This

In the months that passed after Sirius fell through the veil, Harry had run through a gamut of emotions. He had gone through his angry phase, during which had Ron and Hermione walked on eggshells about him for a number of weeks. He had gone through his devastated phase, which had Ron and Hermione giving one another those uncertain 'what can we do?' looks that Harry couldn't bear to see. Phase after phase after phase he went, shrugging off emotional baggage after emotional baggage as time flew by.

These days, Harry doesn't think he has any more emotional baggage to shed.

Harry Potter doesn't give a damn anymore about anything.

Welcome to the apathetic stage.

Oh, he cares about some things still - Quidditch, Ron, and Hermione. But in terms of living his day-to-day life as a person, being someone who has hopes and dreams and heartache just like everyone else? He cares not a lick. Not for any of it. What will it matter, he often wonders, whether or not he makes plans for a career after finishing up at Hogwarts? He'll likely be dead before his eighteenth birthday, he reasons, so why plan ahead for something that will never happen? When he once defiantly told Hermione that very thing after she admonished him for not writing down his Potions assignments in his timetable, she looked absolutely stunned for a long minute. If Harry hadn't known better, he might have thought that he rendered Hermione Granger speechless. But Harry did know better and he stood there staring at her expectantly, waiting for her to snap to it and chide him for being negative. She hadn't disappointed, telling him that under no uncertain terms was he ever to think or speak something like that again, that he would kill Voldemort and save the wizarding world, putting a stop to all of the terror that had been a dark cloud over it -and himself-- for all these years. He even got the lecture complete with both hands on the hips, which usually meant that Hermione was being extra serious. In one ear and out the other, her words went.

He didn't have the heart to tell her to shove off, even if he actually really wanted to do just that.

Hermione and Ron cared about him, almost maddeningly so, but the last thing Harry needed anymore was to be cared for.

People who cared for him always got the raw end of the deal. It'd been that way since nearly birth and it wasn't looking to change anytime soon.

His dad, his mum, Mr Weasley getting bitten by that big huge snake, Sirius...

Who would be next?

A cough sounds at the table behind him, breaking Harry out of his reverie. Distracted, he looks up from the Charms book he was taking notes out of and turns around in his seat toward the sound.

Covering his mouth and coughing a loud, rattling cough, is Draco Malfoy.

Harry doesn't know why he freezes in his chair or why his eyes lock with Malfoy's. All he knows is that he is strangely entranced with the way he can just make out Malfoy's pale eyelashes framing grey eyes that grow narrower and narrower with each moment that passes while their eyes study one another.

Malfoy lowers his hand from his mouth, gaze never wavering, and flips to the next page in the book before him.

Harry suddenly finds that he is curious as to what Malfoy is reading yet he cannot look away.

His stomach lurches, something it only does when he spies the Snitch or breaks into a fast dive chasing the aforementioned Snitch. This confuses Harry and it must have shown on his face, for Malfoy's features twisted into something so odd that Harry wasn't sure if he should be disgusted or intrigued.

Malfoy's mouth opens the slightest of degrees and, with a tilt of his head this way and that, Harry can make out the faint gleam of startling white teeth and a tiny hint of pink. Malfoy almost gurgles as though he's just taken a sip of tea at the precise moment a mate's told a joke and he's torn between laughing with the liquid in his mouth, potentially choking, or spitting it all out. His head lolls to one side and then he pitches forward in his seat, slapping his hands on the table's surface in front of him.

A loud sound echoes in the library and Harry jumps, taken aback by the sound.

Malfoy smirks.

Malfoy smirks and Harry doesn't have the energy to even roll his eyes. He just turns back around in his seat and stares at his Charms text, not seeing it at all. The words on the page blur and bleed together and Harry can feel Malfoy's eyes, grey and piercing, staring into the spot just between his shoulder blades.

********

For days after the encounter (if one could call it that) in the library with Malfoy, Harry finds himself sitting at the same table, waiting for the tell-tale sign of the tiny hairs prickling on the back of his neck to tell him that he is being watched.

Day after day he sits at that table but the hairs never stand up and his flesh never tingles with that nervously intoxicating tickle of nerves just below the skin.

One day, after sitting there staring right though the open copy of Which Broomstick? on the table in front of him, Harry has an epiphany.

This is daft.

This is daft. What is he doing waiting around for Draco Malfoy? Ridiculous it is...and more than a little mad.

Figuring that he ought to clear his damned fool head, Harry leaves the library. Fresh air would do him good. It's practically the only escape he has these days - fresh air and the sky.

********

Harry flies his Firebolt for hours. He revels in the way the air whips around him, over him, under him, in him. It's here, there, everywhere and it carries him. It carries him because it is the only thing that can. It is the only thing that will support Harry unconditionally. Everything and everyone else in Harry's life expects him to carry them.

Sometimes a hero needs to be carried himself.

Hero.

Harry certainly doesn't think he is. He hates the word. It's grating, like the sound of Peeves dragging armoires across the stone castle floor. He's not a hero. He's just a boy. Just Harry.

The air is growing cool now and Harry shivers. A trip to the kitchens will be in order; Dobby would be more than thrilled to fix him a steaming cup of cocoa. Extra marshmallows, just the way he likes it. Harry never had much of anything before Hogwarts, let alone anything extra.

Touching down on the ground, Harry exhales sharply, watching his breath mist white and float away as he swings his leg over the handle of the Firebolt.

There.

There it was--that prickle and bit of gooseflesh on the back of his neck.

He turns. He turns and meets pale grey eyes and curled lips.
Harry's own eyes round.

What are you doing here?

He wants to ask the question but words, for the moment, fail him. His eyes ask for him.

The curl of Malfoy's thin lips deepens in response.

Harry takes a step closer, feeling somehow drawn to the Slytherin.

Somehow, he finds himself giving a damn about just why Draco Malfoy is standing here on the Quidditch pitch with him. He gives a damn about the way Malfoy's lips are slightly pink and parted. He gives a damn about the way a shock of pale blond hair has fallen into the taller boy's eyes.

"You wait. I'll have you."

Harry swallows hard, nodding. Remembering.

The last time you said that to me, Harry's eyes flash, was before I hexed you.

Malfoy throws back his head, exposing his long, aristocratic neck. Laughing, Harry supposes, but he can't hear a sound for all the thudding and thumping in his ears, his blood pumping madly through his veins.

Malfoy ceases laughing and quirks a brow at Harry. "Scared, Potter?"

Of what? Of you? Of this?

Harry frowns. Just what is this? What is this and why do I--why do I feel dizzy and sick and excited, more excited than the first time I caught the Snitch?

He stares back at Malfoy in silence for a long moment, resolve setting in. Whatever this is, it's something he needs. He knows that much. Harry isn't daft; he's damned sure this right now is good for him. He hadn't felt a lick of emotion for anything for months. But here, now, standing before Draco Malfoy, he does. He feels something and, although he does not know what it is, it is something good.

Harry snorts and moves closer still to Malfoy. They're standing toe-to-toe now and Harry's eyes are focused on the corner of that smug mouth he's wanted to hex shut on many occasions.

Harry murmurs, "You wish, Malfoy."

Malfoy tips his head to the side, meeting Harry's eyes. There is something flashing in them that Harry can almost make out. He stares at them, entranced, and the next thing he knows, Malfoy's hand is sliding around his neck. Malfoy's hand is sliding around his neck and he's pulling Harry up forcefully onto the tips of his toes and their mouths are mashing together. Teeth clack against one another, one mouth sucks on the other's bottom lip, tongues tangle, Harry sees stars blooming brilliant white behind the blackness of his lids, and a sweet, utter joy courses through Harry's veins.

He only pulls back when the need to breathe becomes overpowering. Panting, he stares up Malfoy, confused but enlightened and understanding at the same time.

"What," he asks, taking note of the flush of colour in the Slytherin's pale cheeks, "is this?"

"Potter," Malfoy drawls, wiping the hand he had around Harry's neck on the side of his trousers, "this is This."

"This?" Harry asks, a finger brushing along his lips, feeling the ghost of Malfoy's mouth there.

"Falling," Malfoy replies, kicking the tail of Harry's Firebolt.

Harry doesn't think Falling ever sounded so good.