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The Time of My Life
By Black Rapture
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Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters, locations, and other indicia belong to J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers.
Title Origin(s): The title The Time of My Life was inspired by the song of the same title featured in the movie Dirty Dancing. The chapter title, Death is A Gift, was inspired by the episode Intervention in Season 5 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
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Chapter Two – Death is A Gift
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"Harry!" Hermione gasped at breakfast the next morning, "Where did you get that bruise?" Ron looked at him curiously and his eyes widened.
"I just now noticed!" he admitted, "What the bloody hell have you been doing?"
"What bruise? Where?" Harry asked, puzzled.
"Right there, on your temple." Hermione replied, gesturing with her spoon. Harry reached up a hand and pressed lightly.
"Ouch!" he complained. They looked at him pointedly. He shrugged, "I dunno."
"You really should be more careful, Harry." Hermione warned, while Ron nodded in agreement. Harry smiled at his friend's concern and went back to his toast. He knew perfectly well where he'd gotten that bruise. Last night with Malfoy – fighting. Harry glanced over at the Slytherin table to see Malfoy smirking at him. Harry smirked back. Malfoy turned back to his porridge.
--
"Choose a partner and we'll-" Professor Snape stopped abruptly, "Mr. Potter, do you have something to add?" Harry quickly stopped talking to Ron about Quidditch strategies and shook his head.
"Um, no sir," he said hurriedly.
"Very well. Five points from Gryffindor." Snape sneered, "And you're with Mr. Malfoy." Harry sighed and moved over to the Slytherin side of the room.
"Potter." Malfoy greeted. Harry rolled his eyes.
"Malfoy," he replied.
"Go and get our potions ingredients." Malfoy ordered.
"Whatever." Harry said, but didn't argue. He collected the ingredients and returned to their table.
They worked in silence for a while until Harry noticed a bottle of liquid in front of him while he was mincing Boomslang Skin. It read Secretion of Bundimun; Handle with Caution. Harry grinned. As Malfoy continued grinding Rosemary, Harry reached his hand forward and tipped over the bottle. It fell on Malfoy's hand, and sticky brown liquid coated his fingers.
"Ah!" Malfoy shouted, "Professor!" Snape hurried over and glanced at the bottle. Harry did his best not to laugh when Snape sent him an icy glare.
"Miss Parkinson, please escort Mr. Malfoy to the Hospital Wing. Quickly!" he instructed. When they had gone, Snape rounded on Harry.
Harry realized idly that maybe that hadn't been such a good idea.
"Twenty points from Gryffindor for your incompetence, Potter." Snape snapped, "Now clean up this mess."
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That night Harry snuck up to the Astronomy Tower again to find Malfoy waiting for him.
"You're going to pay for this, Potter." Malfoy sneered, holding up his bandaged hand. Harry just smiled.
"Don't be such a baby." He teased. Malfoy had been inching steadily closer to him and Harry ducked to avoid a punch in the face. He tackled Malfoy to the floor and they proceeded to roll around, kicking and punching any part of each other they could reach.
After a few minutes Harry froze. Surely he was imagining things. He did not feel anything pressing against his thigh. He looked down at Malfoy to see him looking up, eyes wide. Malfoy wasn't just surprised because he was hard. He was surprised because Harry was too. They just stared at each other for a long while, Harry's fist poised to attack.
Suddenly Harry shot off him like he was on fire and scrambled towards the other side of the room.
"What the fuck is going on?" he hissed.
"Fuck if I know!" Malfoy replied.
"You were- I was-"
"Yeah, I noticed."
"It was just a natural reaction."
"Obviously."
"I mean, there's no way-"
"Absolutely not."
"I mean, we couldn't-"
"No."
"So we should just-"
"Pretend it didn't happen."
"Yeah."
"Does that happen a lot?"
"What? No!"
"No, I mean- does it get you off?"
"Does what get me off?"
"Pain."
"No… I don't think so."
"Are you gay?"
"Are you?"
"I asked first!"
"Maybe."
"You do realize that you just told your worst enemy that you might be a queer."
"Yeah."
"You do realize I could make your life miserable."
"Yeah."
"So why did you tell me?"
"You got off on it too."
"Oh. Yeah."
"You did!"
"Maybe."
"So…"
"So what?"
"I don't know."
"This is fucked up."
"A little bit, yeah."
"So what do we do now?"
"I don't know."
"So are we done?"
"With what?"
"Fighting."
"Do you want to be?"
"It was kind of fun."
"Yeah."
"So d'you want to do it again tomorrow?"
"Yeah."
"Okay."
"So we're leaving now."
"Yeah."
"Goodnight."
"Night."
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