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Harry Potter was touch deprived.
Then again, he was deprived of many things—or at least he had been at a time.
Most days under the age of eleven, even the very bottom tier of his hierarchy of needs was left unmet—the mere thought of another one of Aunt Petunia’s cold bowls of flavourless broth could make Harry almost retch and he’d hardly come by a lot of fresh air or tranquil slumber in the paint-tin-storing, electrical-box-housing, spider’s den under the stairs—so anything above that had not really been in the realm of concern. (Esteem, self-actualisation? Love and belonging? Harry would have laughed in Maslow’s face.)
He recalled being very young when he first accepted that, no matter how desperately he longed for a few reassuring pats on the back, it just wasn’t going to happen under the Dursleys' miserable roof. He could kiss his bedtime stories and family bonding time goodbye, too, while he was at it. (This was a figure of speech, of course; Harry would not be kissing much of anything under the Dursleys’ miserable roof.)
The thing of it was, though… he no longer lived under the Dursleys' miserable roof. For nine months of the year anyway, he didn’t. But still, the effects of eleven years and the rest of the three-month intervals after that had indeed taken their toll.
For so long, Harry had gone without real care or the sort of attention that didn’t come in concert with a yelling or a flogging that, once he was given it—so freely and openly and intentionally—he hadn’t known much what to do with it.
One by one, every tier in his pyramid of needs was not only met but overfilled, and Harry could do little else but flounder about helplessly, drowning in love and safety and baked goods.
He'd imagined living away from the Dursleys his whole life, dreamed of it, but he’d never once thought the day would truly be in sight—at least not until his eighteenth birthday when he hadn't been sure what would occur first: he’d pack up and flee the house at the clock stroke of midnight or Uncle Vernon would grab him by the scruff of his neck and chuck him out onto the pavement before the man had even sat down for his morning coffee.
All of this had, to say the least, made physical touch a rather curious (distressing) phenomenon to Harry. He braced for impact, always, and it was humiliating.
It was every pat on the shoulder from Ron, every hug from Hermione, every time Mrs Weasley or some other kindly parental figure put their hands on his cheeks to “get a proper look at” him: how he’d grown, if he were well-fed, or maybe just to observe whether that familiar weariness in his eyes was still there. The adults were all well acquainted with it, the quiet exhaustion of being alive. But they seemed sad to find it there on him as well, a child of eleven or twelve, or fourteen or fifteen...
Every one of those welcome (indeed, they were more than welcome) gestures had Harry faltering in one way or another. He always thought that slight twinge of consternation must show no matter how hard he tried to keep it stuffed down. He never reached for Ron on his own, never held Mrs Weasley’s hands as they clutched his face, and his arms never wrapped around Hermione quite fast enough to afford him the front of someone who was totally and completely normal about this very common display of affection.
Harry hadn't been very accustomed to affection at all, even after his first few winters away from Privet Drive, and it made any pretending otherwise paramountly challenging.
Those years surviving on mere scraps of the thing where it was interrupted by harsher methods of touch, plus the tight clinging to that one green-tinged, obscure memory of his parents, had done a number on him. It was a terribly depressing truth but… Harry, for a long time, had not an inkling what it was to be loved.
Thankfully, things had changed. The Ron-Hermione-Mrs Weasley pats and hugs and holds eventually wore him down and he’d begun to release some of those catatonic reactions. By now, by year six, Harry was proudly reaching for his friends, high-fiving them and wrapping them up in tight embraces when the moment called for it.
'When the moment called for it', had, of course, been the thing to navigate. 'When' was a whole minefield of trial-and-error on its own—the kind that ended in the apparent detonation of chicken coops time and time again, what with the invariable rate at which Harry found himself with egg on his face. It had taken ages to grasp properly but he’d worked it out in due course. These days, he operated mainly on instinct and that seemed to do fine.
Harry was proud of himself. He'd built his nerve up slowly and steadily and now he was OK. Better than OK. He dared say he was doing splendidly.
It was a formidable shame, then, that all his efforts went straight to the bin when it came to you.
You were so… casual with your touches—different from Ron and Hermione and even Sirius. It threw him completely off course, shipwrecked him in the bitter cold, and made it so he was decidedly not doing splendidly.
It began bit by bit. First were taps on the shoulder second year and “Sorry, did you catch the Potions homework? I’ve forgotten to make note of it.” You did that a few separate times for Charms and Herbology, but Harry always thought it might have been more to get a read on him than anything. Not that he blamed you. You’d been nice about it at least and, between the nattering whispers about him in the corridors and Lockhart driving him up the wall, you’d come at a time where those courteous smiles and friendly flag-downs were actually mildly appreciated.
He probably hadn’t returned the favour then. But he would.
Year three saw him sending you bug-eyed glances and skyrocketing brows in Divination meant to convey a "suppose I'll be dying again later this evening" sort of sentiment whenever Trelawney singled him out—which was often. If she was going to predict his death every other lesson, Harry would make use of it at least, and the exaggerated expressions he reserved for you alone always seemed to elicit some kind of mirthful reaction so he kept them up. Eventually, he'd taken it so far as to mouth some of her more peculiar lines in your direction once she'd turned the other way. You repaid Harry handsomely with grand flourishing, sweeping movements of the arms that could be a mimicry of no one else and he always broke out in a wide grin.
For somebody with "the Sight", it had taken Trelawney an awfully long time to eventually catch wind of your little performances but you merely swatted the air while Harry raised his arms above his head and yawned, and Trelawney was never the wiser. It made you both snicker that much harder and, after a few conversations along the lines of "I thought she had us that time" and "I can't believe she bought that story about my dog dying", the two of you were friends.
And with your friendship came so many more of those casual touches.
When you bumped into him in the corridors between lessons, you dropped a gentle hand on his forearm to scoot on past, this ridiculously amiable smile on your face and something to the effect of 'Whoops, sorry, Harry' chittering cheerily past your lips.
Harry had no idea what to do with that.
No idea either about the pleasant purchase on his bicep when you (so wonderfully often) erupted into gleeful hysterics over one joke or another. Part of him always felt that was a graceful effort on your part to usher him back into whatever environment he had inevitably started to mentally drift from or become silently overwhelmed by.
Then there were the times you rested your head on his shoulder, feather-light and only ever for a brief moment, as though you needed something to occupy yourself with in the interims of conversation you had little to contribute to. Hermione had done this plenty, rested her head on his shoulder, but only ever when she sought out comfort—or sought to comfort. It felt once again different with you… Less grave, and more… like maybe you simply wanted to be in contact with him.
The thought had made Harry’s heart lurch from his ribcage and ricochet all through his body, as though possessed by the Golden Snitch.
In a desperate bid to get it steadily beating in the centre of his chest again, he’d tried more than once to observe you with others—to resolve whether you kept these brushes and nudges and taps specially for him or what—but he’d always wound up distracted or feeling as though he were gawking at you like some pervert and, in the end, he never did get any nearer to deciphering anything.
All the same, Harry frequently found himself sitting next to you—out of habit or the sheer magnetism of you, he couldn’t say for sure—even if it presented yet more opportunities for blithe touches and stressed twinges.
You had to feel them: his body tensing for one short breath, a blink maybe, before he let himself relax into whatever act of camaraderie you so were so cruelly choosing to inflict upon him. You had to know just how… awkward (that was to say, profoundly damaged) he was. And that didn’t sit well with him.
Because while he knew some of Luna’s tragedies and close to all of Neville’s (the real tragedy would have been if the two orphans of the school hadn’t commiserated at one time)—while he knew about them, he knew next to nothing about you. About what gave you nightmares, about who you’d lost in your life, about what sort of family you came from (if perhaps you were the third orphan of the school, for instance, though Harry rather doubted that).
How was he meant to know about your tragedies when he didn’t even know what address you returned to in the summer holidays? He knew not what kind of marks you got, nor your worst fear, what you wanted to do after Hogwarts, what kind of music you listened to—good god, what was your favourite colour?!
Come to think of it, he couldn’t even remember your Patronus. Surely, he’d witnessed it in the Room of Requirement that one go round… Blimey, what was it? You were friends, weren’t you? Close friends, and he couldn’t remember your Patronus. That was bloody embarrassing.
But, there were things he did know, and Harry took immense pride in those bits of knowledge filed away in the mushiest part of his brain for safekeeping.
He’d taken note of your favourite foods (the ones you said were your favourite and the ones you reached for more often in the Great Hall without divulging as much). He discerned how you liked to style your hair most days, retained the classes and professors you spoke of most fondly and carefully crafted his quips to match your style of humour in the hopes of hearing your laugh, something else he'd committed to memory. Along with that were your endearing mannerisms and, only once, the image of you in tears, which he’d burned into the retinas of his mind’s eye for fear you’d never be quite so open as to let him see you like that again.
He knew your blistering passion, your charming wit, the way you articulated your words and the words themselves, too. (Bloomin’ and bloody and blimey were Ron; flippin’ and bollocks and tosser were you. It was a real flurry when the both of you were in moods at the same time.)
He also knew you must come from somewhere that made you comfortable enough to give out so many of those friendly touches. And he knew, above all else, your heart.
You listened attentively and stood by the underdogs; you were compassionate, including to the likes of Draco on the days you weren’t otherwise putting him in his place for something he’d done to Neville or Harry… or Ron or Hermione or…
Harry had trouble believing even Draco Malfoy could find something to insult you about, and certainly not when you were sparing him genuine compliments or sending him smiles across the Great Hall. There were days you might be spotted with him—Draco and his unmistakeable luminescent hair—by the water or in the clock tower courtyard, often at twilight but occasionally at dawn, clearly discussing something meaningful enough for his chin to drop to his chest and your hand to perch on his shoulder.
Harry wondered what you talked about.
Ron was suspicious.
In fact, early on, he’d been completely convinced you were conspiring with the enemy and told Harry as much. Naturally it took just one conversation with you to completely turn his mind around. (Was it true that even Malfoy needed an open listening ear?
Still, seeing you next to Harry, fraternising with him and all his friends, Harry was convinced he'd never seen Draco more visibly conflicted in his life. It was as though he attempted to return your smile and shoot a scowl at the rest of them in the very same facial expression. Malfoy had seemed a little less intimidating after that, honestly.)
It was all a testament to you and your character and that heart of yours Harry now knew so completely.
Harry was left to ponder whether there was anyone you couldn’t befriend. There was something about you that everyone else must have recognised, too; this special light that made you loud about your love and unrelenting with your kindness. People flocked to you like Bludgers to Quidditch players, like married women to Gilderoy Lockhart, like detention to Fred and George Weasley.
In other ways, Harry noticed, you were quiet. Your worries, your smiles, your footsteps through the castle… So many evenings he’d watched you travel on the Marauder's Map: down the corridors, up the stairs and to the balconies to watch the clouds or stars or fog, he surmised. He liked to see your prints as they trod about the parchment. It meant you were safe and, after all the times the people he loved had not been safe, he needed this reassurance.
Tonight, he was surprised to find your inky footprints approaching his room. He scrambled to stuff the map away under a stack of unread—indeed, unopened—set books and conjured up an air of faux nonchalance you couldn’t see either way as he braced himself for the knock.
Two gentle raps against the wood and: “Harry? Are you in? It’s me."
Harry said your name once with an inquisitive lilt which was really stupid.
“Yeah,” you replied.
Really stupid.
(Would you think it was nonchalant?)
He sat up in bed, suddenly feeling self-conscious about his sleep shirt. It was a regular t-shirt he sometimes wore on days off and he feared you’d notice now that he also slept in it.
His “Come in” was more strained than he would have liked.
The door creaked open, ostensibly of its own accord, and then you appeared out from behind nothing, sending one of those gentle smiles his way.
At least he understood how you were doing it now, to roam the grounds at night without earning yourself a loop of infinite detentions. He'd previously guessed that you'd been made privy to some of the secret passageways or that perhaps you were just very slippery—two things that could still be true, mind you.
“You’ve an invisibility cloak?” he asked dumbly at the same time that you whispered, “Where’s Ron?”
“With Hermione, I expect,” replied Harry since his own question wasn’t much of a question at all.
You put on your best Umbridge impression. “My, at this time of night?”
Harry grinned. “Could the same not be said about you?”
“Well—” You flushed. “It’s not exactly the same, is it?”
Harry tried not to let his grin fall, wilt or twitch. “I suppose not, no. But Filch doesn't know that.”
You spoke in hushed voices, maybe just because it was late and maybe just because it was dark but certainly not because you thought you might be caught.
Dean, Seamus, and Neville had all gone home for the Christmas holidays; meanwhile, the staff and professors were all preoccupied with upcoming festivities and… grief. It seemed Hogwarts could do nothing to escape that—even at Christmastime.
Now that Harry was thinking about it, you probably hadn’t even needed your cloak; there was no one for you to even be caught by. Under present conditions, you might have wandered the school without so much as glimpsing the habitually lurking Snape or Filch, who perpetually seemed to materialise on the spot when one got up to something they shouldn’t.
Harry ought to remember that. Perhaps he’d venture out in peace to the Astronomy Tower tomorrow night for some midnight ruminating.
Before he could ask, you were volunteering the reason for your bedtime visit. “I thought you might appreciate some company tonight. Or… just a hug maybe. I wasn’t sure if Ron was especially keen about hugs.”
Only now did Harry worry that his eyes were still bloodshot or his lips still chapped or his general bearing still wrought with despair. “You’re only wrong about one of those. Ron fancies his hugs, all right.”
“I would have come yesterday—I wanted to come yesterday, but I just thought that—well I’m not sure exactly what it is that I thought but it was still so fresh and I suppose I wanted to leave you some breathing room.” You wandered over, abandoned your cloak at the foot of his bed and dawdled nearby, prattling on in the very same breath. "Ron didn’t leave you breathing room yesterday, did he? Because he really should have been here with you and, well, to be completely honest, I think it’s a bit rubbish that he’s not here with you tonight as well—I mean, it’s only been a day, he might have considered your feelings a bit more. Then again, I reckon Hermione’s quite shaken up too.”
Harry had to smile. “It’s OK to breathe whilst you speak, do you know?”
“You’re joking but it’s actually nice to hear that."
Sensing you were looking for permission to approach, he shifted a bit, a silent invitation for you to sit at the edge of his bed.
You did so gingerly and tucked some of your hair behind your ear. “How are you?”
“I’ve been better.”
He thought about it.
“I’ve also been worse.”
With a slight tip of your head, your hair fell out from behind your ear and curtained your face again.
It distracted Harry for a second before he prompted in the quiet, “And you?”
You seemed to give this enquiry the proper consideration it deserved.
“Bit of a loaded question, isn’t it?” Harry said gently.
A short raspberry blew from your lips, a response he took as a show of agreement. “Can we not have just one year where nothing so horribly earth-shattering happens at this school? Just one long, uneventful, mundane school year. We haven’t got many opportunities left as it is.”
“Mundane? At Hogwarts? You’re asking a bit much, aren't you?”
Another one of those gentle smiles tugged at your lips and you dropped your forehead to Harry’s shoulder wordlessly. He jumped faintly at the contact.
In the blink it’d taken him to relax, you were lifting your head. Harry tried not to pout.
“I’m sorry it’s always you,” you told him softly, the timbre of your voice feeble and coarse. “I can’t imagine what it’s like.”
“What what’s like?”
“The loss. Over and over, Harry. It’s always you, isn’t it?”
An odd chill crossed the room and Harry had to fight the impulse to haul the blankets up to his chin and burrow beneath them until spring.
“I think I’ll be taking that hug now.”
He was half-joking but your arms wove around him without fumbling, chin fitting over the top of his head and Harry, barring the quick jolt of panic, recognised the pure feeling of love bourgeoning through his chest.
Not for the first time, he thought this—this was what it must feel like to be tucked into bed by your parents and read a story until you gave way to slumber. To bake brownies with your mum on a rainy day where the kitchen ended up caked in flour ceiling-to-floor but where that was fine because you’d clean up together. This is what it must be like to have your dad teach you to fasten your first necktie and offer up some hearty wisdom that would carry you through life in the meantime. Perhaps to have them both congratulate you on an exam well done; to have them tell you they're proud of you...
This felt like meeting Ron and Hermione all over again, learning trust and friendship and love—real love that Harry had only ever dreamt up, heard in ghostly whispers at night just before he drifted off in that tiny, cramped cupboard. It felt like the day Hagrid had come to whisk him away from his personal purgatory, or the day he learned he'd gained family in Sirius.
Harry clung to you a bit tighter. Tighter still to that feeling of… Yeah, it was love, wasn’t it?
Outside, shrieking wind rivalled the quiet between you. Snow squalls cast a grey-toned brume visible even in the gloomy indigo beyond the room's windows. (Was it meant to storm tonight?)
Harry surprised himself with how easily he fell into your touch, how much he quite longed for it, bravely drawing you in nearer until you were lying down with him.
Less surprising it would have been to anyone else but most surprising of all to him was how much you were willing to give. You fiddled with his hair lightly, fingers combing through soft tresses and rubbing in slow strokes, lulling him to sleep faster than he’d ever been coaxed into such a state. He would have resented you for this if he were more of a contemptible person or a bit dimmer. If he weren’t debilitatingly in love with you.
It was enough, admittedly, for the idea that you’d very well uttered a spell under your breath to cross his mind. He might just as well have suspected you’d slipped him a bit of Sleeping Draught if he’d drunk something. If you weren’t you.
Your name left his lips. Softer and thicker and more gravelly than last he’d said it.
“Hm?”
“Thank you.”
You didn't ask for what. Your response came in the form of knuckles dragging down the length of his back and up again. Harry began to shiver.
To be held like this was unlike anything he’d ever felt. This maddening sensation of just… sheer safety was something Harry hadn’t known before this moment.
You reached forward and delicately coaxed his glasses off him.
And then he began to weep.
And you let him.
He’d learned very quickly in his youth at number four, Privet Drive not only that it was futile but that it made his circumstances far worse so he tried not to where he could help it. But so much grief had built up inside him, like an overflowing water well and now you’d arrived with your sledgehammer, or wrecker’s ball more like, and toppled over his precisely constructed arrangement of bricks, leaving nothing but a rutty pile in your wake and a rogue, gushing outpour.
Most of what flooded to the surface Harry had believed to be already dealt with. Apparently not. Apparently, this was the sort of thing that kept coming back to turn you into a choking, snivelling, blubbering puddle in front of the person you fancied.
By the time Harry chanced using his voice again sans fear of it being sowed with the tremors and breaks that came from sobbing your lungs out, he found himself saying your name again. It was muffled by the wool of your jumper and only this had him realising the position you’d ended up in: You, on your back, enveloped by his pillow and blankets. Harry, his face pressed into your solar plexus, arms wrapped tightly around you.
"What is your Patronus?" he asked your sternum. He wasn't sure how the question came to him, which web of thoughts he'd had to leap through to remember to ask, only that it was imperative that he know.
You laughed softly.
And the instant you told him, Harry saw it vividly in all its glowing glory, bounding through the air in the Room of Requirement, and a few other times when you'd needed to call upon it.
It complemented you, he thought, and made a sound of acknowledgement. “And what about your family? What are they like?”
He wasn’t looking at you, but Harry might have guessed you smiled.
And so it went, until Harry could fill in all the little gaps in his mental profile of you, until he knew everything there was to know—including your favourite colour—and until a dreamless slumber overtook him and his ability to ask anything more.
***
In the morning, Harry came to with a small sigh, surprised by how well he slept. Normally, nightmares had him waking through the night, but this kip had been unusually serene.
Light daybreak snowflakes trickled down upon the world. They glided this way and that as though fairies or bees buzzing about, fluffy and kinetic, unbound and unfazed by the laws of gravity much like the rest of Hogwarts and its occupants.
Harry smiled lazily and shifted only an inch before the side of his body came in contact with something. He craned his neck to see, then nearly jumped out of his skin. If he was feeling pleasantly warm before, he was now unbearably hot around the collar.
The happenings of the night before had given the impression of something he'd dreamt but, with your nose brushed up to the cotton covering his torso, the reality of it settled over him like falling snow from a rooftop.
You must have felt his accidental knock into you because you shifted marginally and inhaled deeply, lids crinkling.
"You moan in your sleep,” you garbled, moving closer still to hide your face in his sleep shirt.
Harry’s stomach gave a great lurch and his cheeks warmed now to somewhere feverish as he protested a petulant, “I do not!”
“Do too,” Ron interjected from his own bed.
Harry started. “When did you get here?!”
“Some point in the night.”
“Yes, thank you.”
“You’re quite welcome,” said Ron pleasantly.
You snorted. Harry tilted his head down at you again then flopped onto his back defeatedly, in the process discovering his arm was wedged underneath you.
How one untangled their limb from another’s body in a decidedly cool, devil-may-care fashion was elusive knowledge beyond Harry's grasp.
No doubt Ron had entered his shared room sometime in the wee hours of the morning to find the two of you wrapped up in each other, tear-stained cheeks catching moonlight and whatever soft moans were allegedly escaping Harry without his consent or awareness. Harry hoped Ron had not inferred something more from your current predicament than what had really happened. But, then again, maybe that was the preferable thing over him fathoming the snivelling mess Harry had been.
Harry reached for his glasses to occupy himself with something, and you pulled back a bit, more awake now.
He was just getting ready to forgive you when you looked up at him, doe-eyed and apparently not yet done with your chaffing. “I didn’t know you slept that dreadfully. That’s positively sad, Harry.”
“Heartbreaking, really,” Ron pressed on without hesitation, gaze fixed on the ceiling.
“Right, ‘The Boy Who Moaned'—what else have you got?” he grumbled. And this had been one of his good nights!
“The Boy Who Became the Bravest of Us All?” you suggested, suddenly earnest.
“The Best Mate a Bloke Could Ask For,” Ron offered in turn.
“The Boy Who Forgave His Friends For Their Scathing But Clever Mockery."
"That'll be the one," said Ron kindly.
Harry descended into himself, thinking he preferred the ribbing to this abysmally devastating sincerity.
Ron snapped his fingers, as though a great thought had struck him and, with an impish glint in his eyes, stuck his palms out to mark out each word in the air: “The Boy Who Loved.”
“Oh please,” Harry heard himself mutter under his breath.
“Aw, Ro-n!” you intoned, stretching out his name.
Harry would not let himself believe you were charmed by that and sank lower in bed, covering his face with the sheets.
“I think we’ve done it, Ronnie,” you piped up at the palpable display of discomfort beside you. “We’ve broken finally broken him.”
"Was a matter of time, really, wasn't it, Chosen One?"
At the sound of your giggling, Harry was unable to keep from bursting into chuckles alongside you. “Shut up, both of you!” he tried to say but he was laughing too much.
After a few moments of winding down, your voice was barely recognisable as it drawled, “So… How’s Hermione?”
Harry rolled into you to hide his grin in your shoulder, relieved to have the attention diverted elsewhere.
“Oh, come off it. Shall I ask you lot the same?”
“We’re quite well,” Harry supplied, looking to you for confirmation.
“Quite.” You nodded. “Thanks for asking.”
“Blighters."
You clicked your tongue. “Can’t even tell us how she’s doing. A pity, you are."
“Fine! Hermione’s…” Ron seemed to give this some proper thought, as much as any sixteen-year-old might. His face softened. "Yeah, she’s all right, you know? She’s brilliant. Truly… brilliant."
If Harry didn't know better, he’d have thought to scavenge for a love potion hidden about the room. He knew better.
You were facing Ron so Harry couldn’t see your reaction but he had to imagine it was mollified by the rare sight of a heartfelt Ron Weasley; affected, perhaps, by your own hope that someone would one day speak about you in those terms. Harry would, he thought. He already believed you were brilliant; there wasn’t much more to do except vocalise it. Of course, that was the scary part.
“I’m chuffed to bits about this, Ron,” you told him then, deep fondness seeping into your voice the way Harry had expected it might. “The two of you are spectacular together, really."
Harry was surprised to hear his best friend squeak out an uncharacteristically timid, “You think?”
“Absolutely.”
And then he smiled at you. Somewhere in his expression there, Harry thought he caught a hint of something more meaningful than mere appreciation, something directed at him. Harry became suddenly very interested in the bedpost nearest to him.
“Right, well, I’m going down to breakfast then,” Ron announced in a voice that sounded forcefully casual and climbed out of bed, day clothes rumpled and creased.
He made no move to change. Few obstacles got in the way of Ron and food.
You turned to Harry. “Breakfast?"
Harry’s eyes flitted up to Ron, whose own seemed to tell him Don’t be a right git, you right git.
Harry’s nod was calculated. “Er, yeah. Yeah, sure. Just, er—let me, erm… I’ve got to go to the loo.”
In his peripheral vision, Harry saw Ron dig his fist into the space between his eyes.
“Er, I’ll see you downstairs, yeah?” and he sent Harry one more of those less-than-subtle pointed stares. (Subtle or not, Harry thought he should take care to repay his friend for his swift departure with a few packets of Chocolate Frogs or a flower-blossoming spell Hermione might find romantic.)
Whether you picked up on this wordless exchange was unclear. You were sweet and blank as you waved goodbye to a dubious-looking Ron and bent to fetch your invisibility cloak, a garment that had, through the night, made a humble journey to the floor. It was different than Harry's, he noted. It looked somehow less durable, or like it was made of a different material but it appeared to service your needs all the same so Harry said nothing.
He must have been idling because you asked whether he needed a minute.
“No! Er, I mean, no, I won't be long,” Harry said pathetically. “But if you're really hungry or something...”
You smiled, looking about as dreamy as Luna for a split second. “I don’t mind waiting."
Providentially, he really did have to use the loo, so he wasn’t just standing there mentally counting to sixty. The entire time, he thought at length about how you couldn't take your cloak out into the open just now without arising suspicion and devised a plan to return it to you tonight—a spontaneous visit of his own this time. (And maybe you could go to the Astronomy Tower together afterwards, too, and he would ruminate a little less. That might be nice.)
Harry found you in the common room upon his return and tried not to look like he'd just been engaged in a full sprint for the voyage there and back. “Ready?”
You nodded and slid your hand in the one he held out for you.
It was only now, leading you out with novel ease and perfect comfortability, that Harry registered it.
He froze in his tracks.
“Are you all right?” you asked, but Harry barely heard it.
He had a theory to test and the thought of it was all-consuming. He ripped his hand from yours.
“Going to sound cheeky but I promise it’s not,” he said before you could fuss over his boorishness. “Touch me.”
“What?”
“Just do it, please.”
You prodded his cheek with an index finger, lingering a moment.
Harry beamed.
He wasn’t flinching.
He wasn't twitching or recoiling or jumping or squirming—not even internally. He didn’t so much as blink.
“Right, am I missing something?” you asked, eyes flicking down to his grin and back, your own lips tugging upward indiscriminately.
“Again, do it again.”
You were poking him now—here and there all over his face, down his arms and chest, having a bit of fun with it. Harry, in turn, was fantastically delighted at the utter inoperancy of his reflexes—for all he cared, they could never work again those blasted traitors!
He intercepted your hands, laughing and wriggling a tad at what was beginning to border on tickling.
And then, beaming from here to space and without a moment thinking better of it, Harry knelt his head, guided you to meet him and kissed you so sweetly he felt, for the very first time, your body tense at a touch. It was that imperceptible flash of rigidity he was never absolutely certain other people caught, but now he knew.
He might have been disconcerted by this revelation if not for you relaxing so deeply into him a millisecond later.
So, that was what you’d been feeling all these years... Harry thought he’d treasure it until his very last breath. It was undeniably special, this was. To have caught someone by surprise only for them to unfold pliantly because it was you and you meant something to them. No wonder you kept touching him all this time.
He lingered that similar moment you had on his cheek.
“Draco tried that once,” you said when you parted, which might have been the very last thing Harry wanted to hear.
“But it didn’t feel like that,” you went on, dazed and breathless, and slotted your mouth over his again, reasonably firmer than the way he’d kissed you.
OK, Harry did want to hear that end bit.
Growling stomachs and the open space posed this annoying sense of urgency that made it so you didn’t dither for long before reluctantly parting and meandering down to the Great Hall, palms connected and fingers intertwined, hearts beating erratically and faces flushed pink.
Ron would erupt into hoots and hollers loud enough to draw attention to your table and render you bashful enough to let go.
But, all through your meal, Harry could bump your knee with his and easily lean into your habitual arm squeezes and even inch his fingers over to ghost along your knuckles under the table, unshakable in his certainty that he'd been cured of whatever incapacity he’d had for those touches before today.
You had done that.
Harry Potter was no longer touch-deprived. So long as you were next to him, he never would be again.
***