A/N: Loosely inspired by the song 'Friday I'm in Love' by The Cure. Bonus points for those who can pick out all the song references. Enjoy!
"Scared, Potter?" snarled Malfoy, levelling his wand at Harry's heart.
As it turned out, Harry wasn't scared. It took a lot to frighten Harry these days. The Boy Who Lived had spent most of his eighteen years being threatened with imminent death, and had recently discovered that death wasn't all that terrifying anyway. So when Draco Malfoy – who was less frightening than Uncle Vernon, let alone Voldemort – asked that simple question, Harry felt very little inclination to narrow his eyes and say something scathing along the lines of, "you wish".
At worst, Harry was mildly alarmed, and even then he had good reason to be. After all, he'd seen Malfoy's new wand at work in Charms that very Monday morning. He took a cautious step backwards. After witnessing Flitwick's fate, Harry rather felt he'd prefer to be facing the Elder Wand.
"Er," said Harry, surreptitiously crossing his legs, "whatever you like, Malfoy. Put the wand away, won't you?"
Malfoy failed to comply. Indeed, his grip merely tightened on his wand, which began to tremble in an ominous fashion. The acrid scent of burning wand wood filled the air. Two sets of eyes glanced down at the shaking wand, and rose with a decided sense of apprehension.
Nerves thus fraught, Harry began to feel annoyed. Malfoy or not, he couldn't afford to be late to a NEWTs class yet again. Already the corridors were deserted, students having long since fled to class. The Headmistress did not look upon tardiness with a forgiving eye (though she somehow had a harder time filling Harry with mortal fear). Still, though quite accustomed to it, detention had never been Harry's favourite part of Hogwartslife. And since becoming Headmistress, McGonagall had displayed rather more sympathy for Filch's personal philosophy than Dumbledore ever had.
"Move," he told Malfoy's wand, and was taken by surprise when a curse sent him flying into a nearby suit of armour. The armour promptly fell apart. It wasn't Malfoy's malevolence that caught Harry off-guard – it was the fact that his wand hadn't backfired and killed them both.
Feeling almost lucky, Harry pulled himself around to face Malfoy, whose expression was curiously devoid of glee.
"What do you want?" said Harry, making an effort to keep his voice calm. While waiting for Malfoy to swear eternal vengeance and all that, Harry shook a silver visor from his left arm. If he'd achieved nothing else in the past year – and many would attest that he'd achieved rather a lot – Harry had managed to gain some valuable control over his temper. Death tended to put things in perspective.
"I want you to…" Malfoy began, but didn't seem to know how to finish his sentence. Glowering now, he turned and kicked a codpiece down the corridor.
Still sprawled across the floor, Harry's mouth swung open. This was new. There was clearly something wrong with a Malfoy who'd rather kick armour than Harry. Playing lackey for Voldemort must truly change a person.
"Look," said Harry, quickly deciding that his best chance of getting to Potions before Halloween was to mollify Malfoy in some way. "Look, I know we've never really got along, but–"
"You tried to kill me in Sixth Year."
Harry grimaced at the memory, eyes flicking to the centre of Malfoy's chest against his will. It had not been his finest hour, to say the least.
"Sorry about that," he mumbled to a green and silver tie. "Though to be fair, I never really meant to hurt you." Harry hesitated. "Well, not so badly." He paused again. "And, you know, I did save your life all those times last year."
"I saved yours, too," said Malfoy, still glaring at the floor. "I don't owe you anything, Puffy Face."
Harry swallowed, and dug his hands into his pockets. He really didn't like to dwell on memories of the past few years – something he shared with George Weasley. They'd spent quite a bit of time over the summer distracting each other. This meant that Harry had cultivated both a decent sense of humour and a solid knowledge of exactly how to blow up a Hogwarts toilet seat. Neither of these newfound talents was likely to be of much use during this conversation with Malfoy, sadly enough.
"I didn't think you'd come back to Hogwarts," said Harry after a moment, in a bright voice that didn't quite belong to him.
"Neither did I," said Malfoy, and finally lowered his wand.
Harry exhaled, and climbed slowly to his feet, shedding bits of breastplate and generally causing a racket. Now that the immediate threat of Malfoy's defective wand had been removed, Harry felt he could safely allow himself to build up some righteous anger.
"So why are you always hanging around waiting for a fight, then?"
Malfoy snorted, slumped against the opposite wall, and let his head slip into his hands. Harry waited, but no response was forthcoming. He tried again:
"Do we really have to keep doing this? It's not that I have anything against being knocked black and blue every morning, it's just that I can't be bothered to kill you again."
"Almost kill me," said Malfoy. "And besides, you couldn't do it."
"I don't know, Malfoy. Not to polish my own wand, but if I could kill Voldemort, there's a good chance–"
"No, Pothead; I bet you couldn't ignore me. We're never going to stop fighting like this. It's what we do, isn't it?'
"Ten galleons says you're wrong," said Harry. He was fairly sure of his odds in this wager. There was nothing he wanted to do more than ignore bloody annoying Slytherins.
Rather than respond with the traditional "deal",Malfoy merely stared at Potter with an incredulous look on his face. Harry got the distinct impression that Malfoy thought he was an idiot. However, before he could confirm this hypothesis, an ominous figure flapped out from behind a nearby tapestry. It was McGonagall, tartan hat askew.
"Detention!" she shrilled upon first sight of the scattered suit of armour. As she looked first to Harry, then to Malfoy, her eyes began to flash with anger.
Harry, groaning inwardly, glanced across to Malfoy. It was somehow disconcerting to see a perfect reflection of the very same dread that was squeezing at his chest. What a thing to share with Malfoy.
"And what is the meaning of this?" asked McGonagall, voice thin as poison.
Harry drew back his shoulders, and prepared to defend himself against the wild and wilful accusations Malfoy was bound to fling. None came. As McGonagall fumed, building up steam like the Hogwarts Express, Harry stared at Malfoy's deliberately averted face.
"Well then," said McGonagall through the thinnest of lips. "I expected better of you, Potter – and of you, Mr Malfoy. After all we've been through; well, I thought NEWTs were more important to the both of you."
"They are, really," said Harry, and Malfoy nodded mutely beside him.
"Detention with Hagrid on Thursday night," McGonagall said, glaring from one boy to the other. "I hardly need to say that I'm disappointed in the both of you."
"Yes, Professor," they muttered dutifully. As soon as McGonagall's robes had swept around the corner, Harry and Malfoy simultaneously turned to scowl at each other.
"Well, isn't this just the icing on the Deathday cake of my life," said Harry gloomily. He could feel his ten galleons slipping away. "Can't ignore you if we're in detention together. Can't not fight you if you're being the undeniable prick that you'll undeniably be."
Without a word, Malfoy turned on his heel and stormed off down the corridor, exuding anger beyond anything Harry was feeling. He felt decidedly nonplussed. All in all, Malfoy was acting completely out of character. And then he remembered the bet, and tried very hard to ignore the pointy-faced twat.
Harry was losing his bet. Malfoy didn't explicitly know that – and thankfully every Legilimens Harry had ever met was dead – but he suspected it was obvious. He just couldn't ignore the git. Life as a NEWTs student was all about studying, and homework, and making an effort. If you were Hermione Granger, it was bliss. (If you were sane, it was not.) Malfoy, at least, offered some sort of perverse interest.
Both Tuesday and Wednesday morning had seen Harry stagger into the Great Hall, narrow his eyes at the overcast ceiling, glance over at the Slytherin table, quickly avert his eyes from Malfoy's, take a seat, and bemoan the utter tedium of it all.
He spent a lot of time thinking about Malfoy's odd behaviour. Why'd he just stalk off like that? Why couldn't he bugger off sooner? Why was he such an all-around tit? Why was he wearing that badge?
As Harry pondered the last bit, Malfoy pressed on said badge and Harry blinked to see the words "Potter Stinks" flash across the hall. He found himself smiling, just a little, and then suffered a mild heart attack. Pulse racing, he stared into the grey sludge of his porridge. First off, he hadn't even realised he was looking at Malfoy. Secondly, those badges weren't exactly pinned to fond memories. Thirdly, he wasn't even meant to be thinking about Malfoy!
It was all just one grey, sludgy, porridgey mess. And to top it all off, he had a detention on Thursday night with Malfoy and it was going to break Hermione's heart, as he'd have to miss the compulsory study group that she had imposed upon Harry and Ron every Thursday evening for the past month.
Harry wished he'd just stayed in bed. Or his cupboard. Who knew life could be so hard at Hogwarts?
"Detention? Harry! What were you thinking?" Hermione scolded, dragging Harry and Ron in the direction of the dungeons with a strength fed by fear of being late. "After everything that happened last year, after all we went through, you're going to get into scraps with Malfoy?"
"What did he do to you, mate?" came Ron's voice from somewhere to the left of Hermione's diatribe.
"Nothing," said Harry, not even attempting to resist Hermione's pulling force. He sighed. "Forget it. It's just Malfoy."
"Too right," said Ron, and Harry could feel Hermione nodding vigorously. "Not worth bothering with, that piece of scum. Beats me why they even let him back in this year."
"Probably hoping to smooth things over quickly," said Harry. "Malfoy was pardoned, after all." He scowled half-heartedly. "On my recommendation and everything. What a mess."
Harry's attempts to ignore Malfoy had been failing miserably all day; it seemed the harder he tried to forget bloody Slytherins, the more they slithered into his thoughts. All in all, he was not feeling particularly disposed to express charitable thoughts concerning Malfoy.
Hermione's grip on Harry's arm tightened. "I thought you might have felt a sense of responsibility for Malfoy. You saved his life; you spoke on his behalf at the trial–"
"I don't care about Malfoy, but it was the right thing to do," Harry broke in heatedly. "You think I should have let him be locked up in Azkaban for life?"
"What I think," said Hermione with infuriating composure, "is that you shouldn't have cleared the way for him to get back into Hogwarts, and then beat him up in corridors once he gets here." She sniffed. "Or get detention and miss my study group."
"You did beat him up, though, didn't you?" said Ron, and grinned right back at Harry when he nodded. (Lies weren't truly lies if they made people happy.) "Bloody brilliant. Say what you will, my lovely," he said to a glowering Hermione, "but I see nothing wrong with putting a ferret in its place."
Later that night, Harry was busy wishing that McGonagall hadn't put the ferret in his place. On the way down to Hagrid's cabin, Harry had crossed paths with Malfoy, who unsurprisingly appeared to be heading in the same direction. They'd exchanged a brief scowl before Harry had continued walking, determined to avoid a fight. It wasn't about the galleons anymore. This was about proving to himself that Malfoy didn't matter.
When Harry reached the cabin, he found a large scrap of paper nailed to the front, containing the following scrawled message:
Harry –
Fang took ill. Have gone into Hogsmeade for restorative biscuits. Sorry won't see you tonight. Send my apologies to Prof. McG.
Hagrid
Harry smiled; it looked like detention wouldn't even start.
"My mother used to give me restorative biscuits when I was ill," said Malfoy in an unexpectedly conversational voice.
Harry, who had been expecting some form of derogatory comment regarding Hagrid's general character and calligraphic style, released a startled laugh.
"What?" Malfoy snapped, looking away from the note.
"Your mum fed you dog biscuits?"
Malfoy seemed to pale momentarily, then shook his head as if confirming to himself that no, his mother would never feed him dog biscuits – or at least not the sort Hagrid could afford. Harry laughed anyway.
"Shut it," said Malfoy. "Besides, my mother doesn't keep dogs in the house. All we have are boring old–"
"-pure white peacocks," Harry finished. "I remember. Bloody weird, I thought at the time. I suppose they do match your hair."
"Yes, that was Father's primary consideration," said Malfoy, and Harry had absolutely no idea whether or not he was joking. Harry was fairly certain Malfoy knew what a joke was; after all, he'd spent most of his third year faux-fainting into cups of tea in order to make a joke on Harry. He was certainly no Percy Weasley. Still, it was more likely the peacocks really were bred to that specific hue.
As Harry pondered this, Malfoy seemed to grow annoyed. "Do you even know what a sense of humour is, Potter? Or has the stick of eternal righteousness up your arse blocked that particular facility?"
"Have some respect, it's a war injury," said Harry, and watched as Malfoy hastily stifled a snort. They turned from Hagrid's door – Harry snatching the note down and stuffing it in his pocket on the off chance 'McG' didn't believe their story – and began trundling back up the path.
"What kind of Keeper of the Keys lives so far away from the castle, anyway?" said Malfoy tetchily when they were halfway back. "What if, Merlin willing, the Hufflepuffs got locked up in their common room and accidentally settheir fluffy pink bedspreads alight?"
"Do they really have fluffy pink bedspreads?" Harry asked with real curiosity. He'd managed to get into three of the four Houses' common rooms over the years, but was yet to witness the Hufflepuff abode.
"No, yellow. It's all bloody yellow, like a badger's been and pissed on all the walls."
"Hmm," said Harry, privately thinking that it sounded a good deal more cheery than the Slytherin dungeons. "Why'd you even go in there, anyway?"
"Prefect duties."
"No way," Harry said, snapping his head around to Malfoy. "I saw you in Fifth Year – only Prefect 'duty' you ever did was take away points from me."
Malfoy chuckled, obviously relishing fond memories. Then he shook his head. "You never heard about the other half. I'm guessing the Mu – erm – Granger and the Weasel were too embarrassed to tell you about our main task."
Harry, who had long suppressed a secret resentment for not being appointed Prefect, felt suddenly cheered. "Do go on."
Malfoy's tale of institutionalised Hufflepuff bedwetting lasted the rest of the journey into the castle and up to the gargoyle outside the Headmistress' office. Harry paused, ribs aching, and stared at the gargoyle, which looked right back at him with a distinctly stony expression on its ugly face.
"I don't know the password," he said, a blossom of faint hope beginning to build in his chest. Maybe they wouldn't have to serve detention after all, and he could escape to the Gryffindor common room and laugh at Ron and Hermione and ignore Malfoy in peace –
"Garfield," said Malfoy, and the moving spiral staircase appeared. (Harry deflated.) "I have to come up here every Monday night and confess all treacherous thoughts to McGonagall. Her password's always some sort of bloody cat."
They stepped onto the staircase and shortly arrived at the door.
"After you," said Harry, not relishing the prospect of entering a reinvented Headmaster's office. Being told off just wasn't the same when there was no Fawkes exploding into flame to make you feel better.
McGonagall wasn't there. Unsure of what to do next, Harry glanced around and took in the new décor. Tartan was in; mysterious golden instruments were out. A cat bed had replaced the Pensieve, and there was a biscuit tin where Fawkes' cage used to be. A rather familiar silver sword was mounted in pride of place on the wall behind the great mahogany desk. (Harry had somehow neglected to inform his former Head of House that the true sword of Godric Gryffindor was currently in the possession of a uniquely treacherous goblin.)
"Well, nothing more we can do, I suppose," said Harry briskly, moving to leave the office. "Hagrid's out, McG's flapped off somewhere–"
"Mr Potter," interrupted a terrible, familiar voice, "the hero of the hour. Who could have foreseen that Professor McGonagall has better things to do than accommodate your every selfish whim?"
"It's the Hufflepuffs again, isn't it, Sir?" said Malfoy, and, as Harry turned reluctantly to gaze upon Snape's portrait, he saw a meaningful look pass from student to deceased professor.
Harry, having attributed idealised features to Snape post-death, quickly decided that this vision would only survive if he ignored the portrait. So, turning from Snape and Malfoy, he watched the three remaining walls instead. A series of empty frames stared back at him – the other Heads were probably out drinking with the Fat Lady again. Dumbledore was a truly terrible influence.
Eventually, when all that tartan was beginning to blind his eyes, Harry cleared his throat. "When you've finished your little chat, do you think we could please get out of here, Malfoy?"
Snape made a very derisive noise. "I don't believe anybody has been forcing you to stay, Mr Potter."
Harry couldn't very well say"I stayed out of respect for your unexpected emotional depth" in response to a tone like that, so he merely extended his middle finger and made to leave, never looking back.
Malfoy joined him as he stepped onto the staircase, and the door shut neatly behind them.
"I do so enjoy conversing with our late Professor," he said with a smirk, obviously relishing Snape's abuse of Harry from beyond the grave. "It makes me want to note down some of his more… assiduous observations.
"It makes me want to get pissed," said Harry, stepping off the staircase.
"Sounds good," said Malfoy. Rather surprised, Harry turned to look at him. "Well, I can't think of a better way to spend detention than engaging in illicit student drinking."
"True," said Harry slowly, "but I don't have any alcohol. And besides, I hate you."
"Do you hate me enough to miss an opportunity to find out where Hogwarts stores its Firewhiskey?"
Harry found, to his astonishment, that he did not. He followed an animated Malfoy through the corridors, feeling rather like he was chasing mad old Sir Cadogan to Divination. Since when had Malfoy been so entertaining? Still, after seeing Neville Longbottom chop down a massive snake Horcrux, Harry supposed he shouldn't feel surprised when all his prior impressions of a person proved false.
When Malfoy reached out and tickled a pear, Harry felt mildly bemused. The Hogwarts house elves were perpetually accommodating, but he had never imagined that they were running an illicit alcohol operation. Then again, he thought of Winky –
Harry was soon distracted as he climbed into the kitchens and sank knee-deep in house elves.
"Firewhiskey," Malfoy cried, and house elves scattered. Harry watched incredulously as a tiny elf tottered back, wobbling about beneath the weight of an ancient bottle of cooking alcohol.
"You're going to drink that?" Harry asked, squinting at the stained and very dubious label as soon as they'd emerged from the elvish hive. It looked like something filched from the very back of Slughorn's private potions stores. It also looked like something Stan Shunpike would enjoy.
"You're not?" Malfoy responded, raising the bottle with triumph. "What, are you scared, Potter?"
Something in Harry reverted excitingly to Second Year, and he grinned right back at Malfoy: "You wish."
Harry didn't have a watch, but he guessed it was midnight from the way the sky had gone dark ages ago. He turned to ask Malfoy what he thought, but the blond prat was already halfway to talking, so he grabbed the bottle and took a swig instead.
"Nothing good ever happened to me at Hogwarts," said Malfoy, kicking a largish stone down the bank. They silently watched as the stone splashed into the lake, popping out moments later only to be thwacked across the water by a rigid tentacle.
"Out for six," Harry murmured, attracting a mystified (and fairly sozzled) glare from Malfoy. "Sorry. Do go on."
"I had to deal with you, for starters," Malfoy growled. "Mr Perfect Potter, friend to weasels and werewolves, half-giants and Hermione – but too good for me. I ask you."
Harry grinned. "You need to work on first impressions, Malfoy. And last impressions. And impressions in general. Except those of me fainting, you worked on those quite enough."
"Everyone loved my Pothead Parodies," said Malfoy wistfully, staring off into the night sky. "I could do them for hours and nobody would get bored. 'Do the one with the Weaselette's Valentine,' Pansy would cry–"
Harry cleared his throat, annoyance filtering into his otherwise pleasantly fuzzy mind.
"But then you destroyed what would have been my greatest hour, Potter. You struck me down at the height of my glory–"
"Are you talking about the time you dressed up as a Dementor to try to throw that Quidditch match?"
"Yes," said Malfoy, looking pained. "McGonagall has never forgiven me, I'll have you know. She gives detention like you wouldn't believe, the mad old witch."
Despite it all, Harry found himself laughing once again at what had lately been a rather galling memory. There was something hilarious in Malfoy's manner that Harry had never noticed before. He'd probably been too busy defeating the powers of evil, or warding off Malfoy's Crucios, or something.
"I don't know, Malfoy," he said finally, still chuckling. "Seems to me you had your good moments, too."
"Like what?"
"Like kicking my nose in on the train at the start of Sixth Year."
"Ah yes, the solitary bright moment in an otherwise spectacularly awful year. And you deserved it, too, you enormous spying git."
"Well, you were acting suspiciously," Harry protested, and both fell silent the next moment as they remembered the inevitable conclusion of Sixth Year.
"A toilet," Malfoy muttered darkly.
"Pardon?"
"I can't believe you almost killed me in a toilet, Potter. Can you imagine what my parents would say? I can just see the epitaph: 'Draco Malfoy: flushed too soon from this world'. Humiliating."
"Loads of stuff's happened to me in bathrooms," said Harry, sliding down to lie back against the damp bank. "Shoved my wand up a troll's nostril in my first year, befriended Hermione. Transformed into a Slytherin, discovered a snake chamber of doom. Cedric Diggory told me to take a bath – pre-death, you know. Opened a dragon egg underwater, flashed Moaning Myrtle. Duelling with you was far from the most dramatic moment of my journey through Hogwarts' bathrooms. Come to think of it, Fred and George Weasley tried to send me a toilet seat at the end of First Year. I should have taken that as an omen. Never trust what they give you, you know."
Harry paused then and felt his smile slip away, grief sucking the levity from his memories. He was distracted by a very rude snort.
"You really are a nutter, aren't you, Potter? I spill my soul, you tell me about your toilet visits through the ages. Whatever could be next on your list of lavatory adventures?"
"Come up to the castle with me, and you might find out," Harry offered half-heartedly.
"Is that your best effort at a pick-up line, Potter?" said Malfoy, eyes widening with fake incredulity as he sat up on his elbows. Harry, watching from below, almost smiled. "No, no, I know what this is. This is all part of your dastardly plot to hook me up with Moaning Myrtle. She's desperate for me, you know."
"I always thought she liked me," said Harry.
"As if," said Malfoy with a sneer. "Give a ghost more credit than that, Potter."
"She probably only liked you 'cause she thought you'd die in a toilet like her," Harry shot back, feeling stung. (It was the booze. It wasn't like he was seriously jealous of Myrtle – er, Malfoy. Whatever. Booze.)
"Oh, so we're back to that, are we?" said Malfoy, and swung himself towards Potter, probably hoping to somehow grab the bottle while inflicting incidental pain. As it turned out, he overbalanced and landed unceremoniously on Harry.
"Mind the bottle," wheezed Harry, who suddenly became much more aware of the warming effects of the Firewhiskey. He felt glad it was probably about midnight, as the dark would hide the flush spreading across his face.
"Lumos!" Malfoy yelled with unnecessary vigour, and his wand exploded into thrilling light, shooting clear out of his hand and soaring away across the night sky.
"Probably for the best," muttered Harry, who suddenly realised that closing his eyes would prevent Malfoy from seeing him blush. Logical. Hermione would be proud.
"Why are you all red?" asked Malfoy from a few inches above Harry's face, apparently unconcerned by his wand's recent act of abandonment. When Harry neglected to answer, a cold finger came down and prodded sharply at his cheek. "You've gone all blotchy in the face, I saw it when the wand exploded."
"S'probably some sort of disease," said Harry hopefully, and sure enough the finger was promptly withdrawn. "Oh yes, a terrible Muggle disease. No cure." He cracked open his eyes to see if he'd managed to strike mortal fear into Malfoy's heart. Apparently not.
"I don't believe you," said Malfoy, still crouching unsteadily over Harry's body. "I think," he stated, emphasising his words with a stab of his finger, "that you," Harry held his breath, "are drunk. Drunk on Firewhiskey. Shame on you."
"You're just trying to get at the bottle," Harry surmised, lifting the bottle up and away as Malfoy made a grab for it. A strong and inexplicable sense of relief flooded through him. Nothing wrong with Malfoy thinking he was drunk. Nothing wrong with that.
"You're just trying to get at me," Malfoy responded, and there was something very, very wrong with that. Harry, suddenly cold, dropped the bottle and sat up, pushing Malfoy away from him.
"Hey," said Malfoy indignantly, "pick that up! Pick that up and give it to me immediately, or I shall summon my wand and explode it in your direction."
Harry refrained from pointing out the many flaws in Malfoy's threat. He was distracted. His mind seemed to clear very quickly, the Firewhiskey fog dissipating with the cold air of realisation. Did he – did he fancy Malfoy? Was this some sort of drunken joke that his body was playing on him?
Malfoy, who had apparently given up waiting, crawled around Harry to where the bottle lay nestled in the grass, and picked it up with reverence. "You can never get enough," he told the bottle – or Harry, it wasn't particularly clear – "enough of this stuff."
Harry watched, bemused and quite horrified at himself.
"It's Friday, did you know?" Malfoy said, turning to Harry and offering him something of a sad smile. "Detention's over."
"You," said Harry calmly, "are an alcoholic. Also, you hate me. And I hate you. And that relationship works for us."
"You couldn't ignore me," said Malfoy, a glint approaching sobriety in his grey eyes. He leaned closer, using the bottle to prop himself upright. "I told you. I did warn you."
"I can," said Harry, voice now slightly strained. "I'm leaving. Take your bloody whiskey and have fun trying to summon your wand back."
"You can't!" shouted Malfoy after him as he raced up the slope. "I don't believe you, Potter! Open your eyes!"
Harry's eyes were open, and they were fixed on the castle steps directly ahead. This wasn't worth it, not even for all the boozehidden in Hogwarts – a good deal of which Harry felt he'd consumed. This had been one of the worst and most unsettling detentions Harry had ever served, including that one with Lockhart's fan mail.
"Harry," said Ron carefully, and paused. He seemed to be trying to find a subtle way to phrase his next words. Merlin, had everyone completely transformed since last year? "Are you all right?"
"M'fine," Harry grunted. It was a lie. All was black and horrible and sexually confusing. Even with a personality transplant, Ron would not want to know the truth. It was kinder this way.
"Are – are you sure, Harry?" came Hermione's voice, and hers was just as cautious as Ron's.
Harry muttered the affirmative.
"Then, er," – here Ron's subtlety died – "why are you doing that?"
Harry neglected to answer. It was difficult to speak when your face was pressed into the mouldy pages of a library book. Besides, if he said something, Malfoy might hear, and Malfoy was not allowed to notice him. Malfoy was to disappear off the face of the earth – or alternatively, to get the hell out of the library.
"Potter."
Bugger it. Harry lifted his head from the book, rearranged his glasses, and then looked coolly at Malfoy.
"What do you want?"
"Were you hiding from me?" Malfoy looked almost amused. Ron looked scandalised, and stared at Harry as if awaiting the order to attack.
"No," said Harry. "Very small print. Some of us are actually trying to study."
Hermione looked approving, and turned back to the task at hand. It was clear that she had no trouble ignoring Malfoy. She glared pointedly at Ron, and then a total of two Gryffindors shut Malfoy from their minds. The unlucky third was less successful.
"You have ink on your face, you know," said Malfoy, smirking. Harry slapped a hand to his cheek and started rubbing self-consciously.
"Anybody ever told you you're very easy to read, Potter?" Malfoy asked, clearly deriving great pleasure from his own joke. "You never could hide anything you were feeling."
"I'm not feeling anything," shot Harry, and gripped the edge of the table with both hands. "What do you want, Malfoy?" He took comfort in knowing that this conversation could only carry on for so long before Madam Pince came and summarily kicked Malfoy out on his bony Slytherin arse.
Malfoy leant against the table and examined a fingernail. "McGonagall wants to see us. Something about illicit drinking and imminent expulsion."
The word 'expulsion' caught at Hermione's ears, while Ron's pricked at 'illicit drinking'; both stared at Harry with a potent mixture of horror and admiration. Harry shrugged back at them. There wasn't much more he felt he could do at this particular moment.
Malfoy hopped off the desk and started walking away. He raised a hand and pointed towards the door without looking back at Harry. Harry followed, mainly because he didn't feel up to wielding his friends' urgent questions.
Around halfway to McGonagall's office, Malfoy stopped short. Harry walked into him.
"What the hell–" he began, feeling off-balance in every sense of the word, but Malfoy pressed a finger to his lips, and Harry forgot how to speak. He soon recovered, and was on the way to shouting when he was unceremoniously shoved into Filch's office. Somewhat winded, he stared around the small, dank room with a growing sense of horror. Clearly McGonagall had finally approved the use of manacles.
"Do you have your wand?" he whispered urgently, glancing about the room for any possible method of escape. "I left mine in the library, damn it. Filch is a squib, so we should be able to–"
"Flung it over the lake, remember?" drawled Malfoy at normal volume, appearing quite unconcerned at the prospect of their imminent torture. "As you so kindly reminded me, I can't quite accio it back."
"Well, that's great," said Harry, and suddenly realised that Malfoy had come quite a bit closer. He averted his eyes to the manacles hanging overhead, and tried to pretend he hadn't noticed. He felt very nervous, and not just for his life.
"I really can read your face, you know," said Malfoy conversationally, moving even closer and peering at Harry through the dim light. "It's all backwards, but I think it says something about denial."
"Really," said Harry. "Funny that, considering it was an Ancient Runes textbook."
Malfoy looked triumphant. "You don't even take Ancient Runes. You were hiding from me."
"No," Harry lied. "I was trying to expand my mind."
"You," said Malfoy contemptuously, "are a terrible liar. And for the hero of the wizarding world, you're really a bit of a coward."
"Me?" Harry spluttered, taking an outraged step forward. "You think I'm a coward?"
"Oh yes," said Malfoy, "and so does Snape."
"You leave him out of this!" yelled Harry. "He was a good man – quite possibly. There was a side to him none of us saw! Especially not me! Until he died!"
"He hated your guts," Malfoy said dismissively, "but that's not what we're talking about, Potter. I'm talking about last night. I'm talking about the Firewhiskey. I'm talking about–"
"Shush," said Harry desperately, "we were both drunk, it's all over now. Let's fight it out, shall we?"
"Scared, Po–"
"Oh, shut up," said Harry, shoving Malfoy back against a nearby cabinet. He had had well and truly enough. "You've always been just as scared as I have."
Malfoy, always that little bit taller than Harry, certainly seemed to lose something of his nerve as the cabinet pressed up against his back. "What are you–"
"I just realised something," said Harry, hands shackled around Malfoy's arms. "It's Friday. Filch takes Mrs Norris to be groomed on Fridays."
"She should return the favour," panted Malfoy, crimson spilling into his neck. He didn't struggle, but he did look very uncomfortable, a fact that pleased Harry enormously.
"We're not going to be expelled, are we?"
Malfoy stayed silent.
"McGonagall never called for us, did she?"
"Not as such," said Malfoy as he tried to edge his way into a more comfortable position. "She probably will once she finds out that my wand exploded the Whomping Willow last night."
Harry considered this. Then he smiled. "Better get used to our detentions, then," he said with a cocky wink to the manacles, and Malfoy's eyes widened.
"Potter?" he said uncertainly, as if all his previous notions of Harry had suddenly been turned on their head.
"You can have your ten galleons," said Harry, as if this one sentence answered all possible questions, and maybe it did. He was feeling just as light-headed as he had last night with the Firewhiskey.
Before he could lose his nerve, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to Malfoy's. Malfoy, ripping his arms free, grabbed Harry's school shirt and pulled him in, making the ancient cabinet creak threateningly. Malfoy kissed like he fought, all rough and demanding and reckless, and Harry gave back as good as he got. Head spinning, Harry pressed forward like he'd wanted to last night, and Malfoy gasped and slammed his head backwards, right into solid metal.
"Ah!" cried Malfoy, "shit, shit, shit," and Harry couldn't help but laugh breathlessly.
"You'll get a bruise, you know," he said gleefully, memories of Monday all too clear in his mind. "You deserve it too, you absolute wanker."
"Just stop trying to kill me, would you?" Malfoy snarled, touching a tentative hand to the back of his head. "You're very bad at it."
Harry just laughed, and leaned right back in. Some things would never change, thank Merlin.