Chapter 5

"Hey, Harry!"

Pausing in step, Harry glanced over his shoulder down the length of the corridor. Speckled with students heading in the direction of the Great Hall, all dressed down in casual weekend wear, it took him a moment to spot Ginny weaving towards him.

She picked up her pace to a jog as she approached him, a smile drawing onto her face. Falling into step alongside him, she butted her shoulder briefly against Harry's as they continued down the hallway.

"You've just had lunch?" she asked.

Harry nodded.

"Did you have the steak and kidney pie?" At Harry's head shake, she breathed an exaggerated sigh of relief. "Lucky dodge. It tasted like crap."

When Harry only smiled, she fell silent herself and continued to only stare at him. Harry didn't mind noticing only from his periphery. Some days it felt nicer just to be quiet. Some days, more frequently of late but as something that Harry realised he'd probably partaken of for years, the urge to speak just abandoned him. The instinct to remain silent rather than risk putting his foot in his mouth was easier to abide than to fight. On the flip side, Harry knew that other days he couldn't seem to help but practically swallow his whole foot, but days like today…

"You're being awfully quiet."

Harry spared Ginny a sidelong glance. He shrugged a shoulder. "Just tired, I guess."

"Senior year's catching up with you?"

"Yeah. Something like that."

"Is that why you decided not to go to Hogsmeade today?"

Harry opened his mouth to reply but paused. Was that why? No, not really. It had mostly been because to accompany Ron and Hermione on what had clearly been Ron's awkward attempt at asking Hermione on a date was nothing short of ludicrously obtuse of him. It didn't matter that Ron's attempt dissolved into an argument of sorts, as it so often did between the two of them. Harry had decided months ago that arguing was their warped version of flirting. Every act of flirtation had to be accompanied by such an exchange or else it would have been far too discomforting; Ron would have blushed beetroot red, and Hermione would have stuttered and spoken too much, and it would fall to Harry to save the moment and change the subject.

It was strange, but somehow, in a short time, Harry had become the bridge between his friends' floundering. He wasn't sure if he particularly enjoyed his newfound duty. It was far easier to let them flail and either sink or swim. Besides, he had other places he could be. Other places he wanted to be.

"I was thinking of going to the library," Harry said. "I've got to do some reading for Transfiguration."

"Ew, study." Ginny pulled a face but was grinning again a split second later. "Theory of Fundamental Transitions, right? I've still got to read that chapter."

"Yeah. It's a struggle."

"Tell me about it."

They continued to walk for a time in silence, a comfortable silence that held none of the tension that Harry knew others experienced with their exes. He and Ginny had never had that. They'd never had a break up talk, never discussed how to 'stay friends' when Harry still kept up with Ron and Ginny happened to persist in being his sister, and they'd never danced around the subject of spending time with one another in the same friendship group. It just sort of… happened.

And it was comfortable, for the most part. Except that, while Harry might have discovered and was growing to accept that sometimes he had quiet days, Ginny had never been a quiet person.

"Me and Luna are going to head down to the quidditch pitch this afternoon," Ginny said as they climbed the stairs to the second floor. Detours often swept up and down stairwells, and Harry's feet directed him more than his head. "You're free to come too if you'd like."

"Luna's playing quidditch?" Harry asked.

Ginny laughed. "'Playing' in the loosest sense of the term. She's actually pretty good on a broom but lacks a competitive streak so much that I don't think winning is even a word in her vocabulary."

Harry smiled. "True. I'll think about it. Maybe later."

"Yeah, sure." Ginny slowed, leading them to a pause at a junction in the corridor. The echo of students in the Great Hall, the clatter of lunch and the chuckle of voices, was only a distant hum. "Are you all right, Harry? You seem a little down lately."

Harry blinked. Down? He didn't think so. What made him seem down? If anything, he felt a little unbalanced with his affliction of realisations that still dawned on him every other day, but he didn't think he was sad. "I'm fine," he said.

"Are you sure? 'Cause you can always talk to me about anything. You know that, right? Ron can be a bull-headed, insensitive idiot sometimes, and I know Hermione gets a bit weird talking about feelings on the best day."

Harry stared at her, at a momentary loss. Rocking between her feet, tweaking the end of her braid and regarding him with such open honesty that Harry couldn't begin to think she was teasing him, she was a wonder. Still, even when they'd broken up, he could appreciate that she was gorgeous, and genuine, and the kind of appealing that had as much to do with the personality she wore in every expression as her physical features. If Harry could do it again, they might very well have stayed together. He might have even wanted them to. But now –

Did Harry want that? He wasn't sure. He didn't really care at that moment either, because Ginny was presenting herself as the steadfast friend that she'd always been, a pillar of sincerity offering herself to Harry as a supportive crutch.

Smiling with as much warmth as he could manage, Harry nodded. "Thanks, Ginny. Everything fine, I swear, but thanks. I'll keep it in mind."

Ginny nodded slowly, then with more commitment. "Yeah. Yeah, you'd better." Then she leaned forwards and, before Harry could even think to step away from her, wrapped him in a tight embrace that all but crushed his spine into his stomach. Harry was rendered breathless, and not only because his lungs felt pinched to two sizes smaller than they should be.

Retreating just as quickly, Ginny took a step backwards. She beamed at Harry, raised a hand, and backed down the hallway. "Catch me later, yeah? The pitch. I'm counting on it."

"Yeah, yeah," Harry said, ignoring the slight hoarseness to his own voice.

"I mean it. If you're not playing quidditch this year – which is crazy enough as it is – you have to give me at least that."

She was turning on her heel and trotting away before Harry could reply. A vibrant, loud, and warm presence, Ginny was like her own personal sun that all but illuminated the corridor she descended. Harrys stared after her until she disappeared around the corner in the direction of the old Gryffindor Tower. He was still staring when the sound of her footsteps disappeared, and it took a physical shake of his head to pull himself out of his stupor.

That was happening a lot lately, too.

Turning back down the left-hand corridor, Harry continued to the library. Once, it would have been the last place he would have voluntarily sought, imposing the dusty aisles and dustier shelves upon himself only under Hermione's demands or when his grades were slipping enough that he felt obligated to properly study. In the past few weeks, however, Harry had visited the library more often then he could count. Sometimes it happened even several times a day.

Things change, Harry thought in a voice that didn't sound like his own, and he could only silently acknowledge the truth of it. A lot had changed that year, possibly more than Harry had ever experienced before, and not the least of which was his and Ginny's relationship. Yet it was that relationship, that friendship and all it entailed, that rode forefront in his mind as he slipped through the library's double doors. Most significantly, he considered Ginny's hug.

It had been warm. Sincere. Open, and honest, and as firm and steadfast as Ginny was herself. And yet it had been vastly different to every other embrace they'd ever shared, and Harry didn't think it was so much because they were no longer dating. Rather, the difference lay in that, far from sinking into it, Harry had felt the urge to draw away from Ginny. Because he'd realised that he'd wanted to draw away.

Where had that come from? And why? He didn't know, and it gnawed at him. Ginny was his friend. If she wanted to hug him then she bloody well could, and Harry would enjoy the support and affection the gesture offered. He would. So why did he feel such an urge to retreat?

And why, Harry thought as he passed into the hollow depths of the library that resounded with echoes of silence, is it so different then when I'm with Draco?

Harry's feet took him through the aisles, past study nooks and crannies and beyond the designated senior study area. He barely thought about where he walked anymore, and in short order found himself in a back corner, a darkened corner, with little more than a table, a handful of chairs, and a flameless lamp glowing warm, orange light throughout.

And Draco.

Draco – because it was Draco, even if Harry still occasionally needed to remind himself to consider him by his given name – sat in the same seat he always did. His head was bowed over a textbook, face and hair made paler in the relative darkness, and his quill scratched away even though he didn't look at his hand as he worked. He was, Harry had discovered in a very short time, a hard worker. Very hard. Maybe Harry had always known to a certain degree, but he'd acknowledged it and even grown to admire it a little in the past few weeks they'd been studying.

Studying together and yet alone, that was, because to consider additional company was off the table. Despite that he knew Ron still grappled with old grudges, and that Hermione pointedly allocated a number of hours each afternoon to their schoolwork, Harry found himself in Draco's company and pouring over textbooks more and more often.

"Where do you disappear off to every afternoon?" Ron had asked Harry only the day before. "I've been wondering for a while now, you know."

"I know you have," Harry had replied. "This is the third time you've asked me."

"And?"

"And what? Same as usual. I'm just studying, except that sometimes I feel like doing it by myself."

Ron had shaken his head, frowning with a tinge of horror colouring the edges of it. "Weird."

"What is?"

"That you'd actually want to study." He'd shaken his head again. "But then, I guess, I sort of am, too. Maybe Hermione finally managed to infect us with her study bug." He'd said it like a bad thing, but his crooked smile, surfacing even at his own mention of Hermione, appeared as it so often did of late.

Smitten. Yes, Harry decided Ron was a little bit smitten. It was at least half the reason Harry sought out solitary study.

Or semi-solitary. And the other half of the reason lay in Draco's company.

At Harry's arrival, Draco didn't look up from his notes. He didn't openly acknowledge Harry at all but to sit back a little in his seat, quill lowering, and focusing solely upon his textbook rather than notations. Harry dropped his bag onto the table, rifling within for a moment to extract his own textbooks that instantly resumed their usual weight when relieved of the confines of his bag and its Lightening Charm. He stacked them on the table, pulled out a handful of parchment pages, a quill and inkwell, and a paper bag.

"You haven't had lunch yet?" Harry asked, turning to Draco.

It took a moment, but Draco's eyes eventually flicked up to him. His usual expression – or at least the usual for the past few months that was so vastly different to the sneering, the lip-curling, the scowling – was as firmly affixed as ever. He blinked in blank reply.

"Didn't think so." Harry held out the bag to him as he approached the side of Draco's chair. "They didn't have any beef, but there's a few ham and cheese, a couple of salad, too."

Draco blinked up at him again, hand drifting from where it had been resting atop his textbook to the offering. "Egg?"

"No. 'Course not."

Draco nodded. Only then did he accept the paper bag and, settling back properly into his seat, gave indication enough for Harry that he was pausing in his study. Without a word about it from either of them, Harry seated himself in Draco's lap and, pulling his Transfiguration textbook from the table, leaned back against the arm of the chair with his leg hooked over the other side, and propped the book in his own lap.

No questions asked. No real acknowledgement. It just happened.

Why it was alright if Harry was touching Draco, sitting on him, leaning against him, and yet to receive a hug from Ginny or a touch from Ron, a pat from Hermione or the bump of a shoulder from any other one of his classmates left him distinctly uneasy, Harry didn't know. He wasn't sure he'd ever know. All he could think was that, while the brush of a hand felt wrong, too close, too compassionate and affectionate, and too loaded with the potential for instant recoil, when it came to Draco all of that didn't seem to matter.

There wasn't much affection between them. Not that Harry could see. He wasn't even sure any existed, or what it would look like if it was there. He and Draco didn't like one another after all – did they? It was a transaction of sorts, comfortable for Harry and tolerable for Draco, though why and how, Harry wasn't sure in any sense of the term. It just happened. It was easy, agreeable, and Harry didn't worry that in a split-second Draco might decide he'd had enough and end their agreement.

Maybe that was it? Draco could stop at anytime, but it wouldn't be that bad. It wouldn't end anything else. It wouldn't change anything else.

Giving a mental shake of his head, Harry settled into reading through the thick pages of his textbook that were dry for more than just the white-washed parchment. His shoulder, propped against Draco's chest, felt the minute movements of him eating his lunch, but he barely registered it. Only a few days before, Harry had begun showing up to their un-agreed-upon meeting point and all but silently delivered a handful of whatever vaguely portable food was on offer from the meal before.

"What's this?" Draco had asked the first time.

"You missed dinner."

"So?"

"So, don't do that. You have to eat, dumbass."

The second time, Draco had frowned. "I don't need you to provide food for me."

"I know."

"Then why are you bringing me food?"

"Just because you don't need me to doesn't mean I have to stop. Shut up and eat your croissant."

"Why should I -?"

"At least for my sake, okay? If you end up getting all skinny and bony, it's not going to be exactly comfortable for me either, is it?"

The third time, Draco had still frowned, but it was for a different reason. "I don't like tomato."

Harry had stared at him. Then he'd glanced at the burger. "'Scuse fingers, then," he'd muttered, pulling the burger apart and peeling the sliver of tomato out. He'd dropped the slice into the bag he'd carried the burger in, a bag that had unexpectedly and inexplicably appeared before him at the dinner table that day, and closed the bun. The urge to grin was difficult to suppress when Harry had held the burger out to Draco, who'd worn an expression of horror not unlike that Ron had worn when Hermione had first called Draco by his name.

"If you have a problem with it, go down to the Great Hall and get your food for yourself," Harry had said, shaking the burger pointedly. "Don't make me dump this in your lap. I'm still going to sit there, but it would make it gross."

Draco didn't question it anymore. After barely a handful of weeks, he'd learnt to take what Harry gave him without comment. Or at least when he did say something, it was as trivial as asking if Harry had made the heinous mistake of thinking eggs belonged in a sandwich.

Harry barely considered Draco as he made his way through the food he'd brought him. The slight movement of his chest against Harry's shoulder, the incremental adjustments of his arms as he in turn adjusted the sandwich, the sound of him chewing that was so quiet and almost dainty that Harry hadn't actually realised for a time that he was properly eating – it had all become familiar in such a short time. Familiar, and…

Comfortable. Just like sitting in his lap, and just as inexplicably.

Instead, Harry focused on the pages of minute writing, the bleached parchment covered in spidery print that once would have turned Harry's ducking in the other direction but had now become a gruelling necessity that he committed himself to. Gruelling, but slightly less than it had been. Maybe Hermione had been right for all those years; the more he studied, the easier – slightly easier – it became.

But I doubt structural transfiguration and foundational scaffolding will ever be actually interesting, Harry thought as he escaped the other side of a page-length paragraph to flip to the next. How can anyone possibly think this would be willingly read?

"That's unnecessary."

The sound of Draco's voice was felt through Harry's shoulder, just as his eating had been, and it was so quiet and polite that he almost didn't register he'd been spoken to. Hauling himself from the page, Harry glanced up at him.

Draco wasn't watching him. Instead, he was regarding his hand, turning it over as though inspecting it for crumbs, then reaching around Harry in an awkward half-embrace to dust his fingers off on one another. Only then, after apparently satisfying his need for cleanliness, did he turn back to Harry. "What?"

What? What did he mean 'what'? Draco was the one who had spoken first, and with no explanation. "What does that mean?" Harry asked.

"What? That it's unnecessary?"

"Yeah. That."

Draco, arms dropping onto those of the chair with the kind of casual grace he seemed to innately possess, jerking his chin at the book resting in Harry's lap. "Chapter three, isn't it?" At Harry's nod, he shrugged. It nudged Harry slightly where he leant, but even that was commonplace and somehow comfortable these days. "I just skimmed it. You don't need to read anything but Cragstone's analogous description on page forty-nine. The rest is just unnecessarily flowery prose."

Harry stared. He blinked. He glanced down at his book, to the page number, the page itself, then back up to Draco. "Are you telling me what to study?"

"I'm telling you how to study, yes."

"What."

"How. Yes."

Harry blinked again. He opened his mouth before closing it again almost immediately. That was… unexpected. Also unexpected, like everything else about what was rapidly coming to feel like the Draco Situation. Harry flipped hesitantly to page fifty-nine and eyed the isolated paragraph quoted by Cragstone himself at the very centre. It was just as flowery as the rest of the chapter, but if Draco had meant what he said…

"Are you…?" Harry began, then paused. Draco was helping him study. Without being condescending, too. It was like he… like he was actually… Was he? Of all things, it seemed somehow the most unbelievable: that Draco would offer help, even minimally, without a hint of derision or sneering to accompany it.

Unbelievable. They'd been in almost silent company for the past two weeks, with the exception of mealtime deliveries and the muted suggestions of "sit here" and muttered "so this is really a thing now?" that arose every so often. Studying, but in parallel, not support. Even their research for the Potions report was sidelong rather than in tandem.

Except that, when Harry thought about, there had been that time. That one time, in Potions, when Draco had seemed open to showing him. To pointing and prodding, almost instructing, and just as devoid of condescension following their brief, bantering exchange as his simple words moments before had been. It was weird, but Harry hadn't really thought about it since it had happened. Not until now.

"Are you shitting with me?" Harry asked, eyeing Draco sidelong.

Reaching for his own textbook, that half-embrace that had become natural resurfacing, Draco paused. "What?"

"Are you telling me not to read the chapter because… because I should be?"

Draco frowned. "What?"

"Are you -?"

"Do you seriously think I'm trying to sabotage your studying?"

Harry pursed his lips. It sounded stupid when voiced aloud, but given their history and the precedent it set, it was plausible. Or would have been plausible, if it was the old Draco. Now, Harry wasn't so sure.

"I dunno," Harry muttered, tweaking the corner of the page. "I just wanted to check."

Draco stayed frozen. A moment of tension, uncomfortable to sit upon – or maybe the discomfort came from Harry; he couldn't be sure – seized him momentarily before Harry felt a slow, long inhalation vibrate through his shoulder.

"Potter," Draco began, then caught himself. "Harry. I'm not so much of a goddamned asshole as to tell you to study the wrong thing."

Discomforted though he was, Harry couldn't help but smile slightly at Draco's use of his name. Would that ever not feel weird? Or would it fade when his own lingering feelings of weirdness over using Draco's name did?

"Can you blame me for wondering?" he asked.

"I'm not going to – I'm not the kind of –"

"The kind of person to do that?" Harry deliberately raised his eyebrows. "Draco. Seriously. We hated one another until literally only a year ago."

Draco's mouth opened sharply before he snapped it shut again just as quickly. He appeared to chew over his words, jaw working before grinding out, "You never studied in the past. Not properly. Ever."

"Wow. Thanks for noticing."

"Be realistic. You were a terrible student."

Harry nodded, fighting another grin. "That's fair."

"Well, consider me at the opposite end of the spectrum. I'm a model student – "

"Model?"

"- and I will not, ever, interfere with another student's attempts to do the same."

Harry nearly snorted aloud, and only caught himself at the last moment. He frowned. Considered. Then nodded slowly. Draco had always been a prat. Always. He'd poked and pried at every opportunity – or at least Harry thought he had. When he really stretched him memory, however, a glimmer of truth attached itself to Draco's words.

How unexpected. Another un-expectation. How had Harry never noticed that, either? Or was it something that had changed in Draco, just as Harry was noticing his own changes? But no; scratching at that peeling skin of concealment, Harry peered underneath to find validity in Draco's claim.

How odd. How truly unexpected. To think that Draco Malfoy, lordly prat and all-round asshole that he'd been, had still maintained his obsession with academia and studiousness enough to restrain himself from really disrupting classwork. Before classes, after, and during breaks, maybe, but throughout?

Apparently not.

Harry slowly lowered his gaze down to his textbook once more. Considering only Cragstone's description, such a short segment when compared to the rest of the mind-numbing chapter, almost made him uneasy. Harry pursed his lips again. "You reckon I only have to read this bit?"

"I know it for sure," Draco said, still unmoving and frowning at Harry in blatant affront.

"So, you didn't read anything more than that?"

"I skimmed it. It was a load of crock."

Harry's lips twitched before he could help himself. "Huh."

"What?"

"Nothing. It's – no, it's nothing." Shifting slightly, leaning just a little more comfortably against Draco's chest, Harry resumed his reading. Draco took a little longer to return to his own, but when he did, it barely jostled Harry at all. Before Draco had opened his book, Harry was flicking to the next chapter. Skimming, if vaguely, but largely discarding the contents that Draco had brushed aside.

"Only the last seven pages of chapter four are worth paying any attention to," Draco said as he turned his attention to his Charms textbook. "Don't waste your time with the rest of it."

Harry nodded but didn't otherwise reply. As he flicked through chapter four, he noticed absently that it must have been the first time he'd actually smiled when he was studying.

A/N: PSA - Harry's mode of study is NOT conducive to learning! Study 101, don't just sit there reading a book 'cause it doesn't work! I know since I've bloody well tried.