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1999
It takes a moment for Harry to realize that Malfoy is walking directly toward her. Her fingers bunch into her invisibility cloak, which lies in a bundle at her side, within arm’s reach as it has been since the war. Not even McGonagall has chided her for using it as frequently as she has, pulling it on in the countless times she’s felt the need to disappear. No one chides her for much of anything anymore.
Malfoy’s eyes are locked onto her as she approaches, once-long blonde hair now cut into a short bob. They’ve all shed these childhood parts of themselves, the small class of eighth years with downturned heads and noses tucked into books, unsure how to relate with the sixth and seventh years in their classes, even more unsure how to relate to one another.
Malfoy stops in front of Harry, gazing down where she sits at her usual spot beneath the furthest tree from the castle. Malfoy has one hand balled in a fist on her hip, the other holding a pile of grey fabric, folded and stacked neatly in her palm like a serving tray. Harry can’t remember the last time Malfoy has spoken to her directly, other than in newly demure murmurs asking Harry to pass her ingredients during Potions classes, or the odd, awkward apologies after shuffling past her in the eighth year girls’ dormitory.
Harry hadn’t planned it, but coming out shortly after the war has its advantages. She has no idea whether people are treating her differently because she’s a girl now, or because they witnessed her kill a maniacal wizarding fascist.
“Granger said I’d find you here,” Malfoy says. That was something new, too — Malfoy on speaking terms with Hermione. She glances back at the castle, a slight haze of evening mist obscuring it in the distance. “You know, I don’t think they can legally keep you here. You could just leave if you wanted to.”
Her voice carries the words like jest, but Harry can’t be sure whether they might just be instructions. Malfoy’s eyes linger on hers a moment too long, her lips pursing to the side in contemplation of Harry’s tired stare.
“Right,” Malfoy says eventually. “Anyway. I thought you might have a better use for these than I do.” She reaches out with the fabric, which makes it immediately apparent how much distance she’s left between them, as though Harry’s carrying something infectious. When Harry makes no movement to stand, Malfoy does her classic little huff, steps closer, and carefully drops the pile on the ground next to her.
Harry can feel Malfoy’s eyes on her as she unfolds the offering warily. She discovers the fabric to be a stack of freshly pressed grey uniform skirts.
“Oh,” Harry says quietly, because she doesn’t know what else to say.
“Mother insists on sending me off with new ones every term even though I’ve been stealing Theo’s trousers since third year,” Malfoy says, pocketing her hands in her trousers as if to demonstrate. “I reckoned they might fit you better than Granger’s since we’re both — erm —”
“Lanky,” Harry offers.
“I was going to say slender,” Malfoy says. “Svelte, maybe.”
“Sure.”
“Anyway,” Malfoy says. “Just chuck them if they don’t fit. I was going to anyway.”
Malfoy’s eyes sweep down Harry’s body and then back up. Harry pulls her knees against her chest. There may have been a challenge in those eyes once, but if it remains, Harry is too tired, too confused by Malfoy’s unfamiliar demeanor to find it.
“So,” Malfoy says after a silence long enough for either of them to walk away. “Sticking with Harry, then? Not even going to try out Harriet?”
“If you’ve got a problem, Malfoy —”
“No, no,” Malfoy says, putting up an apologetic hand. There’s already fire in Harry’s veins, the same one that’s been burning for weeks with the addition of new kindling — the staring, the murmuring, the fumbling over she’s and her’s. But the flame cools quickly with the calm of Malfoy’s eyes, once infuriating, now bewilderingly soft. “It’s nothing like that, honestly,” Malfoy says. “I was only curious.”
And Harry finds herself believing it — the glint of genuine curiosity in Malfoy’s eye. If it was some sort of prank, it would be her strangest to date.
“Harley, maybe?” Malfoy continues, putting a finger thoughtfully to her lips. “Harmony? Or perhaps Hannah? But then I think you’d have to fight Abott for the title, wouldn’t you?” She hums ponderously. “No, I don’t suppose anything suits you quite like Harry.”
“I’d have to do a lot of rebranding,” Harry murmurs, testing the unfamiliar waters of casual conversation with Malfoy and finding them less freezing than she expected.
“Sure,” says Malfoy. “And it’d require you to have a modicum of creativity, which we all know isn’t your strong suit.”
Harry snorts. “We can’t all be cunning Slytherins.”
“For shame,” Malfoy says with a tut. “Think it’s too late to be re-sorted?”
“I’ll be sure to ask McGonagall.”
If Harry didn’t know any better, she might suspect the upturn at the corners of Malfoy’s lips were the beginnings of a smile. Then Malfoy seems to catch herself, bottom lip bitten, eyes cast sidelong back to the castle.
“I think it’s quite brave, actually,” Malfoy says. “Though I imagine you’re a little tired of all of that bravery.”
Harry runs a hand along the smooth fabric of the skirts, crisp and light where the invisibility cloak was crumpled, heavy. She wasn’t tired of being brave, she might say, were it anyone but Malfoy. She’s tired of having to be.
“Right,” Malfoy says when it becomes clear Harry doesn’t intend to respond. “See you, then.” And she turns back to the castle, Harry’s eyes following her as her shape is swallowed by distance and mist, never far enough away to obscure the glance she casts back at Harry before she disappears into the castle doors.
2001
By the next time Harry sees Malfoy, it’s been long enough to forget the jeers, the glares, the acrid words — but not long enough to forget that shock of silver hair, cut shorter now, just beneath the ears, nor that lazy drawl pitched deep as it spills from the adjacent room at Madame Malkin’s.
The sounds of Ron and Ginny’s lighthearted squabbling tucks itself away into the back of Harry’s mind as she wanders her way into the next fitting room. “No, I think it’s just fine in the torso,” Malfoy is saying, hand tracing down a flat chest. “Might be a touch snug at the waist.”
“Just a mo’, dearie, I’ll have you fixed up,” Madame Malkin nods around a mouthful of pinheads before prattling into the back room.
Harry pauses in the doorframe. From here, she can see the wealth of changes chronicled across Malfoy’s form — the broad shoulders and short hair from behind, the cut jawline and angled brow reflected in the mirror. Harry flinches as Malfoy spies her in the reflection and spins around to face her with a look of bemusement.
“Oh,” Malfoy says. “Hi.”
“Wotcher,” Harry blurts out, watching a confused smile spread across Malfoy’s face where she would have expected a glower. “Sorry, I was just — ”
“I’m not sure how I feel about them either,” Malfoy says coolly, fidgeting with the cufflinks of the robes. Harry stammers slightly as she takes the opportunity to glance down the length of Malfoy’s body, drenched in near-black purple robes, glimmering where they catch the light. “Theo’s asked me to be the best man in his wedding, which unfortunately means he gets to dress me.” A grimace takes the place of the smile. “It also means I have to pretend I don’t hate Millicent Bulstrode for at least six hours.”
A wash of confusion clouds Harry’s mind momentarily, rinsed clear with easy understanding, followed by a bizarre giddiness she shifts on her feet to temper. She’s always thought she and Malfoy couldn’t be any more different, and now she finds herself overwhelmed with all the ways she’s been wrong.
“Right,” she mumbles. And then, because she wants to try out the confounding ease of conversation Malfoy has offered, she adds, “Ron’s let me choose my own dress.” And then, once she realizes a crumb of context would be useful, “He’s getting fitted for his dress robes right now. For his wedding. Erm — to Hermione.”
That bemused smile remains on Malfoy’s face as he patiently watches Harry stammer her way through it, and he remains silent for a beat as if making sure she’s really finished. “They’re brave,” he says, turning back to the mirror, though his eyes drop down to the cuffs of his robes. “Knowing you, you’ll have picked out the gaudiest dress Diagon has to offer.”
Harry’s laugh surprises her, though it comes easily in response to Malfoy’s tone — the words lifted in jest where they once would have been cruel. “That’s very bold of you to say while you’re wearing those.”
Malfoy’s brow knits at himself in the mirror, and he angles to one side slightly, inspecting the pins that tighten the fabric of the robes to his sleeves. “I can never tell how these things are meant to fit,” he says, pulling slightly at the collar. Then he adds quietly: “I’m still learning.”
It’s as if all the pins have been plucked from the fabric and plunged into Harry’s chest at the sound of that vulnerability, so easily given, so familiar in ways she often tries to forget. She doesn’t realize she’s staring again until Malfoy’s eyes meet hers in the mirror. He turns on his heel.
“It’s Draco, now, by the way,” he says. Harry half expects him to extend a hand to shake.
Harry rolls the name around in her mind. Draco. Unique and melodic and a bit dramatic. Something as intriguing as it was confusing.
“It suits you perfectly,” she says.
Draco gives a noncommittal hum. “I’ve noticed from all your Prophet headlines that you’ve continued to resist rebranding.”
Harry shrugs. “Tried a few others out. Nothing seemed to fit.”
“I had a feeling you were going to stick with it,” Draco says.
Ron and Ginny are probably wondering where she’s wandered off to, and Draco must be wondering why she’s still here. Harry can’t be sure as to why, but something in his eyes makes her want to linger, to see what else might be there that she hasn’t seen before.
“It’s funny seeing you here,” she says before she can reconsider, recalling a younger Madame Malkin, child-sized robes, long, straight blonde hair. “You know, this was the first place we ever spoke. Do you remember?”
“Do you think I could forget?” Draco says, that bemused smile back on his face. “Not that I don’t try to. Salazar, I was an utter twat.”
Harry laughs. “You were a terror,” she says. “Something tells me you still are.”
“In all new ways, I can assure you,” Draco says.
On the other side of the shop, the door rings with bellchime as someone enters or leaves. Harry suddenly feels snapped from a dream, an odd one where she’s speaking with her childhood rival as if they’re long friends. An odd one where that rival may understand more about her than anyone else in her life.
“Erm — I’d better get back to Ron and Ginny before they kill one another,” she says.
“Right,” Draco says, his voice gone quiet. “See you, then.”
Harry nods and takes a step back to the other room, but her feet feel heavy with the familiarity of those departing words. She turns back.
“You know,” she says, “Remus sent me a bowtie for the Yule Ball that was charmed to match the color of any set of robes. I guess he thought I’d get more use out of it.”
Draco’s chuckle has a note of confusion. “I honestly can’t believe they ever got you into anything resembling dress robes.”
“What I mean is — ” Harry falters. “I held onto it. But I don’t have any use for it, really, and Hermione is always telling me I’m a bit of a hoarder, and that I need to let go of things, and I’ve been meaning to do some decluttering, and — erm. I guess I’m saying if you wanted it, then — ”
“Oh,” Draco says.
“Yeah, no, it’s stupid,” Harry says hastily. “I’m sure you already have something like it, or — I don’t know. Forget it.”
“No,” Draco says. “That sounds lovely.”
Harry suddenly feels too warm in her own skin. “Great,” she says. “I can owl it to you, then, or maybe… Well, you know where Grimmauld is. You could come by if you like.”
Draco’s eyebrows raise almost imperceptibly. “Well,” he says. “If it isn’t too much trouble.”
“It’s no trouble,” Harry says, wondering as she speaks whether she means it, because having Malfoy in her home seems like the very definition of trouble, even if it’s trouble she finds herself magnetized by. “I should be back in a few hours.”
Madame Malkin reappears in the room, measuring tape and pincushion levitating behind her. “Oh!” she says to Harry. “There you are, dearie. Your friends were wondering where you’d wandered off to.”
“Thanks,” Harry says to her before glancing back at Draco, whose eyes are trained on Madam Malkin as she adjusts his fitting. “Err — see you later, then.”
Draco nods, and Harry realizes his face is stitched with the same nerves that are butterflying through her stomach — and the feeling the two of them are standing side by side on the precipice of something new, and there’s nothing left to do but fall into it.
2003
Harry hates a lot of things that Draco does. She hates the way he shows up late to nearly everything, as though the entire world is living on his schedule. She hates how some topics turn him into the same know-it-all from their school days, too stubborn to hear he might be wrong. She hates when he’s prim and particular, making her take her shoes off the second she steps into his flat, the way neglecting coasters is enough to turn his gaze murderous.
But more than anything, she hates when he’s right.
“God,” Harry says, long hair curtaining her face as she drops her head into her hands. “It is a bloody date.”
“I’ve been trying to tell you,” Draco says without a trace of sympathy. “She’s been dropping hints for weeks. She sent you flowers last week, for Merlin’s sake.”
“I thought it was just a friendly gesture,” Harry says.
“It is a gesture,” Draco says. “Of her wanting to get into your pants.”
Harry’s groan is swallowed by the clamor of the Leaky on a Friday night, all of its half-drunk patrons who are lucky enough to not be in the midst of realizing they’d unknowingly agreed to a date with their teammate of six years. Harry and Maia had been playing for the Harpies for so long that it hadn’t occurred to her that all of Maia’s lingering touches and occasional gifts could be anything more than enthusiastic team-building exercises.
“What am I supposed to do?” she asks miserably. “She’s going to be here in twenty minutes.”
“Well, deciding whether you want to be on a date is a good place to start,” Draco says. “And if the answer is yes, the second step is sending me off and finding a table for two.”
“No,” Harry says. “If you aren’t here, who’s going to tell me when I’m making an ass of myself?”
“Just assume you always are at a baseline,” Draco says. “But in case you didn’t know, inviting a third person on a date is a great way to make it… not a date.”
“Then maybe you should stay.”
Draco frowns. “What’s wrong with Maia?”
“Nothing’s wrong with Maia,” Harry says. “Except that she always misses keeps when she’s distracted by the Bludger.” She clocks Draco’s eye roll, and adds, “I dunno. I guess I just don’t think of her that way. I don’t really — I don’t know, aren’t you supposed to feel something?”
“Not always at first,” Draco says. “You know, if you wait around for someone who’s perfect from the very beginning, you’re going to be waiting a long time.”
Harry scoffs. “Wait. Why am I taking dating advice from the king of one night stands?”
“I date,” Draco says indignantly. “Just last week I went on a date with that bloke from Wales.”
“Yeah, and then you shagged him and blocked him from your Floo.”
“Because he was bad in bed!” Draco snaps. “How else am I supposed to react to that?”
Harry laughs. “Maybe we’re both hopeless.” But her smile falls quickly. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to do this. What if I make things weird? What if I say something embarrassing and she never wants to speak to me again? What if she starts batting quaffles at me during games?”
That annoying, all-knowing smile has found its way to Draco’s lips. “You do like her.”
“Shut up,” Harry says, going warm at the cheeks. “Don’t look all smug.”
“Just try not to overthink it, alright?” Draco says. “She likes you, or she wouldn’t have asked you out. You like her, or you wouldn’t be freaking out so much. Just be yourself and talk about broomsticks, or whatever it is Quidditch players talk about in their spare time.” He reaches into the pocket of his jacket and produces a small silver tube, uncapping it to reveal a stark red shade of lipstick. “Hold still.”
Before Harry realizes what’s happening, Draco has leaned across the table and cupped her cheek with his hand, using the other to trace her lips in crimson red. Harry hears herself make a small sound of surprise, but she knows better than to protest.
She watches Draco’s eyes as he works — locked on her lips and ice-clear with intention — and finds herself completely unable to breathe.
Draco pulls away. If he notices the lungful of air Harry sucks in, he doesn’t show it.
“There,” he says. He licks his thumb and uses it to clean up the corner of Harry’s mouth before she bats his hand away. “Now you look like you’re actually on a date.”
“I hate makeup,” Harry says.
“And I’m sure Maia knows that, which will make it obvious that you put in the extra effort.”
Harry rolls her eyes. “Why do you carry around a tube of lipstick anyway?”
Draco shrugs as he pockets it. “No self-respecting gay man would be caught dead without one,” he says. “... And Pansy asked me to hold it once and I never gave it back to her.” He brushes the bangs out of Harry’s eyes and leans back in his chair. “You’ll be lucky if she doesn’t pass out the second she sees you.”
“Thanks, Draco,” Harry says around a light snort. “What would I do without you?”
“Be a slightly larger disaster at all times,” Draco says with a shrug. “You know, she’s very cute,” he adds thoughtfully. “It’s probably for the best that we’re both gay, because if we were competing for the same women you’d never stand a chance against me.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” Harry says. “I don’t think Maia has a thing for posh arseholes.”
“Just jock arseholes, then?” Draco says, pushing out from the table and standing. “I’m going to get out of here in case she sees me and falls in love at first sight.”
“Wait,” Harry says, catching him by the arm. She can hear the wavering in her voice as he looks down at her with concern. “What if I — what if she realizes that she’s made a huge mistake?”
Draco’s face softens. He leans over and kisses the top of Harry’s head. “Then she’s a bloody idiot who has no idea how much of a catch she’s got on her hands.”
Harry’s cheeks warm with a rush of embarrassment. “Thanks, Draco,” she murmurs.
“It’ll be fine,” Draco says. “And if not, we can watch The Viscount Who Loved Me and order takeaway after. Floo me either way, alright?”
“Yeah,” Harry says. “Yeah, of course.”
Draco’s smile swallows half of her nerves, his squeeze of her shoulder the other. He turns and disappears into the crowd of the Leaky, and by the time Maia arrives, Harry finds she’s still not sure how she feels about all of this dating stuff, but — like she often is after spending time with Draco — she’s feeling a little more sure of herself.
2006
Harry’s dreams tint green before she’s pulled out of sleep by the flare of her Floo. She’s fallen asleep on her couch, something hard prodding against her spine, which she discovers is the spine of a hefty textbook about potion ingredients. Her coffee table is littered with brightly colored flash cards and half-empty tea cups in an uncanny resemblance of the Gryffindor common room the week of O.W.L.S.
The flames in her fireplace subside, and Draco steps out of them.
Harry grabs her glasses, heart sinking as they bring Draco’s expression into focus — his eyes are heavy, his hair slightly messed. He looks completely lost.
Harry clamors up to a seat. “How did it go?”
Draco wanders over to the couch, eyes cast blankly out before him. He drops down next to her and continues his vacant staring.
“Well?” Harry pushes through a tight throat. “Aren’t you going to tell me what happened?”
Draco turns to her and blinks as though he can’t be sure that either of them is really there. “I — Well, I passed.”
“Draco!” Harry exclaims, tackling him with a vice grip of a hug that makes him squeak like a toy. “Draco, that’s bloody brilliant.”
Draco finally seems to break out of his shock, wrapping his arms around her. “It’s certainly something,” he murmurs into her hair.
Harry pulls back and pushes him playfully on the shoulder. “You’ve never been humble a day in your life. Why are you starting now?”
Draco glances at her for a flash, and then looks down at the floor. “I think I’m moving to Athens.”
Harry falters, her mind catching up slowly. “You mean Greece?”
“That is where Athens is located.”
Harry rubs sleep out of her eyes, as if that might help her hear better. “I didn’t know that you were — I mean, when did you — ?”
Draco springs up from the couch and resumes the same disorganized pattern of pacing he’d been locked in the entirety of the previous night while Harry was helping him study. “I applied for a position with the potions institute there last month and — well, they accepted me pending I pass this certification,” he says. “That’s why I’ve been working so hard at it.”
“Oh,” Harry says, trying to keep the confusion out of her voice. “I thought you were going to apply to positions in England.”
Draco stops short and meets her eye. “I thought I was, too,” he says. “Or, I mean — I thought I might, and then when I started thinking about it more, I realized —” His voice trails off. “I should have told you.”
Harry blinks, then shakes her head. “No,” she says, despite the alien sensation of hurt spreading in her chest. “I mean, it must be an amazing opportunity for you to leave home. I’m happy for you.”
Her words come out flat. Draco squints at her slightly, like he’s trying to see through darkness.
“It’s a little unexpected,” she says. And maybe it’s the lack of sleep after joining Draco in his all-nighter, but Harry finds she can’t even imagine it — Draco not being here any more. A life without him in it.
Draco crosses back to the couch and drops back down beside her. “I wanted to tell you,” he says. “I was going to tell you. I mean, I’m not even sure if I’m going to accept it.”
Harry gives a halfhearted scoff. “You’re going to accept it.”
Draco’s face drops into a frown. “Athens is only two apparition points away,” he says. “We’ll still see each other. And we can owl. I’ll even get one of those Muggle texting machines you’re always talking about.”
“Yeah, no,” Harry says. “Yeah. It’ll be fine — we’ll figure it out. We should be celebrating, anyway, I mean — all of it is amazing, Draco. I’m really proud of you.”
Harry’s words lilt up at the beginning, like they should be followed by a question mark. Draco has always been able to see through her.
“I should have told you,” he says quietly. “I didn’t really know how.”
Harry’s cheeks hurt slightly from forcing a smile, and she relaxes into the blank expression of what she’s feeling: confusion, disappointment, maybe a shred of something she doesn’t want to recognize — abandonment, maybe, or betrayal. “Athens,” she breathes, the word already beginning to take on the heavy cadence of a curse. “You’re going to have to work on your Greek.”
Draco ignores her lackluster attempt to change the subject. “Haven’t you ever wanted to leave?” he asks quietly.
“Leave London?” Harry says.
Draco gives a half shrug. “I don’t know,” he says. “Leave all of it, I guess.” He draws in a long breath. “Sometimes it feels like people know too much about me here.”
Harry exhales sharply, like he’s hit the air out of her lungs. She knows the feeling exactly, or at least she thinks she does — the way she wishes that sometimes she could take it all back. Not Voldemort, and not the war, because she has a feeling that isn’t what Draco is talking about. But the way she wishes, sometimes, that she hadn’t told anyone, even if it meant hiding the truest parts of herself, because maybe that would be easier than having them on display to everyone — her friends, with their sympathetic but ultimately uncomprehending eyes, the public, who saw her truth as something traumatic or tragic or heroic, when really it was just who she was.
“You know, learning a new language isn’t so hard when you’re immersed,” Draco says. “And there are tonnes of translation charms as well. You could come with me if you wanted.”
“Oh,” Harry says. She has no other way of translating the brew of contrasting emotions acidifying her stomach into words.
“No, it’s stupid,” Draco says hastily. “I know. You have the Harpies and your whole family here. It’s a lot to leave.”
Harry nods, mouth dry. She doesn’t point out the other things she’d be leaving — the invasive questions, the obsessed public, the heavy memories imbued all around the city. “You’d better get a flat with a spare room anyway,” she says. “I’ll visit loads.”
“And I’m sure I’ll have fun playing house elf if you leave it in this sort of state,” Draco says, glancing pointedly at the clutter of her flat.
“This is your mess!”
Draco shrugs. “No, I don’t think so. That doesn’t sound like me.”
“Wait,” Harry says, springing to her feet. “Speaking of mess…”
She disappears into her bedroom and returns with a wrinkled, half-folded shirt she wasn’t sure she still had, and tosses it over to Draco. He makes a curious hum and raises an eyebrow as he unfolds it, revealing a bright blue t-shirt, softened with the years of Harry moving it from flat to flat despite knowing she should get rid of it.
Draco scoffs as he reads it, and then flips it to hold in front of his chest. MY FAMILY WENT TO ATHENS, GREECE AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS STUPID T-SHIRT, it reads in large blocky letters, along with cartoonish depictions of the Parthenon and the Tower of Winds.
“Dudley gave it to me the summer after fifth year,” Harry says, and then pauses. “Threw it at me, really. Surprisingly, not the meanest gift I’ve ever gotten from him.” She purses her lips to the side. “Maybe you should take it with you. You can make a very confusing first impression on anyone who speaks English.”
“I’m sure I’ll be making a lot of confusing first impressions on everyone. It’s sort of my forte,” Draco says. He folds the shirt on his knee. “I’ll find room in my suitcase.”
The word feels heavy, like it’s already been packed. “I should sleep,” Harry says, springing to her feet. “Merlin, you should sleep. We can go out for drinks later. I’m sure Pansy won’t let you out of her sight until you’re nearing liver failure.”
Draco follows her to his feet. “I’d actually better start packing,” he says — quickly, like he needs to get the words out before he can stop himself. “The position starts next week.”
“Oh,” Harry says.
“Yeah,” says Draco.
“Still,” Harry says, shaking her head quickly, like she’s trying to wake herself up from a nightmare. “Sleep first, and then we’ll — I’ll, erm — I’ll come by and help you pack. If you want.”
Draco’s eyes lock onto hers. “Harry,” he starts, but Harry’s ears are roaring with blood, and she suddenly wants nothing more than to be alone.
“Go,” she says. “I’ll come by in a few hours. With firewhiskey, because it’s still a celebration even if there’s packing involved.”
“Right,” Draco says. “Then I’ll see you.”
“Yeah,” Harry says. “See you.”
Draco’s eyes linger on hers, and then he nods, just once, before stepping into the Floo. It sparks with green warmth and then quiets, and Harry’s flat feels emptier than it ever has.
2008
“Okay,” Ginny says, squinting one eye shut as she peers around the crowded room like a pirate gazing out at uncharted waters. She gestures at a woman who seems to be held captive by one of Neville’s long winded tirades about snake plant husbandry. “What about her?”
“Gin,” Harry says. “I told you, we aren’t doing this.”
“Too short, then,” Ginny says. “No, I was thinking the same thing. Alright,” she says, glancing to the opposite end of the party at a lanky woman with teal locs that drop down to her waist. “Her, then.”
“We aren’t doing this,” Harry says again. “And if we were, we wouldn’t be doing it with Puddlemere United’s beater.”
“Merlin, is that Greenston?” Ginny says, eyes gone wide. “Has she gotten even hotter since last season?”
Pansy emerges from a group of gossiping Slytherins and puts a drink in Ginny’s hand, then takes her by the waist. “What is it we aren’t doing? I think we should do it.”
“We’re on urgent lesbian duty,” Ginny says pleasantly. “AKA finding Harry a rebound shag.”
“Split up with that Magizoologist girl already, did we?” Pansy says with an unsympathetic tut. “You’re going to blow through every woman in all of London at this rate.”
“We didn’t split up,” Harry says. “That would require us to have actually been dating.”
“Harry, you were seeing her for four months,” Ginny says. “What exactly would you call that?”
“A mistake?” Harry guesses.
“Godric,” Ginny murmurs around a sip of her drink. “So what exactly was wrong with her, then?”
“Drank Earl Grey instead of British Breakfast?” Pansy offers. “Put the toilet roll on in the wrong direction?”
Harry rolls her eyes. “She was just a little clingy, if you have to know,” she says. “I think she liked me too much.” She scans Pansy and Ginny’s unimpressed expressions, and then adds, “And she isn’t into Quidditch.” She pauses. “And she did this weird thing with her tongue.”
Pansy snorts loudly. “Harry,” Ginny says with a scolding tone fitting of a Molly Weasley Howler. “You’re never going to find anyone if you have these ridiculous standards.”
Harry shrugs. “It’s not like I’m looking for anyone, anyway,” she says. “They just keep turning up.”
“Oh, poor thing,” Pansy says. “Must be such a hard life, what with women throwing themselves at her feet all the time.”
Ginny polishes off her drink and sets it down on one of the tables in Neville and Luna’s country house. “You know you don’t have to date at all if you don’t want to,” she says gently. “But if you do, you could bear to have a bit more of an open mind.”
Harry grimaces. It’s the same thing Hermione has told him, and Ron, and Charlie, and even Luna in her roundabout way. The same thing she always answers with the same placations — that she’s fine on her own, really, and that she’ll cross paths with the perfect woman someday if it’s meant to happen. And then, once alone, she dodges the same questions her mind always floods her with — whether love might require her to do more settling than she expected, or more settling than she was willing to do. Whether love was really worth it in that case.
“Well, I say sod it,” Pansy says, glancing out at the crowd from the corner of her eye. “I think there’s someone in particular you’ll be quite pleased to lay eyes on tonight.”
“Honestly, I’m a little too tired to be set up again,” Harry says. “I was actually thinking of heading out for the —”
Ginny’s eyes are trained ahead of her. “Harry,” she says, nudging her with her elbow, and gestures with her chin out at the crowd. “Look.”
Harry follows her line of sight to the front door of Luna’s home, open to reveal a lithe frame, a shock of silverwhite hair, glinting grey eyes that scan the room before they land upon Harry’s.
“Wh — ” is the only sound Harry can make before she weaves through the crowd, Ginny and Pansy’s laughter following in her steps. Draco meets her halfway, and the two of them stop statue-still in the center of the room, lightning rods around which the electricity of the party sparks.
“What do you think you’re doing here?” Harry snaps.
Draco crosses his arms, narrows his eyes. “Sorry, Potter, I didn’t realize I needed your permission to attend parties,” he says, glancing around the room disdainfully. “If you could even call this one.”
“You absolute arse,” Harry says, brows furrowing into a glare. “I should hex you where you stand.”
“I’d love to see you try.”
For a heartbeat, they’re locked in matching glares, seething enough to catch the entire house on fire. It’s the longest Harry can stand before she bursts into laughter and pitches up on her toes to throw her arms around Draco’s shoulders, nearly knocking him over with the force of her embrace.
“You fucking git,” she murmurs into his neck. “You didn’t tell me you were going to be in London.”
Draco wraps his arms around her. “I know how much you love surprises.”
“I hate surprises.”
Draco’s chuckle vibrates in her ear. “Right,” he says. “I meant to say I love how much you hate surprises.”
Harry should let go, but instead she squeezes him tighter, like maybe she can hold him right here forever. “Alright, love,” Draco says eventually, tapping her arm so she releases him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
*
Harry does her best not to be greedy with Draco as the night goes on, but too many people want a piece of him — Pansy and Theo to catch up on gossip, Luna to practice her budding Ancient Greek, Neville to have a lengthy conversation about herbological potion ingredient sourcing so boring that Harry nearly falls asleep just listening to it. By the time Hermione rounds a half hour of chatting to him about the pedagogical philosophy of the Institute Draco works for, Harry gives up and allows herself to be enlisted for a round of Exploding Snap with the Harpies, which they lose robustly to a trio of Kestrels chasers.
By the time Draco drops down on the couch next to her, half-listening to Ron and Blaise’s needlessly thorough recapitulation of a Muggle film they saw about vampires, Harry is half-asleep.
“You’re popular,” Harry murmurs to him, dropping her head on his shoulder.
“They bear absolutely no resemblance to real vampires,” Ron is saying to an incredulous group of Hogwarts alums. “I mean, it’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever seen.”
“Sorry,” Draco says with a chuckle. “I’ve been trying to get away from everyone.”
“It’s not nearly as bad as the werewolves,” Blaise says. “Transforming on command? I mean, honestly, it’s infantilizing.”
“It’s been a few months, I suppose,” Harry says. “You have a lot to catch up on.”
“Lav described that as ‘equal parts offensive and hilarious,’” Ron says. “She’s seen it six times already. And don’t even get me started on the sparkling.”
Draco turns to Harry on the couch. “I didn’t come to catch up with everyone. I came to see you.”
“Is that right?” Harry says around a yawn. “You sure know how to make a girl feel special.”
When she opens her eyes, Draco is staring at her with a peculiar expression on his face, the faintest smile. He looks away and stands up. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s get some air before you fall asleep on me.”
Harry lets out a tired groan but follows Draco up and through the thinning crowd. She’s awoken slightly by the time she and Draco have stepped out of Luna’s back door, lungs full of warm summer air, eyes full of starlight. Draco leans against the bricked back wall, and Harry turns in on her shoulder.
“How long are you planning to grace London with your illustrious presence?”
Draco smiles out at the night. “I’m technically due back Monday morning, but I might have until about Wednesday before anyone notices I’m missing.” He contemplates this briefly. “Maybe by Friday they’ll just assume I’m dead and replace me.”
“So what I’m hearing is that I should chain you up in a basement for a week,” Harry nods.
“As long as you provide tea and scones,” Draco says. “Good scones. Not those sorry excuses for them from Tesco you’re always eating.”
“You’re a very demanding captive.”
Draco hums, eyes cast up at the sky. Harry follows his gaze to the starlight, shining like a thousand puncture marks in the thin veil of night, light streaming through in defiance of the dark.
“You know, you make it look easy,” Draco says. “Living here. Being around all of these memories.”
Harry hesitates, caught slightly off guard, as she catches up with the topic. The night recasts in her mind: Draco not just navigating casual conversation, but seeing ghosts in the shapes of their friends, held apart by a dense distance Harry was still learning to overcome.
“It’s all still there,” she says eventually. “But I think enough new memories push the old ones away, a bit. I mean, it ended so long ago, Draco.”
“I know,” Draco says. “Ten years and three days to be precise.”
Harry blinks. The date had come and gone, and she had stepped over it with all the ease of crossing a creek. She hadn’t even noticed.
“Do you ever think about coming back?” she asks quietly. It isn’t the first time she’s asked, though it’s been a long time, since she quickly found that Draco’s noncommittal answers and weak attempts to change the subject were worse than not knowing at all. But to Harry’s surprise, neither of them come.
“You know, I really hadn’t,” Draco says. “If you asked me a year ago, I’d have said no, not ever. But lately —” He pauses, chews on a thumbnail, stares down at the cobblestone of Luna’s garden. “I don’t know. Do you ever feel like something’s missing?”
Harry sucks in a breath. She wants to say that yes, more than ever lately, something blurry that she can’t identify. But she can’t find the words, or maybe they don’t exist.
“What do you mean?” she asks instead.
“I mean — ” Draco says, granting her only a glance before he looks away again. “Nevermind. I don’t know what I mean. Look,” he says, and Harry follows his eyeline as he turns his gaze up to the sky. “I wanted to show you this.”
Harry follows his eyeline up to the sky, where the moon hangs in a crooked smile of a crescent. Draco has never struck her as a stargazer, and she finds her eyes wandering back to his, glimmering in the same shade of silver as the moon. He glances over and snorts. “No, really,” he says, stepping closer to her before turning back to the sky. “This is a perfect night to see it.”
She watches as Draco points out a star burning in the distance, tracing his finger to a trail of nearby stars in an upward zig and then a downward zag that finishes with a flourish. “You’ve seen it thousands of times without realizing it,” he says, voice low and rich enough to melt into the summer night. “It hangs just beneath Ursa Minor and finishes just above Ursa Major.”
“Yeah,” Harry says. “I’m going to need a bit more information on what I’m looking at.”
“It’s the constellation of dragons,” he says. “Draco.”
Harry blinks at him, and then turns back to the sky, trying to find the S shape Draco had outlined before it fades back into the star-studded night. “That’s how you chose your name.”
Draco shrugs one shoulder. “I spent a lot of time in the astronomy tower before — well, I used to be up there a lot,” he says quietly. “I remember reading about it with my tutors growing up. In the Greek myths, Athena kills a massive dragon and throws it into the sky.” His eyes stay fixed on the constellation, all of its ascents and descents. “I always thought it seemed like the cruelest sort of punishment, forcing it to be alone up there forever.”
“Draco,” Harry murmurs. The word is half the man who stands before her, half the lonely, stranded creature locked in the stars, watching over them from millions of miles away. She’d never known how Draco had chosen his name. It had never occurred to her to ask.
“It’s visible all year round in the northern hemisphere,” Draco says without looking away from the sky. “So I always knew that no matter what was happening down here on earth, he’d be up there looking down at me.” He worries his bottom lip, and for a moment, Harry’s afraid he’ll stop speaking.
“I mean, it all feels a bit stupid now, but I think back then it felt like there was something else out there who understood it,” Draco says quietly. “Or that maybe if we were both lonely, we could be lonely together.” He turns to Harry, who doesn’t even attempt to hide her staring. “I don’t know. Is that stupid?”
Harry can’t be sure at which point her heart made its way into her throat. She can’t be sure how long she can stand Draco looking at her the way he is, like she might be the only one with answers to questions that he doesn’t know how to ask. She can’t be sure how long they’ve been gone from the party, or how late it is, or how long she stands there in silence.
And she can’t be sure how long she’s been in love with Draco Malfoy.
Draco is surprised when she leans in and kisses him. She knows this by the tenseness of his lips, by the soft sound that rises from his throat like the upturn of a question mark. In the distant lands of her mind, she knows that it’s not something she’ll ever be able to take back, so she tries to commit to memory every furtive detail — the taste of his lips, the pounding of her heart, the way she shudders slightly when his hands find their way to her waist.
And then it’s over. Draco pulls back. He drops his hands. On his face, a bewilderment Harry fears will make way for discomfort or regret.
“Sorry —” Harry stammers before her thoughts can form any other words. “I don’t know what I was — fuck, I —”
She stops short when the confusion on Draco’s face melts into mirth and he bursts into a peel of unhinged laughter. “What in Merlin’s name was that?” he manages. “Did you just kiss me?”
“I —” Harry says, feeling herself flush at her cheeks and the back of her neck. “Are you laughing about it?”
And he is laughing. Hard. Hard enough that his cheeks are going pink at the tops like they do when he’s cold or frustrated or embarrassed.
“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Draco says around another rumble of laughter, though he doesn’t sound sorry at all. “It was just a little unexpected.” He wipes a tear from his eye, face growing more serious. “I mean, it’s just you’re — well, I always thought you were — because you’ve always told me you were —”
“Well, yeah,” Harry says, crossing her arms. “I thought I was gay, too.”
“Thought,” Draco repeats.
Harry thinks she might combust on the spot and float away on the wind, trillions of equally mortified microparticles. “It’s hardly relevant,” she grumbles. “Seeing as you are.”
“Oh,” Draco says with a chuckle, as if this is news to him. “No.”
“No?” Harry breathes.
“No,” Draco repeats. “I think I realized recently that being in love with the same woman for over a decade would more or less negate that.”
Harry’s heart is in her ears, her lungs frozen breathless. “What did you just say?”
Then Draco’s lips are on hers again, his hands gentle on her collar — and this time, it’s free of any hesitancy or question, replaced with the surety with which Draco does all things, and Harry can taste it in his lips — the way he’s been wanting to do this, so badly and for so long.
Harry needs three rounds of breaths once he pulls away for her mind to start working again. Her fingers have dug into his forearms, though for once, she’s less worried about him floating away.
“Oh my god,” Harry says. “We’re both complete and utter idiots, aren’t we?” Draco laughs, and she catches the sound of it with a kiss, and then another because she can, and another when she finds she can’t stop.
She pulls back at the sound of something shuffling within Luna and Neville’s house. She turns to see a dozen faces of their friends huddled against the window, eyes shot wide with guilt or narrowed in victory. Ginny lets out a loud whoop and the room devolves into a chorus of laughter, mixed with a smattering of applause.
“I hate our friends,” Draco says flatly without taking his eyes off of the window, or his hands off of Harry’s waist.
“Yeah,” Harry says. “Me too.” She cups a hand around her mouth and hollers, “Bugger off!” which succeeds in dispersing at least half of the lookers-on. As they walk off, Blaise reaches into his pocket and hands Ron a Galleon.
Draco kisses the top of her head, such a familiar gesture that gives Harry goosebumps and butterflies of newfound meaning. “You’re always a surprise.”
“I think you should stay,” Harry blurts out, words spilling out rapidly and unexamined. “I think you should move back. I know that’s selfish and maybe it’s immature, and I don’t bloody care.”
Draco’s lips part in ponderment for a beat, and Harry can’t breathe until he speaks. “I don’t know if I have a choice, do I?” He blinks once, hard, like he can’t believe his own words. “I’ll sort it out,” he says. “Maybe someone with a well-known name could put in a good word for me at the London institute.”
Harry laughs, feeling light enough to float away. “Probably for the best that I never rebranded, then.”
Draco glances back into the house, where the party has resumed with renewed vigor and gossip. “We should probably get back in there before Pansy explodes. She can’t stand being the last to know anything.”
“In a minute,” Harry says, wrapping her arms around Draco’s neck, her hands still trembling slightly. “Right now, I want you here for just a little longer.”
Draco brushes her hair from her eyes and cradles her chin with his fingers. When he pulls her in for another kiss, she tastes starlight.