Draco had always loved the Hogwarts grapevine as a beautifully efficient way to spread awful rumours about Potter, and he could not believe it had turned against him to become a whip in Potter’s hands. As soon as he came down for breakfast the next day, leaning on Terry and weary from silent hysteria through the night, everyone giggling at all the tables in school stopped giggling and started looking around innocently.
“What is going on?” he hissed, seizing Anthony’s arm as they went to Astronomy class. Terry had already said he hadn’t heard anything, and why did Draco ask?
“I respect but do not share your lifestyle choices, Draco, don’t grab me!” said Anthony, and then: “I mean, I, ah, haven’t heard anything about you, Draco. Not a thing. Not a thing!”
“I will kill Potter,” Draco snarled.
“Sorry,” Anthony said, “did you say ‘kill’?”
“YES,” said Draco.
Anthony fumbled for his demon amulet. “That’s all right then. For a minute there I thought—”
“I KNOW WHAT YOU THOUGHT,” said Draco.
“Good. Good. So it’s just Smith and no other boys, is it?”
“I will kill Potter,” Draco said.
“Well—er, if you’d caught Potter molesting Smith, you’d have told the whole school, wouldn’t you?”
“That’s not the point,” answered Draco, imagining the glory of putting such a thing in the papers, and then his ears caught up with his fantasising brain. “Molesting—I really am going to kill him!”
“So it’s not true, then,” Anthony said. Draco looked at Anthony over his glasses and Anthony wilted. “I was just checking!”
Once in Astronomy, Ernie Macmillan and Justin Finch-Fletchley moved tables pointedly to get away from Draco. Draco could not understand why they thought they were in danger of lustful assaults when Hogwarts, no matter what its other failings, provided its students with ready access to several mirrors.
In Care of Magical Creatures, Weasley laughed his head off when he saw Draco and Draco was too busy hating Potter to even insult his family. Potter went red with guilt as soon as he set eyes on Draco, and Draco was almost too busy hating Potter to breathe.
“Be my partner,” Hermione said, and took his arm. “Draco, I don’t believe a word of it.”
“I should hope not!”
“I know you’d never sexually assault someone,” Hermione said. “And—you didn’t use any Dark spells or anything, did you?”
Draco gave her a long look. “I am deeply touched by your limitless faith in me.”
“No, of course you didn’t, I am sorry. And you aren’t—”
“Nothing is true! None of the vile lies being spread about me are true!” shouted Draco, and the rest of the class turned around to give Draco ‘wethinks the gay gentleman in back doth protest too much’ looks.
He made a sound of hatred and Hermione soothingly did all their work.
At dinner Michael Corner went and ate at the Gryffindor table, where Ginny charmed Draco by telling him off at great length. Draco spent his dinnertime glaring at everyone and plotting to run off to a tropical island, where he and Mother, Father, Terry, Hermione, Anthony, Crabbe and Goyle could all live, and never ever let anyone else come to torment Draco. Particularly Potter.
Once dinner was over, Draco knew everyone would go to the library, so he went to the dormitories and tried to study and enjoy some time without everybody whispering about him. It might’ve made him pity Potter, if he hadn’t hated the filthy little gossip.
He studied by the light of his wand to properly enjoy the dark and woeful atmosphere suitable to his mood, so when Terry loomed out of the darkness hours before the library was due to shut Draco’s heart hit the back of his teeth.
Once he had swallowed his heart painfully back to somewhere around the throat region, Draco opened his mouth to tell Terry off and then saw the odd look on his face.
“Ah,” Terry said. “I, ah. I heard what everyone’s been saying.”
The expression on Terry’s face was so peculiar Draco was sure for a dry-mouthed moment that Terry believed it all and hated him.
“Of course you didn’t assault Smith,” Terry said scornfully, and Draco praised the Lord and leaned his forehead against Terry’s arm. “He would tell a foul lie like that. He couldn’t bear for anyone to find out he likes boys.”
“Yes!” Draco said with hysterical relief, clawing at Terry’s wrist. Terry ran his fingers soothingly through Draco’s hair. “Yes, he, I, Potter saw us, and he lied and besides he—”
“I’m not surprised for a moment,” Terry told him slowly. “What does surprise me—”
Clearly, Potter’s nasty little gossiping ways had come as a shock to Terry’s system. Poor sweet Terry, he was so trusting.
Terry’s fingers were slow and careful in his hair. He paused for so long that Draco looked up at him again, and saw Terry’s shadowed face. His eyes were wide and filled with wonder.
“I had no idea that you’d ever,” Terry murmured, and the enormity of Terry’s mistake made Draco’s mind spin out of control.
He had no words, just panic and a frantic urge to tell Terry that this was all Potter’s fault, so if Terry could just go and shove this incredibly awkward situation onto Potter, that would be great. Only Terry did not move, he just stood there and looked down at Draco with that wondering tenderness, and Draco tried not to actually have hysterics.
Terry leaned down and the light went dim, blocked out by his anxious face. His lips met Draco’s, dry and careful, brushing them, and Draco urgently needed to borrow Anthony’s amulet because breathing was too difficult for him to manage on his own.
Then Terry straightened back up, still looking at Draco, and smiled a shy crooked smile that usually made Draco go through anthologies for hours until they had whatever notes Terry wanted.
“So,” Terry said softly. “Wangoballwime?”
Draco laughed a little, and the huff of amused breath made breathing come back to him, and with it some desperate way of processing that could pass for now as logical thought. Because Terry was staring at him, wide-eyed and hoping and wondering, and Draco needed answers now.
His head was filling with answers, just not the right ones. He thought he knew the answer to why Terry never dated anyone, why Terry and Smith were no longer, ahem, study partners, why Terry acted weird sometimes. He had all these answers, and he still didn’t have the faintest idea what to do.
Only if he did not do something soon, Terry would snatch his hand away from Draco’s hair and he would be hurt and Draco would feel awful and irritable and right now he felt more panic at the thought of losing Terry than anything else.
It hadn’t been. There had been no instant recoil, with Smith or with Terry, only surprise and confusion, and looking at Terry’s face, Draco considered for a spiky, uncertain moment what it might feel like if he was neither surprised nor confused, but giving this new idea a chance.
He didn’t come to a decision, because Terry’s face changed subtly and he began to pull away and Draco panicked harder and said, “Wait, wait—” and grasped Terry’s thin wrist in one hand, stood halfway up and took Terry’s face in the other, and brought Terry’s mouth to his.
Terry breathed out, a ragged nervous sound, and his lips parted under Draco’s. The kiss went deeper, more deliberate, as Draco tried to put what he knew about kissing together with this, with Terry’s flat chest hitching nervously against his, his shoulder sharp and pressed against Draco’s, almost hurting, rougher than Draco was used to but still very slow and very tentative, since this was Terry.
This was… not bad.
Draco let go of Terry’s wrist, and put his hand on Terry’s side instead, feeling the rise and fall of his ribs, testing the idea that this could be—what it was becoming, and for once the voice in his head screaming this will be a terrible disaster when he acted on impulse was not swiftly being proven right, for once balance was restored to the universe, or a new balance was achieved. The kiss went deeper, and deeper, and Draco pushed Terry backwards until Terry’s back hit the bedpost.
Terry’s bed, that comfortable familiar place, and how strange that it too suddenly seemed like an exciting new idea.
Draco’s wand, lying fallen on the desk, was their only source of light, and the blue bedclothes looked black with Terry lying on them. His shirt had ended up crumpled and discarded on the pillows, and Draco tried to work out what you did with a boy under you, and settled for stroking the skin of Terry’s quivering stomach, following the dark, wiry line of hair until it stopped and left his fingers on the waist of Terry’s trousers.
Terry shuddered and looked at Draco. “Draco,” he said, sounding awed. “What do you like?”
For another sharp moment of panic Draco wanted to shout that he didn’t know, he had no idea what he was doing, wasn’t that obvious, and then he looked at Terry’s concerned, concentrating face and felt the panic which had kept rising as he kept thinking ‘what are you doing? Why are you doing this?‘ recede because he had an answer, now.
He ran his hand deliberately down Terry’s stomach again and murmured, “I like you.”
The next morning he was putting on his shirt, not quite sure what to say to Terry, when Anthony opened the curtains and then fumbled for his demon amulet.
“Good Lord, Draco, are you doing the rounds?” he demanded.
“No,” Draco said. “No, I’m done,” and he looked at Terry, and saw that Terry mostly looked uncertain of Draco’s reaction, and not anything else.
Which meant—well, damn Zacharias Smith for making Terry look like that anyway, and Draco reached out and took Terry’s hand, lacing the fingers bossily with his own. Terry’s palm was damp and his crooked smile was back.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Oh for heaven’s sake don’t argue with me, Terry Boot, you know that gives me a migraine,” Draco commanded, still feeling a little shaken and unsure and so making his voice as autocratic as possible.
“Okay,” Terry said, smiling and still looking awed, which Draco found hard to believe even when he was looking at it, because privately he knew he was nothing awe-inspiring.
He was able to pull Terry off the bed using the hand he already had possession of, though, and once Terry was beside him Terry pulled him in, and rested a tentative cheek against his. Draco closed his eyes, and thought that if someone who knew him as well as Terry did still wanted to… this, then somehow everything would be all right.
“Actually this may be no bad thing,” Anthony said thoughtfully. “My mum said that the environment of boarding schools is a homoerotic one. Two in one dormitory, that means the rest of us are safe, right?”
“Shut up, Goldstein,” Draco said against Terry’s hair.
“I’m speaking statistically,” Anthony said, sounding injured.
The news that Draco Malfoy was going out with Terry Boot was, to Draco’s sheer outrage, accepted with a collective sigh of relief by Hogwarts, who had apparently decided Draco was some kind of insatiable predator who, unless provided with a suitable sex toy, was liable to make sudden leaps. Draco suspected Hogwarts was addicted to drama, it had basilisks and tournaments and stupid Potter, his classmates simply were not going to get het up about homosexuality unless people had the decency to spice it up with crazy fictional Hufflepuff assaults.
“The other stuff about Smith still isn’t true,” Draco informed Hermione grouchily.
She smiled and dipped her quill in ink. “I’m very pleased, Draco,” she said. “I think Terry is a much better choice than Zacharias Smith.”
Draco was struck by something. “You don’t sound awfully surprised,” he noted with dark suspicion.
Hermione looked smug and dropped a single word as neatly as she would have closed a book. “No.”
“So you suspected I—how do you know everything, Hermione? How do you always know everything? Why do you study with me if you’re an all-knowing super being?”
Hermione patted his arm. “I like the company.”
Never let it be said that Draco wasn’t easily won by compliments. “Well, I suppose I come as a welcome relief to the rest of your friends.”
“Don’t start on Harry now, Draco,” Hermione said in a pained sort of way. “We have a lot of work to get done tonight.”
Draco spared her on the topic of her perfect little friend’s inability to keep his trap shut, but only because it was OWLs year. Otherwise his wrath would have overflowed, it was a testament of his devotion to his studies that he contained it and contented himself with being relentlessly horrible to Potter in person, he deserved a prize.
He got one that night when he came back from the library, and found Terry standing about looking shy, and it was so much easier than Draco would ever have thought to slide a hand inside his shirt, curl it around his neck and kiss him into a smile.
The next day Draco had to face Crabbe and Goyle, and in the midst of a horrifically convoluted sentence about the less lying lies that lying Hufflepuffs lied about, Crabbe put a kindly hand on Draco’s shoulder and said: “It’s okay. Hermione already told us.”
Draco almost collapsed with relief.
“She gave us a pamphlet and told us to study it carefully,” Goyle said, beaming proudly. “And we are here to tell you—” he fished around in his pocket and produced a crumpled pamphlet, and began to read out loud laboriously—“that we fully support you in what must doubtless be a trying time for you. We only want your happiness and of course an assurance that you and your life partner are engaging in safe—”
“Stop! Stop and never speak again!” Draco commanded.
“Okay,” Goyle said amiably. “I like Boot, though. Good choice.”
“Would somebody please act a little bit surprised? Just for me?” Draco implored, wringing his hands tragically and dramatically.
“I’m a little surprised about you,” Crabbe allowed, because Crabbe was the kind one. “But everyone’s known about Boot for years and years. He told us at the Yule Ball when we asked him if the Ravenclaw girls all said no to him.”
“You knew? Why did nobody tell me?”
“We thought you knew! Everybody else knew,” Goyle informed him. “Really, Draco, you might learn to be a bit more sensitive. Especially given your valid and special lifestyle choice.”
That nightmarish conversation aside, and Draco woke up at night with visions of Goyle chasing after him yelling ‘Talk to us about your feelings!’, things were easier than he would ever have dreamed. If he’d dreamed of things like this, and there seemed no good reason not to’ve, now.
“I’m still never going to DA meetings again,” he informed Terry, two weeks in and able to read in great comfort with his head on Terry’s stomach.
“Okay,” Terry said amiably.
Draco hoped for a shining moment that he could brainwash Terry with sex into agreeing with everything Draco said, and thus finally have an ally in his great Blackmail Flitwick Into Giving Us the Exam Tips We Deserve scheme, but then Terry went on, sweet and reasonable and crushing Draco’s dreams.
“Only I’m sure Potter was just taken-aback, he’s not too bad, really—”
“Silence, blasphemer,” Draco grumbled, seizing Terry’s worn jumper in his hands and fluffing it about as if it was a pillow beneath his head, as a pleasant alternative to listening to the Potter babble.
“Even Zacharias—I don’t think he would have been such a prat about it if it hadn’t been Potter,” Terry said thoughtfully. “He’s always had some sort of resentful hero worship thing going on there, and until this year Potter probably didn’t know his name, and—”
“Potter doesn’t know anyone’s name,” Draco mumbled, turning into the soft jumper and rubbing the material against his cheek. Then he actually got Terry’s drift and squawked his indignation. “No, wait, what are you saying to me? Smith fancies Potter? Smith fancies Potter?”
“Er,” Terry said meekly. “I think so, yes.”
“And what am I,” Draco demanded, full of righteous outrage, “chopped liver? Chopped liver that gets, that gets pounced on because Smith is so hot and bothered after spending an hour in Potter’s autocratically unkempt presence anyone will do?”
“Sorry, Draco,” Terry said, fighting a smile. “Did you think you were irresistible to all men?”
“Of course not,” muttered Draco, who had been rather hoping this was the case.
“Think of it from poor Zacharias’ point of view,” suggested Terry, who was far too sympathetic for his own good. “There he is, so ashamed of it, with his hopeless crush, and then who out of the whole school has to walk in and catch him at it?”
Quite frankly, Draco did not care about Smith’s pain, especially since apparently Draco’s first homosexual experience had been more about Potter than it had about Draco, and given that and the fact Potter was seeing Draco’s ex-girlfriend, well, Anthony’s mum had said boarding school could be an incestuous environment too but this was getting a bit ridiculous.
Not that Draco wanted Smith, the molesting Terry-hurting liar, but it was a little much that Potter had beaten him at something again, and this time Potter definitely hadn’t even been trying.
“He’s an idiot, anyway,” Draco grumbled rebelliously, twining Terry’s fingers with his own. “If he likes Potter, why isn’t he nice to him? I call it weird. Weird and creepy. Stupid Smith,” he went on, his voice dipping lower. “Hate hate hate.”
“I—” said Terry, his breath catching as Draco nuzzled his face into Terry’s stomach again. “At least he didn’t use you for your looks.”
Draco slid his face to the strip of skin where Terry’s jumper and trousers didn’t quite meet, and let his teeth graze the curve of Terry’s hip.
His voice came out even lower, soft against his skin. “I have no real problem with being used for my looks.”
“Well, that’s not what I meant,” Terry said, his Arithmancy book sliding out of his hand as he grasped the sheets instead. “I meant—well, I think that’s why Zacharias liked me, last year. Because I’m dark and skinny and I wear glasses and—I suppose I have a superficial resemblance to Potter—”
Draco bit down on his hip, and then abruptly sat up, leaned over and held Terry’s shoulders back against the bed, hovering over him, mouth an inch away from his.
“Hush,” he said firmly. “I will not have anyone saying such atrocious things about my boyfriend.”
Terry smiled. They were good together, still friends but more, and life was good again, with Terry, and Umbridge threatening to chuck Hagrid out of school and Draco taking every opportunity to rub this into Potter’s tattling face, and no D.A., and more Terry. When Valentine’s Day rolled around all the Ravenclaws went down to Hogsmeade as a group, and Terry looked hopeful and so Draco held his hand. Corner looked like he was going to object until Ginny pushed him in the head a couple of times.
“I don’t see why you have to keep hurting me,” Corner hissed.
Ginny smiled. “I do it out of love, Michael. Out of love.”
Rain poured down on Hogwarts that Valentine’s Day, leaving Draco soaked and cold and trying to climb bodily inside Terry’s clothing and leech warmth from his skin. They all prowled around testing the new Hot Sauce Gobstoppers, and found they did make you warmer but they unfortunately didn’t make you any drier. Draco insisted to Terry that this was simply because they weren’t eating enough at once.
“Moderation is as bad as a famine!” he shouted, with the water sluicing down his glasses and one arm around Terry’s shoulders, one hand under Terry’s sodden jumper, and then put five Gobstoppers in his mouth.
He was laughing with his mouth full when they passed Madam Puddifoot’s and saw Potter and Cho on the doorstep, bodies stiff with anger and not touching at any point.
“—can’t believe you want to go see Hermione Granger on our first date!”
Cho’s face looked pinched with fury and Potter looked wretched and uncomfortable, his hair laden with soggy pink confetti. Both their eyes followed the Ravenclaws and Ginny as they went past, and Draco rubbed his nose companionably against Terry’s rain-slick cheek, and realised in a startled sort of way that he had by far the better deal.
“I am really pleased you’re getting laid again, Malfoy, it makes you so much less bitter and snarly,” was Padma’s frankly vulgar and shocking verdict on one Friday night.
Padma was Draco’s least favourite Ravenclaw girl, she did nothing but swan around on the arms of Weasleys at balls, and have the bad taste to have an actual twin in Gryffindor. Draco disapproved of twins.
“Don’t scowl at me like that, you know we need peace and quiet for our OWLs,” Padma went on, and as Draco began to pack books for the library, he’d known trying to study in the common room was stupid, she said very quietly: “We miss you a bit at the DA. You haven’t been to a meeting in over a month.”
“Well, I’m not going to go to horrible Potter’s horrible fanclub when he can’t even keep his mouth shut about my love life, am I?” Draco snarled, shouldering his bag.
Before he made his getaway, Padma said casually: “Was it Potter who started all those rumours about you, then? Funny. I thought it was Smith.”
Her little comment rankled unsettlingly all the way to the library, bouncing around his head like a roll of parchment not filed away in his bag’s class compartments. By the time he was in the library, he was in enough of a state to dump his bag on top of Hermione’s notes.
Hermione went from Arithmancy absorption to Arithmancy outrage in a terrifying instant. “Draco, you know better than to do that!”
“Did Potter tell you about Smith kissing me?” he asked in a loud voice. Madam Pince’s head went up like a bloodhound catching a scent, and Hermione pulled him hastily into a chair.
“Hush, Draco, for heaven’s sake! What are you saying about Harry now—did he know about Zacharias kissing you?”
“He saw us!”
“Well,” said Hermione, breathing hard out of her nose. “Well, since he’s supposed to be one of my best friends and you’re supposed to be one of my best friends, you wouldn’t think I’d have to hear it from Parvati Patil, now would you? Honestly, he could have told me—”
“Oh God,” Draco exclaimed, and fell forward on the table in an attitude of despair.
Well, that was bloody perfect, now wasn’t it? He’d gone and misjudged Potter, and one of the great prides of his life was that Draco always saw Potter with perfect clarity for what he was, unlike the rest of the school. Potter might have seen and judged Draco in a split second, but Draco paid attention and collected evidence about what a prat Potter was, and thus was always right and entirely justified in anything he did.
If he’d known that Potter had forborn from even telling Hermione, he might not have done that impression of Oafy starving to death in the Forbidden Forest once Umbridge chucked him. Wait, no, who was he kidding, that had been a masterpiece, he could never have deprived the world of such hilarity. He might have done it with less malice, though.
“Is that why you wouldn’t come to DA meetings? Draco, I think you owe Harry an apology!”
Draco writhed in torment. “I won’t, I won’t! You can’t make me!”
Hermione looked very stern. “The DA means a lot to me, Draco. If you’d told me the real reason you weren’t coming, I would have sorted everything out.”
Draco opened his mouth to tell her all the reasons why the DA was a horrible little vigilante group and Potter an imbecilic future dictator with a swelled head so bad it probably explained his hair, and then shut his mouth.
“I’ll sort everything out,” he said at last. “DA meeting Saturday night. We can all…” he forcibly reminded himself that it had been quite nice of Potter not to tell, and utterly loathsome of Smith to do so. “Celebrate Gryffindor beating Hufflepuff at Quidditch,” he said finally through his teeth.
Hermione looked very proud of him. Draco resisted the urge to go and wash his mouth out.
Gryffindor did beat Hufflepuff, though not spectacularly. Weasley continued to be frightful at Keeping, which provided Draco with endless amusement, and Potter only just scraped a win by grabbing the Snitch when it appeared for an instant at Kirke’s ankle.
Marvellous, Potter had saved the day again, and now Draco had to arrive with a peace offering. Oh, it made him want to die.
He had promised Hermione, though, and he would try to be civil. He put on Muggle clothes as a sort of flag of truce, though stealing Anthony’s jeans and ‘EXCUSED FROM LIFE’ shirt would probably lead to war, breathed out hard through his nose and made a point of entering at a stage in the proceedings late enough to make an entrance, and early enough to be polite. Since that seemed to be his dark fate.
Everyone turned when Draco came in, except Potter who for reasons Draco assumed were connected with his dark fate, was already looking at the door. Everyone put on very, very false expressions of surprise, and Draco glared accusingly at Terry and Hermione, who began a guilty conversation about flow charts.
“Malfoy,” said Potter. “Been a long time.”
Retorts rushed to Draco’s lips and begged to be let out. I’d get my mother to write you a note but you’re not a real teacher, Draco thought urgently. Potter, it hasn’t been half long enough.
“I’m sure you missed me,” Draco said, using the minimum amount of sarcasm he felt necessary to support life. “And since this place has obviously been cold and bleak without my presence, I thought I’d bring a room-warming gift.”
He produced same from under his cloak. This was part of the plan he hadn’t told Hermione.
“Firewhisky?” Weasley said. “Excellent!” He paused. “You didn’t… poison it, did you?” he asked suspiciously.
Draco waggled the bottle and smirked. “Only one way to find out.”
“Sorry, you brought alcohol to a place where we’re all meant to be learning constant vigilance?” Potter asked.
Draco’s mouth opened in soundless indignation and Potter suddenly looked alarmed.
“Um. Malfoy,” he said, in a quieter sort of way. “I was teasing you.”
Draco raised an eyebrow, but refrained in the interests of peace from a glasses look. “Let you in on a little secret, Potter. You’re not very good at it,” he said, sitting down—not next to Potter or anything revolting like that, but not as ostentatiously far away as usual.
“I’ll make sure to practise,” Potter said dryly.
Draco half-smiled and unscrewed the bottle cap on the Firewhisky. “Now,” he said. “Who wants some?”
Weasleys could not hold their drink. Draco was deeply, deeply unsurprised.
He noted smugly as Ginny Weasley did a slinky dance and Corner looked like the happiest man in the world, that Malfoys handled their drink quite well. He had a bit more practise than the Gryffindors, of course. He was just a little buzzed, the world slightly soft-focus and glowy. This really was an excellent room, not only because of its hilarious alternate name, but because it really did give you what you required.
Music had started about halfway through the bottle, and when it ran alarmingly dry the cabinet appeared and when Draco opened it he found a dazzling array of bottles stretching far inside. And a stepladder.
He rested his hand affectionately on the wooden inside of the wardrobe, and wondered if he dared risk the stepladder. Its edges looked comforting and glowy as well, but something in Draco’s brain felt this might not be a good thing.
“Hermione says not to bring out the absinthe,” Potter said, stepping hesitantly inside. “Also, um, I don’t think you should try getting up on that stepladder.”
“You are not the boss of me,” Draco informed him, and then remembered he was being civil. “But you could be right,” he said, giving the stepladder another look. It waved at him. He did not trust it.
Potter cleared his throat. “Hermione told me,” he said abruptly. “That you thought I’d told, but. I didn’t tell anyone.”
Draco studied the bottles before him. It was a really awe-inspiring selection: he didn’t think he could choose. “No,” he said absently. “I should’ve known better. It wasn’t really your style, but how was I supposed to know Smith would try to convince the whole school rather than look bad in front of you?”
Potter blinked. “I’m sure that’s not what it was about. I hardly know Smith.”
That was Potter for you: so self-absorbed he didn’t notice half the attention poured all over him. Lucky for him there was so much of it, Draco thought, shaking his head and smirking to himself. Oblivious git. Draco supposed he could thank heaven for the small mercy that Potter wasn’t vain as well as arrogant.
“You’re not missing out on anything.”
“No, I didn’t think so,” Potter said. He paused for a moment, and then coughed. “The rumours said that you started it. It—didn’t look that way to me.”
While an eyewitness report would have been more useful in January, Draco was still pleased: at last, someone who acknowledged that Smith had succumbed to Draco’s charms and pounced all on his own.
“Wasn’t that way. Smith leaped at me from out of nowhere, it—don’t laugh, Potter—it gave me a nasty shock.”
Potter of course should not have laughed at Draco’s traumatic experience, but Draco was gratified to see that his Face of Leap was just as hilarious as he’d thought it was and Anthony had claimed it wasn’t.
Laugh fading on his lips, Potter glanced at Draco and pushed his glasses further up his nose. “But you are, ah. I mean. With Terry Boot.”
“Yes, I am ah, with Terry Boot,” Draco said, mimicking Potter’s inflection and wondering if Potter was a dreadful secret homophobe. “I wasn’t ah then. I’d never even thought about ah then.”
“But you seem fine with it now,” Potter said. “I mean, not that I was—”
There was trifle-flavoured rum on the shelf. Draco marvelled at that and also at the total incoherence of Harry Potter.
He frowned. “What did you expect me to be? Ashamed of him? He’s mine. I don’t let down people who’re—people who I—” He shook his head and reached out for the apricot brandy. Apricots were a pretty colour.
“People like Terry and Anthony and Crabbe and Goyle,” Potter said.
Alcohol was nice, Draco thought. It made the hard edges of everything go away, it even made Potter seem like he wasn’t judging you every minute, taking the sharpness from his voice to leave it soft and rough.
He smiled. “Yes. Look at you, Potter, you know all their names. Why’s that?”
“Because they’re your friends,” Potter answered.
“Oh,” Draco said uncertainly. Possibly his campaign of terror had worked too well and he had made his loved ones targets for Potter’s righteous wrath. “What d’you think of vodka?”
“What’s it like?” Potter demanded.
“Well, it’s a clear sort of alcohol, burns a bit when it goes down, not much taste, we could mix it with pumpkin juice—”
“No, I mean—ah—”
Potter looked red and desperately uncomfortable, his hair practically standing up in clumps in agitation, and suddenly everything became very clear to Draco. Poor little Potter, his saviour complex had impelled him to have a supportive chat with the member of an oppressed minority group. If only he’d picked Terry, Terry would have been so much better at this, while Draco was desperately fighting off the urge to suggest Potter try it with Smith and watch him swoon with heterosexual horror.
He said lightly, “Come on, Potter. Things can’t be going that badly with Cho.”
Potter shoved his hands so suddenly into his pockets that Draco thought he was angry, but when he glanced at Potter’s face the corner of Potter’s mouth came up.
“Care to put money on that?”
Draco thought back to Potter looking like a socially awkward robot in the rain. “No,” he said at last. “That’s all right. Ah is all right too, by the way,” he said, humouring Potter’s apparent desire to comfort poor deviant folk such as himself. “Going very nicely. Thank you for the inquiry.”
Saint Potter, supporter of house elves and homosexuals and small children who really wanted his autograph everywhere. Draco smiled and tucked a bottle of vermouth into his pocket and thought he might be done here, but stopped for a minute. The civility hadn’t been quite as painful as expected, though that was probably because of the alcohol and the dim light in the cabinet, which let Draco pretend that this wasn’t Potter, or at least that they weren’t what they were to each other in the clear light of day—a thing of torment and a chore forever.
“So you don’t—miss anything about girls?” Potter asked quickly, and Draco couldn’t go before he answered the question, but he looked back at the shelves rather than look at Potter.
“I mostly miss talking about Quidditch.”
Because alcohol was so nice, and made everything in the world nice too, he thought he would take just one more bottle. This turned out to be a mistake when he reached up for it and almost overbalanced.
Potter caught his elbow at once, steadying him, his grip surprisingly strong around Draco’s arm.
“I,” said Potter. “You’re drunk, aren’t you?”
“Certainly not,” Draco replied with hauteur. “Ravenclaws never get drunk. Ravenclaws become inebriated.”
Potter laughed, a low sound against Draco’s ear which reminded Draco rather forcibly that Potter had not stepped back and that Muggle clothing was upsetting because it exposed things like elbows and you ended up having all kinds of weird skin contact with the oddest people.
“Are you drunk?” Draco asked, with a measure of self-preservation.
“No, I haven’t touched the stuff,” Potter said, his voice going darker now as well as lower. Draco looked at him and he looked angry: he said slowly, “I’m not keen on not being in control of my own mind—especially lately.”
Whatever was making Potter look so homicidally upset, Draco wanted no part of it, but what with this being a cabinet and Potter still holding onto his elbow, there was nowhere to go.
“I do not have the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” he said, very sharply, because it seemed like a clever idea to be aggressive with the insane boy. He turned away from the bottles and glared: Potter blinked, his face too close for Draco actually to tell whether he looked murderous and enraged.
“Course you don’t,” Potter said roughly. “Look, d’you remember last year and the truce in the library?”
“Yes,” Draco answered, and then hurriedly and in a much more normal voice: “It wasn’t a truce, it was me talking to you because you were annoying every hour at five minutes to and ten minutes to on Friday—”
“Because I’m especially annoying on Fridays. I remember,” Potter told him. “I want—I think we should have another truce, for—for the good of the DA and everything. Because—it’s important and—Crabbe’s really getting better at jinxes and—”
“I don’t know, Potter,” Draco said, a bit wildly. “Are we going to have any DA meetings on a Friday?”
Possibly he was consenting to something without his consent, because Potter looked triumphant for a moment and Draco wasn’t sure what he was even triumphant about.
“Not if you don’t want to.”
“Draco, are you trying to get all the drink out of that cabinet?” asked Anthony, opening the door wider. Draco blinked in the light and Potter, not before time, snatched his hand away from Draco’s arm. “I—oh, hi, Harry. Draco, you don’t want to miss this, Ginny Weasley has her top off!”
“No!” Draco said. “Really? Excellent!”
He leaned over to where Anthony stood, both for comforting Ravenclawyness and to get a proper look at Ginny. She was in a bra and singing a song about how her cauldron was full of hot, strong love.
Anthony and Draco gave consideration to this sight. As a Ravenclaw, Draco felt bound to analyse it thoroughly.
“Where’s Ron? And I thought you were gay!” exclaimed Potter, who could apparently say the word after all and was pink to the tips of his ears.
“I’m equal opportunities,” Draco said happily, the alcohol still making him feel at peace with all the world. “If any boys want to take off their tops, I’ll be very interested to see that.”
“Interesting you should say that,” Anthony remarked, and threw back the cabinet door all the way.
Ron Weasley, who should never be permitted around Firewhisky again, had his top off and was twirling it around his obscenely red head.
“OH I MAY NOT BE A WHIZ ON THE QUIDDITCH PITCH,” he sang at the top of his lungs, “BUT I’M CHASED OVER TOWN BY EVERY WITCH—”
“Oh my God, I take it all back, so many freckles, I can’t think,” Draco murmured in delirious horror. “Someone make him put them away.”
“WHO KNOWS THAT I’M A LEGEND IN THE CHANGING ROOM,” Weasley bellowed. “BECAUSE BABY I’VE GOT AN ENORMOUS BR—”
“Ron!” Hermione shrieked commandingly. “What would your mother say?”
“I should go help,” muttered Potter, though whether he meant stop Weasley or stop Hermione from killing Weasley was unclear. He brushed by Draco as he went out.
Draco began to share the apricot brandy with Anthony, who giggled at him and said: “Mum would so not approve.”
People were dancing, though aside from the Weasleys they were doing so while decently clad. Hermione and Potter were wrestling Weasley’s top back on, to Draco’s immense and abject relief.
The Sociopath Twins, typically, were shouting: “Shame!” and “Take it off again, Ron, baby!”
It was a good party, Draco thought with immense blurry self-satisfaction, and then saw Zacharias Smith, recently beaten at Quidditch, lurking about the outskirts of the party like a hungry hyena. Draco saw the way he was glancing sidelong at Potter, and felt a sudden pang of fellow feeling. He knew what it was like to be ignored and furious, after all.
It didn’t mean he would betray one of his friends, though.
When Hermione was done wrestling Ron into submission—which Draco was privately and horrifyingly convinced she enjoyed on some unspeakable level—Draco went up to her and slid his arms around her waist, felt the crisp cloth of her blouse against his arms and the press of her bushy hair. Alcohol was nice, he wished she would have some.
“Come on, dance with me.”
“You’re behaving appallingly,” she said in her prim tones. “I cannot believe there are drunken prefects about me, this is all your fault.”
“I know how you hate breaking the rules.”
Hermione faltered and then smiled, because she hadn’t been friends with Draco for years without learning someone was going to call her on everything, and she might as well relax about it.
“I’ll dance with you,” she said at last.
“Course you will,” Draco said comfortably. “You’re my girl, aren’t you?”
She put her arms around his neck and they were comfortable together, with nothing confusing going on about this, not like there sometimes was with Terry now, with all this new boundary-shifting and second-guessing.
“Only if you’ll be good,” Hermione said, and Draco was possessed with a sudden fear that she meant it. He held on hard to her stupid blouse through the dance, and tried not to think about choices.
Several rounds of apricot brandy later, Anthony stole his glasses and pranced about the place like a demented house elf, cackling and saying he couldn’t wait to tell his mother that he was the cleverest of them all. Draco felt that though the alcohol prize went to the Weasleys, the Ravenclaws were not covering themselves with glory tonight.
He caught Terry as he went by, fingers light but moving with intent inside his shirt and up his collarbone, and then just before he pulled Terry into him he had a horrible, terrible moment of doubt. Because Anthony had taken his glasses and Draco was very—inebriated, and all he could see against the light was dark hair and glasses.
He hesitated and was amazingly relieved when Terry let out his familiar and dear nervous laugh. “Where’ve you been all night? Looking for someone else?”
He brought Terry into focus, always-worried hazel eyes and Draco’s fingers slipping into curly hair.
“No,” he murmured. “I’ve got the right one,” and when Terry sat down rather abruptly Draco crawled into his lap.
He woke up the next morning tangled with Terry and the sheets, a monster trying to break free from the fragile eggshell of his skull. Anthony was moaning from the next bed for them to get his mother and tell her he wanted to die.
“I am an unspeakable thing,” Draco said, burying his face against Terry’s narrow chest.
“No, no,” Terry said soothingly. “You gave it a good school try, but I didn’t let you commit public indecencies on a chair. It’s all right.”
“It’s not,” Draco declared. “It never will be. I was polite to Potter. We had a whole conversation.”
“Uh—there, there?”
“I think,” Draco opined darkly, “that he’s trying to recruit me for the side of light. I will never drink again.”
“Er,” quavered Ginny from behind the curtains of Corner’s bed. “Er. Has anyone seen my top? Recently?”
Corner seemed to be in an alcoholic coma, so they found Ginny one of Terry’s jumpers and Draco put on yesterday’s Muggle clothes and volunteered to walk her to her own tower because he had been raised correctly and he wanted to see Weasley’s face.
Unfortunately, once they were there Weasley was too busy yelping in distress at Hermione and Potter to notice Ginny at all. “Why do you keep smiling, Harry? What did I do? What happened last night?”
Ginny escaped thankfully up the stairs and Draco made his way out of the Gryffindor common room, feeling duty bound to say over his shoulder: “Weasley, baby, you know how to shake it.”
Weasley went pale. “Shake—shake what? What? Why will no-one tell me?”
“You wild thing,” Draco added with cheerful cruelty.
Potter looked up, caught his eye and raised his hand in an awkward sort of greeting, as if not being hostile used up all of his pitifully few social graces. Draco removed his hand from his neck, feeling his rather self-conscious attempt to conceal a love bite was doomed to failure anyway, and waved back a tiny bit. Potter’s mouth quirked and, deeply nonplussed, Draco smiled too.
Going back up to bed and Terry, he caught sight of himself in a mirror and stopped in mild horror. His hair was not, as he’d fondly hoped, rakishly dishevelled, his Muggle clothes looked silly with his Ravenclaw scarf and his glasses were smudgy. He had a sudden feeling, as if Father was looking over his shoulder, that this was not how he’d meant to end up.
He smiled and looked over his glasses at his reflection, and felt like he might not care.
Until Monday came, and with it the March Quibbler in which Harry Potter named his father and Crabbe’s father and Goyle’s father as Death Eaters.
Draco read it and shook with fury, while the whole table was buzzing with excitement that slowly, as they looked at him, began to die down. Terry touched his arm but when Draco got up and went over to Crabbe and Goyle, he didn’t try to stop him.
Crabbe and Goyle met his eyes with grim understanding, and all he could think of was that he and Father had been better recently, that Father was a politician and had worked for years doing damage control, claiming Imperius, he told Draco he’d never reach the position he deserved because of people’s prejudices. What was this going to do to him? Why should some stupid boy be allowed to wreck his father’s reputation?
He saw Potter and Hermione laughing about it in the library and saw a very intense shade of red.
“The best bit,” Hermione began gleefully, but he never heard what the best bit was because he strode up to their desk and threw the stupid Quibbler in Potter’s stupid, startled face.
“You can take this rag and choke on it,” he snarled. “If it doesn’t kill you, try choking on your stupid DA. You don’t think any of us will be back after you badmouthed our fathers, do you?”
Potter went white and stormy looking. “It doesn’t matter to you that it’s the truth, then?”
It had been the truth when Potter had run around the school spouting it and Dumbledore had supported him: everyone had known what he thought and made up their own minds. Truth didn’t need dramatic airings in newspapers, especially not when it was about Father, especially not when it could wreck his career.
“Oh, we’ve only got your word for that,” Draco spat. “It didn’t occur to you that my father is a politician and relies on his reputation, did it?”
“No, but I can’t say it would have stopped me,” Potter sneered. “He’s no great loss to a system of truth and justice. He’s no great loss to anyone.”
“He’s my father!” Draco said. “And none of the people you’ve slandered will have any choice now but to—to—”
“You don’t honestly believe he hasn’t made his choice already!” Potter shouted, standing up. “What about you, Malfoy? Why don’t you pick a side?”
Draco stepped up to him, close as the desk between them would allow, and shoved him backwards.
“Fine,” he said coldly. “Any side but yours.”