Chapter 1: Next-door neighbours

He's in the hallway, looking like he's from another star. With the hallway being what it is, worn linoleum, stained walls, cold lighting, the epitome of ugly, and him being him.

The contrary of everything unsightly.

Even if he didn't yet get around to comb his hair, or change out of his night blue brocade dressing gown.

It's the early afternoon, and I've just come back from campus.

"Harry? Can I come over and borrow your notes tonight? Didn't make it to class today, slept in again…"

I know he did. I've been scanning the auditorium for his bright head the whole morning, all through Curse Tort and Magical Property Law, always expecting that weird jolt it gives me to see him. But he never showed up. Same as most days, actually.

I really need to quit the compulsive checking.

"That okay, Einstein?"

"Sure," I say, aiming at cool.

It's still a struggle, after all these months.

Our first year at college will be over in two months' time, we've been next-door neighbours in LCWL Hall for over half a year, and for just as long, he's been living off my notes.

He comes to my room every single night to borrow them, and to lounge on my bed and tell me about the cool folks you meet at the Crystal Balls where he works as a bartender four nights a week, or the clubs he plans to hit that night, and generally the pleasures of going out. Teasing me in every other sentence about my hermit ways.

If it wasn't kind of absurd, considering, I'd say he's my best friend.

And yet I can't shake this tension, a tension that's got nothing to do with animosity or competition these days.

"Great, see you then, Einstein," he says, but he doesn't turn away, he flashes me his smirk.

"Einstein wasn't a lawyer," I say, momentarily dazed.

"I know, man, I know he's famous for his poems," he replies, grey eyes twinkling down at me, making me feel super dumb for lecturing him on Muggle facts when he knows everything.

He's like constantly partying, but somehow he still manages to know everything.

He's smart, and sparkling, and a hundred kinds of beautiful.

Merlin, this thing I have about him can't go on.

I can't be infatuated with a guy.

And I'm not.

I'm with Ginny Weasley.

And he is Draco Malfoy.

I've got to focus on his faults.

He used to have a ton of those.

Why the heck is it that I can't think of a single one right now.

His smirk. That smirk he's putting on to raise my hackles.

I hate that smirk.

It doesn't make me wonder what his mouth would feel like on mine.

"Hey. Everything okay, darling?"

That's another one of his nicknames for me; darling. It's what gay people do, call people darling.

I hate it when he does that.

"All good," I say, then cough to cover up the tremble in my voice.

For a moment he looks at me, concern creasing his perfect features. I used to think of them as pointy.

When he looks concerned for me, it's worse than his smirk. My knees go so weak I need to put a hand to the wall.

His scrutinizing gaze intensifies.

The problem is, he knows about the series of operations I underwent after the Battle. Everybody knows about it. I got out of it okay; I couldn't be a bikini model, with that tube map of scars on my chest, but else I'm all good.

I just can't face syringe wands or surgical lights or people talking about St. Mungo's. I guess you could say I'm a little bit damaged that way.

He can't know that. But hell, it feels like he does.

And like he cares.

And he's just so damn darn handsome.

"Harry?"

"All good, man," I repeat, looking at his chest so I don't have to look at his face.

Only his chest is perfect, too. Wide, and bulging in all the right places.

I'm not checking out his muscle definition. I'm not.

There's his necklace disappearing in his shirt. I don't know what kind of pendant he's wearing on that necklace, but I imagine it resting against his skin, warmed up by his body heat…

I shift my gaze yet again, to his arm.

He's got nice arms, too, for fuck's sake.

There's a single golden hair on his sleeve, shining against the gown's dark blue. I focus on that hair and say, "I'm just really tired, Dray. Pulled an all-nighter for Magical Creature Rights class, you know."

He nods.

"Always ready to travel the hard road to bring justice to earth," he says. "That's my Saviour."

"Shut up, Malfoy, or I might decide to duel you," I retort, my voice a little firmer. "You don't want that."

"But I totally do!"

"You sure? You realize it'd ruin that lovely undone look you've probably spent hours working on."

I gesture at his unkempt hair. He cards his fingers through the gleaming, golden strands, grinning down at me.

"You know what Potter, you got a point there."

I don't know how it happened that our endless fighting morphed into this friendly banter.

The summer after eighth year, he came back from France, and we met in this dorm, in this very hallway. And he said, "Hey, every day in the Saviour's presence again, what a treat."

But there was no edge to it. That old animosity was just gone.

Yes, I would never have thought it possible, but he's kind of my best friend these days.

He himself has dozens of friends, friends who are very different from his old set.

After his acquittal, he didn't rejoin the ranks of the old wizard nobility. Those who had supported the Dark Lord but were able to evade prosecution, his father among them, were quietly readjusting in the sanctuaries of their country homes, licking their wounds, focussing their energies on protecting the assets that hadn't been taken from them as bail or compensation.

Draco never went back to Malfoy Manor. Instead, he came to the capital, enrolled at London College of Wizarding Law, and plunged into the party life of the young and the hip, quickly becoming one of its primary players.

I am back to being the loner I was before Hogwarts, minus the Dursleys.

Ginny, Hermione and Ron have all moved to Devon to study Auroring in Plymouth. Plymouth Magical University is just fifty miles from the Burrow, and offers the most renowned Auroring course in England.

I didn't come along. Everyone thought I'd become an Auror, I used to think it myself. But if I know one thing, it's that I won't fight anymore.

Not using a wand, anyway.

Wizarding Law has always appealed to me. Granted, it comes with a lot of tiresome reading, but it does have to do with justice. And I enjoy the way conflict is being dealt with in law. Words, arguments. No wands, no curses; instead, an established, orderly routine of civilised dispute.

Yeah, some might call my subject stuffy, but I like it.

Draco and I are the only Hogwarts students from our year who enrolled at LCWL.

Dean and Seamus and Neville are in London, too, but they're over at Mag Med campus, studying to become healers. Somehow it's like you live in different cities if you live in different dorms.

I guess I could have formed some new friendships. But college is different from school. You can spend whole days on your own without anybody noticing. You go to classes, have your meals at the canteen, but you can still be alone if you want to.

Or if you can't face the strain of being chatted up by people who just want to talk to you because you're supposedly a celebrity. Who don't understand you aren't up for talking about the Battle of Hogwarts like about a movie or one of your rougher Quidditch games.

I hate being made to talk about the war. It's just no topic for small talk. There's nothing entertaining about it, and certainly nothing glamorous. All that a war does is leave people with loved ones lost, and in my case with a fear of operation lamps and with fat ugly scars that are never going to fade. Scars that'll probably always hurt to the touch, just like those memories don't bear being touched on. –

Draco stands with his head tilted, observing me. His smirk has softened into a smile.

His smile is something very peculiar. It's just this gentle twist to his lips, the gentleness paradoxically enhancing the subtly mean aspect of the set of his mouth. It effectively conceals his kindness of soul.

Not from me though, not anymore.

When he smiles at me, it's like he really does know everything; all these things I never talk about.

Like he understands.

Yeah, his smile is really the worst.

"I need to lie down," I say, and it's like the first thing I've said that isn't a lie. And then, because I have this urge to touch him and no reason nor right to do it, I lift my hand and pick that hair from his sleeve.

He gives a low chuckle and a shake of his head.

"You go do that, darling. Bye."

And then he's off.

Making the world go dim, taking all the reasons to keep going and stay alive with him. Or so it feels for an absurd second or two.

I need to call Ginny.

When I'm back in my room, I sit down at my desk with my wand in hand. But I don't call Ginny.

Instead, I open my palm where I hid his hair. Levitating it with Wingardium Leviosa, I sit back and meditate it like it was a rare piece of magical gold.

Shoot, I need to clear my head. I get up and pluck a bottle of pumpkin juice from the old cardboard box I'm using as a magical fridge.

I got that box second hand, and it doesn't retain the frost spell like it's supposed to. I've been meaning to get a new fridge box for a while now, but I never seem to be getting around to it. It seems I just don't care enough.

I gulp down the lukewarm juice until the bottle is empty. I'm about to throw it in the bin, then I don't. Instead, I use Cleansio on it, then carefully catch hold of the hair still floating above my desk.

I let the hair slip into the bottle, screw the lid back on and put the bottle on the shelf above my bed.

Pathetic is not a strong enough word for this. For me.

I'm not gay.

I don't watch gay porn, I don't fancy guys.

Or him.

I don't want him to kiss me.

If he ever kissed me, I'd implode.