Kiss in the Dark
Cigarettes Burn
The Quidditch pitch is abandoned at this time of night, the stars above the only witness as Harry's wand meets the tip of the cigarette and ignites. He lay back on the cool grass, head aching from stress and lungs full as he inhales sweet smoke.
"Your girlfriend know you smoke, Potter?" A voice catcalls, and he startles slightly. Strutting slowly across the field, robes disheveled and too pale under the moon, is Draco Malfoy. His posture, though, speaks of lazy resignation as Harry trains his wand on him. He only gives the wand only a cursory look, seemingly uncaring that Harry might jinx him at any moment.
"Does yours?" Harry bites back. A slim cigarette dangles from Malfoy's lips, cherry glow bobbing in the darkness as he sits heavily in the dewy grass, as natural as if they were old friends. Harry frowns at his closeness, the ease with which he reclines and then the bastard closes his eyes and smiles. Harry reluctantly puts his wand away, though he doesn't let his hand stray far from his pocket.
"Don't have one, at the moment." A breeze lifts Harry's hair and blows out Malfoy's cigarette. He frowns and opens his eyes to look up at Harry. His eyes are positively luminous in the dimness of the moonlight, a fact that startles Harry.
"Gimme a light?" Draco grumbles, shifting up onto his elbows. He leans much too close, holding his cigarette to the end of Harry's in a kiss of embers. Harry's stomach flutters weakly as Malfoy takes a drag, letting the smoke out and then sucking it back in through his nose. Harry lets his own cigarette burn in the darkness, tendrils of smoke drifting up to join the stars.
Harry is tense as he turns his eyes up to watch the smoke drift away.
"What do you want, Malfoy?" A long pause.
"Nothing much. Just…talk. Share a smoke. Then you can go back to ignoring me, and I'll do the same for you." A harsh sigh, and Malfoy lets smoke furl out of his nose. The resulting cloud reminds Harry uneasily of dragons. He pulls his legs close, trying to retain what heat he's steadily losing. He should've cast a warming spell, but he can't bring himself to move. He wonders briefly if Malfoy has cast a spell to lull him into a false sense of security, but it doesn't seem so important on such a night.
"Alright, so talk." Malfoy chuckles and flicks ashes at him. Harry brushes them off in peevish irritation. The next drag he takes is too brief, the temporary balm of nicotine quickly losing it's edge. He can't take too much or Ginny will smell it on him in the morning. For some reason, thinking of her now makes him grit his teeth.
Another breeze blows through, pushing against Harry's back and again blowing out Malfoy's cigarette. He curses and sits up fully. Harry notices, in this instant, that Draco's usual grace has gone. He fumbles in the pockets of his robes, the half-dead cigarette clinging feebly to the edge of his lips. He is skinnier, and his eyes dart over the dark field with a hint of paranoia.
The war has changed him deeply. Instead of an arrogant, spoiled bully, Harry sees a man who has his moments of weakness and fallacy, and hopes that others won't notice these things. Draco is clinging, as desperate as his cigarette, to his feared name and reputation, but the incentive isn't there anymore. Harry has noticed, and the changes aren't necessarily good, but they are better. Now, Draco is better. Now, he seems more human.
This time Draco doesn't ask. He leans close, his shoulder bumping Harry's as he cups a hand around their cigarettes. The warmth of Draco seeps slowly into his skin as again, the cigarettes kiss and give light and life to each other. Then Draco leans back and looks at him for a long moment.
"I did terrible things, Harry. I won't say sorry for them, because they kept me and my family alive. But they keep me up at night. I see faces, in my dreams. But I wish I could've been braver, or even weaker. Then I would've died, and maybe things wouldn't have turn out like they have. Maybe so many people wouldn't have died. Maybe Dumbledore would still be alive." His voice breaks, and Draco looks away. Harry sighs and takes a deep, hollow drag, willing to face Ginny for the slight peace it give him.
Once he would've punched Malfoy in the face for mentioning Dumbledore like this. Now he's simply tired.
"Even if you died, Snape would've killed him. It was his job. Your death would've been just another casualty. Instead, you survived. That's more than most can say." Draco stares at him blankly, his silver eyes going flat. Then he laughs, a rough bark that reminds him achingly of Sirius.
"You're shit at cheering people up, you know that?" He shakes his head and sighs around his cigarette. It's nearly gone now, as is Harry's. The cold is suddenly bone-deep and enthralling, and that thought throws Harry for a moment or two.
"It's cold out. We should head back." Draco hums in agreement. Neither of them move. Draco points up at the sky suddenly, his smile soft.
"That star, that's Sirius. I always look for it, this time of year." A warmth grows steadily in Harry's stomach as he stares at the winking brightness. He remembers how Sirius once stared at these stars with him, for a moment believing himself a free man. He sighs and wearily climbs to his feet. Malfoy follows him, and they climb their way leisurely, side by side, up to the castle again. Their smoke mingles together when they reach the front steps. Malfoy takes one last, burning drag before tossing the filter to the stone and cruelly grinding it out with his shoe. Like Malfoy said, they will never talk to each other again after this. A feeling like mourning grief wells up, and Harry is suddenly reluctant to go inside and break this temporary truce.
"We…we could've been friends once, right Draco? We could be now, if we tried, right?" Malfoy's smile is indulging as he plucks the spent cigarette from Harry's lips and stomps it out. Harry flinches, staring at the corpses of their cigarettes laying, crushed, next to each other on the stone.
"No, Potter, we couldn't. Goodnight." He turns and walks away, hands in his pockets as he head down the stairs to the dungeons. Harry bites his lip, glances at the dead cigarettes, then calls out,
"Goodnight, Malfoy!" A laugh rings out, echoing out against the stone until Hogwarts swallows the sound and Harry is alone.
Uneasy and tired, Harry retreats upstairs to sleep.
Over the next nineteen years, and more, Ginny cannot get him to stop smoking.
AN: Okay, so is it clear? They don't really kiss. This is almost pre-slash, except for that last line. The cigarette's are symbolic for the relationship that could've been, but isn't. Basically, IMMA TEASE XD. Also, I hope y'all notice how they keep changing what they call each other. As they become more comfortable around each other, they switch to first names, and in the end they use last names to show that things will go back to how they were before. Just pointin' stuff out :P.