YOOOOO I AM BACK, SQUIRRELS (I'm trying the whole squirrel thing out we'll see how it goes.) I have returned with more writing of the Drarry origin, and I'm hoping that at least one person besides myself likes it. I have high hopes for the new year, I know.
On that note, Happy New Year! May this year be better than the last one in all the ways that the last one was crappy.
Okay, I'll send you off to read now.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I think that's a good thing, because no one could've made it as perfect as J.K. Rowling did, who does, in fact, own in. She's great.
As far as he was concerned, Harry had done nothing to deserve being in the situation he was currently in. Disregarding everything related to being a "hero", he'd tried to be a good person. He'd done his chores, not complained too much when he was stuffed into the cupboard, stood up for some people who couldn't stand up for themselves- all of these being expected of good people. Except the cupboard bit, but he considered that a bonus.
However, where he was right now, what and who he was being forced to tolerate, made him reconsider all of this. Clearly, he'd done something very wrong that'd gotten him to this point in his life. What could be so bad, he didn't know, but it was definitely something.
Because good people are not forced to sit in a movie theatre while one of their old classmates sits right in front of them, being happy and romantic, years after they've both graduated. This, coupled with the fact that he himself was currently on a date too, but a disastrous one with someone he didn't know and didn't want to get to know, really made it sting. He found himself getting more and more bitter about everything by the second, which he didn't try to stop. He thought his feelings were justified, in all honesty.
Now this situation wouldn't have normally been so bad if it weren't for two things that scrapped that option completely. The first, and more important of the two, was that the person in front of Harry was none other than, as much dread as even just thinking the name brought him- Draco Malfoy.
His enemy for the vast majority of his time at Hogwarts. The (formerly, at least) insufferable git. That Draco Malfoy. Why Malfoy was allowed to be an a happy date in plain sight of Harry while Harry had to suffer through his own date was completely lost on him.
The other of the two things had to do with Malfoy's company, which is to say, well, that his company was male. This in itself didn't matter to Harry at all, but what did was that, for some absurd reason, the fact that Malfoy was with a bloke was provoking strong feelings inside of Harry. It almost felt like Harry was… Jealous? But that made no sense, and the confusion was only making Harry more angry at what was happening and, sadly, himself.
On second thought, that was definitely the more important of the two.
Though Harry's mind was largely dominated by the large amounts of angry confusion running around wildly, a more powerful feeling was eagerly making itself evident to Harry.
He was quickly getting more and more terrified. He'd worked so hard to escape the worst parts of his past and, no matter who he was now, Malfoy was sure to bring many of those things to the forefront of Harry's mind.
He'd noticed that Malfoy was sitting in front of him only minutes into the movie. It'd been almost comical- he'd hesitantly settled into his seat, looking uncertainly at his date, and trying to smile at her; he didn't even really want to be on the date, but he was tired of being single and alone, so he'd decided to give it a shot. Once the movie started, he'd gratefully turned his attention to the screen in front of him, hoping to be able to zone out during it and relax some. Trying to get rid of some tension, he'd let his head fall forwards a little but, so that his gaze automatically went to the row below him.
The first thing he'd noticed was the hair. Really, really shiny hair that looked practically white in the soft glow coming from the movie screen. He'd admired it unconsciously for a second before reminding himself that he was on a date and shouldn't be admiring other people. He'd zoned out some more before his thoughts wandered, as they occasionally did, to Malfoy. He'd never really managed to make Malfoy stop being a big part of his life, good or bad, even though he hadn't seen the guy in person since they'd graduated, and he was constantly trying to forget him. Maybe that was the problem: he worked so hard trying not to think about Malfoy that it brought Malfoy to his thoughts more than it did what it was supposed to.
His mind wandered some more before he finally made the connection.
Shiny, blond hair- a very particular type of hair. Draco Malfoy had this kind of hair. Draco Malfoy, in fact, was the only person Harry knew with that particular kind of hair.
Harry looked back down at the hair. At first, he was kind of excited to possibly see his nemesis after so long, but even more than that, he was confused. Then, as he stared at the head below him, waiting for the person attached to it to turn their head, he started to really think about what Malfoy being in the row below would mean. That's when he started to get scared; he really didn't want to upset the delicate balance finally established in his life. As dread filled him, his attention was drawn to a small turn of the blond's head, responding to a nudge from the person next to him.
Yes, it was.
It was Draco Malfoy.
Harry stared blankly at Malfoy's profile for a moment until he turned back to the movie screen, breaking Harry out of his daze.
Immediately, his brain started working on figuring out a way to fix his predicament.
He couldn't move to a different row because, since the movie was so popular, all of the seats were full. He also couldn't simply leave, which he surely would've done if it had been an option, because he was on a date and really didn't want to come off as sorude.
So he'd been forced to sit right behind Malfoy, watching as he and his date occasionally leaned into each other, held hands, and were overall sickeningly lovey dovey. Occasionally one of them turned towards the other and said something, often making their date laugh quietly. Sometimes it seemed like Malfoy was a bit tired of the other bloke, but Harry thought that might just be wishful thinking.
Which made no sense! Why would Harry be wishing for Malfoy to be uninterested in his date?
It was all very confusing.
Harry tried paying attention to the movie first. This worked for about five minutes, but the constant movement below him quickly broke his resolve and drew his attention again. He thought it was a very poor design on the architect's behalf. Why were the seats so close in height that one movement easily drew Harry's eyes to the row below him?
Realizing that his weak attempt at paying attention was actually just completely futile, Harry thought about distracting himself with his own date. He really did think about it, but he honestly couldn't bring himself to initiate anything, so he sat there some more, thinking. That is, thinking about something other than Draco Malfoy. Or trying to. Really, Malfoy was all Harry could think about with him so close after so long.
Weirdly enough, Harry started to get the strangest urge. He could easily recognize it because of how often he used to have it, and it confused him.
He wanted to prank Malfoy.
He really had no idea why, but he could easily tell that pranking Malfoy was all he wanted to do. And he really wanted to.
Oh, screw it. What've I got to lose at this point? Harry thought, and made up his mind to prank Malfoy before they both left from the movie theatre.
Harry quickly told his date that he needed to go to the bathroom, and quietly went to do just that. Kind of. He did go there, but mostly to plan.
He tried to think of how exactly he should prank Malfoy, but came up with nothing, which wasn't too big of a surprise. Everything he'd have done in his school days seemed silly and childish now, as expected. Really, it'd seemed childish then too, but he'd always had the assurance that Malfoy would be no more dignified in the same situation. Now he didn't know. Even though he didn't plan to get caught, if he did, he didn't want to feel worse than he already did about his maturity level. He was, after all, currently planning to prank an old school nemesis who'd done nothing wrong in the last few years. Not exactly the epitome of maturity there, was he.
Harry finally came across the idea to maybe just kind of follow Malfoy around and scare him a little while under his invisibility cloak. Reluctantly settling on that (bad) plan, he went into a stall in the bathroom so that he could have some privacy to Apparate. Noting, as he often did, how unclean bathrooms always were, he hurried to Apparate away from the gross stall, heading to his apartment to get his invisibility cloak as quickly as he could.
Apparating was still unsettling to him. He'd learned it in such a high pressure situation, and there were a lot of unsettling things from his past tied to it. Plus, with his muggle upbringing it seemed kind of unnecessary to use magic just to move from place to place. At this point, he mostly biked or walked everywhere.
Stumbling into his apartment, he took a moment to regain his balance. After he thought he was steady on his feet again, he walked into the room with his trunk and pulled out his invisibility cloak. Since he rarely ever used it anymore, he took a moment to admire it as the memories connected to it rushed back in. Once they got to a certain point in time, he stopped embracing them and walked briskly out of my room, trying to think about something else.
And that's how his mind ended up on, again, Draco Malfoy. Really, if he thought about it, it made sense. Any time he thought of "something else" it usually ended up being Malfoy. He found it annoying mostly, and unfortunate.
In the next room, Harry realized that moving had been completely unnecessary- he was going to Apparate anyways- but pushed the thought away, still thinking of Malfoy, and Apparated.
He seemed to have forgotten the unfortunate things that happen when people Apparate without proper concentration on the Apparation itself. This paired with the fact that he was more concentrated on Draco Malfoy than anything else, and that he knew where said person currently was, probably caused what happened next.
Harry got suddenly dizzy, closing his eyes to try to calm the feeling. Before he knew it, the atmosphere was different and he seemed to be somewhere very, very strange. He looked down.
And saw Draco Malfoy.
He was currently falling. Through air.
Thankfully, Harry could tell that he Apparated about eight feet above Malfoy, and promptly performed a faster Apparation than he'd ever seen anyone do in his life, much less himself. He tried, this time, to Apparate back to the bathroom stall he'd left from. Dreading the Apparation's possible failure, Harry closed his eyes tightly. After a couple of seconds passed in complete silence, he opened both eyes slowly and carefully, met with the disgusting scene that is a bathroom stall. Despite his hate of it, he welcomed seeing the bathroom stall gratefully. He almost got to the point of cheering out loud, but managed to keep that part of him under restraint.
Harry took a moment to calm himself, trying to breathe in a calming way. It didn't really work.
Okay, now all he had to do was go back into the movie theatre, sit through the boring movie, somehow ditch his date, and then he'd be free to do whatever he wanted regarding Malfoy.
That sounded kind of wrong.
He didn't mean in that way.
Consent is key.
He'd be able to prank Malfoy in whatever manner he liked, is what he meant.
That didn't sound all that much better, did it?
Oh well.
Harry took in the reassuring sight of the bathroom once more before quietly closing and opening the door, looking around to make sure that no one was suspicious. After almost falling onto random movie-goers from midair, he had to admit, he was a tad paranoid.
He tried not to, but he was fairly certain that he legitimately sneaked back into the theatre that was showing his movie.
On the way up to his seat, Malfoy's hair caught his eye again. He tried not to stop and gape at it for too long, hoping that his date wasn't watching him even half as closely as he was watching Malfoy. He knew it would be bad if she thought something was up, especially if she thought something was up about Malfoy.
Wait, why was Harry acting like this was a criminal operation? It was just going to be a harmless prank.
His confidence bolstered by this thought, Harry straightened his back and walked as comfortably as he could back to his seat.
"Hey," his date whispered to him when he sat down, "Your stomach okay?"
"Yeah, it's-" Then Harry thought of something. It was probably his cowardice speaking, but if he told his date that his stomach was hurting so much that he had to go and sit in the bathroom for a while, it would be a really easy was to ditch her. He felt pretty mean, but it was something he had to do for his own sake. "It's actually pretty bad, and I just wanted to tell you in person that I probably have to leave now. I'm really sorry, but I hope you'll understand."
"Oh, of course. If you're leaving, I wasn't actually super interested in this movie, so I can walk you to wherever you need to go."
"Oh, okay…" Harry debated whether that would ruin his plan. "Yeah, sure. Let's go."
They both got up, trying not to further irritate the already somewhat on edge audience, and walked as unobtrusively as they could out of the theatre.
Harry already felt bad for what he was doing, but…
"Um, my stomach is actually kind of acting up right now," and this wasn't completely untruthful, because being so mean was making him queasy. "I think," he continued, "that I need to duck into the bathroom, so if you just want to go home without me, that'd be best. I'm really sorry again."
"No, that's fine. I'm sorry your stomach hurts so much. Okay, I'll leave you to it. Bye!"
Wow, this girl was actually pretty cool and nice. He'd have to make his terrible behavior up to her sometime.
Ducking into the bathroom, Harry felt a strange sense of freedom.
Now, he thought, time to tease the ferret.
Fan interactions are cool and nice... I may be hinting at something. Maybe.
Yeah, I was saying you should review or follow or favorite! Because I would enjoy that immensely. Honestly, getting emails about my fanfiction is strangely euphoric for me.
Well then, bye!