AN I don't own HP or any of the characters! Eventual Drarry
Draco didn't have many friends. Crabbe and Goyle were henchmen, not friends, and while Pansy and Theo considered him a friend he couldn't say that it went both ways. The one, and only, person Draco let himself lean on was his best friend-only friend-Blaise Zabini. Not many people knew, especially because they'd spent their first few years at Hogwarts putting distance between them, but Draco and Blaise had grown up together. Their mothers had been friends before either had even gotten married, let alone pregnant. They'd been born less than two months apart and, given their similar social and political status, the families had spent a considerable amount of time together.
Draco's first memory was of Blaise. It shocked him, sometimes, how fundamental the boy had become in his life from such a young age. He could remember the Zabini's coming over to the Manor, could remember their parents sitting down around the dinner table and discussing things over wine. Their mothers, ushering the two boys off to play in another room while they talked. Something had happened that Draco couldn't remember and their fathers had been upset, for some reason, so the dinner had gone on for much longer than planned. He remembered a house elf telling them to sleep.
They'd been exhausted, or maybe he was just imagining that, but it'd been late and Draco had curled up in one of the arm chairs near the fireplace, watching Blaise amuse himself with the toys they'd brought out. His mind remembered being cold, feeling his eyelids start to droop. Their fathers, yelling, and their mothers trying to appease the men or at least calm them for a discussion again. It still managed to surprise Draco, even now. But he remembered the feeling of a small, warm little body joining him in the armchair, curling around him and squeezing into place. That had been the first time anyone had ever touched him, aside from his parents.
Even now, it often felt like Draco was being dramatic when he thought of it that way but that didn't make it any less true. His father's touch was cold and unforgiving, as was Mr. Zabini's. Their mothers were warm and loving when they were young, and especially in private, but they seemed to wean the boys off of that as they got older. And, to everyone's surprise, the boys turned to each other.
Blaise was the only friend who'd ever been allowed to hug him, even when he was a child, and Blaise was the only person who ever dared to touch Draco in any kind of comforting gesture-even just a hand on his shoulder. They were very close, to the point that their families had sat them down and talked to them about arranged marriages. Neither had realized it at the time but now they laughed at their parents for feeling the need to enforce that heterosexuality. Their parents had thought they were gay for each other.
Now, it was just funny more than anything because they were incredibly close but they'd never been anything more than platonic. The touching, in particular, seemed to always make people assume it was romantic, especially because Draco was so strict about who touched him and how, but it was just because Blaise was… Blaise. He was the one Draco had chased around the Manor as a child, pretending to be an auror. Blaise was the one Draco had had sleepovers with, the one Draco had gone on adventures with and gotten in trouble with, and Blaise was the one who always had his back. And the young Zabini was also the one who'd crawled into Draco's bed at night whenever he had nightmares.
They'd been inseparable as children. But, Lucius had walked in on them together in Draco's bed one too many times and that friendship had been severed by their parents. Too close, his mother had said, they needed other friends too. Draco had cried that night for hours because he'd lost his best friend, his brother, and the one person in the entire world who loved him unconditionally. Their parents had been persistent, though, and stronger so they'd stayed apart for the following two years.
At Hogwarts, neither of them seemed to know what to do. They'd both been sorted into Slytherin, to Draco's relief, and they chose beds next to each other but they hardly spoke or interacted. For the most part, Blaise pretended not to know him and Draco returned the favor. But, by their fourth year, that wall between them had so many cracks it was basically nonexistent and Draco had woken up in a cold sweat again, breathing hard from a nightmare. Out of habit, he'd glanced to the bed beside him. Blaise was awake, though, and the second their eyes met Draco could tell this time was different. Something had changed.
Draco had turned his back to the other boy like they'd established a routine of doing, trying to ignore the fact that he was clearly upset, but he nearly screamed when he felt the bed shift under someone else's weight. An old, familiar warmth settled against his back and an arm snaked around him to rest on his chest. Instantly, Draco was five years old again.
"Breathe, Dray." He obeyed, letting Blaise rest his hand on his pale, shaky chest so he could focus on his heart rate. It was an easy warmth that settled into his joints, smoothing the jerky panic. Familiar, if nothing else, and easy. Draco lifted his hand from where he was clutching the bedsheets in white fists and gently covered the darker hand on his chest, holding it there a little more firmly. Blaise was safe.
"M'sorry." But Blaise shook his head and just settled a little more securely onto the bed with him. Draco had always been smaller than his best friend, having inherited his father's slim figure and lithe movements while Blaise had inherited broad shoulders and strength. The difference was much more apparent, now, though than when they were kids. Strangely, it didn't disrupt their rhythm or interfere. It actually helped, in a weird way, because Blaise could almost absorb him into his own body and shield him from the nightmare.
"Missed you, Dray." Draco smiled, shifting to make sure Blaise didn't get a mouthful of his hair.
"Don't tell my dad, mkay?" They both laughed, but Draco fell asleep soon after that into a peaceful, dreamless sleep. He hadn't slept like that in years…
From that point on, they'd been close again-though they were very careful to be discrete with anything more than a 'normal' friendly touch. But people noticed almost immediately, especially other Slytherins, because Draco was so particular about physical contact. Even just touching Draco's shoulder in greeting drew hundreds of eyes on them. They were waiting for Draco to deck him or curse him or something, as if anyone would ever dare to use a gesture like that if it wasn't explicitly already allowed. He didn't, though, and they transitioned so seamlessly that people quickly moved on.
Snape noticed, though Draco had his suspicions that it'd been less in his capacity as a professor and more as the blond's godfather. Neither boy had any doubt that their actions were being reported back to their fathers. But, no letters came. So they continued and were just careful around adults or people who knew their parents.
Draco could count on one hand the number of times someone other than Blaise or his parents had touched him over the last five years. Three of those times had been Snape, who still refused to believe that Draco's discomfort also applied to him, and one had been Granger punching him in the face. The last one had been none other than Harry James Potter.
He understood why Granger had punched him-though he still whined about it when he could-but Potter was a mystery. A fucking irritating mystery. It hadn't even been an aggressive or unexpected touch, either, which made Blaise shoot him funny looks for at least a week because Draco was a professional. Paranoid, Blaise usually called it, and yet the other Slytherin did it too. Draco had mastered the technique of casually sidestepping any kind of contact without anyone ever noticing. And, when necessary, he could turn his silver eyes to steel and sear nothing short of terror into whoever tried to touch him that that was not, and would not ever be, allowed.
Potter, though… Potter had put a hand on Draco's shoulder, almost unconsciously, when he'd moved behind him in Potions one day the way people normally did just to say hey don't back into me. Draco hadn't even noticed it and, if Blaise and Snape hadn't both shot him incredulous looks, he probably wouldn't ever have. It was tiny, typical gesture-nothing special. And yet, Draco couldn't remember the last time anyone had ever done something like that to him, even unintentionally.
"Dude, why didn't you freak out on him?" He glared Blaise into silence across the Potions' table, but it was clear his best friend was not about to let it go. Maybe he felt threatened, Draco thought. Or maybe he thought something was seriously wrong with Draco because the one rule he'd been enforcing since they were five years old had suddenly been broken-and Draco hadn't even noticed. The blond would explain later, to anyone who mentioned it, that Harry's hand had been so light, that Draco hadn't even felt the touch, but that wasn't true. He'd felt it, let it register, and for some reason… not been bothered?
"Drop it, Blaise." Blaise wouldn't drop it-Draco knew that as well as anyone-but the message was clear enough to make him stop. Wait until we're alone. So Blaise had waited until their roommates had fallen asleep that night. He'd charmed his own bed curtains not to be opened, and slipped beneath Draco's to curl against his back, muttering another locking spell on the blond's curtains. Draco had said the silencing charm.
"You didn't freak out."
"No, I didn't." Blaise curled into him, thankfully, so Draco could breathe in the familiar warmth and relax a bit. He wasn't going to lie to his best friend, especially not like this, and he'd been preparing himself all day for this exact line of questioning but he still didn't know what to say.
"Why not?" That was core issue of it all. Draco couldn't prepare himself to answer that question, no matter how hard he tried, because he simply didn't know.
"No clue." And, for the first time in a while, Draco was glad that Blaise knew him so well because the other Slytherin heard the genuine frustration and confusion in his voice and didn't pry for more. He knew Draco wasn't hiding anything or lying, so he didn't keep asking questions neither of them would be able to answer. Draco liked that about him
"Did you think it was me?" That was a good question, he supposed, because he hadn't considered that, even unconsciously, he might have dismissed the touch as Blaise's. But he'd been across the table from the other Slytherin, looking right at him.
"No, I knew it was Potter. I knew it was him, but it still felt like you? That doesn't make sense, I know, but it registered the same way your touch does in my mind. Like I knew he was touching me, it just felt..."
"Familiar?" No, it didn't have the same kind of ancientness to it or the same memories attached.
"Safe."
Thanks for reading! I hope to update soon but reviews encourage me so much!
