Chapter 4

"Do you think," Harry said slowly, chewing over each word before voicing it, "that dying can change things about you?"

Silence met his words. A long, loaded silence in which Harry could feel his friends staring at him. He didn't look their way. He didn't think he could. Instead, practically lying across the desk and his textbooks, elbows propped wide and face resting in one hand, Harry stared out the window. It was raining, he noticed deliberately so that he didn't have to notice anything else. Raining heavily enough that droplets flecked the window with the force of hailstones. It created a modest white noise that overlaid Harry's question thickly enough that it could have passed unnoticed by anyone standing a couple of steps away.

Hermione and Ron weren't a couple of steps away. Despite their lack of immediate reply, Harry knew they'd heard him clearly.

"Harry," Hermione eventually began, her voice low.

"Just hypothetically," Harry said. He thought he did a pretty good job of keeping his tone casual, though doubted either of his friends believed it. "In a hypothetical situation or something."

"What're you trying to say, mate?" Ron asked, his own voice hushed. More hushed than it needed to be with that rain, certainly.

Harry shrugged. He spun his quill in his fingers, absently tapping the dry nib upon his barely-touched essay. He couldn't even remember what he'd been writing about. "It's just a question," he murmured.

"Hypothetically, then," Hermione said. "If, ah, someone hypothetically died and – and came back. You think something about them might have changed?"

"I think it's possible," Harry said, as though they all weren't stalwartly pretending to be speaking of anyone but him. He didn't want to have this discussion, or any discussion of a similar grain, but he needed to. He needed to know if those little things, those little bits and pieces that he'd never noticed before, that might not have been there before, arose because Voldemort had killed him or whether they'd always been there. Was it possible to have parts about himself that he hadn't realised? More than that, could there have been parts that were hidden, tucked away without his knowledge, because of – what? Because of priorities?

It seemed almost silly when he thought about it like that. How could anything, no matter how big, manage to hide parts of his character, traits and habits, likes and dislikes, without his awareness? And yet Harry half hoped it had been an oversight, that he simply hadn't noticed. To think that death had somehow changed him was a scarier thought than he wanted to admit. But then…

There were the moments when he seemed to lose track of time. Countless nights when he didn't sleep quite as well as he used to – or had he ever really slept well? Harry didn't know. Maybe he'd just never noticed he hadn't.

Losing himself in thought, then not even in thought but mindlessness, before jerking back into awareness as though abruptly woken from sleep. Caught in the midst of memories that, when shaken from them, he couldn't even recall the nature of except that they felt 'bad' and 'sad' and 'cold'. That when he was shaken from them, he often found himself flinching, tensing, drawing away from barely touching hands and curious gazes before he could help himself.

It could be from the war. Not from dying but from the war itself. Harry, just like every other student at Hogwarts – every other professor and Order member too, most likely – had been told what to expect. He'd spoken to the Ministry-appointed Mind-Healers, sat through rigorous physical assessment, listened to the lecture, and he'd absorbed enough of what was told to him to understand at least vaguely.

War changed people. That was what everyone said. Whether as grief and pain, memory and loss, residual terror that clung like a second skin for years and years later, it could linger. That was what they all said. But what if someone had died? Did that make a difference? Did it make it… more?

Harry thought it might be a little bit to do with the war. The little things, the memories and the sleep and that he would lose track of time. He was pretty sure that just about everyone in Hogwarts' eighth year, and likely in the years below too, felt the same. But he didn't think the other parts were to do with it. Not at all.

Harry found that he became cold often. He'd asked Ginny if his skin felt chilled and she'd shaken her head with a bemused frown, but he still felt it. Not even cocooning himself tightly in a blanket helped to chase it away.

Which Harry realised he liked. He hadn't ever considered it before, but when the cold came, or a memory struck, or sleep eluded him to leave him staring at the far wall of the boy's dormitory through blurry eyes and thick shadows, the tight confines of the simple blanket helped. Harry had never realised that before, had never felt the need to notice.

He didn't like to close his curtains though. He didn't like to keep the door closed. He liked the windows open, felt it made it just a little easier to breathe with a cool breeze, and found himself wandering outside every so often simply because it felt nice to be out. Why had he never noticed how it felt? Why hadn't he realised that, when the weight of a building no longer hung over him, it was as though a similar weight was lifted from his shoulders?

Sweet food was delicious, but Harry realised for the first time at the welcome feast that he couldn't eat too much of it because after a few mouthfuls it just didn't taste right. The darkness at night was comforting when it wasn't complete but smothering without the outline of light from an unseen source. The presence of others, hearing their voices breathing, made it a little easier to breathe himself, and the stagnation of utter silence was horribly deafening.

Harry was good at Defence magic but he discovered that he didn't like to do it so much anymore.

He loved quidditch but found the rush of adrenaline from flying to be even more captivating than he'd ever found the game to be.

He didn't really like reading but the library was unexpectedly soothing, the murmur of voices hidden behind shelves and Madam Pince's shuffling footsteps unseen but appreciated company.

Harry didn't like to be stared at but he found staring back at others almost compulsive.

And touching. Touching felt good. Not the kind of touching that he hadn't really done with Cho, or had only done a little more with Ginny, but a different kind. A hand resting against his own. The warmth of a body alongside him. When Ron slung an arm around his shoulder, or Hermione leaned against him to peer at his work, or the few times he'd sat next to Ginny at dinnertime and she nudged him fondly with an elbow.

Or when he sat with Malfoy.

How had Harry never noticed those little things? Had they always been there, or had they only just appeared? Was it a good thing or a bad thing that he found he liked company, need it, if it was the right kind and in the right way? That he felt the strange coldness retreat just a little when smothered in the confines of a blanket or warmed by the proximity of a friend?

Harry didn't know, and it bothered him. Mostly, it bothered him because he didn't know where it had all come from. It bothered him because those things seemed to unfold to chase their needs without regard for how he consciously felt about them.

Which was how he found himself planting himself on Malfoy's lap in the middle of Potions only a week ago, entirely without provocation or logical reason.

Harry frowned up at the multi-coloured curtains, still bright but magically faded to a slightly gentler hue than they'd been. He didn't know why he'd done that in Potions. He didn't know why Malfoy had let him either, but mostly he was concerned about what had made him do it at all. And why Malfoy of all people? He'd never done such a thing with his friends. He couldn't imagine sitting on Ron's knee, shuddered to think at what Ron would think and how he would react, and Hermione would more than likely enact her usual rigid awkwardness whenever they made any kind of intimate contact. She still never felt particularly comfortable when they hugged, even if Harry felt the urge to accept one from her more and more often in the past year. It was as though her arms simply didn't bend that way.

He'd never done that with Ginny, either. It would have felt strange, and though Ginny wasn't a long sight smaller than himself, thinking of it… No, it didn't seem right. He was fairly sure he could crush her. Malfoy wasn't really much bigger than him or anything; taller, yes, which had been a source of disgruntlement for Harry when he'd realised it for the first time, but not really all that much bigger. So why…?

"Are you alright, Harry?"

Shaken from his thoughts, Harry glanced back towards Hermione. Her brow was furrowed, her stare intent and unblinking, and at her side Ron wore an almost identical expression. They'd both abandoned their own homework, which was saying something given that Hermione had spent most of the evening coaxing Ron into putting more effort into his studies. She'd been doing a lot of coaxing that year.

Harry opened his mouth to reply, considered, then shook his head. "It's nothing," he said. "Probably just being stupid."

"It's not stupid if it's worrying you," Hermione said.

Ron nodded. "Talk to us, okay? If you're bothered about something –"

"It's fine," Harry interrupted, then smiled as Ron's frown deepened. "Seriously, it was just a thought. Too long studying so my mind was drifting or something, you know?"

Hermione didn't look deterred, but Ron's face cleared a little. A small smile touched his lips. "Yeah, I hear you. How much more of this essay do I have?" He flipped through the parchment sheets before him, wincing at the minimal stack. "Dammit, I could have sworn I'd written more than this."

"Sixty inches isn't too bad for a transfiguration essay, really," Hermione said, frowning at Harry for a moment longer before turning to Ron. "Especially not for Erratica-Morphis Incidents."

"Maybe not for you," Ron said, though his smile remained. "For the rest of us academic imbeciles, it's harder."

"You're not an imbecile, Ron."

"Aren't you sweet, lying and all that."

"It's not a lie, and stop joking about that. I'm serious."

"Still…"

Harry almost immediately tuned them out. They'd fallen into such exchanges more and more often of late, and while Harry didn't begrudge them their odd form of flirting, he wasn't particularly inclined to listen to it.

Instead, turning his vague gaze out to the Dragon's Nest common room instead, he folded his arms and laid his cheek down on top of them. The room had lost most of its inhabitants to their dormitories, leaving the space feeling larger than usual. It wasn't a big tower to begin with, so the feeling was appreciated.

There was a trio of ex-Ravenclaws at the desks three down from Harry and his friends, heads bowed but with only one of them seemingly still working. The other two looked on the verge of sleep. Alongside the bookshelves, Hannah was tucked into the cushioned couch with her knees drawn up before her and a book propped against her thighs. She looked ready to fall to sleep, too. As he watched, Neville, sitting in the couch beside her, leaned over the arm of his own chair and murmured something that had them both smiling sleepily. Other than that, there was only…

"What's that?" Ron asked.

Harry didn't realise he'd made a sound until Ron turned towards him, raising an eyebrow. Hermione turned in synchrony, and though the concern she'd worn earlier had been momentarily quelled, she affixed her gave to Harry with just as much attentiveness as before.

His friends really were too good to him, Harry couldn't help but think. Even caught up in one another as they were, they still took the time to consider him.

"Nothing much," Harry said. "It's just…"

He trailed off, eyes flicking to where they'd settled before, and Ron and Hermione both twisted in their seats to follow the line of his gaze. Hermione pursed her lips and Ron frowned, hunching his shoulders slightly as he turned back to Harry.

"Sorry about that again, Harry," he said, lowering his voice again even though, if anything, the intensity of the rain had increased. "It would have been nice if you'd had a proper partner for the Potions project."

Harry gave a shrug, a little awkwardly given that he couldn't quite find the inclination to raise his head from his arms. "I don't mind. Actually – yeah, no, I don't mind." At Hermione's silent question, the curious tilt of her head, he shrugged again. "It's just – what do you guys think of Malfoy?"

A momentary lull met his words, and once more Harry's friends glanced back across the room. Seated before the fireplace, a parchment and quill in hand, Malfoy was alone within the half-circle of couches. With head bowed, wearing the blank expression that he seemed to always bear these days, and utterly isolated, he didn't look much like the prat of a rival he'd once been to Harry.

Not much like the Malfoy that Harry had met in Potions the previous week either, or in those since. Malfoy was strange when they were studying in one another's company; Harry didn't think there were the thick, thrumming undertones of hatred that there had once been, but at the same time, the quiet, reserved, almost sadly aloof Malfoy that seemed to have taken his place every other moment of the day took a momentary break, too. Just as strangely, Harry found it somehow relieving; if nothing else, that Malfoy still found himself capable of sharp retorts to Harry, if only to Harry, was reassurance that not everything in his world had changed.

"I think," Hermione began slowly.

"He's a git," Ron said, overriding her. He turned around firmly in his seat, elbows dropping onto the table with a heavy thud. "He always will be."

"Ron," Hermione said.

"What?" Ron glanced towards her, then to Harry, eyebrows flattened into a straight line. "I know he was pardoned and everything, but you can't tell me he's a good person. He still did bad things."

"Ron," Hermione said again, a sigh in her words.

"He's always been an utter ass to us, all of us, and – come on, you saw him at the Battle, right?" Ron glanced between Harry and Hermione, back and forth. "Even after Harry saved him he tried to make nice with the Death Eaters."

"He was just trying to save himself," Hermione said. "A lot of people did things they regret in that battle. Things they're not proud of. Thing to just survive."

Harry couldn't agree more. At the time, anything had felt redeemable. In the heat of the moment, the urgency of casting a curse to protect someone else had been a necessity without question. But in hindsight, things looked a little different. Sometimes, Harry could remember just what curses he'd thrown and he felt nauseated at the picture that painted itself in his mind. Even Death Eaters, even murderers and kidnappers, followers of Voldemort – even if they were bad people, to leave someone writhing in pain, or sobbing beneath the affliction of a hex, didn't feel right.

Did that make him different from people like Malfoy? Malfoy had just been trying to protect his parents, right? Himself too, which was an order of priorities that Harry liked to think he himself had the right way around, but it wasn't… it wasn't as though…

"You can't really blame him, I suppose," Harry found himself saying, staring at Malfoy's profile and only half aware of Ron's attention snapping towards him.

"But –"

"Harry's right," Hermione said, interrupting Ron this time with a slight rise of her voice. "That's not fair, Ron. It's not fair to have double standards like that."

"But Malfoy has always been a git," Ron said, catching himself only on his last word and lowering his voice with a hasty glance over his shoulder. "Come on, Hermione, he's been a right ass to you especially, what with everything that he calls you. And to you too, Harry. How can you even say that?"

Harry only shrugged again, but Hermione lowered her quill onto her own stack of parchments and folded her arms across her chest. "I'd like to think I'm a better person than that," she said with such quiet intensity that Harry couldn't help but turn his gaze towards her instead. "I don't want to hold onto this hatred, Ron. It's too exhausting, and it's not worthy of us. If Malf – no. If Draco is going to show he can change and at least pretend to be a better person, then I think I can be good enough to accept his attempts."

Harry was surprised. Quietly surprised, and especially by the firmness of Hermione's words. Clearly not as much as Ron was, however. "You're kidding." His eyes slowly widened as Hermione only frowned at him. "You're kidding, right? You're not? You're not. You're –"

Glancing towards Harry, back to Hermione, then to Malfoy again, Ron uttered a noise that wasn't a laugh, wasn't a scoff, but something in between. He slumped back in his chair, shaking his head. Harry doubted he even realised he uttered the choked "impossible" that was barely audible even between just the three of them.

"Is it, though?" Harry wondered aloud, and Ron's glance towards him, wide-eyed but also a little considering, and Hermione's small smile, was nothing if not validating. Was it so hard? Was it so… impossible?

They didn't speak much beyond that. Harry couldn't bring himself to study, couldn't find the urge to even with his newfound decision of that year to properly commit himself. Hermione scratched away at her parchment and Ron muttered under his breath as he read – or pretended to read – from his textbook, but Harry remained as he had been. Slumped forwards on top of the desk, cheek pressed into his forearms, he stared vaguely out across the room and thought.

Impossible. Was it really, though?

Neville and Hannah retreated first at the same time. The three ex-Ravenclaws next, Terry leading the way and looking more like a walking zombie from one of Dudley's old cartoons than an able-bodied student. When the bell chimed for midnight, eerily in time with Hermione reaching the end of her length of parchment, she sighed in a way that Harry recognised as meaning she'd had enough for the night.

"Off to bed?" Ron asked, as aware of Hermione's quirks as Harry.

"I think so," she said. "It's not healthy to skimp on sleep."

"Right. Leaves you too out of it for school the next day, yeah?"

Hermione's smiled warmly. Why such a statement seemed to satisfy her so much, Harry didn't know, except that it came from Ron and she seemed to be nothing short of smitten whenever he demonstrated any glimpse of his own commitment to schooling. Ron, Harry thought, had realised as well; he was certainly dropping such comments more frequently of late.

They'd packed away the majority of their books and papers before either realised Harry hadn't made a move to join them. Hermione paused, turning towards him with that flicker of concern she'd worn before. Ron, halting alongside her, glanced his way.

"You alright, Harry?" he asked

Harry hummed neutrally.

"You gonna come with?"

Harry hummed again. "In a little bit. I'll see you up there."

"Don't stay up too late," Hermione said, which Harry thought was rather restrained of her. She could rarely find it in herself to hold her tongue at a vague precaution rather than an order or demand – although, in the last few months, she'd been ordering and demanding far less than she once had. Maybe she'd changed in unexpected ways too?

Harry nodded, smiling up at her as she passed behind him and patted briefly, awkwardly, on his shoulder. "I won't," he assured her, and didn't watch them leave. He was only detachedly aware of them making their way up the stairs at all, for his attention was solely reserved for Malfoy.

Or Draco. Hermione had called him Draco, and really, why shouldn't Harry? They weren't enemies anymore, were they? Not even really rivals. If anything, Harry didn't quite know why they'd begun to refer to one another by their surnames in the first place; he'd never done so to anyone before coming to Hogwarts and, when he thought about it, suspected it was more in mimicry of Malfoy – Draco – reverting to such formality.

But Draco. Harry watched Draco, and he didn't hate him, and didn't resent him as he stared at him. He just watched.

Draco had put away whatever he'd been writing. In the quietude, the otherwise emptiness of the Dragon's Nest common room, the only disturbance was the crackle and splutter of the fire as it chewed through the burnt husk of a log. Malfoy – Draco watched it with what appeared to be avid attentiveness, not even blinking. His elbow was propped on the arm of the chair, chin cradled in his palm, and he watched.

Harry doubted he even saw the fire. He knew that feeling of staring and losing himself a little all too well.

That wasn't why he rose to his feet, though. It wasn't why he made his way across the room on silent feet that he hadn't even known didn't make a sound with a single step until recently. Not until Ron had made the passing comment, "I can ever hear you coming up behind me. Weird, huh?" Had Harry always walked quietly? When he was a kid, too? Or was that something else that came with the war, something that came with dying?

Harry didn't know, but he brushed the thought aside as he crossed the room to Malfoy's couch. To Draco's couch. How long would it take for it not to feel strange to even think of him like that? Harry didn't know, but he swiped that thought aside, too, regarding Draco as he stared with blank eyes and blank face at the flames.

Draco didn't seem to notice him as Harry stopped alongside his couch. Not immediately. It was only when Harry tipped his head slightly, watching him at an angle and noticing – had Draco always been so pale? Had his features always been so sharp, his face so long and thin? – that Draco seemed to shake himself from his thoughts enough to notice Harry at all. When he did, his eyes darted towards him and he twitched.

That was all. Just a twitch. No change in expression but the reflexive flinch of muscles.

"What?" Draco asked, blinking hooded eyes.

Harry gave a slow, hitching shrug that barely moved his shoulders. "Just thinking."

"Thinking."

Draco said it less like a question and more like a statement. Once, Harry thought he would have laced it with derision, with scepticism, and added a "you can actually think real thoughts, Potter?" But not anymore. That had changed too. So many changes.

When Harry thought, however, it wasn't about his own death. It wasn't about the things he'd noticed of himself and what niggled and gnawed like a starving dog with a decrepit bone – or at least not entirely. Staring down at Draco, Harry was brought back to their Potions class, their casual exchange, the digs that were barbed but weren't really cruel. That Harry had sat on Draco's knees as he had before, but deliberately. He'd thought about that a whole lot, actually.

Why had Draco let him do that? Why didn't he shove him off, or kick up a fuss? Why didn't he bluster, or scowl, or snap, or at least question just what the hell Harry was doing and demand an answer? Harry didn't think he could properly answer him for he didn't rightly know himself, but it would be reasonable of Draco to pose the question.

Why? Why from both sides of their table?

Absently perching on the arm of Draco chair, alongside but not quite touching where Draco had propped his arm, Harry folded his arms across his chest. He turned towards the fire just as Draco had stared before, less in fascination and more to avoid Draco's hooded stare and blank expression that he couldn't read for the life of him.

"About the other day," Harry finally said. "In Potions."

A pause met his words. Not loaded, or guarded, or even particularly curious, though nearly a whole minute later Draco asked, "What about it?"

Harry swallowed. A flicker of awkwardness coiled in his gut, but it wasn't debilitating. Not enough to stave off his question, the question that he wanted to ask as much as he wanted to know the answers to every other one that posed itself to him of late. "When I… when we… were looking into the microscope and everything," Harry tightened his folded arms briefly, then fought to loosen their tension, "You didn't have to, you know."

Draco didn't pause for quite so long this time. "What do you mean?"

"With the –" Harry tripped over his words and, grumbling under his breath. He raised a hand to sweep through his hair, scuffing the back of his head. "How I, you know. Sat with you."

"With me?"

"On you." The flicker rekindled in Harry's gut, stronger this time, with a mirror rising in his cheeks that coaxed a flush of warmth to the surface. "When I sat. On you." Another swallow. "Sorry."

Draco shifted slightly in his seat, but when Harry glanced towards him, his face was as blank as he'd held it before. "You're apologising."

Another statement, not a question. "Yeah."

"Why?"

"Just –" Harry raked his fingers through his hair again. "Because. If it made you uncomfortable or anything. You didn't have to, you know. I get that it's – it's kind of weird, and I don't know why I did it, but it just feels – I dunno. Kind of weirdly comfortable."

Harry eyed Draco sidelong, but no reply was forthcoming. Not for a long beat and several of Draco's slow, hooded blinks. Harry shifted on his perch, aware but strangely enough not minding all too much that he was so close to Draco – to his old rival Malfoy – that he could all but feel his body warmth in the already warm common room. Why it felt somehow less awkward with Draco than his friends, less of a problem, less of a taboo to touch and be close, Harry didn't know.

But it did. And, so far, Draco hadn't seemed to have much of a problem with it all.

"It's just that," Harry began again, gaze lowering to his lap as he refolded his arms once more, "if what I did annoyed you – if you wanted me to bugger off, then say so. Alright? If it pisses you off, just say something."

Another long pause. Another moment of crackling quietude. Harry didn't glance towards Draco, staring dutifully downward and waiting. Just waiting. And shifting after a moment, because he'd never been much good at patiently waiting. Another shift in his makeshift seat, however, and he became aware of the instant that Draco's arm brushed across his back.

A tickle of warmth. The brush of contact, reminiscent of when Hermione attempted her awkward affection, or Ron clapped him on the shoulder, but not quite. Not the same, because Harry froze but didn't feel the instant, flinching instinct to retreat. To pull away, because it was probably an accident, that contact, and it hadn't been meant to happen. And if it hadn't been intentional, then that meant that it was unwanted. And if it was unwanted, then it was unsavoury, and whoever touched, however accidentally, might be angered, or upset, or –

Harry blinked. Or worse. The string of thoughts, continuing without him, rung loud and clear, and he hadn't ever heard them before. Not in such fluency and lucidity. Yet, despite that, it felt familiar.

When had that happened? When had Harry realised – decided – that touching was a taboo? He couldn't recall, couldn't think of it ever really being a problem, but when he really thought about it…

Touching wasn't a thing. Not quite with Hermione, or with Ron. Barely with Ginny when they'd been together, and not even a handhold with Cho. Before that, with friends, with family, with –

With no one. When had nothing become a thing? When had 'nothing' and 'not allowed' become realised? And, just as importantly, when and why had it become alright if it was exempt with Draco Malfoy but no one else?

Harry didn't know, and he was momentarily stupefied with the realisation that hit him like so many others had of late. It was only when Draco retracted his arm, the brush of warmth against his back retreating, that Harry started back into proper awareness and glanced behind him.

Only when Draco withdrew his arm.

Only when he hooked it around Harry's waist instead.

Only when a forceful but not demanding or painful tug tipped him from his seat and promptly into Draco's lap.

Harry froze once more. He almost didn't dare to lift his gaze towards Malfoy and could only manage as much as flicking his eyes up towards him. Any thought of understanding and comprehending his mixed feelings dissolved beneath the weight of a greater concern. "What… are you doing?"

Draco regarded him, and his eyes were still incessantly hooded, his face persistently blank. Except that his expression was just a little too still, his cool detachedness broken by a slight hint of colour. It was the barest flush so minimal that it might have been overlooked entirely if Harry hadn't been sitting so close to him. Next to him. On him.

"If you don't like then, then say so," Draco said, throwing Harry's words back at him.

"I'm not – it's not that I –" Harry cut himself off, pursed his lips, and frowned. He drew his gaze sidelong, aware but not quite able to stop himself from easing from his rigidity into the comfort Draco's lap. "Last I checked, we didn't like each other. Do we?"

"It's not like I hate you," Draco said. "Mostly."

"You don't?"

"I – do you?"

Harry eyed him sidelong. "Well, No. Mostly. Just – it's not like I dislike you quite as much anymore."

Draco's expression didn't shift, but it seemed to defrost slightly. "Right. Not as much."

"Kind of hard to, right? After… everything."

"Yeah. Everything."

"I mean, you're still a prat –"

"Shove off, git."

"- but still." Harry folded his arms back across his chest, momentarily tensing at Draco's words with the expectation of being flipped onto the floor. When Draco didn't move, he peered up at him warily. "It's weirdly comfortable. To me."

Draco swallowed. Harry wouldn't have noticed it that either if he hadn't been sitting so close. Next to. On. "Yeah."

"I honestly didn't mean to –"

"I know. At least, not the first time."

"You mean when I -?"

"When you were drunk off your face."

Oh, Harry thought blankly. So he does remember. Hunching his shoulders slightly, arms more wrapped around himself than objectionably folded, he shrugged tightly. "Yeah, well, you didn't complain or anything, so I just figured… whatever. Right?"

"Yeah," Draco said. "Whatever."

"You're cool with it?"

Draco didn't reply. Not until Harry shot him a glance. Then he rolled his eyes, his old snottiness making an appearance once more as Harry hadn't caught a glimpse of since Potions the week before. "I said I was," he grumbled, bottom lip jutting slightly in a little pout.

Just like that, Harry felt the tension seep from his shoulders. He released a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. "Cool," he said. "That's great." Then, leaning against Draco with a casualness he didn't wholly feel, "if it's okay with you, then, I'm just going to keep using you as a seat, okay?"

Draco scoffed. Harry felt it from his chest, resounding through his own shoulder, and weirdly, strangely, utterly incomprehensibly, it felt comfortable too. The warmth, the closeness, the feeling of a body moving just against him, a heartbeat felt loudly enough it was almost heard.

"Yeah, whatever," Draco said, draping an arm around Harry with real casualness that Harry doubted he could ever manage to emulate. "Just maybe not when people are watching."

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea."

"People talk."

"Yeah."

"And hate me."

"But not as much as they used to."

Draco scoffed again, but the way he flicked Harry's elbow briefly didn't seem like a reprimand. Rather, the way his arm rested – it felt kind of nice, too. Like a hug, almost, but not quite. Not the same as those he'd had before, lingering longer and prickling Harry's skin beneath his shirt where he rested against Draco.

Surprisingly, and a little wonderfully, Harry didn't feel the need to haze himself with accusations and questions of why. Somehow, it was an easier anomaly to accept when someone else was acting just as weird. Harry might not quite understand why Draco allowed it, but he'd take it.