The Red Lounge was nothing like Nightshade. The small, niche club Harry had frequented seven years ago had been decorated with artfully graffitied walls and strobe lights. On the weekends, heavily eyeshadowed people gathered to drink and dance to music that matched the beat of their heart, while others played pool or talked at the bar.
Things were a bit different at the Red Lounge.
Plush, red, semicircular couches lined one wall, and the people sat there downed multicolored drinks or made out with strangers. Empty glasses littered the tables, keeping the employees busy, and others sat by the bar or on high stools, laughing, drinking, and shouting to be heard over the music. A mass of bodies dominated the other side of the room, elbowing people, spilling expensive cocktails, but smiling like they were alive.
Harry was in the middle of that, along with Ron and Hermione.
They were holding fresh, new drinks, but each one of them looked the worse for wear: Hermione's perfectly coifed hair had frizzed horribly, Ron looked a cross between constipated and electrocuted, and Harry – Harry was gone. He downed half his drink – a blue concoction that Hermione had told him never to try – and stumbled into a girl who cursed him, but then looked him up and down. She smirked. She pulled him closer.
Harry danced with this girl – short, dark-haired, all elbows – losing himself in bodies and vodka.
It was a week after Ginny had visited. Exactly a week, and that's why Harry was here, at the Red Lounge. He wasn't mourning. He wasn't giving into despair. All last week, Harry had been telling Ron and Hermione this, but they still treated him like he was a particularly temperamental blast-ended skrewt. Ready to explode any second.
But really, Harry was fine. A bit heartbroken, yeah. Of course. Shocked and a little angry, but he wasn't depressed or anything. Harry had known he and Ginny weren't together anymore – he'd known for weeks. He'd had time to get used to the idea.
Rather than dwell on what could have been, he found it more useful – and less hurtful – to focus on what was.
The girl pushed closer to him, wrapping her arms around him. She smelled like berries and sweat. Girls, dancing, drinks, and friends – that's what mattered, not questions, mysteries, love, or loss. It's what mattered when he was at the Red Lounge. It's what mattered when he was drinking his liver away.
Harry finished off his drink, spilling a little on himself and the girl. She didn't seem to mind. She rolled her hips into him, smiling up at him, and Harry smiled back. She leaned into his ear. She shouted something he still didn't quite catch, and he was about to ask her to repeat herself when he saw it.
A flash of blond. He froze.
It couldn't be.
Could it?
Blood surged through him with the sickening force of alcohol. Without thinking, Harry pried himself off the girl. She complained, trying to hold on, but he ignored her. He looked quickly over his shoulder. Ron and Hermione were a ways off, snogging and swaying drunkenly like new lovers.
Harry felt an odd, familiar pang in his chest.
He looked away. He pushed past perfumed girls and sweating guys, abandoning his empty drink on someone's table. At the edge of the club, he blinked sweat out of his eyes. He tried to see the world straight. No blond-haired prick in sight.
Didn't matter. Really, it didn't.
He needed air.
Harry stumbled past the bouncer and, finally, he was outside. He breathed in and out. The night smelled like stars.
Autumn was coming, but summer still clung on. Harry felt the warmth of yellow yesterdays. The Red Lounge beat behind him with a song that never seemed to change, but the London streets were no quieter. Even at – what, 1 AM? – cars and people streamed by like it was one in the afternoon.
Harry missed Hogwarts.
What would they say, if he came back to repeat his eighth year? It was only fair, after all – he'd never experienced it, really, not as he was now. It had been the only concrete thing that'd kept him going all that summer, the one after the war: the knowledge that Hogwarts would be whole again, that he would be going back, at least one more time.
Until someone took it from him.
Harry leaned against the wall of the club – it was brick, like the entrance to Diagon Alley. What would happen if he started tapping the wall with his wand?
He laughed.
Passerby passed by, not caring.
What if he apparated to Hogwarts? Harry imagined it for a second – the Great Hall, Hagrid's place, the Gryffindor Common Room – but then he remembered in a voice that sounded a lot like Hermione's that he couldn't apparate in or out of Hogwarts.
He could apparate to Hogsmeade.
Longing washed over him, and Harry wanted nothing more, suddenly. He wanted to be at Hogsmeade, meeting the DA at the Hog's Head, drinking butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks, buying sweets at Honeydukes. He wanted to be eighteen again, he wanted to be living at the Burrow again, he wanted to go to Hogwarts again, he wanted to be Ginny's boyfriend again.
Was that so much to ask?
Harry looked at a litter of abandoned fags at his feet.
He couldn't apparate to Hogsmeade, not in this state. He still had enough sense to realize that. He'd have to get Ron or Hermione to take him, though he didn't exactly relish the prospect of interrupting them at the moment. They were just as pissed, anyway.
Harry slid down the wall. Leaning against it, he looked up at the dark sky, where he couldn't see the waxing crescent moon, nor the stars.
It was nothing like up on the Astronomy Tower, where on a clear night, one could see the universe.
"You all right there?"
Harry looked up. A girl stood above him, tiny with brown hair. He recognized her, just vaguely. He'd danced with her.
Harry waved her off. "I'm fine, thanks," he said.
The girl leaned against the wall. "You don't look fine."
Harry ignored her. She didn't leave, however, instead choosing to light up. He wrinkled his nose automatically. To his surprise, however, the bitter scent didn't make him recoil like it used to. Actually, he sort of liked it.
"Hey," Harry said, surprising himself further. He looked up again. "Can I have one of those?"
The girl looked at him strangely. Then, shrugging, she sat down next to him, handing over a fag.
When Harry took his first pull, an immediate and acute sense of calm washed through him. Insanely, he felt like he'd missed this, though he'd never done it before. He dragged in another dizzying pull of nicotine and enjoyed watching the thin, white smoke stream out as he breathed.
The girl watched him. She was pretty, though pixie-like.
"I wouldn't have pegged you for a smoker, Mr Potter," she said.
Harry started, coughing and almost dropping his fag. "What –?"
"And despite your legendary skills, it seems you're surprisingly unobservant." She smiled with wide lips that dominated her small face. "Though I'd give you a pass, seeing as how you're a bit pissed at the moment."
"You're…" Harry slugged through his mind, which seemed to be filled with cotton swabs – or way too many drinks. "You're a witch."
"I am, indeed."
Harry blinked, staring. "What are you doing here?" he said.
"Pulling," the girl said. She smiled wider.
Harry eyed her suspiciously, and she laughed.
"I live in muggle London," she said. "Just a few blocks away. I come here all the time, actually."
Harry glared at the ground. Just his luck, wasn't it, the one muggle club he went to in weeks, possibly years, was actually frequented by a witch.
"Well, thanks for – this." Harry gestured to the fag. "But I'd rather be alone right now."
"You sure?" the girl said. She pulled from her own fag, hollowed cheeks making her look all skin and bones. "I've got some nice tonic at home that could help. Better than sitting here all alone and miserable, like."
"I'm fine."
The girl looked at him. "It won't be any trouble at all if that's what you're worried about. I could even apparate us if you don't feel up to walking."
"Really," Harry said. He pulled in one last drag, and reluctantly, he let the fag join all the others on the floor. He stood up, stamping it out. "I'm fine. I should be getting back, anyway."
The girl stood up too. "But you really don't look all right," she said. She dropped her fag as well, stamping it out with the tip of her heels. She looked up at him. "I know a broken heart when I see one."
Harry narrowed his eyes. "I'm fine," he said.
"You say that an awful lot." The girl cocked her head. She looked up at him through thick lashes, twitching her smile into a practiced seduction. "Don't you want to know what it actually feels like?"
Harry stared. For a second, he was tempted. This girl, witch, was all right-looking, bold, and dry but with a warm smile. She wanted him, more than Ginny wanted him, more than Malfoy. Harry felt warm, drunk, horny, and definitely not fine.
He shook his head. "I – I can't."
The girl dropped her smile.
"Harry," she said, and it sounded wrong, coming from a stranger. "It's all right."
She reached out a hand, running bony fingers over his arm. Harry jerked back, almost tripping over his feet.
"I'm fine, all right?" he said. "Just sod off already."
"Sod off?" She stepped closer. "You're just full of surprises, aren't you?"
Harry took another step back. "Sorry to disappoint."
"Not at all."
She made as if to touch his arm again, and maybe she'd just wanted to ghost her thin fingers over his skin again, or maybe she'd meant to side-along apparate him to hers, but Harry was irritated. He was drunk, and she might have been able to make him feel better, who knew, but at the moment, he found he'd rather splinch himself than deal with her any longer.
So, he did.
"Fuck!"
Harry leaned against the nearest wall, clutching his left hand. The tops of his fingers, except for his thumb, felt like they'd been burned, and when Harry dared to look, he saw small, red squares where his fingernails had been.
Could have been worse. Still, it fucking hurt.
Harry kept up a steady stream of expletives, which also kept his nausea at bay. He hated apparating.
He wasn't even sure where he'd apparated to, though he'd had an address in mind, at the time. Blinking away warm tears, Harry inspected the door right in front of him. It was a heavy green rectangle framed by grey tiles, identical to the other ones in the hallway, as far as Harry could tell, except for the small, silver number near the knocker.
Twenty-one. Maybe he'd gotten something right.
Harry thought briefly about knocking when suddenly, the door opened with a metallic groan.
Draco Malfoy stared back at him from the other side, surprise etched over his face.
"Harry?" he said. His voice was thick with sleep, slightly hoarse. He rubbed his eye. "The fuck are you doing here?"
Harry's own surprise numbed his pain for a second.
Malfoy, Draco Malfoy, was looking back at him from an apartment right in the middle of muggle London, wearing a faded, grey shirt and black sweats. He looked so human, with a cowlick on one side of his head and grey eyes weary with sleep.
"I – I just –" he stammered out.
"Are you drunk?"
Malfoy stopped rubbing his eye. He glared at Harry.
"Well – I might've – I mean, yeah, just a bit –"
Harry ran a nervous hand through his hair, but then flinched as pain shot through his fingers again. "Fuck!" he said.
Malfoy glanced at Harry's hand. His mouth twisted into a more familiar, pointed anger.
"Hang on, did you apparate here?" he said. He looked at Harry. "Are you a bloody idiot? What if one of my neighbors saw you?"
"No one saw me," Harry almost spit out. His fingers fucking throbbed.
"Yes, but someone could have!" Malfoy said. The door groaned as he stood taller, eyes flashing. "Can't you ever just stop and think for a second before you decide to act like a fucking moron?"
"There's no one here!" Harry said.
"But someone could have been!"
"It's two in the morning!"
"It's London!"
Harry scoffed, and it almost felt good to get angry. It was better than just standing dumbstruck, and he knew irritated, ferrety Malfoy. The soft, sleep-tousled, just-got-out-of-bed one? Not so much.
"Everyone's asleep at this point," he said. "No one's about to come and watch me apparate or use magic, even –"
"Shut up!" Malfoy hissed. "Merlin, does the Statute of Secrecy mean nothing to you?"
"It matters," Harry said, but only because he couldn't think of anything better. It sounded right, in any case.
Malfoy had opened his mouth, ready to retort, but at this, he closed it again. His lips twitched a little.
"Then…find Hermione and get yourself back home," he said. "Before you make an even bigger arse of yourself."
"No."
Malfoy gave him a sharp look, but Harry refused to leave. Almost a month had gone by since Harry last saw Malfoy at the aquarium, even longer since he'd learned about their past relationship. All those weeks it had kept gnawing at him, pestering him, the questions of why, how, what, when, and where. He wasn't about to let this chance slip through his fingers, pissed or not.
"I need to talk to you," Harry said. "It's important."
"Whatever it is, it can wait until you're sober enough to apparate properly, at least."
"No, it can't, you don't–"
Harry stopped, momentarily distracted. He took another look at Malfoy's shirt.
"Is that – is that mine?" he said.
Malfoy glanced down at his shirt too. It was an old, grey Metallica T-shirt, faded with one too many washes, and it looked very much like the one Harry had taken from Sirius' room a few – or several? – years ago. It had been big on him then, and it looked a bit big on Malfoy now.
He looked back at Harry.
"How pissed are you?" he said. He actually looked a bit concerned, though Harry could have been imagining that. He rolled his eyes. "I told you, I only wear it out of convenience. Don't get your wand in a knot just because I fancy a shirt you wore ages ago."
"I – but when did I –?"
"What do you mean, when?" Malfoy said. His light brows scrunched together. Definitely concerned.
"I mean –" Harry sighed. This would have been so much easier if he weren't half as drunk. He was rapidly developing a headache. "Look, this is what I wanted to talk to you about. Can I come inside?" He winced. "And can I get something for my hand? And – and for sobering up too, if you have it?"
Malfoy looked deeply suspicious. After a few heavy seconds, however, he gave a curt, "Fine," and stood aside to let Harry through.
Harry almost cried with relief.
He could to talk to Malfoy, finally. Who knew all it took was a bit of splinching and alcohol?
Harry walked into the apartment, stumbling a bit as he glanced again at his – Malfoy's – shirt. It made his stomach feel all funny, though he couldn't be sure if that was actually the alcohol coming back with a vengeance.
Malfoy closed the door behind Harry with a very final, metallic groan. Tearing his eyes off Malfoy, Harry looked around.
It was nice. Not gaudy or overly Slytherin like he'd vaguely expected it to be, but minimalistic, with matching furniture. There was a small kitchen to the left, with a countertop and barstools. Across the entryway, a hallway stretched out, presumably leading to a bedroom. To his right, Malfoy had a soft, black couch that faced a fancy-looking TV. There was also a lamp and a laptop, which rested on a glass-topped table.
Harry stared at these casual bits of technology, feeling once again like he'd just stepped into an alternate universe.
Because there was no possible way this apartment belonged to Draco Malfoy. And yet, there was Malfoy, staring at him with what looked like mild confusion.
"Wait here," he said.
Giving Harry one last confused look, he left for the hallway. Harry hesitated for a second, and then sat down on one of the barstools. He glanced at a pile of papers off to the side. Curious, he took the topmost one.
Milk, pasta, chicken, garlic, heavy cream, apples…
Harry smiled a little. A grocery list. It seemed so normal. He looked at the next one.
A utility bill, for water. Another for electricity – Merlin, did he keep the lights on all day? – some coupons for muggle restaurants, muggle clothing stores, some of them ripped out, which surprised Harry even further…
"What are you doing?"
Harry jumped. Ads and bills dropped to the floor. Malfoy stared at him with one cool eyebrow hitched up, and Harry fumbled for words.
"I, er, I was just –"
"Stealing my coupons?" Malfoy said. He walked over, placing two bottles on the counter before stooping to pick up the scraps of paper.
Harry shifted in his seat.
"Let me –" he started, but then Malfoy was already getting back up.
"Drink this first," he said. He handed over a slightly smoking bottle. Harry took it gingerly. Having experienced the taste of Wideye Potion before, he hesitated. Malfoy looked at him expectantly.
Wrinkling his nose, Harry sipped at the drink, but then nearly spit it back out with surprise. It didn't taste like the mix of vomit and cherries he'd become used to after a couple nights out. Rather, it tasted more like soap and something minty. Harry drank a bit too eagerly after the initial shock, and for a second, he felt like he'd have a heart attack.
Malfoy quickly grabbed the bottle from him.
"Are you trying to kill yourself?!" he said.
Harry flinched, Malfoy's voice suddenly sounding much too loud. He clutched the countertop, taking deep breaths as the potion worked its way through his system. He had a terrible, dizzying moment where he felt like he'd fall off his stool, but then a few seconds later, he felt abruptly fine.
Harry took another deep, steadying breath. He opened his eyes, not remembering when he'd closed them.
Malfoy was right in front of him. Harry froze. It was different, seeing him sober. Harry saw again his worn, grey shirt and his soft, weary look. Yet, Harry also saw the boy up on the Astronomy Tower, he saw Malfoy bleeding to death in the bathroom, he saw him pale and scared in Courtroom Ten. Harry glanced at Malfoy's left forearm, where the Dark Mark still stuck out like a siren from his pale skin.
It was jarring, to say the least.
He cleared his throat.
"Er, thanks," he said. "Where'd you get that? It tastes a hell of a lot better than any Wideye Potion I've ever had."
Malfoy gave him another funny look.
"That's because I made it," he said. "You've had it before, remember?"
"Oh, er, right. Yeah."
Harry rubbed the back of his neck. Now. He needed to say it now, but the words wouldn't come out. They seemed to be stuck in his throat.
"Right," Malfoy said. His look lingered, but instead of pressing, he uncorked the bottle of what Harry supposed was dittany. "Give me your hand."
Harry hesitated for a brief second. Just about all of his instincts told him to run the other way now that he was stone-sober, or to take out his wand, at least, but Malfoy was acting so casual about all this. He didn't even seem to notice Harry's rising panic as he sat on a barstool next to Harry, holding his own hand out.
He'd come this far, hadn't he?
Hoping he wouldn't regret it, Harry gave up his hand. Malfoy's pale fingers wrapped around it, and they were surprisingly warm, gentle even. It made Harry's skin tingle.
Malfoy added a careful drop of dittany to Harry's forefinger.
"Are you aware," he said, suddenly. "That you reek of cigarettes?"
Harry flinched, and Malfoy cursed as dittany spilled onto his countertop.
"I'll take that as a no," he muttered.
"What does it matter?" Harry said. He tried to stay absolutely still this time.
Malfoy made this difficult by pointing his wand at him. Or well, at his finger. The dittany had made the raw, red wound look several weeks old, but with a few, small movements from Malfoy's wand, the skin, though still absent a fingernail, looked almost brand new.
Harry stared.
"I keep telling you to use nicotine patches," Malfoy said. He started on Harry's middle finger. "It's near impossible to quit cold turkey, you'll just keep sneaking in the odd fag when no one's watching."
Harry ran his thumb over the tight, new skin Malfoy created, reveling in the sheer magic.
"And no matter how stubborn you want to be about this, you can't deny I've gone on much longer than you without a fag, by far."
Malfoy moved onto Harry's ring finger.
"You could hardly call it a competition, at this rate."
Harry frowned. He wasn't exactly sure on everything Malfoy was talking about, but if they had been having some kind of competition over swearing off cigarettes…first, Harry felt a stupid pang at inadvertently having put himself at a disadvantage. Second, he realized that they did know each other in this strange future. They were acquaintances or friends or something, and Harry reveled in this knew knowledge. How or why this had come about he'd have to find out later.
As for the third –
"But using nicotine patches is cheating, isn't it?" he said.
Malfoy ran a light fingertip over Harry's pinky finger, testing the new skin. He rolled his eyes.
"Trust me," he said. "It's not nearly the same as an actual fag. And it's a proven method against curbing addiction, though if you'd rather stick with repeatedly willing your addiction away, I won't stop you."
Malfoy set the dittany back on the counter, scoffing. Before Harry could think of anything to say to this – what could he say, without giving himself away? – Malfoy went on.
"I trust you have your own Skele-gro," he said. He set the dittany on the counter, climbing off the barstool. "I can give you some of mine, but I don't think you'd fancy the prospect of taking it now. I also recommend you get yourself back to yours as soon as possible – you were with Ron and Hermione, weren't you? They must be going mad right about now, looking for you."
"I'm sure they're fine," Harry said, though he wasn't, really.
Malfoy crossed his arms. "I'm sure they're not."
"Well –" Harry got off his barstool as well, biting his lip. "They'll have to be, at any rate. This is important."
Malfoy arched an eyebrow. "What, getting splinched?"
"No!" Harry said. "I've got something to tell you, remember?"
Malfoy stilled for a second, as if holding his breath.
Then he sighed.
"Are we really going to talk about this now?" he said.
Harry blinked. "What?"
Malfoy ran a hand through his already messy hair. "It's just – I'm tired, Harry. I'd rather not do this right now."
Harry glared, irritation, for a second, tempering his confusion. "Well maybe if you'd answered some of my letters, I could've come at a more convenient time for you," he said.
"Sorry about that," Malfoy said, not sounding sorry at all. "But I needed some time to think it over. Not everyone's as utterly careless as you are when it comes to making important decisions."
"I – what?"
"I'm saying I've thought about it, all right?"
Malfoy sighed. He leaned against the counter, glaring at the floor. "I've thought about it so much it's driving me mad. You always manage to do that somehow, even when you're not here."
Thought about what? Harry wanted to ask, but Malfoy went on.
"And before you ask," he said. "I stand by what I said. I think it's a horrible idea. If we were being smart about this, we'd stop seeing each other altogether."
Malfoy exhaled sharply, laughing a bit.
"It's ironic, isn't it? We swore this wouldn't happen again. We bloody shook on it. But here we are, going back on our word. It's like you and your bloody fags. I didn't even want to do this, not now when I'm dead tired and pissed off at you for waking me up in the middle of the night. But it's fitting, I suppose."
Malfoy looked at Harry. His grey eyes were open, not glaring anymore, but knowing. Soft. It rooted Harry to the floor, to him.
"Harry," he said. "I want to say I'm going to do the smart thing. That I'll stay away because it never works out between us and we'd be fools to think that this time will go any better. I was going to. I'd really intended to stick with it this time. But if you hadn't come find me, I would've gone myself, and it's ridiculous, how much I can't help myself when it comes to you."
Malfoy bit his lip, looking away.
"You need to be the smart one for once," he said. "Say that you've changed your mind and that you're going to walk away from this, because I can't. I've tried so hard and for so long, but I'm tired of it, Harry. I'm tired of trying to get on without you."
He looked back at Harry.
"I love you too, you know. I always have."
Harry stared. He felt like a thief suddenly, starring in a play that had been written for someone else entirely. Because there was something big here, something so monumental it made Malfoy look soft as a pygmy puff, and as affectionate as Hagrid. Harry could practically see the heart on Malfoy's sleeve, but it wasn't for him to know what it looked like, or what it meant. Not really.
"I'm – I'm not really sure how to say this," Harry started. "So I'm just going to say it."
Malfoy looked a bit confused by this, definitely wary. Harry felt the words jam in his throat, but he had to say it. He didn't have a choice, did he?
He took a breath.
"Ibinoblibiated," he said on the exhale.
Malfoy stared.
"What?" he said.
Harry took another breath, reddening slightly. "I – well, a week before my birthday, at the end of July, something happened, no one knows for sure, really, and, well, what happened was, I woke up, and I couldn't remember the last seven years of my life."
Malfoy seemed to freeze. He didn't say anything. Harry went on.
"Obviously, I'd been obliviated. By someone. No one knows who, and my supervisor at the Ministry, bloke named Robards, said he's looking into it, but I haven't heard from him in a couple weeks, and I'm more concerned with trying to get my bearings for now, in any case. A lot's happened in the past seven years, turns out, and it's – well, it's a bit overwhelming, to tell you the truth, especially when I heard that I, with you, that we, er, that we –"
"No," Malfoy said. His voice was faint, his face deathly pale.
Harry shifted. "I – I still don't know a lot of what happened," he said. "My healer said I should look through people's memories of me – I have a pensieve back at my place. It's supposed to jog my own memories, in theory, but it hasn't really helped so far…"
Harry trailed off. Malfoy just kept staring.
"I'm sorry for ambushing you at the aquarium," Harry said. "I didn't mean to – to scare you off or –"
"Why?" Malfoy said. Harry stopped.
"What?"
Malfoy stepped back, away from Harry. His eyes were wide.
"If you were obliviated, why were you there? And here too, how could you know…?"
"I – Hermione told me," Harry said, because he didn't particularly want to explain his desperate midnight Floo call to Malfoy's mother. "And as for the aquarium…it was my birthday, that day. I'd never been. I wanted to see what it was like."
Malfoy looked pained at this. He ran a hand through his hair. It was shaking.
"That's – that's impossible," he said. "You're lying."
Harry took a step forward.
"I'm not lying," he said.
"Yes, you are!"
Malfoy backed further away from him, glaring at nothing. Harry felt a sudden urge to reach out towards him, though he didn't dare.
"Malfoy…"
At this, Malfoy looked at Harry. His hands were clenched into fists, bone-white at his sides.
"Don't," he said, and his voice cracked.
Harry quickly realized his mistake. "Sorry – Draco –"
"Stop!"
Glass exploded, and abruptly, they were plunged into darkness. With Malfoy's blinds drawn, Harry could barely see his outline in the dark. He heard Malfoy take deep breaths. Harry stood still, trying not to make a sound.
After a few seconds, Malfoy spoke.
"Get out," he said.
Harry tried to peer through the gloom. "Wait," he said. "But –"
"I said get the fuck out of my apartment, Potter!"
A wordless, perhaps even wandless, spell hit Harry, knocking him back into the barstools. Pain exploded all along his backside as he hit the floor, and he thought for a second about retaliating, but then he paused. He listened to ragged, shallow breaths in the dark. Slowly, Harry got up.
He fumbled his way to the front door. There, he paused.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Malfoy said nothing.
"It just doesn't make sense," Malfoy said, for the hundredth time. "If this 'electricity' can create light and hover objects thousands of meters up in the air, I don't see why you can't use it to apparate!"
Harry ran a hand through his hair, for probably the hundredth time as well. He looked at Malfoy in the light of a nearly full moon. Frustration stormed in his eyes, and Harry felt no different. He ripped some grass from the ground, playing with it instead of flicking Malfoy in the face.
"Muggle technology just doesn't work that way, all right?" he said. "Think of it like – like a rope, yeah? Things have to be connected in order for it to work –"
"Then what's that whole business with remote controllers?" Malfoy said. He gestured out towards the sprawling grounds. "Isn't the whole point to be able to work technology from a distance?"
"Well, they're still connected, just invisibly, I guess –"
"'You guess'," Malfoy said. He scoffed, arching an eyebrow. "Didn't you grow up in the muggle world, Potter? How do you not know these things?"
"We didn't really get to the finer points of computer engineering in grade school, Malfoy."
"Computer what?"
Groaning, Harry flopped back on the grass. He stared up at the clear, November sky. The weather was getting a bit chilly, especially at night, but he and Malfoy had agreed upon a change of scenery for once. Tonight, they were by the Black Lake instead of the Tower, and it looked even blacker at night. It was as bit eerie, to be honest. What was worse, Temperature Charms didn't work as well without a sort of shelter to apply it to, and their cloaks could only do so much. Despite everything, however, it felt nice, being out on grounds.
Harry spoke to the stars.
"Professor Morris went over it the other day, didn't she? Muggles have specialized professions for learning how to use technology. It takes years and a lot of hard work to get the hang of."
Malfoy clicked his tongue. After a second, he lay down beside Harry.
"That doesn't make sense either," he said. "Muggles use technology like magic, it seems like. How could the majority of the population use it without knowing how it works?"
"The same way I can transfigure a hat without knowing all the exceptions to Gamp's Law."
"Yes," Malfoy said, and Harry could practically hear him rolling his eyes. "Which would go swimmingly for you, I'm sure, until you tried to conjure a vat full of treacle tart."
"But I don't need to know the law to use magic, do I?"
"You don't need to, I suppose," Malfoy said. Harry could hear the frustration in his voice, and he suppressed a grin. "But you would be a rather poor wizard if you tried to use magic without understanding the principles behind it. You'd be little more than a child."
"And that's why we go to school," Harry said. "It's the same for muggles."
"Yes, but not all of them study electricity, do they?"
"No, they study other things, like literature."
Malfoy huffed. "Literature," he said, rather darkly. "It's all ridiculous, if you ask me."
"Well, I didn't, did I?" Harry shifted on the grass, stretching with a yawn. "I was just sitting here quietly. You're the one who wanted to go on about electricity."
"Well, I apologize for being interested in this sort of thing."
"I don't care if you're interested," Harry said. He looked at Malfoy. "But Merlin, I can only talk about the intricacies of the clicker for so long."
Malfoy looked back at Harry. Opening his mouth, he asked why Harry was trying to deter him from learning, what he had against clickers, and if, in his opinion, clickers were as much of a cultural phenomenon as pencils.
Harry tried not to rip his hair out.
It was the week after Halloween. Classes were picking up as usual, professors demanding six-foot long essays and giving out pop quizzes nearly every day, making them less random and more just plain torture.
Even Muggle Studies was beginning to challenge Harry. Just the other day, Ron had gotten higher marks on an assignment than he did. It felt a bit ridiculous, a bit too Hermione, to get so hung up over a grade, but Ron still got 'telephone' and 'television' mixed up. Harry suspected Hermione was helping Ron out more than they were letting on.
Malfoy, it turned out, also liked to discuss schoolwork when it started to reach a peak, even Muggle Studies. Harry was, in fact, continually surprised that Malfoy liked to discuss anything with him, though less so since that Halloween night.
Things had seemed to change, after. Harry couldn't exactly put his finger on what, but conversation came easier. Rather than sit in silence, they laughed more, and instead of pretending the daylit world didn't exist, they talked about classes, Unity events, quidditch games, and once, even politics. Now, they could even make outings from their small spot on the Tower, rather than stare at the sky and Forbidden Forest for hours on end.
Harry had never exactly dreaded his time with Malfoy, but he found himself actually looking forward to it now. Increased schoolwork aside, this past week had been almost pleasant, with sleep coming easier than it used to as well. Hermione had even mentioned earlier today that he was looking better, though it didn't deter her from asking, again, what he got up to during the nights.
As usual, Harry pointedly ignored her and moved on to a different topic.
Harry looked over at Malfoy now. He'd finally stopped asking his increasingly difficult questions, after Harry threw up his hands and refused to answer. Merlin, he could even be worse than Mr Weasley sometimes.
Now, Malfoy's inquisitive, grey eyes were closed, his face relaxed. A soft breeze ruffled his pale hair.
"Did you fall asleep?" Harry said.
A beat of silence.
"Yes."
Harry snorted. Rather than endure twenty questions again, he left Malfoy to his non-sleep and looked back up at the sky.
Harry wasn't exactly sure why he'd been keeping this a secret from Ron and Hermione. They'd given him plenty of opportunities to tell. Yet, every time they'd asked, Harry either ignored them, or said he was just taking a walk around the castle. Ron quit trying to wheedle it out of him months ago. Hermione was less forgiving.
Harry knew there wasn't anything to be afraid of, not from them. They wouldn't take it well, of course, but they'd understand. Eventually. He honestly didn't much care about them finding out, but he was afraid of how Malfoy would react to them knowing. He'd never said anything, but somehow, Harry knew Malfoy wanted to keep this a secret. He understood why – the school would go mad if they found out, and they brought on enough attention as it was. No, it was better to keep things the way they were, at least for now. Not that they were being entirely discreet, but it felt nice, pretending that in the dead of night, nothing existed but owls, crickets, and their light conversations.
Harry looked over at Malfoy again. His eyes were still closed.
"Are you asleep now?" he said.
"Are you up to something, Potter?" Malfoy muttered. "Planning to ambush me the second I nod off?"
"That'd be a rather shoddy plan, seeing as how you never sleep."
Malfoy's lips twitched. He opened his eyes and looked at Harry. "Neither do you."
"A nice couple of vampires, aren't we?" Harry said.
"Vampires probably sleep more than the two of us combined," Malfoy said. He scoffed. "Honestly, Potter, do you ever pay attention in class?"
Harry sighed, looking back up at the sky. "It's eerie, how much you sound like Hermione sometimes," he said. "You two should've gone to Ravenclaw and saved me a world of nagging."
"It's not nagging to tell you to stay awake in class," Malfoy said. "It's just common sense, which chronically seems to be in short supply when it comes to you."
Harry laughed sharply, earning him a curious look from Malfoy. Ignoring this, Harry rolled onto his side, cushioning his head with his arm.
"Listen here, Malfoy," he said. "'Common sense' would be sleeping when I'm tired so that I don't collapse from exhaustion."
"'Common sense' would be to take some Dreamless Sleep and be done with it."
"Yeah?" Harry said. "Then why don't you?"
A beat of silence fell. Harry saw Malfoy's lips thin, and he instantly regretted asking his question. Malfoy looked away.
"It doesn't work for me," he said.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean it doesn't work."
"But –"
"And you?" Malfoy said. He rolled onto his side too, so that they were facing each other. Malfoy's grey eyes were narrowed, the corner of his mouth frowning. "Why don't you take it?"
Harry frowned too. This was a bit too personal for his liking, though he'd inadvertently started it. He couldn't use the 'it doesn't work' excuse either, because Malfoy had snatched it first.
Malfoy looked back at him expectantly, his fingers clutching at a few blades of grass like miniature lifelines. He'd really dug a hole for himself with this one.
Harry sighed.
"I did, at first," he said. "But I didn't like having to rely on it. And the worst nightmares stopped after a while anyway…"
"Yeah?"
Harry hesitated, but Malfoy kept looking at him, not saying anything.
"And it's not like it helps. It's – it's difficult sometimes, being here. The first time I came back to the Great Hall, all I could see was them, Lupin and Tonks and – and Colin. The ghosts don't help either. It gets to me sometimes, just seeing them, and then there's everyone else, bombarding me with questions about what it was like to off Voldemort – " Malfoy flinched, his fingers ripping grass from the ground, but Harry ignored this "– and they want to know how I survived, and what I'd been doing the rest of that year, they even ask about Dumbledore sometimes, and it keeps it fresh, you know, when all I'd like is to just move on. Getting knocked out for a few hours just doesn't help any."
"Then why'd you come back?"
Harry stared at Malfoy, at the bruise-colored shadows underneath his eyes and a half-healed cut by his hairline that he must've forgotten to spell away.
"Why did you?" he said.
Malfoy's frown deepened, but it was only fair that he answered this one instead of Harry. He'd confessed a good bit, just now.
Briefly, Harry wondered why this didn't feel as strange as it should have, being here and talking about such private things with Malfoy, of all people. The last time he'd talked about any of this was with Ginny, in the darkness of the room they shared, whispering with their arms around each other and making love.
Harry froze.
He felt suddenly too close to Malfoy. Their hands were almost touching, their lips just inches away, and Malfoy's silver eyes were entirely different from Ginny's, but he suddenly saw in them the same kind of understanding. The same kind of warmth. Before he could do anything about this, however - like get up and sprint back to his dorm - Malfoy's mouth quirked into a half-smile.
"I came here to learn, Potter," he said. "Unlike some people."
Taken aback, Harry just stared for a second. Then he cracked a smile.
"You definitely should've been in Ravenclaw, Malfoy," he said.
"Please," he said. He rolled his eyes. "Blue isn't my color."
Harry laughed and turned back to face the stars, feeling light, suddenly. He thought back to something Ron had said the other day, that Harry had been "grinning an awful lot lately."
Harry felt his arm brush against Malfoy's, and he listened to him go on about how black, green, and silver did wonders for his complexion. He shivered as Malfoy replenished the Temperature Charm and laughed when Malfoy tried to convince him he looked great in lilac as well. Right now, Harry found it easy to push down whatever anxieties he had about this thing between them: what people would say, what he even thought about all this.
Because right now, he couldn't stop grinning.