as Snape had lectured him about self control after Draco had told the professor of how Harry had insulted him and provoked his attacks. His control had improved, the blonde had thought with a touch of admiration as Harry had taken insult after insult with a smile on his face, hatred in his eyes, and steel in his ram-rod straight posture instead of going on the defensive and giving the man berating him reason to take more points than the initial fifty for fighting that both boys had received to Draco's great distress. Not that his housemates would question it. They knew better and would, more likely than not, simply work harder towards earning them back, which Draco considered a good thing bearing in mind that he was the only one who earned his house points on a consistent basis.

The young Slytherin shuddered to think what he had to look forward to over winter holiday and momentarily considered staying at Hogwarts for its duration. He hid his face in his wet hands, knowing that acting on that thought would only make his punishment worse in the end. Damn his being a Malfoy. While it definitely had its perks he also had to do better, be better, than everyone else or when he went home his name might as well have been mud because he was going to be smeared all over his father's boots. And he could easily name a couple Gryffindors that were constantly making his holidays hell.

~~~~~

Harry stormed back towards the Gryffindor bathrooms, taking care only to keep away from people and Ms. Norris. How was it that Malfoy and Malfoy alone could inspire a rage in him that made a mockery of his forced calm in Snape's office? He'd taken the insults, deducted points, and detention with grace, knowing the Quidditch team wouldn't suffer in his absence as it was his co-captain of the team that was better at coming up with their plays anyway and the team listened to him well enough when Harry wasn't there for them to look to for direction. But just the sight of Malfoy and his blood was boiling.

He breathed out a heavy sigh as he entered the safety of the bathrooms after his walk there that had seemed to last a lifetime. Damn Draco. And to think that Harry had practically been drooling over him before he'd found out who it was. He backed away from that thought; his stomach turning as he barely stopped himself from contemplating it.

He walked over and turned on the water, upset that he would be standing under the flow instead of relaxing in a tub but wanting to get clean after his run-in with Malfoy. He shrugged out of his cloak, folding it neatly once more though he allowed the towel to fall from his hips to land in a soppy pile at his feet. He groaned as he heard two other people enter the bathroom.

"Hold on, I'll be done in just a moment," called Harry, unwilling to fall privy to yet another one of Neville and Seamus' snog sessions. He cleaned himself quickly and then stepped out of the shower, ignoring Neville's embarrassed look of apology as his boyfriend nipped at his neck, oblivious to their friend's presence.

Instead of drying off first Harry left the room, not wanting to intrude. He sighed. Why couldn't his friends just make out in the astronomy tower like normal couples? It wasn't as though the whole school didn't already know that most of the sixth year Gryffindors were gay, and there were standing bets on who would turn Ron and how long it would take them to do it, though Harry knew that his best friend would never give in now that Hermione had agreed to date him.