Of Mistletoe and Broken Quills
By Queen of Randomosity
Rating: PG – 13Warning: slight male on male snogging
Disclaimer: All of this except the plot is JK Rowling's. I am just a humble servant.
There was a sound right outside the Great Hall, like water splashing onto the stone floor. The Great Hall grew silent, save for a few snickers and curious whispers, and when the doors slammed open, the silence was almost deafening.
Harry Potter stared at the wet figure at the doorway and began to snicker, no matter how much he wasn't supposed to. It was quite funny, and though it was bad manners to laugh, he couldn't help it, and burst out into a full-blown fit, banging his fist on the tabletop and tears of mirth streaming from his eyes. After all, it wasn't everyday that you could see Draco Malfoy, lord of all things proud and dignified, looking like a drowned rat.
Many people followed Harry's reaction, laughing and giggling, except not as extreme as he had, while some whispered scandalous remarks or stared at his clothes, which had clung to his body due to the wetness.
The butt of the ridicule, however, just stood there with an expressionless face, and seemed to not mind the laughter or the lewd eyes that scanned his body with poorly hidden desire. For a moment there, if Harry had even bothered to look during his outburst, the young Malfoy looked almost pitiful.
And the laughter and glee continued for several minutes, until he seemed to have come to his senses and left, though not in haste. And if Harry, dear naïve boy, had looked, he would've seen the Slytherin looking at him with an almost pained glint in those clear gray eyes.
It had been two days since the incident when Harry Potter came across his rival in the Room of Requirement packing up after a study session with his fellow Slytherins. Everybody was gone, except for Malfoy himself, and Harry just waited patiently outside the room for the other boy to leave.
"You can come in, Potter. I'll be out in a minute."
Harry jumped, surprised that Malfoy knew he was there. He coughed, and entered the room, lugging his Potions and Charms stuff behind him. He never did like studying in the common room or the library, and chose to study alone in the Room of Requirement.
Malfoy was tying his shoelace at a nearby chair, his book bag dumped unceremoniously on the floor, a quill having escaped and landing about a foot from where he stood. Once done with his task, he glanced at Harry and picked up his bag, having not noticed the rogue quill.
"Oh, um, your quill." Harry said, awkwardly pointing out the black feather on the stone floor.
Gray eyes flicked downward, and then back at Harry. "Hm," he said uninterestedly. "I've no need for it. I'll just ask mother to send in another box." He nodded at Harry in a gesture of goodbye, and headed for the door. He paused, however, and without turning, spoke.
"You might want to step out from under the mistletoe, Potter. You don't want to be attacked by rabid fangirls now, do you?" It was said in a tone of casual indifference, and he left without another word.
Harry frowned, slowly guiding his gaze upwards, and there was indeed a branch of mistletoe hanging right above him. Hastily jumping from harm's way, he accidentally stepped on something and heard it crunch. He glanced at his feet, and saw that he had stepped on Malfoy's quill, damaged beyond all muggle repairs. He bent down and examined it, seeing that the shaft was broken, the top part of the feather hanging limply by a thread.
Shoving the feather into his pocket, Harry sat down in a couch and began to study, not giving a second thought about the day's occurrences.
"Is that my quill, Potter?"
Harry Potter jumped a foot in the air when he heard the Slytherin's voice, and he cursed under his breath for being too easily surprised. He turned, looking at his rival, and felt for the quill in his robe pocket, which he hadn't taken out since the time he got it.
"Err, yeah, it is."
Malfoy raised an eyebrow as he chopped his wigroot evenly. "Broken too? And I thought you were better than that, Potter." He smirked, putting down his knife and easing the sliced wigroot pieces into his bubbling cauldron.
Harry turned red and spoke nothing, only proceeding to measure powdered beetle wings. In hiss embarrassment, he mistook 1.2 ounces for 12, and after stirring anti-clockwise, is potion turned deep red and froze.
"Mister Potter! You imbecilic boy! Does your brain always turn to mush in winter, or are you just this stupid?" Professor Snape was on him like a bird of prey. An extremely ugly bird of prey. "Twenty points from Gryffindor, and may the gods have mercy on your poor soul this Christmas!"
The Slytherins snickered and Harry's housemates looked at him with either pity or dislike. He just glared defiantly at his Potions master, as if daring the professor to deduct more points. Of course, Snape could not give him detention for "looking at me funny" and went back to breath down Neville Longbottom's neck and threaten the daylights out of Seamus Finnigan.
"Smooth, Potter." Draco whispered, before going back to work on his potion.
Sighing, Harry cast a spell to clean up his potion and leaned on his chair. It was going to be a long week.
It was soon Winter Break, and the loud hustle and bustle around Hogwarts lessened due to a majority of the students going home for Christmas. The school seemed to be hollow these days, with one's voice bouncing off stonewalls and echoing throughout the halls.
Holiday festivities had started, though, and there were snowball wars being held out in the courtyard every afternoon, hot cocoa and butterbeer handed out all day, and bonfires were held every two days.
That day, just before Christmas, Harry, Ron and Hermione were sitting in the Great Hall, sipping on warm mugs of butterbeer. The two boys were playing wizard chess, Harry still being defeated by Ron's unmerciful skill, while Hermione's nose was buried in a book named House Elves and Their Mating Rituals. Just thinking about the title, Harry knew the book was very unsettling.
"Hah!" Ron yelled in triumph, beating the air with his fist. "You think you'd beat me? Never! I am the King, Harry!" He was rather enthusiastic, probably the sugar from the butterbeer kicking in, and the chess pieces were yelling at him to keep quiet before they beat his gob closed.
Harry just laughed at his best friend and was about to pack up the chessboard, when he felt the presence of someone looking at him. He frowned and looked up, searching the Hall, and his eyes fell upon Draco Malfoy.
The blonde wasn't leering or smirking; his cool eyes flicked to the doors and back to Harry, then he stood up from his group, excused himself and exited the room. No one found his leaving bothersome, as if he did that most of the time, and Harry knew that Malfoy was waiting outside for him.
"Hey, guys? I need to go see to something." He said distractedly, gazing at the doors with comprehension. "I'll just catch up in the common room in a bit, okay?"
Hermione, who had not failed to notice the small exchange between the two boys, stopped Ron before he said anything stupid, and she smiled at him. "Yes, of course, Harry. We'll see you later." She was unusually cheery, thought Harry, but at least they didn't suspect anything.
So Harry left his friends and pushed his way out of the Great Hall. He half-expected to be yanked by the collar and then dragged down to the dungeons where the Dark Lord would cut him up into tiny bits and serve him as hors d'oeuvres to his evil henchmen. But instead, he saw Draco Malfoy, fidgeting with his necktie at the corner.
"Oh, Potter," the Slytherin said, acknowledging Harry's presence. He said nothing else, only staring blankly at the expectant Gryffindor. After a moment, he jerked his head towards the hall and made his way deeper into the castle.
A this point, Harry was very confused, and when he found that Malfoy was leading him to the Room of Requirement, his uncertainty just heightened. But he accepted this, knowing it will all be explained to him, and so when they arrived, he was looking questioningly at his rival.
"I found this after you left Potions last week." Malfoy held up his broken quill, except it wasn't broken anymore but in perfect form. He shrugged and stretched out his arm to give Harry the black feather.
Harry took the quill and looked at it. 'You—you fixed it," he said dumbly, twirling it in his hand and examining the shaft. It wasn't even the slightest bit ruffled, this feather.
"Well, of course I fixed it. No use of giving you back a completely useless feather, now is there?" Draco said matter-of-factly. "If you don't want it, Potter, then give it here."
"No, I do want it," Harry said hastily, "except I prefer it broken." He must've sounded rather deranged there, because the other boy was looking at him as if he'd grown another head.
Shaking his head, Draco reached for the quill. "You've gone daffy, but I'll go with it," he said, throwing it down on the ground. He lifted his foot, and when Harry saw that he was going to destroy the feather, was suddenly pushed back slightly.
"What are you thinking, ruining a perfectly good quill?" Harry said, saving the poor feather from its demise. "What would your mother think if you just stepped on all of the nice quills she'd send you?"
Malfoy shrugged. He was silent now, just running his tongue down pale lips and looking at Harry with—was that hesitance?
"Mistletoe," he noticed Harry's quizzical stare, taking a step forward.
Harry slowly let his eyes travel to the ceiling, and that same branch of mistletoe the last he'd been there was still up and hanging. He chuckled almost nervously, jumping out from under the mistletoe. "Yeah…it's probably infested with nargles, you know."
Draco took another step forward, amusement dancing in his eyes. "Nargles?" he laughed softly. "Potter, you've officially gone mad."
Harry was getting rather nervous, his throat dry all of a sudden, and he tried to look anywhere but at Malfoy. "Well, uh, people tell me that often." He was feeling rather warm suddenly, as if all the butterbeer he had drunk that afternoon had pooled in his stomach. It was the same feeling he'd felt when he first kissed Cho Chang under mistletoe right in the same room. He reminded himself to catch up with her if he got out of this unscathed.
Laughing, the blonde youth took a final step forward and grasped Harry's tie, pulling him down slowly. Harry swallowed, tilting his head to the proper angles so their noses wouldn't bump, and he accidentally let go of the quill as he put his hands on Draco's hips.
It wasn't the greatest, hottest, sexiest, mind-blowing kiss ever. It didn't taste like vanilla or strawberries and cream, or cinnamon. It was just a kiss, tasting and feeling like any other. It wasn't just a chaste press of lips on lips nor was it a scandalous full-on snog that would make your mother blush. It was a kiss, simple as that.
The kiss was tentative at first, feeling it out and getting used, and the feeling in Harry's stomach grew warmer, him growing more confident each second. He put his arms around Draco's body, putting one hand flat on Draco's back to pull him closer. Draco let out a soft noise in the back of his throat, curling his fingers in the hair at the base of Harry's neck. Their hips touched, and a spark ran through Harry's nerves, causing him to jolt back and rip away from the kiss.
Draco seemed to have felt it too, for he was wearing the same expression on his face. It wasn't uncomfortable; that feeling, no—it was more like a tingle, a pleasant one. Frowning, Harry fidgeted with the hem of Draco's jumper, when he was guided back to lean against the table behind him. The blonde, driven by curiosity, put his arms around the Gryffindor's neck and eased his hips against Harry's.
There it went again. Harry liked it, and so did Draco, and he smiled shyly at the other boy, drumming his fingers on slender hips. They began to kiss once again, this time enthralled by that feel-good tingle that they would brush their hips together once in a while.
Less than half an hour later, Harry Potter strode into the Gryffindor Common Room, holding a black feather in one hand. His best frieds were seated near the fire; Ron making a house out of Exploding Snap cards, and Hermione still reading that house elf mating ritual book. Hermione saw him come in, though, and she put down her book.
"So, how did you—?" she asked, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
Harry blushed. How did she know, he asked himself. "Yeah," he grinned sheepishly. The girl smirked triumphantly and they both laughed.
Ron, who had been watching them talk, spoke up. "Did what? With who? Why—?"
"Oh, hush, Ronald." Hermione said, patting him on the arm. She turned to Harry and raised an eyebrow. "I know I'm meddling, but how was it?" she jabbed Ron hard in the ribs to stop him from asking, and looked at Harry.
"It was…wet." And Harry Potter went to go change his trousers.
Fin
A/N: Reviews are welcome! Candy canes for everyone who does!