MEMORY VIAL 21: THE WAY BOYS FLIRT (YEAR 5)
Harry was not prepared for the quick succession of run-ins he had with Draco during the first week of school alone.
On the first day of classes Harry was confronted by Draco while on his way to the boys' lavatory during lunch, and the encounter left him with more questions than answers as far as their relationship was concerned.
"Why do you think you didn't become a prefect, Potter?" Draco asked loudly while tailing Harry into the bathroom, with Crabbe and Goyle smirking at his heels. "You're the Golden Boy, after all, and Dumbledore's favorite, so I wonder what prevented him from giving you the honor?"
"Couldn't tell you, Malfoy. I've mostly been wondering how you were made a prefect at all." Harry slammed one of the stall doors shut behind him, so that he could do his business in relative peace.
"If you're so curious," said Draco, looking as if he were talking to the stall door, "go ahead and ask Professor Snape and Dumbledore. They'll both tell you how I earned it."
"Let's take some points from the scrawny maggot-dick and get going," Crabbe grumbled impatiently. "I heard they're serving quiche for lunch, and I love quiche."
"Shut up, Crabbe," Draco hissed. "You're gonna have to use some patience."
There was a flush, and the stall door slammed back open, nearly brushing Draco on the nose. Harry glared at Crabbe as he made his way over to the sinks. "Maggot-dick? Call me that again, Crabbe, and I'll cut some bacon off your back and feed it to Millicent." Harry switched on one of the taps and began to wash his hands.
Goyle covered up his laughter with a forced cough. He always appreciated a good insult, and it didn't matter who it was directed at.
Turning a bright shade of magenta, Crabbe drew out his wand, but Draco signaled for him to not do anything rash.
"You're being rude, Potty," Draco said in a low drawl. "You know I could hurt you if I wanted." He stepped closer, meeting Harry's green eyes through the mirror—and in an instant, both boys were reminded about how they had first met in Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions.
Draco blushed. Then his cheeks turned slightly green.
Harry shut the tap off and turned to face him. "Anything else you want to say?"
"I could make your life a living hell, Potter, but I'm merciful, so I won't."
Harry curled his lip in disgust. "How very kind."
"As long as you stay out of my way, I mean."
"Is that why you followed me in here?"
"Are we gonna shove his head in the toilet, or dock points from him, or what?" Crabbe said to Goyle, who merely scratched the back of his head and shrugged in response.
"One might think something funny is going on," Harry said to Draco, "that you haven't changed at all."
"Well, they'd be wrong," Draco growled under his breath. "Everything's different now."
"Actually, I bet you were hoping to hold on to it for me just now." Harry's smirk was cruel. "Or maybe you only wanted to look at it, to make those fantasies of yours that much more accurate."
Crabbe and Goyle exchanged puzzled glances.
"You make me sick, Potter."
"The feeling's always been mutual." Even though Harry had straightened up as much as he could, he was still several inches shorter than his bully, and he wished there was a way he did not always have to be looking up at Draco, but he maintained their eye contact. "I've never felt more put off by you than now, Malfoy. Bullying the first-years—telling them things that aren't true." Although, to be fair, Harry had not witnessed any of Draco's bad behavior himself, but Ron and Hermione were the ones delivering him play-by-play accounts of what Draco had been up to so far.
"I haven't done anything to my own first-years, Potter," Draco spat, "and letting them know that you're a loon who wormed his way out of getting expelled is hardly lying to them. But you get out of everything, don't you? Favoritism." He scowled. "Dumbledore's pet."
"I thought favoritism was something you would appreciate, but I guess not."
Draco balled his hand into a fist.
Harry looked down at it. "Just take some points, Malfoy, or whatever you want, and get out of my way." Harry's chest was rising heavily from the rush of their argument. "You're wasting my time. And your mates look like they'll faint if they have to wait much longer for that quiche."
Draco took several slow steps backward as he examined Harry from head to foot. Adjusting the knot of his tie, he said, "Be a good boy now and obey the rules. Like I said back on the train, Potty-Boy, I'll be watching you."
"And since when have you not been watching every move I make?"
Harry had hoped to provoke the Slytherin into doing something drastic. But Draco merely smiled at him and backed out of the bathroom with his friends, evidently having nothing more to say.
Harry's first night of detention with Professor Umbridge came and went almost as slowly as his one month with the Dursleys.
After leaving Umbridge's office, Harry went up the stairs and paused near the fifth floor, where he picked up on a pair of voices echoing from a bend in the winding corridor. Curious as to who was making a commotion at this hour of the night, Harry stepped up onto the landing and strained his ears.
Most of the noise was coming from a boy. A girl was giggling alongside him, and Harry had a horrible intuition about who it was.
While he did not know why he did it, since going to bed would have been the more rational thing to do, he wanted to know for sure what they were doing, and so he raced off down the corridor, hoping that it was anyone other than who he was expecting.
Memories of last year, specifically of Cedric, came crowding into Harry's mind as he approached the prefects' bathroom. The silhouettes of Draco and Pansy came into view, and Draco's hands were on her bottom, while Pansy was kissing Draco with far more prowess than Harry had shown when he had been with Draco.
Jealousy rose like bile in Harry's throat. Her hands were already in his robes, and Harry watched as Draco broke the kiss to brush her off, which made her giggle, and Harry frothed under the surface of his calm.
Deciding an interruption was in order, Harry trucked forward, scowling at Pansy with a hatred that was stronger than he had ever felt before. "Isn't there a prefects' bathroom in the dungeons?" he said loudly, not bothering to conceal his annoyance.
When the two Slytherins disentangled themselves, Pansy met Harry's glare with a shocked but lofty expression of her own. "Shouldn't little boys be tucked away inside their beds?" she said in a mocking tone of voice.
"I doubt the teachers would be okay with this," said Harry, while Draco glanced up and down the corridor in order to make sure there was no one else.
"Who are the prefects here, Potter?" Draco reminded him, stepping deftly in front of his girlfriend to meet Harry with a cold, arch look. "We get privileges you could only wish for. It's you who shouldn't be wandering around at night. What are you doing up this late, anyhow?"
"Looking for trouble."
Harry stifled a grin when Draco's jaw contracted. He had just reminded Draco of the last words he had spoken to Harry at the Yule Ball, although Harry had not expected a passing comment like that to be so effective.
"I was in detention with Umbridge," Harry went on to admit. "Got it all week, in fact, for telling the truth."
"She really kept you up this late?"
"Gorgons tend not to care about their beauty sleep." Harry tilted his head at Pansy. "Which you'd know, seeing as you're with her."
"What was that?" Pansy shouted, a hand diving into the pocket of her robes.
"Stand down, Potter," Draco snarled. "If you have anything to say to her, you say it to me."
"Fine." Harry grinned savagely. "I do have something to say, to both of you, in fact. First off, you might want to tell that bird to keep her twittering to a minimum. I could hear her all the way from the main stairway. Second, I'm surprised you're here at all, Malfoy, feeling up a girl? Pretending that you're cured?"
"You would be jealous, wouldn't you?"
"Unlike you, I've always liked girls."
"Draco."
"Then you'd understand that this was more than just a 'feeling up'. I get more from her than you could hope to get in your whole lifetime."
"You looked relieved when I interrupted your date, is all I'm saying."
"Draco," Pansy repeated anxiously.
"Disappointed, is more like it. You see, nothing can put me off the mood quite like your face."
"Draco!"
"Except a girl's tits?"
"Careful, Potter. I'm over what happened."
Harry's grin vanished. "I don't believe you."
"It was vile. It'll never happen again." Draco whirled around to face Pansy, and she relaxed, believing she had won back his attention.
"Malfoy," Harry went on, knowing that Pansy and Draco wouldn't take shelter until they knew he could not overhear the password. "What you and I did was anything but vile, and you know it."
Instead of scarlet, which Harry would have expected, Draco's cheeks turned to a yellowish shade of green.
Pansy's nose wrinkled with confusion. "What's Potter talking about?" she said. "What wasn't vile?"
"Pansy," Draco started to say, but then covered his mouth with a hand. He blubbered the password through his fingers, then rushed into the prefects' bathroom while making a retching sound. The door slammed in Pansy's face, and she jumped when it nearly clapped her on the nose.
Spinning furiously around, Pansy sized Harry up through narrowed eyes. "Well? You can go now," she said shrilly. "Go—to—bed—Potter!" she enunciated slowly as if he was stupid, "or I'll take points, and—you know what? I'll take them anyways. Five points from Gryffindor!"
But Harry was determined to stand his ground. The last thing he wanted was the two of them alone together in a comfortable room like this one, and he hoped Draco would hurry up with the vomiting and come back out again.
Pansy growled threateningly—not at all unlike a pug. Harry stared sedately at her, deciding he was more concerned about Draco getting sick than he was about her yappy threats.
"I'm taking ten points from Gryffindor now," she said angrily, "and if that's not enough, I'll add another day to your detentions!"
The door flew open before she could lob anymore punishments at Harry. Draco emerged, a sickly tinge still washed over his skin.
"Sick of lying to yourself?" Harry asked the moment Draco looked up at him.
"I'm getting sick and tired of you both!" Pansy whined, turning an anxious frown on Draco.
"Sorry," Draco told her, covering his mouth with the back of his hand when another mild wave of nausea hit him. "I'm not feeling well enough for this, so we ought to try another time. When he's not here."
"We should go to Madam Pomfrey," Pansy said, then grasped his arm solicitously.
Harry rolled his eyes.
"No. She can't help, remember? It'll be best if it runs its course. It won't last long."
"I took points from him, you know," Pansy said triumphantly, as she wound an arm around Draco to support him.
Draco smiled weakly, and then scowled at Harry as they started to walk past him toward the stairway. "How many?"
"Ten," Harry answered before she could speak. He felt so angry at how ignored he was that he could have cried.
Draco locked eyes with Harry for a moment, then looked away. His fingers twined around Pansy's, as if he were seeking out an anchor. "I would've taken twenty. Ten for being who he is, and another ten for ruining our night."
"Or should I get twenty points for saving you?" Harry yelled at Draco's back.
Harry grumbled when Draco ignored him. Then, he sulked in the opposite direction, moving toward a different set of stairs, so they wouldn't pick up on the fit Harry threw under his breath. "The Sorting Hat is crazy," he told himself, "if it thinks our Houses could ever get along."
The third time Harry ran into Draco, he was on his way out of detention once again. He had been allowed to leave Umbridge's office much earlier this time, but his scar had started to burn when Umbridge had touched him, and it was putting him on edge.
Just as a pain shot through his forehead, Harry rounded onto the staircase and made it up a couple of flights before he bumped shoulders with Draco who was heading down the stairs.
Draco turned around and looked up after him. He drawled, "Slow down, Potter. What's the rush?"
Harry's stomach clenched horribly at the sound of his voice. He remembered Lucius Malfoy at the graveyard, most likely because his scar was burning at the moment. But after reminding himself that Draco was not the same person as his father—per Lupin's advice—he very slowly turned around and glared at the prefect badge glinting on the Slytherin's chest.
Draco strode up to him with a pompous look set on his face. "I thought you had detention. Figured you'd be stuck with her till midnight again. What're you doing out this early?"
"So I'm in trouble for going back to the common room early this time?" Harry asked, unable to reign in his impatience. "What is it with you?"
"You're not in trouble yet, Potter," Draco said shrewdly, "I was just curious."
"Would you believe me if I said I got off on good behavior?"
"Not until I've seen that good behavior for myself." A tiny bead of scarlet caught Draco's eye as it was rolling down Harry's left knuckle. Draco's smile disappeared. He snatched Harry by the arm and said, "You're bleeding."
"Let go, you priss."
"Shut up," Draco hissed in a violent undertone that nearly frightened Harry. "Or do you want me to assign you another detention?"
"Do it—Mr. Prefect, sir," Harry said contemptuously. "I'm surprised you haven't done something like that already. What the hell are you doing here, anyways? You're pretty far from the dungeons."
"On my way to see Professor Umbridge, actually."
"From where? You were coming down the stairs. What were you doing, Malfoy? Bobbing for more points against my House?"
"I thought I told you to shut up!"
Draco yanked Harry's hand and inspected the handwriting that was carved into the back of it. A gaggle of third-year Gryffindors passed them going up the stairs, eyeing Harry more warily than they did the Slytherin prefect.
Harry pinched his eyes shut against another jolt of pain in his forehead and stifled a cry. Draco waited until a Ravenclaw girl with long dark hair veered off the staircase and wandered into the adjacent corridor.
"Is this what Professor Umbridge means by detention?" Draco asked. "Self-flagellation for you too?"
"Self… what…?" Harry's pain-clouded mind took several moments to catch up with the implication of those words. "What d'you mean by, 'you too'?"
Draco let go of Harry's hand and examined the state of him. "Your scar is hurting, isn't it?"
Harry looked down at the other boy's shoes, unwilling to confirm or deny that fact. Resentfully, he said, "What do you care?"
"Get your arse to the hospital wing."
Harry looked up at him then, interested in this sudden show of concern. "It doesn't hurt."
"You're a terrible liar. Or are you going to tell me that those marks on your hand aren't worth getting looked at either?"
Harry knitted his brow. "I'm not going."
"Yes you are."
"And who's gonna make me?"
"I am." Draco clutched Harry's forearm. "We're going right now, unless you want all of Gryffindor's points hanging over your head."
After being dragged down a few steps, Harry managed to find his voice and then skidded to a halt. "STOP!" Harry shoved Draco off him, just as a couple of first-year Gryffindors were racing up the steps. The moment the first-years clapped eyes on Harry, they backed away against the wall but continued up.
Harry glared sideways at them and then at Draco.
"I'm not your dog, Malfoy. Tell me to heel, and I'll bite your ankle. You told me to keep my distance, and I'm trying."
"Because otherwise you wouldn't?"
Harry opened his mouth to reply, but then fell silent.
"You weren't trying so hard when you interrupted me and Pansy the other night," Draco said heatedly, although he was more bothered by his own trajectory of thought than Harry's outburst.
"Just leave me alone," Harry whispered softly. "Why're you always around when I don't want you to be? And you can stop rubbing your relationship with Pansy in my face, because you and I both know you're faking all of it."
Harry turned to leave, then paused when he heard Draco take a tentative step after him. Reluctantly, he turned back around, hoping for something, although he wasn't quite sure what.
"I can't wait to see what you've got on the Quidditch field tomorrow." Draco's smile was tart and dry, expression devoid of whatever warmth Harry had hoped to find there. "Make sure you don't crash during practice from thinking about our upcoming match too hard. I don't wanna clean up your mess, but I will if I have to."
After relishing the look on Harry's face, Draco strode off into the fifth-floor corridor.
Harry watched as the Slytherin shoved a pair of Ravenclaws out of the way, and he wondered if Draco had really meant to remind him of his own little word for "getting off".
"Prat," Harry whispered under his breath. Then, feeling dizzy from the pain in his scar, he started up the stairs again, thinking of Professor Umbridge and the horrible, gross feeling of her stubby fingers, compared to how it felt when Draco handled him.
During Potions class on the following Monday, Harry stared at the back of Draco's head, unable to shake the fog that was coming over him. He had his conversation with Lupin in the back of his mind, but he was taking Sirius's caution to heart as well, since both men seemed to have made convincing points.
If Draco still liked him, which seemed to be the case, Harry could not see himself rising to the bait of Draco's taunts so easily this time around. Not unless a miracle happened and the door was suddenly open to him.
Harry wanted Draco, that much was true. But as much as he wanted all his fantasies to manifest into reality, he had a gut-feeling that they ought to remain just that: fantasies, and nothing to be taken too seriously. On the other hand, he would likely have a better chance with Cho this time around—if he was able to hold a conversation with her long enough to figure out if she was interested.
While Harry mulled over the romantic dilemma he'd been presented with, Professor Snape handed back the graded moonstone essays, which he had marked according to O.W.L. standards. Harry's brain continued to jump all over the place for the next several minutes, but it always kept refocusing on the loud-mouthed Slytherin at the front of the class who kept making remarks about the students who had been graded poorly on their assignment.
Harry was one of those students who had received a "D" on his essay—something he was not at all surprised about. But Harry suspected that Draco had not performed much better than anyone else in the class. After all, according to Draco himself last year, he was better at doing spells and potions than regurgitating information in essay format.
When Snape moved on with the day's lesson, Harry's mind drifted for a while, until a charmed note skittered across the floor from the front of the classroom toward his feet in the form of a bewhiskered mouse. Harry reached down and petted the note with his thumb as it wriggled like a live rodent onto his shoelaces. He scooped it into his lap, under the desk, hoping that Snape had not caught sight of it.
A quick glance around the room confirmed who had sent it. Draco was peering back over his shoulder with a mean-spirited smirk set on his face.
Harry waited for the paper rodent to finish grooming itself. Then, he swallowed around the lump in his throat and teased at the folded corners until it squeaked and opened belly-up. The note was hastily written and was very short:
"Bet you'd love to have something that starts with 'D'."
Harry's face burned at the unsavory taunt. "You're a piece of shit, Malfoy," Harry muttered under his breath, earning himself a reproachful look from Hermione.
Regardless of whether Draco was referring to himself or something more crude, Harry crumpled the letter in his fist and tossed it across the room at the back of Draco's head.
"Potter!"
Harry shrank into his seat as Snape towered darkly at the front of the classroom like an enormous bat. He met Draco's gaze briefly and flashed him a taunting smile of his own. "Yes, Professor?"
"Do you have no control over your impulses? That'll be five points from Gryffindor."
"But, Professor—!" Harry was practically rising from his seat when Hermione yanked him back down again.
"Don't," she urged, and Harry obediently sat back down again, scowling at Draco the whole while. "You got into enough trouble with Umbridge already, remember? Don't be stupid!"
"I know," Harry said grumpily, gritting his teeth.
Draco leaned out of his seat to retrieve the note, but it eluded his grasp due to a flick of Snape's wand.
"Accio."
Draco swallowed back his horror as Snape caught the note and gave him a warning look.
"Dignity, Draco," Snape reminded him silkily. He opened one of his desk drawers with another swish of the wand and tossed the crumpled parchment into it. "You have no business exchanging love notes with the likes of him." The desk drawer clattered shut.
"Sorry, Professor," Draco said, settling back into his seat with a look of faint disquiet on his face.
The lesson went on without another hitch or interruption. Draco stared gloomily at the desk where the parchment had been confiscated, wishing for the life of him that he had never written such a crude love note in his own handwriting.
