"Ah, autumn in England. One of the things I definitely didn't miss in America.", Harry thinks to himself when he emerges his seminar the following day and sees the rain sluicing down on the outside, so that by the time he reaches the flat, he looks like he's just been through a car wash, with his soaked sweater and hair dripping all over the place.
All he wants to do is have a long, warm shower and then huddle in front of the TV for the whole evening, but this spot is taken already. Laura is camped on the couch with a box of tissues, a bottle of tequila and a salt cellar in front of her, sniffling and slicing lemons into little wedges. It looks like she is preparing a stag night, if it wasn't for the muffled sobs she lets out every few seconds.
Harry quickly cancels the shower in his head, whispers "Adaresco" to at least dry his clothes and most of his skin, and shuffles to the couch.
Laura acknowledges him with a flickering glance, then lets out another sob and grabs a new lemon.
Harry sits down next to her.
"Can I help you?", he asks and grabs a lemon as well.
Laura just shakes her head.
"Really? Not even with the lemons?"
Laura just shakes her head some more, until she finally sets the knife down and starts crying with big tears dribbling down her cheeks.
"Oh Harry", she sobs and he grabs the tissue box as if on prompt to offer her one, "I'm so sorry. I really didn't want you to see this, it's just-"
She cuts herself short there and Harry puts an arm around her back. He has come to know Laura as a quiet person with a sharp-witted tongue, an excellent observer who always seems to be in control of the situation, but he thinks Laura herself is even more unable to cope with the state she's in now than him, because never before has she lost it like that.
"My father.", she chokes a little, "He's in the hospital, he had a stroke last night, and my mum just called me today and I can't come right now and... I'm so afraid he could die."
Harry says nothing, just lets her get it out. Then her eyes suddenly widen and she shuffles away from him: "Oh sorry, Harry, I'm so sorry, I can be a right prick sometime, but I didn't want to be this insensitive, I know your parents are..." She can't bring the word over her lips, but Harry doesn't mind. He smiles a small smile and just slowly shakes his head to show her, then comes nearer again and lets her cry on his shoulder.
Just when she's about to catch herself, Cora and Draco enter the flat, and Cora literally drops everything the instant she sees Laura and rushes to the couch, taking her inside her arms and whispering little soothing words into her ear. "He's going to be fine, you know he is, you'll be there on the weekend and hold his hand and he'll smile at you, his beautiful daughter...", and Harry wonders just how Cora manages to always know everything about everyone in the bat of an eye.
Well, she were wrong with the idea of Draco's and Harry's past relationship, but when Harry looks at Draco leaning in the door frame, taking in the situation and almost imperceptibly drying his coat with magic while Cora and Laura are distracted, he knows he'll always have the strongest bond to him in this flat, not matter which nature it is, not because they attended the same school, like Cora thinks, or because they both fancy men, like Laura thinks, but because they both ran from their history, especially their shared one, to have it once again intensified here.
Mumbling strange things to himself - "wouldn't have written it that way, psychoanalytical approach too far-fetched, I need more historical proof on that one" - Nate wanders into the room to refill his tea cup and stops at the sight of them. "Oh guys, what's going on here?"
Laura just hiccups, Cora pats her back, Draco shrugs and Harry looks apologetic. Then Laura grabs another lemon. "Nate", he turns at the sound of his name, "you're despairing over your thesis again, right?"
Before he can open his mouth, she snuffles and cuts him short: "Don't try to deny it, I heard you screaming 'What does the bloody wanker want from me?' from your room about half an hour ago. See, Luke over there is in his usual brooding state, Harry looks a bit like a kicked puppy, which I would blame on the weather or his general empathy in emotional situations but I can be wrong, my father just had a stroke and Cora here will go along with it because she would do everything for team spirit. Now I have two and half bottles of tequila – I suggest we get drunk."
There are no objections, at least no uttered ones, so they all plop down on the floor around the coffee table to take the first shot.
"Is this a good idea on an empty stomach?", Cora asks with doubt in her voice.
"No.", Laura snuffles again, "but this is what this is about. Here's to life. There's little else we have." And then downs her shot.
After about half an hour, the sun is about to set and Cora is already lying down, giggling about the "Jabberwocky" Nate has just recited. "English students are all mental", Draco explains to Laura, because Cora won't listen to him.
"Say 'Tumtum Tree' again!", she hiccups, then covers her mouth with her hands in childish joy as she does so.
Laura grunts. "Is she always that much of a lightweight?"
Draco nods and pulls Laura in a sitting position again. "Should've eaten something more then lemon wedges, I guess."
"I prepared some Oatmeal Cookies this morning.", Harry hears himself saying and gets up to fetch them, "They're with brown sugar and sunflower seed oil, so I guess they'll soak up the alcohol... a little bit."
"Ouuuuuh, coooookies.", Cora says and helps herself to three of them, all the time giggling, before starting to throw little pieces of them at Nate, who tries to catch them with his mouth.
Laura, unfazed by her ridiculous behaviour, simply downs another shot before raising an eyebrow at Harry and saying: "Oatmeal? You didn't steal this from the porridge supply, did you?"
"Err, no", Harry says, "I... I bought some earlier from the fairtrade shop down the road."
He looks down and blushes, feeling Draco's gaze resting on him. He expects him to have raised his eyebrows, and almost hears the So do we buy fairtrade now, Potter? in his head, but when he looks up to meet Draco's eyes, his stare is thoughtful, and Harry wonders if he got the message at all. Yes, thank you, it was your idea, he wants to say, but he feels that even thinking it won't bring it across properly to make amends.
After another half hour, Cora has sobered up a bit, Laura is downing her seventeenth shot - "Darling, you should leave it now, look at me to cheer you up, I'm a bird!", Cora says and takes the shot from her hand to start dancing around the table, both of her arms extended to mimic an airplane, at which Laura finally starts to laugh again – and an unexpected smile breaks out on Harry's face. Not because Cora is hilarious – she usually is – but because he can suddenly name the feeling he usually gets when he turns around the key in the door lock: This flat feels like home. Privet Drive Number Four never did, Grimmauld Place never really got the chance, and Hogwarts is not an option anymore, but even in his Gryffindor dormitory there were days when he could feel the coldness from the outer world seeping in, and nobody there to shield him from it. The world is less colder now, but being there with all of them taking care of each other, his heart is, too.
Cora plops down again, and they settle on lighter, but earnest conversation – like Cora's dickhead of a prof, who always gives her worse marks because of her blue hair.
"... and there are so many other moments, when I simply want to scream: 'Fuck you, fuck this course, my hair brilliant, I am brilliant, I don't need you anyway!', but I'm a coward, so I never do and Professor Dennings keeps on exploiting his dictatorial position."
"Let's leave it at 'authoritarian', shall we, Cora dear?", Draco says with a smile and pats her knee.
"Whatever.", Cora concludes, less tipsy then Harry expected, "We're just young once, so I think we should drink to never being oppressive assholes if we can manage it, yes? Luke, pass me the salt."
She reaches out with her hand.
"Actually, it's Draco.", he replies and hands her the cellar.
"No, it's salt, Luke, the... what?" The dumbfounded expression on her face can only be topped by Harry's, whose jaw sacked down a few centimetres.
"My name.", Draco replies smoothly, while the others continue to stare at him in awe, "It's actually Draco. I didn't like it when I was in school, so I thought I'd use my middle name here, but I felt like I was being untrue to you. So please, call me Draco."
Nate slowly shakes his head and Laura's face is a bit expressionless. "But, Luke, err, I mean...", Cora gulps. "Draco." Harry can see how foreign the name feels on her tongue, just like 'Luke' did for him in the first week. "That's a bit of a shock. "
"Actually, it isn't.", Laura slurs (but only a little), "I was wondering from the beginning what kind of constellation 'Luke' was supposed to be when he told us his whole family was named after stars and such."
Nate laughs at that, and Cora does too, but Harry can still only gape at Draco and doesn't even manage to mouth a 'thank you' when he catches his stare.
I know, he hears Draco in his head, it's been overdue. Harry wants to shake his head, but can still only gulp.
Draco doesn't take his eyes off him. And this round is on you. Your apology was more subtle, I guess.
A small, earnest smile plays around Draco's lips again, and Harry's heart starts racing.
There are no rounds., he tries to think back without expressing too much with his face, as he can feel Cora taking it all in, There's just... decency. And I am sorry I doubted yours.
He sees Draco swallowing, and something tells him that it was him who caused him to do so, and the warm feeling from yesterday evening is back, pushing and pulling at his insides. It reminds Harry of his first kiss with Ginny, and a hard blush hits his cheeks.
From the corner of his eye, he sees Cora elbowing Laura and whispering something into her ear, squealing as silently as possible for her, but he can't bring himself to look away from Draco when he replies: Me too. Although I never really doubted your decency. and Harry realises that there's a name for that fuzzy feeling in his stomach. It's his dawning crush on Draco Malfoy.
So much to that!
By the way, you won't find Adaresco listed on the wikipedia article of spells from the Harry Potter universe, mainly because JKR never put their characters in a position where they had to dry themselves up. (Or she did, and didn't type out the spell.)
However, I'm just using my Latin skills here and the fact that adaresco sounds better than adsicco.
Also, Draco and Harry will never truly stop quarreling, I guess. It's just in their nature and their way of showing that they're actually really fond of each other. xxx