Draco lay in bed, staring at the drooping green velvet hangings overhead. He followed the patterns with his eyes, and felt his fingers dance across the familiar sheets. He rolled onto his side, eyes wide; sleep playing chase with his unending thoughts. Sighing, he crumpled himself into a ball and squeezed his eyes tight. They flew open instantly - every time he closed them, all he saw were beautiful green eyes.
In Gryffindor tower, Harry lay staring piteously at the dark night sky through the crack in his bed curtains. Clouds covered the moon and the stars but still he stared, mind rolling, sleep evading him. He huffed and rolled on to his back, pulling his wand and the Marauders Map from underneath his pillow. Bringing the map to life with the simple chant that had been imprinted into his brain, Harry found himself and his mates in the tower. He dragged his finger through the Common Room, down the stairs, past the Great Hall, but then paused near the entrance to the dungeons. He dropped his hand back to the safety of his bed as his eyes skated over the rest of the castle. He dissolved the map and tucked it back in with his wand. And rolled back onto his side. He looked out the window just in time to see the moon sliding out from behind the clouds. When he closed his eyes in hope of sleep, familiar grey orbs remained.
The next morning on the way to breakfast, Draco and Harry literally bumped into each other, both so unfocused from lack of sleep.
"Sorry."
"Sorry."
When they looked up and saw into whom they had bumped, near-panic set in. Draco rushed to the Slytherin table in a most un-Malfoy-like manner, and Harry started off in the direction of the stairs. Pansy cocked an eyebrow but followed Draco nonetheless.
Hermione frowned, "Harry, what about breakfast?"
He paused, foot on the first step, "Right, breakfast," and turned back to the Great Hall, following Hermione and Ron, rubbing his head wearily.
The whole meal, Draco couldn't tear his eyes from the Gryffindor table, nor from one Gryffindor in particular. Of course Pansy noticed and, not liking a diversion of his attention, began chattering incessantly in his ear. He picked at his fruit and yogurt, making small acknowledgements only when her pauses in speech made it obvious that she was expecting it. After meeting, and losing, Harry's eyes for the hundredth time, he dropped his spoon to the table and left for class without a word to his still-yammering friend.
Harry tried to follow Ron's babble about the Cannons and Hermione's rambling about the witches and wizards of the ancient Amazon, but he couldn't. He couldn't stop his eyes drifting to the Slytherin table, couldn't stop his gaze landing on the porcelain skin and platinum hair, couldn't help blushing and averting his eyes when they met with Draco's. Ron noticed almost instantly, and poked Hermione's side, drawing her from her ramblings. Harry was too entranced in the blonde-haired boy to notice their whispering and suspicious glances. When Draco left, Harry swallowed the rest of his pumpkin juice and left too, leaving his best friends to their mad flurry of whispers and pointing.
After a lunch similar to breakfast - and Gryffindor-Slytherin classes spent staring and frowning and mooning - both boys skipped dinner. Draco tucked himself into the furthest recesses of the library, behind the dustiest shelves, where literally no one everwent. He scourgified a matching table and chair, and pulled supplies from his bag. He arranged parchment, quill, and ink pot neatly on the table and promptly began ignoring them. He allowed his thoughts to drift to the previous day, and really let himself feel what he'd been trying so hard not too. Letting loose a bellowing sigh which pulled even the oldest layer of dust from its hiding place, he slumped over the table, resting his head upon a clumsy mess of limbs and his balled up jumper. This time, the visions that danced through his head brought comfort, and so he drifted off to sleep.
Harry went for a wander throughout the castle, using the Marauders Map to keep him from going in populated directions. He went up spindly staircases, 'cross faded carpets, 'round cobwebbed corridors, too wrapped up in his own thoughts to even acknowledge the pleasant painted people that were so excited to have traffic near their home-frames. His eyes kept drifting to one particular dot on the map, located in a spot of the library he didn't even know existed. Finally, as Harry grew tired and near resolution, he returned to the common room. He shouldn't have been surprised to find it empty but for Hermione and Ron, curled up by the fire waiting for him.
"Is there something you want to tell us, mate?" Ron frowned in concern, and Hermione reiterated his question.
"Draco kissed me," Harry blurted out mindlessly, "and I kissed him back."
He cringed and averted his eyes, until he heard Ron laughing.
"That's it? We were worried something really awful had happened!"
"I thought maybe your scar was hurting again. Even though I know it's not possible." Hermione added in a small voice.
Harry gaped at them, mouth opened and closing like a fish out of water.
"You're kidding me. Here I am, thinking you guys will never talk to me again, and you laugh like it's not even a big deal!"
"Well, it's not a big deal, Harry."
Hermione said it so matter-of-factly that he almost believed her.
"Of course it's a big deal! One, he's my arch rival, two he's a… he! How are you not freaking out about this? I'm freaking out and I like him!"
"Harry, mate, we aren't kids any more. The war is over. There is no such thing as 'arch rivals'. And why would we care about the fact that you like a bloke?"
It was Ron's confidence that got him. He slumped onto the chair across from his best friends. They were right, and he had something to do. He pulled out his map to check that Draco was still in the library and, after giving Ron and Hermione a big hug, left the Common room.
Draco woke with a start to a light tap on the back, and his name ghosting through the air. He turned round and saw Harry standing there, giving him his second fright of the night.
"Hi." Harry whispered, even though they were too well hidden to be heard by anyone patrolling the stacks for night time wanderers.
"About yesterday..." Draco started, but didn't know how to continue. He searched Harry's face for a clue, but saw only what he thought was fear. "I'm sorry," he whispered, shame clouding his face, "it didn't mean anything."
"I'm not." Harry declared, the confidence in his voice slightly dampened by books and dust. "I'm not sorry at all."
Harry looked at Draco, hoping against hope that he had meant it - that he wasn't sorry either. Draco, his face emotionless like a mask, rose from his seat and approached Harry slowly. Harry swallowed, heart beating almost as fast as when he battled Voldemort the last time.
"Good," Draco whispered in Harry's ear, "because I am not even a little sorry. And it meant everything to me."