MEMORY VIAL 8: A SPARK OF LOVE (YEAR 3)

Harry hid the slight twitch in his fingers when he entered the Great Hall the next morning on Monday. His nerves had been on edge ever since the sun had peaked over the horizon and the magic tethering him to Draco began its relentless pull on his ankles. The invisible cord seemed to be tugging him in whatever direction Malfoy was located at a given moment—a veritable Red Thread of Fate which he could follow like a lead line until he found him.

Hermione and Ron sped toward the Gryffindor table and looked back at Harry as he mulled over what he should do. Finally, when the magic seemed to be cutting his circulation off the longer he delayed, Harry took a deep breath to brace himself and then went to the Slytherin table instead.

Hermione waved awkwardly as he passed, and Harry jerked a nervous smile at her, then nodded to Ron, who stared agape with owl-like eyes.

"This won't be so bad," Harry told himself, shaking his foot as the tricksy magic tried to unbalance him. "Only seven days, and it'll all be over. Not to mention, this is what I wanted after all."

Malfoy and the other Slytherins grew quiet upon noticing him. Their faces darkened the closer he got, and Harry realized he felt about as welcome at their table as he did at the Dursleys' house.

Crabbe fumbled off the seat away from Draco to make room for Harry, and Draco cast the corpulent boy a reproachful look for doing the opposite of what was expected of him.

Harry nodded sheepishly to Draco and then sat where Crabbe had been. "If we're going to do this," he said, ignoring the various sets of malevolent eyes staring at him, "we might as well make sure we do it right by sitting next to each other the whole time."

No one responded. Not even Draco, which made Harry feel extremely awkward. This is fine, he told himself. Everything's going to be fine…

Picking up a goblet filled with pumpkin juice, Harry took a nervous sip, then sputtered when it sloshed down the wrong pipe.

Malfoy looked like he wanted to strangle him, but at least the magic pinching at their ankles had relaxed now that they were sitting close together.

"So, uh…" Harry drummed his fingers on the tabletop, frowning from one sullen face to the next. "I guess we could all get to know each other."

Pansy scoffed and tugged possessively on Draco's arm from the other side of him.

"Except you lot already know enough about me, I guess."

"Too much," said Blaise. "We're tired of always hearing about the famous Harry Potter."

Draco kicked Blaise under the table to keep him silent.

Harry frowned at Draco when he did that, then glanced around at the rest of them. "Believe me, this isn't exactly my idea of a fun time, but I'm just trying to break the ice. How about you, Goyle? I don't know anything about you, except that you're a surprisingly good reader."

"Well, I'm done eating," Marcus Flint interrupted, swinging his leg out from behind his seat. "See you later, Draco. Go ahead and take the week off our Quidditch meetups. With Potter's broom smashed to pieces, you won't really need to practice as hard for the rest of the year anyway."

After Flint had left the table with two other seventh-year boys, Harry took in the remaining faces that surrounded him. Deciding that trying to talk to them was an exercise in futility, he picked up his fork and tucked into his plate of food, which had somehow survived Crabbe sitting in front of it.

After shoveling in several bites, Harry looked sideways at the food on Draco's plate. There was only porridge, an assortment of fruit, nuts, and slices of bread with a sundry gradation of colorful jams.

Harry swallowed before asking, "Are you done already?"

"Does it look like I'm finished? I haven't even started."

"But…" Harry narrowed his eyes.

"But, what?" Malfoy clenched his teeth.

"Well, I was just thinking… That's all you're eating? Or did you already finish your eggs and bacon?"

"I don't eat eggs if I can help it, or anything else that barks, or moos, or squeals for that matter." Malfoy tucked into his porridge, eating furiously, not tasting anything.

Harry was stunned. "But eggs and bacon don't make noises unless you use a zoomorphic charm on them. Why wouldn't you eat them?"

"I've been asking Draco the same thing for years," said Goyle.

Crabbe chortled as he cut into a slice of honey-roasted ham.

"Shut up, Potter," said Draco. "I would like to eat in peace."

"Alright." Harry held up his hands. "I was just curious." He pierced a forkful of scrambled eggs and potatoes. "Just figured we could talk while I was here. Have a bit of fun with our little 'curse,' and maybe—"

"I SAID, SHUT UP."

Harry ducked his head down over his plate. His face felt hot, and he wasn't sure if it was from anger or embarrassment, or both. He almost regretted having held his wand back during the game when he secretly tweaked it under a fold of his robes to nudge the Butterbeer bottle into pointing straight at Draco.

He proceeded to be ignored for the duration of the breakfasting hour and was subjected to an unwholesome helping of affectionate interplay between Pansy and Draco—which admittedly stung a bit. It was mostly a one-sided affair, but Harry had hoped to have Draco's complete attention for the week if nothing more.

On the other side of the Great Hall, Ron's face contorted as both he and Hermione watched the slow-motion disaster play out in front of them. "He should've just kissed my sister," he commented around a mouthful of fire-blistered sausages. "I'm sure she would've been fine if it spared all this from happening."

Hermione swatted him on the shoulder. "Now you decide that? If you had just let Harry and Ginny get on with it—"

"I know! But don't you think I feel guilty enough already? There's no need for you to add to it, Hermione, sheesh!"

After breakfast, Harry followed Malfoy to Charms class. They had most of their classes together, but in the cases where they did not, they simply skipped that period together and worked on homework in the library while depending on their friends to deliver the assigned homework and in-class assignments that they missed.

It was a slog, being chuckled at by Flint, Blaise, Harper, and the other Quidditch team members every morning just after sunrise like clockwork. But it was Draco's face that burned scarlet every time the teachers reacted to their new seating arrangement.

Normally, students were encouraged to sit with their Houses. But now the most incompatible pair of students in the whole school were sitting side by side, looking about as miserable as Neville did every time he scuttled into Professor Snape's Potions class.

A few of the professors attempted to break them up. But after explaining their situation with Hermione's help—and after several failed attempts at dispelling the Cupid's Hex—most of the teachers decided to simply laugh the situation off and allow them to suffer the consequences of their youthful shenanigans.

Professors McGonagall and Lupin merely paused in wonder at the two boys—Lupin smiling wider and wider as each day passed—but chose not to comment on the situation at all.

Professor Snape, however, was not amused. He threatened Harry with detention, until Harry finally gathered his books and sidled toward his usual seat.

He collapsed abruptly to the ground, with Draco crashing off the bench after him. Draco managed to catch himself before his nose smashed into the floor, but the hex had flung him diagonally over Harry's lap, to the great amusement of the whole class.

Harry caught his breath and then leaned up on his elbows, waiting for Draco to sit up.

A pink tinge colored the pale boy's face upon realizing how positively his body had reacted to their collision.

"S-sorry," Harry murmured, reaching a hand toward Draco's arm to help him up, but the blond swatted him off.

"God, I hate this," Malfoy croaked as he climbed to his feet. "I bloody hate this…"

"Five points from Gryffindor for each day this hex lasts," Professor Snape said as he watched the two boys struggle to compose themselves.

"But sir," challenged Hermione, "why only Gryffindor?"

"Because, Miss Granger," Professor Snape went on sharply, eyeing Harry the whole time he fumbled upright after Malfoy onto their seat, "I know for a fact Mr. Malfoy would never have agreed to be bound to Mr. Potter for any reason whatsoever. Which leaves Mr. Potter as the instigator of this prank."

"Professor Snape," Harry said, "I didn't prank him. He stepped into the circle himself when it was my turn to spin the—"

"SILENCE! How dare you talk back to me, Mr. Potter, when you are hanging by a thread even as we speak. Five more points—"

"But sir!"

"I ordered you to be silent, boy!"

Harry looked desperately at Malfoy for support, but then knew better than to hope he would say anything on his behalf.

"Malfoy…"

"I wasn't playing," Draco reminded Harry bitterly. "Might not have been tricked, but I didn't ask for this."

"Neither did I."

Malfoy smirked. "You seemed to want it enough."

"Not really," he lied. "But it wouldn't be so bad if we weren't at each other's throats like this. I thought you always wanted to be friends."

Harry felt the magic pinch him violently. The invisible cord would not allow him to sit as far away as he was currently, so he scooted closer until their elbows were practically touching.

"This is not what I had in mind," Draco said softly.

"Then what did you have in mind?"

"You know what I had in mind, Potter, now shut up."

"What sort of hex was put on Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy—SPEAK UP QUICKLY," Professor Snape demanded at the front of the room. "I will not put up with… this silly infantile artifice any longer…"

Malfoy looked suddenly chagrined. If Professor Snape could figure out exactly what had been done, then he would certainly be able to unravel the magic.

"It's an unbreakable charm called the Cupid's Hex," Hermione supplied to the class knowledgeably. "It turns out…," she glanced uncomfortably at Harry and Draco, "that the wizards who invented it tried to break the hex themselves, but even they couldn't reverse engineer the unbreakable attributes they had put over it."

"And who created this Cupid's Hex, Miss Granger?" Snape demanded impatiently.

Hermione's face fell. She gazed down at her textbook guiltily, refusing to sacrifice the Weasley twins to Professor Snape's disproportionate wrath. But nothing was stopping Draco from telling Snape directly, and so she steadied herself and waited for the inevitable…

Snape's small, black eyes swiveled back to the magically bound pair. Harry settled closer to Malfoy discreetly, biting his lip in the hope that the other boy wouldn't notice.

Draco never spoke up, but he cast his own Slytherin friends a warning look to keep them quiet. He realized, belatedly, that he wanted the hex to stay, so he resolved to tell his friends that this was his way of getting revenge on Potter for insulting him and Pansy during the game.

"Very well," said Snape, his ire withdrawing into abeyance. "I will allow this new seating arrangement until the hex has run its course… But in the meantime, I will do my own research."

"It'll last only a week, sir," Hermione piped, but then instantly regretted it.

Snape was glaring at her suspiciously. "It really is curious, Miss Granger, that the brightest witch of our age conveniently forgets the names of the joke wizards who are responsible. Five—more—points—from Gryffindor…"

Hermione was furious at that but would not argue and have their House points hemorrhaged into the negative.

"That bastard will do anything to help Slytherin," Harry growled under his breath.

"Wouldn't be complaining about it if you were one of us, now, would you?" Draco snarled.


Draco gave Harry the cold shoulder all week, hardly participating in paired-off work during class when it was demanded of them. Every day after classes, as soon as nightfall snuffed the last ray of sunlight, Draco would rush to his dormitory, away from Harry and away from Pansy to get some privacy to himself. As the days wore on, Draco even stopped acknowledging Harry was there and let his friends take care of making room for Harry in the Great Hall.

And then the evening of the seventh day came.

Two hours before dinner on Sunday, instead of dawdling in the school with his friends, waiting for the sun to go down on their hex for the final time, Draco broke away from his friends under the pretense of needing to go to the bathroom.

But instead of going to the boy's lavatory, Draco tore out of the castle and down the rugged slope in the direction of the Great Lake. Harry fumbled after him, confused, staggering in leaps and bounds as he attempted to keep stride.

"Malfoy," Harry gasped as he loped after him. "Where are you going?"

"To drown myself," Draco said darkly.

Harry nearly tripped over a rock, but Malfoy caught him by the arm, then tactlessly righted him back up before moving on, all the while saying nothing, bulldozing through the grass to the very spot where Harry had eavesdropped on Draco and his friends last year.

The sun hung low over the trees, touching the leafless landscape with a diffusion of amber and gold. Malfoy continued toward the bank, then stopped when he felt the fresh breeze billowing up from the turbulent waters to tug at his robes. He took a deep breath to clear his head.

Harry skidded to a halt beside him, gritting his teeth as the chill of the winter evening hemmed in around them.

Draco stood silent for a while, watching the breakers burst like firecrackers before dissolving into foam. And then he asked, "How many times have you played that stupid game, Potter?"

Feeling strange at being addressed so directly, Harry answered in a low and timid voice. "Just the one time."

Wavelets crashed ashore, spinning back out into the lake like swirls of peach and tawny ink. It was the only sound Harry could hear for several heartbeats.

"Did you end up kissing anyone before I got there?"

Throat tight, Harry shook his head. "No."

Another lengthy pause, followed by: "Have you ever kissed anyone?"

"No…" Harry shifted closer to him now, heart beating at an irregular rate.

Draco's shoulders relaxed.

"Why do you care?"

"Just curious," Draco said, avoiding the question.

Harry searched the ground, and then said, "I tried to avoid it, because I want it to be with someone special."

"Isn't the Weasel girl special enough?"

The drumbeat in his chest was getting louder. Harry's eyes strayed gradually to Malfoy's shoes. "Not special enough," he said in a hollow tone, "at least not now…"

"Did you have anyone in mind?"

Draco's tone was petulant and somewhat grudging. It brought a self-conscious smile to Harry's face. "I don't really know," he answered honestly.

Several minutes elapsed before either of them spoke again.

"I love the lake," Draco said, changing the subject.

Harry swallowed, struggling to decipher the point of the conversation. But instead of leading with a verbal shove, he decided to go along with whatever Malfoy deemed worth talking about. "What do you love about it?"

"It's beautiful," Draco said, as if it were obvious, "even though it's dark and deep. It's luminous like fire with the sun and moon hanging over it, and seemingly bottomless for all I know… It looks calm on the surface, but underneath is a city of ghastly weed and polished bone.

"Down in the Dungeons I can look out at the bottom of the lake and imagine if I were entangled in deep waters like that. If I were drowned, wrapped in its serene embrace, dead to the world, unseen, unknown, and never heard from ever again, except by those brave enough to take the dive…"

Harry edged closer. He was starting to freeze without his winter cloak at hand, but he powered through it. Not knowing what to do or say—not wanting to spoil this moment of Draco being vulnerable, and not for the first time—he simply said nothing, but gently touched the hem of the other boy's sleeve, almost believing that it could warm him.

Malfoy didn't notice. "It's a beautiful sunset."

Harry was staring at his profile. "It is…"

"I really like sunsets."

"Me too."

"I like the dark. I love the silence." A flicker of hurt crossed his features. "But I suppose a 'monster' like me would."

Harry was stricken at the comment, even though he knew the appellation applied to Draco now more than ever before. "Malfoy, about last year…"

"Don't, Potter." The hurt in his face deepened—but then he seemed to remember himself and hardened his exterior as if it were stone. "I do what I do because it's who I am."

Not knowing what that meant, Harry closed his mouth.

"I'm sorry about your broom," Malfoy said eventually. "You'll get a new one, I'm sure. A better one, even."

Harry let go of Malfoy's sleeve. "I'm perfectly well off… but I'd be an idiot to spend that much gold to replace my Nimbus."

"At least Professor Trelawney's prophecy about the Grim ended up not becoming true. You're still alive after falling from that height."

"Well, I'll probably be a dead man at our next Quidditch match, if we keep this violence up…" Harry knocked shoulders with him playfully.

Draco smiled, and Harry was pleasantly surprised at the unexpected lack of hostility.

"You eat like a pig," Draco commented.

"What?"

"You gave me shit for not eating anything with a face. But at least I don't eat like a pig."

Harry's scoff was friendly. "I only eat that way because it's all the food my aunt and uncle would never allow me to eat."

Draco snorted. Not sardonic, but mirroring his friendliness.

"They never let me eat anything remotely appetizing."

"Well, that is fucked up, Potter. Believing food has to come at a sacrifice in order to taste good? You should have dinner with me sometime. If you didn't prefer getting killed by Voldemort, I mean…"

Draco raked his fingers through his hair and then sat down, letting the water lap at his leather Oxfords.

Harry sat beside him, forcing himself to not comment on Draco's allusion to the argument they had had last year in front of the Pairing Tree. "We can have dinner tonight," he pointed out.

"I mean, at my house. As a guest. Our cook is amazing with what she prepares for me. I think you would love it."

"Might be nice." Harry shivered and rubbed his shoulders; the chill was burrowing into his bones. "Too bad your father hates me so much…"

Malfoy curled his hands into fists in front of his lap. He was silent for another long while before he spoke. "You could disguise yourself. I could send you a private carriage."

"My own personal carriage?" Harry grinned. "That would make me feel too much like a princess, which would be weird." But then he leaped at the opportunity to flirt with Draco diplomatically. "Although… I suppose… I could be your princess for just one night…"

"Don't be fucking stupid." Draco glared at him.

"Just kidding, Malfoy." Then he maneuvered to change the subject. "Do you have other servants beside your cook?"

Draco shrugged. "A handful. We lost one of our house-elves, though, just last year in fact. Father was always beating him. Told me that he couldn't stand him anymore and let him go. The other two house-elves are perfectly nice, but I was always able to talk to Dobby."

Taken aback, Harry stared sideways at him. His heart was racing, and he couldn't stop his eyes from straying to Malfoy's lips. They weren't as pale in the blaze of the setting sun, and even his skin seemed to have a pinkish tinge to it.

"You were friends?" Harry asked carefully.

"Of course not. Friendship with servants is extremely inappropriate." Draco sniffed. "But I was able to talk to him."

Harry looked out at the lake and took a deep breath. He knew what he wanted to do in that moment, but it was counterbalanced by an equal desire to wring Draco's neck for Hagrid's sake.

But they were alone, and Draco's eyes were soft, his face and skin as beautiful as marble…

I shouldn't even be outside the school like this, he thought, suddenly apprehensive. When everyone found out that he was missing there would be widespread pandemonium.

But he was enjoying it, escaping the chaos, and being alone with Draco of all things.

If he could only touch the other boy's hand—to signal the tender thoughts that he was having… but Draco hated affection between boys, and he couldn't bring himself to do it.

Half an hour passed, and the sun finally dipped below the horizon. Harry stood up, feeling half frozen to death, but also somehow refreshed after having escaped the school policing him so much. He tested the Weasleys' magic to see if they were still bound to each other, but they were not.

Turning toward the castle, Harry said, "I guess I'll see you around."

Draco rubbed his nose as Harry's footsteps receded up the slope. The emptiness in his heart expanded with every step the other boy took, and he felt like something very important was tearing away from him, leaving a void that could not otherwise be filled.

Draco moved his lips on a wordless statement: I like you a lot… better than any girl in the whole school.

Harry looked up at the clouds, at the constellations decorating the vault above, and wondered if he'd ever be able to locate Draco's namesake when the sky was clear.

Harry turned around and smiled at the silhouette of the Slytherin framed against the moonlit brilliance of the Great Lake.

"Hey, Malfoy!"

Draco's stomach did a somersault and he turned around.

"Thanks for picking Cupid's Cauldron," Harry said with the widest grin. "I mean it. I had a great time." And hearing that from Harry felt much better to Draco than if they had been forced to kiss.

Although… he still would have loved to kiss him, if no one else had been around to spread the rumor about what they'd done. But acknowledging that thought scared Malfoy more than the dementors, because of the Undesirable Feelings that it signified.

When Draco closed his eyes, he found himself wondering what it would be like, to have the whole world closed off to them behind a rickety old door. He wondered what the other boy's skin would feel like under his fingers—he wondered what his lips would taste like, and what he would smell like—if he'd only been able to get that close.

At night, Malfoy's dreams occasionally made him wonder about more indecent things as well—but he secreted those obscene thoughts away for the private moments he spent alone with himself in bed and in the showers.

I want to kiss him once, he realized in one painfully desperate moment. Just to feel him once. Then maybe this sickness will pass… Maybe I'll get over him—and maybe I won't even like it.

But he would be treading on dangerous ground if he went looking for that kiss. And the other boy might not even want to give it. He only hoped that Harry would respond in the way he needed when the time finally came, because sharing just one kiss couldn't possibly ruin them both.


Author's Note: "The Red Thread of Fate" is commonly thought of as an invisible red cord around the finger of those that are destined to meet one another in a certain situation as they are "their one true love." In the original Chinese myth, it is tied around both parties' ankles. — Wikipedia