"You know, Hermione thinks you fancy her," Harry remarks. He is sitting cross-legged at the base of Draco's huge four-poster bed. Draco is sitting directly opposite him, picking dirt out of his fingernails. At Harry's revelation, Draco's face contorts itself into an expression of deep disgust.
"Why, for fuck's sake?"
"Because... well. You're always putting her down, and sniping at her, and calling her names. She thinks it's a cover-up for how much you actually like her." Harry gives Draco a funny look over his glasses. "Is it?"
"Potter, the Weasel and I don't share pulling techniques. If I fancied Granger, which I don't, I wouldn't call her an overweight Mudblood bint. I'm more subtle than that."
Harry is silent.
"The trouble with you Gryffindors," Draco continues emphatically, "is that you think everyone's secretly nice. Or you think that there always has to be a reason for everyone else's bad behaviour. If they don't kiss the ground you walk on, and slap on a huge fake smile when you enter a room, then they can't just dislike you, there has to be something else. What you don't understand is that some of us just aren't nice people."
Harry looks hard at Draco. Draco is really worked up, his pale cheeks are tinged with pink and his fists are clenched at his sides. It would almost be funny if he wasn't so serious. Draco stares back at Harry with anger in his grey eyes.
"You know, I always thought your eyes were blue," Harry says suddenly. "Or at least greyish-blue. But they're not. They're just grey."
This odd statement confuses Draco, who looks slightly taken aback.
"Yes, well." He licks his lips nervously. "Nice people have blue eyes. Babies have blue eyes. I'm not fucking nice."
"No Draco, you aren't."
Draco blinks. His grey eyes are astonished.
"What did you just call me?"
Harry blinks in confusion.
"Um. What?"
"Don't fucking call me Draco," Draco sneers, pulling up the duvet over his chest. "I don't like you, remember?"
"Well," Harry scowls, crawling closer to Draco on all fours, "It's a good job I'm not exactly partial to you either, Draco."
"Push off, Harry."
Harry blinks in surprise. It's weirder than he expected it to be. This is the boy he's hated for the past six years, and who he's certain loathes him back just as much, if not more. They've traded insults, gotten each other into trouble, put down each other's mothers… Draco thinks Ron is a blithering idiot and Hermione a swotty, frigid bitch, whereas Harry thinks Crabbe and Goyle are… well. The original missing link. It's just so unnerving to hear the familiar clipped voice uttering his name. He tries not to show it, though.
"Doesn't bother me." Draco leans closer.
"Harry," he intones softly.
"I don't have a problem with people saying my name," Harry answers, trying to sound off-hand. He edges nearer Draco, watching the blond boy's face for any sign of a reaction. "Do you, Draco?"
"Harry," Draco replies, his eyes flashing evilly.
"Draco."
"Harry."
"Draco."
"Harry."
There is a long, pregnant pause. Harry moves so that Draco's face is mere centimetres from his own.
"Draco."
Draco kisses him.
Harry's first instinct is to pull away, roll sideways off the bed and Crucio Draco so hard that the Slytherin git won't know what hit him. But instead of pulling away in outrage and yanking his wand out of his pocket to execute the Unforgivable Curse, Harry seems to be returning the kiss, pressing his lips to Draco's hungrily and nudging his glasses askew.
Don't just sit there, do something! Say something! Harry's brain screams at him in terror. Tell him he's disgusting, tell him never to come near you again!
Harry opens his mouth awkwardly, but only a low moan escapes his lips. Draco takes this opportunity to slip his pointed tongue into Harry's mouth. Harry shivers with pleasure. Draco tastes slightly metallic, different from Cho. Different from anything he's ever tasted before, really. One of Draco's hands slips inside Harry's shirt, caressing the warmth of his stomach. His other hand is resting in the small of Harry's back, pulling him deeper into the kiss. Not caring that Draco's erection is pressing ominously into his thigh, Harry wraps his fingers around the nape of Draco's neck and buries his nails in the silky white-blond hair.
Draco pulls away forcefully and abruptly. Harry looks at him, his glasses slipping of his right ear and sliding down his face.
"Don't touch my hair."
Harry lets his gaze travel upwards to Draco's hair. It is, admittedly, a bit mad. There are tufty bits sticking up in all the wrong places and the left side looks like it's been brushed backwards vigorously. It's a bit like Harry's usual do, actually.
"Why?" Harry asks. Draco shrugs uncomfortably.
Draco doesn't like people playing with his hair. It's too casually intimate. It's too personal. Draco makes a point of avoiding personal, intimate contact with anyone. It reminds him of his father, placing his gloved hand on his head, whispering to him in that painfully cold voice of his. It felt like Lucius was pressing right down into his skull.
"So… how about if I just don't play with your hair?" Harry suggests, grinning playfully. He leans in for a second kiss, but Draco gathers the duvet around his crotch and moves away.
"No. I think you should go, Potter."
Harry looks hurt and shocked. His bottle-green eyes are full of disappointment. Draco berates himself inwardly, but keeps a stony face. After all, what did Potter expect?
"Yeah, I think I should go too," Harry says in a small voice, righting his glasses. He clambers off the bed, ungainly, embarrassed. Suddenly the relationship between them is awful and strange and different. Draco wants desperately wants to restore the normality, to be back on familiar ground.
"Even though you didn't avenge Ron." This comes out wrong. It's meant as a kind of joke, to relieve the tension. Instead it sounds like Draco's mocking him, sneering at his incompetence.
"Oh, I'll avenge Ron, don't worry." Harry sounds bitter already. Draco winces.
"I'm sure you will." Again, a stupid thing to say. A very stupid thing to say. Draco looks down at his fingernails in consternation. Harry turns to go.
"Wait!" Draco says a little too shrilly. Harry whips around, wide-eyed. "Um. Wait." Draco repeats, quieter.
"What is it?"
Draco wants to tell something important to Harry, something that he doesn't want to bury inside him, something that he feels Potter should know. But he doesn't. Instead he says what Potter expects him to say.
"If you ever tell anyone about this, I promise you my father will get you expelled. The Weasel and the Mudblood too. I'll dedicate every waking moment to ensuring that Dumbledore and Hagrid are sacked. Potter, if you blab, I will ruin your life, I swear."
Harry stares at Draco with contempt.
"You were right, Malfoy. Some people just aren't nice. Some people are despicable." Harry nearly spits the last word. "And congratulations. You're one of them."
Draco doesn't say anything to this. He can't, because it's true. All of it. The dark-haired boy turns away again, picks up the Invisibility Cloak from the carpet, and goes left, fumbling in the darkness.
That's the wrong way to the door, A tiny voice in Draco's head pipes up. You have to go right…
Harry stumbles over piles of dirty Quidditch gear and schoolbags, until he reaches the left side of the dormitory. He begins to paw the wall, searching for an exit. He knocks one of Crabbe's sweaters off a table and stoops down to pick it up.
That's the wrong way, Draco yells silently. You have to go right, you idiot.
"Oh, bugger. Lumos." After staring at the blank wall for a bit in puzzlement, Harry turns on Draco angrily, who is watching him from the bed. "Would you mind telling me what you've done with the door?"
Christ, he's dense, Draco thinks. That curse to the head did more than disfigure him.
"It's on the other side," Draco whispers impatiently. "Why the hell would I want to keep you here? Now get the fuck out."
"With pleasure." Harry extinguishes his wand and slips the Invisibility Cloak over his shoulders. "You're a crap kisser," he adds, as an afterthought.
"I'm a crap kisser?" Draco retorts indignantly. He peers into the darkness, but of course Harry can't be seen. The bedroom door is wide open, and there's no way of telling if he's left. "If you're still here, Potter, then you should know after that performance I'd rather snog Weasley than you. Even with the tiny dick."
There is no answer. Goyle snuffles from the bed next to him, and Draco has the horrible feeling he's talking to thin air. He lies back down, pulling the sheets over his bare chest. He's terribly cold all of a sudden. Perhaps he should go and put on some pyjamas.
But Harry could still be here, he thinks uneasily. Ogling me under that Cloak, the stupid Gryffindor poofter. I wonder how long he's fancied me for? Draco chooses to conveniently ignore the fact that he kissed Harry. He begins to fabricate a reassuring story in which Harry snuck into the Slytherin quaters with the sole purpose of molesting him. It's not that far from the truth, really. Draco's right hand slides down to grip his cock comfortingly. Then a thought strikes him. Maybe Harry's wanking off thinking of me!
Harry sits on the staircase outside the dormitory, brushing away angry tears. He's never felt so furious at Draco in his life. This is worse than the time Draco mocked him about being in Witch Weekly, worse than the time he tried to get Buckbeak killed, worse than the time he spread the rumour that Harry and Professor Hooch were having an illicit affair. Harry's heart is crashing away at his ribs, and he has to stop himself from jumping up and running back in the room to pummel him.
Snot-nosed wanker, Harry rages. How dare he do that to me… the little… I'm glad I got away from him…
Harry bursts into tears.
The next day, Ron comes to talk to Harry at breakfast, restored and rested from his stay in the hospital wing.
"We've got to do something about Malfoy, mate," he whispers urgently. "You have no idea what Pomfrey put me through… all the questions she asked, the measurements she took... Malfoy must die. Seriously. It's not even that he... oh look, it's him now."
Harry glances across the room and glimpses Malfoy entering the Great Hall, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle on either side. He ducks down in his seat, heart pounding.
"Why are you hiding behind your pancakes?" Ron asks, bemused. He wrinkles up his freckled nose in confusion. "He won't hex yours, you know… he only got me because he caught me getting changed after Quidditch."
Harry shakes his head frantically, and tries to disappear underneath the table. Ron frowns, perplexed, and turns back to look at Draco.
"Well, that's unusual." Ron remarks, picking up one of Harry's pancakes and biting into it with gusto.
"What's unusual?" Harry asks from the floor. It's surprisingly comfortable down there, he notices. His hair brushes the underside of the table and gets caught in something sticky. Grimacing, he yanks his head away and puts up a tentative hand to feel what it is. Damn. Gum.
"Well, other than your behaviour… Malfoy's hair. It's insane." Ron wipes some strawberry jam off his chin with his sleeve and beams hopefully at Hermione, who is chatting animatedly with Lavender across the table. She ignores him.
Harry raises himself up on his chair to get a good look at the Slytherin table. Ron's right, Draco's hair is insane. For Draco, anyway. He's not one to talk, with a wad of pink Droobles Best Blowing Gum stuck on his head. But Draco's hair certainly is... different. It's not the perfectly groomed, not-a-hair-out-of-place style that's usually favoured by the Malfoys. It's a tousled mop of blonde hair, a look that could easily be achieved by being dragged backwards through a hedge. Pansy and the other Slytherin girls don't seem to mind, though. They're all cooing at him, hanging on his every word.
"Don't know where he gets off doing scruffy chic," Ron grumbles, his mouth full. "That's our speciality, isn't it Harry? Harry?"
Harry is not listening, and has turned a particularly fetching shade of beetroot. Draco is staring at him from the Slytherin table. Pansy is waving a butter knife madly in the air, prattling on about something or other, but Draco's not paying any attention to her at all. He's staring straight at Harry. Harry, who has a crazed look on his face and bubble gum on his head. Harry, who has turned the exact same shade of scarlet as his new Quidditch robes.
"Harry!" Ron exclaims indignantly. "Harry, are you even listening to me?"
Harry drags his eyes away from Draco reluctantly. Ron looks highly offended, and gives him a not-so-friendly punch on the arm.
"I don't know what you're acting so funny about, mate. Can we please concentrate on the problem at hand? MALFOY. Our nemesis? He's a twat. We've got to get him back."
Harry's attention is slipping again. He tries to use his peripheral vision to check whether Draco is still staring at him, but Ron pushes his head back towards him. Harry can feel Draco's gaze boring into his back.
"Harry! Look, stop all this nonsense. We've got to concentrate on Malfoy. You've got to get him back for me. You've got to avenge me, Harry, alright? That's what you've got to do. Avenge me."
The End