Harry was transfixed on Malfoy's hands.

The air hovering in the still dungeon was getting hotter and hazier. Slughorn had them making a more difficult and excessively hot potion for their next class, so that even the deadened cool air of the dungeon was changing, making Harry sweat. Each cauldron was bubbling furiously was full heat, and people had taken off their robes, wiping their foreheads. Only Slughorn seemed to be enjoying this.

Hazy and feeling feverish, Harry was chopping up Salamander skin into thin strips at an exhaustibly slow pace. He couldn't care less – a fresh bout of reoccurring nightmares had him huddled at the window sill most of the night, watching Thestrals nibble at the moonlit lawn outside with vacant, half-lidded eyes. His fingers were explorative over the Salamander, watching the way the slimy skin glittered slightly. He was hardly aware of what he was doing. He grew more and more sleepy, his features felt blurry and his hands sluggish, weighing down, his arms like clay.

Malfoy, on the other hand, was seemingly unaffected. He worked with proficiency, a small crease between his brows. When Harry had slipped into the seat next to him, he didn't acknowledge him again, staring determinedly at the front of the class. Again, he was bearing most of the work. Neither had said a word.

Blinking repeatedly, Harry felt his gaze slipping, hands still moving on rotation, automatic. His mind was increasingly muddled; his sleep-deprived body sagged. He found himself watching Malfoy peel shells off insects. His fingers worked quick, working their way between the hard, shiny body and soft inner flesh. A long pale finger would creep in, swiftly wriggle in and disappear, then his hand would twitch, tense and relax, and a satisfying crunch followed. Again and again. The pile grew. Harry watched.

His hands were large, fingers long and lean. And so pale, like unfurling pale spiders. As he moved, tight ropey muscle stretched and contracted underneath his thin white skin. Surprisingly muscular, mounds and hollows joined and grew and pulsed, as he moved rhythmically. They were tight-skinned, stretched over distinct masculine muscles and joints, and thin bones that darted and poked through his skin sporadically.

Harry noticed Malfoy had rolled up his white shirt, just below the elbow. Translucent thin hair patterned his wrist, climbing up his forearm, barely visible. Ropes of sparse veins coiled his entire arm, intertwining at his wrists, delicate around the hollows and groves of his inner wrist. The more he moved, the more the veins protruded, rose through the skin, a bloom of soft blue colour, lavender in places. Like tree roots, unearthed. Wiry muscles on his forearm flickered, sinewy stretches of lean muscle tensing and cascading in turn. Harry hadn't noticed muscles move like that, delicate and defined, in a beating rhythm, was surprised at how animalistic it seemed. His skin was so pale it was basically transparent, his life brimming to the open-lidded surface of his being. Spilling over. Harry could see a pulse quivering in his inner wrist, and swallowed hard.

What the fuck? What the fuck?

Harry stood up, shot up, in a flustered panic. He almost toppled over the chair. Immediately, he felt wrong and knew he moved too fast, and the blood moved uneasily through his body. His ears pounded, and his vision was a kaleidoscope of colourful spots, he was fading fast. He blinked hard, stumbled, and grabbed hold of the table.

"What the fuck, Potter?" Malfoy was there – his voice was because Harry couldn't see. The heat, dizziness and sudden movement had caught up to him, and he desperately concentrated on not fainting.

"Hm, precisely," he said vaguely, barely loud enough to hear. His ears were ringing and his forehead tingled. He felt absent, not fully aware of his being, present or surrounds.

What had just happened? He had been lulled into such a state of fixation, as if he were dreaming, as if he were drifting off. As if Malfoy was this immensely complex, interesting thing. This enigmatic thing. Moving so fluidly, brimming, with a life of its own.

Harry opened his eyes, and had a clear vision, and so found his place on his chair again. He was aware of Malfoy watching him, but desperately ignored him. Luckily by this point the room was a mad mix of smoke, heat and frustration no one seemed to have noticed Harry's odd behaviour. He picked up his knife.

"Having more fits and visions, Potter?" said Malfoy, and Harry almost wanted to laugh. Something like that.

He resumed cutting up slimy skin with quivering hands.

"Potter?" Apparently Malfoy liked being ignored as much as Harry did.

He could not even pretend he was cutting well today.

"Seriously, what the fuck is your problem?" Malfoy had given up on class, and was watching Harry adamantly.

Harry thought he'd given up in the long silence that followed, only interrupted by groans of distressed and heat-frustrated students, whistling fire and bubbling cauldrons. Until Malfoy made a sudden movement, and slammed his hand over Harry's work, effectively both butchering the Salamander skin and tightly covering Harry's hand. The sparse, long fingers were tense, muscular palm solid, and Harry's skin stung viciously from the impact. It sparked Harry to urgency. His head snapped up in anger, and met Malfoy's direct gaze unabashedly.

For a second he wanted to hit Malfoy across the face, heat broiled over his shoulders and shivered down his arms. Malfoy was all heat now. A tear of sweat had collected at Malfoy's temple, and dripped slowly down his face. And his eyes. They were curling blackening clouds. Something wild thrashed within them, threatened to break free. A slow heat spread on his cheeks, bloodying his face. Something flickered in Harry's chest, and anger rippled through his body. Malfoy tensed as Harry jerked –

But it was his hand, on Harry's that disabled him, dissipated all the anger. When he tensed, Malfoy's hand had reflexively grabbed Harry's, curled around his on the table in a tight hold. He felt the palm's rough skin, tight mounds of muscle and wiry hollows, hard joints, pressed so tight against his own – How could his skin be that cold?

Harry jerked back, snatching back his hand and gaze. "It's hot," said Harry, by way of explanation, and relentlessly ignored Malfoy's silent, unfurling presence. They didn't finish their potion, didn't clean up properly, and were first to leave.