Harry hated it. Every torturous minute of it. He hated parading in front of the wide-eyed crowd like a prize horse, his fellow students turned to strangers by colorful dresses and frilly cravats. And the dancing! He hated Parvati’s fingers clasped around his clammy hand, her disapproving stare on his overheated face, her long dress getting under his feet as if it had a mind of its own. He hated being in the midst of the other Champions, the true Champions, all so much taller and more dignified and mature than him, the impostor. He hated how Cho blushed and simpered on Cedric’s arm. He hated the stilted classical music that started the evening, and he hated the stupid wizarding band even more, because everyone but him knew their songs. He hated being left alone with Ron when the Patil twins finally abandoned them, and hated Ron for trailing out after Hermione without bothering to drag Harry along.
But above all, he hated the sight of Draco Malfoy having the time of his life.
Malfoy had looked funny at first, with his stiff-collared dress robes and his hair, which was now long enough to cover his ears, slicked back and rigid like a pale gold helmet. But then he started spinning Pansy Parkinson across the dance floor. His confidence was unrivaled even by the seventh-year students, the Durmstrang and the Beauxbatons guests, or any of the professors, except maybe Dumbledore. Everyone stared. Unlike Harry in this as in everything else, Malfoy relished the attention. His signature sneer gave way to a smile that looked better on his pointy face than it had any right to, and his bright eyes sparkled like crystals turned to the light.
Harry couldn’t pry his gaze away. He hoped, once the music had changed, Malfoy would step down. Find a place to sit and hold court, perhaps, or go around making fun of everyone’s clothes, with butterbeer he’d sip from a tall flute, his little finger sticking out like Aunt Petunia’s when she brought out the fine china for the guests.
Instead, Malfoy got rid of his dress robes, revealing a handsome silvery-blue waistcoat. He got rid of his cravat too, undid the top two buttons of his shirt, and went on dancing, the git. Harry watched him with a dry throat and a school of eels writhing in his stomach. It was awful. Malfoy jumped up and down, threw his long arms out and over his head, snapped his hips suggestively and spun in dizzying circles, free and fearless. Soon, his hair hung in whips around his face, sweat-dark and annoyingly attractive.
To make things even worse, he didn’t seem to care who he was dancing with. Pansy drifted to and away from him, while an array of other girls, some fifth-years even, took their turn with Malfoy. Daphne Greengrass, Luna Lovegood, Morag McDougal, and at one point, to Harry’s despair, Cho. But that wasn’t half of it. Malfoy had no qualms against dancing with boys, either. Theo Nott remained in his orbit throughout the evening, not too bad of a dancer himself, sometimes joining the girls Malfoy danced with from behind, in a sort of loose sandwich that seemed to be a lot of fun for those involved and excruciating for everyone else. Zacharias Smith earned himself a spin under Malfoy’s arm by bringing him a drink. And when Terry Boot, the only boy in their cohort taller than Malfoy aside from Goyle, laid his large hands on Malfoy’s shoulders from behind, Malfoy let his head lean back and rest on Terry’s chest for a minute of swaying. Harry wanted to retch.
The torture didn’t stop till the band stepped down and Malfoy left the dancing floor. It was half past eleven. The crowd had thinned out a bit, but the music blared on as loudly as before and most of the people kept on dancing. Perhaps they’d be allowed to carry on past midnight. Not that Harry would stick around long enough to find out. Ron had left fifteen minutes ago. He wasn’t coming back.
Harry stood up and stretched, giving the room one last lookover, when something stabbed him between the eyebrows, a blur of white and the burn of a cut.
“Ow,” he protested, rubbing his forehead. Between his feet lay a paper crane, twitching in its death throes, long neck broken by the impact.
Harry picked it up, then looked around for the perpetrator. No one’s eyes were on him, no one’s fingers pointing, no one’s hands waving, no one’s mouth sneering. Everyone seemed occupied. Malfoy was nowhere to be seen. Crabbe was busy making rounds of the snack tables and eating everything that wasn’t nailed down, and Goyle followed Marcus Flint around, hanging attentively at the margins of the Slytherin upperclassmen circle like a well-trained hound.
With a huff, Harry unfolded the note.
“Start walking,” it said in neat block letters Harry didn’t recognize as the handwriting of anyone he knew. “I’ll show you the way.”
There was nothing else.
Harry turned in a circle once more. Cedric seemed engaged in some sort of butterbeer drinking contest with a small pack of Durmstrang boys, attracting a ring of spectators. Hope flickered in Harry’s heart. Cho wasn’t among them. Maybe she had sent the crane?
As Harry stepped towards the door, the note warmed up, turned a peachy pink, and the text changed to: “Warm.”
He snorted. It was a hot-cold charm Fred and George sold for a knut apiece. “Alright,” he muttered. “I’ll play.” It wasn’t like he had anything better to do anyway.
Once out in the Entrance Hall, he first started towards the gardens, joining the trickle of students going in both directions, but the note turned chilly, took on a bluish hue, and changed to read: “Cold.”
The exit to the courtyard was also cold, as was the way to the dungeons. But the Grand Staircase was warm, and as Harry climbed to the first floor, the second and the third, while the echoing of music and voices slowly faded away behind him, it colored a brighter pink, now reading, “Warmer.” It changed back to warm when he continued climbing. It had to be the third floor.
Taking the most familiar route, he headed for the lounge near the DADA classroom first, and had to retrace his steps when the note turned cold. It went warm again, and warmer, as he walked in the opposite direction, till he found himself at the mouth of the long corridor with the Salem Trials tapestries.
Harry paused. He hadn’t set foot in this corridor since he and Malfoy fought there a week after the First Task. It was one of the less-frequented areas of the castle, with little to offer but locked doors firmly warded against underage magic, where the herringbone parquet flooring still shone and the rugs held on to their threads. You could scream at the top of your lungs and not be heard down at the ball, Harry thought. A shiver went down his spine, but he shook it off. The school was safe. Even Sirius believed it.
He took a few reluctant steps. A full moon glowed as bright as daylight through the tall west window. The polished wood at the top of the banister Harry had gripped for dear life that day sparkled wetly in its light. He didn’t like revisiting the memory. In the days following the incident, he had been unable to stop thinking about it, the way one can’t help touching a fresh bruise. But after a while, as Malfoy had kept his head down and his nose stuck in his books, Harry had let go of it too. Nowadays, he was half-convinced he’d imagined the entire thing; that Malfoy had carried something in his pocket that made Harry think—and for his part, it was perfectly normal to get excited during a fight, wasn’t it? It didn’t mean he was—it didn’t mean anything.
Glancing down at the note, he blew out a sigh of relief. It had reverted to “Warm.” He wasted no time going back the way he came and past the junction, into the part of the castle where the upperclassmen had their exams in a pair of long, otherwise unused classrooms.
“Hot!” the note announced, growing warmer still and turning a full, glowing red when he peered into the first classroom. Empty. The second classroom was where Professor McGonagall had held the dancing lessons. Its door was ajar.
Harry’s heart began to pound as he pushed it open.
“Burning! Burning! Burning!” the note flashed frantically and became too hot to hold. Harry dropped it just as actual flames licked up from it. Startled, he stepped back, but the note floated up and away from him, burning from the inside out till all that was left of it were embers. They took the shape of the Hungarian Horntail, wings spread wide and flames pouring out of its jaws—then flickered out like fireworks.
“Took you long enough, Potter,” drawled a familiar voice with a posh accent and a spitting P.
Harry started. On the other end of the long, unlit room stood Draco Malfoy. Leaning on the table with Professor McGonagall’s ancient gramophone, he was concealed by the shadows that stretched between the shafts of moonlight streaming through the windows.
Harry sagged like a popped balloon. Had he truly allowed himself to hope the note had come from Cho? Just how pathetic—
“Don’t tell me the instructions were too complicated?” Malfoy smirked, bending forward so the moonlight set his pale face and paler hair aglow.
Harry looked behind him, listening for pursuit. He had neither seen nor heard anyone on his way here, but he hadn’t been paying too much attention. Turning to the room once more, he gave it a critical appraisal. The floor was bare. About three dozen chairs rested at angles along the walls. Beside them and the table with the gramophone, there was no other furniture. Nowhere for someone to hide and jump him.
“Horntail got your tongue?” Malfoy said. “That was a nice touch, if I do say so myself. The original charm ends at hot, but that’s boring.”
“What are you playing at, Malfoy?”
Malfoy’s teeth flashed. “Come closer and find out.”
Obviously, obviously, it was some kind of trap. Malfoy’s studious avoidance of trouble since their fight had been highly suspicious from the start and it had only been a question when, not if, he’d stir some again. His eyes shone with mischief as he grinned at Harry from across the room. Everything about him was a red flag.
Harry glanced over his shoulder again. He should just walk away.
But then Malfoy snorted. “Come now, Potter. You’ve fought off a dragon. You can’t possibly be scared of me?”
Before he could stop himself, Harry advanced into the room with long, decisive strides, wand in hand. The challenge in Malfoy’s expression flicked out as if someone had turned off a light switch and he stuck his hands out, his long, thief fingers splayed wide. “For Merlin’s sake—there’s no need—I’m not—wait!”
With the tip of Harry’s wand under his pointy chin, Malfoy tipped his head back, exposing the long, smooth curve of his neck.
“Look,” he whispered. Moving very, very slowly, he bent his left wrist up and pulled his wand out of his sleeve, holding the end of it with his thumb and forefinger, then drew it across his body like the bow of the cello, never pointing it at Harry. “I’ll just… leave this… here.” The wand clicked richly against the dark wood of the table as Malfoy let it drop. He then shimmied in the opposite direction till it was well out of reach and he stood fully in the light from the window, radiant in his silver waistcoat. His eyes never left Harry’s, and Harry’s wand never left his throat. “Alright?”
In the throbbing silence, Harry’s glasses shifted up with the movement of his ears as he listened for the inevitable sound of two pairs of heavy, stomping feet closing in behind him. But there was nothing. He glanced back at the door: it was still wide open. Torchlight from the corridor spilled into the room unobscured by shadows of pursuers.
Malfoy was still leaning on the table, looking alert, but not frightened. There was no sign of his usual devilry. He flinched when Harry stepped back and made a sweep with his wand, whispering, “Revelio,” and gasped as the spell washed over him. In its wake, he lit up, brimming with life and magic. Next to him, Professor McGonagall’s gramophone took on a faint shimmer, and further along the table, glowed Malfoy’s wand. There was nothing else, and no one anywhere near. Looking down, Harry could see the indistinct shine of the gathering in the Great Hall through the floor.
They were alone. Malfoy was unarmed. And Harry had fought off a dragon.
“Finite,” he said. He stowed his wand and took another step back. “Well? What is it?”
Malfoy’s hand had come up to the divot between his collarbones, fingertips hidden under the pressed collar of his shirt, and clung there. “Yes. I.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve something to show you.”
He pulled out a metallic, shiny object out of his front pocket. Harry almost went for his wand again—he wasn’t scared of Malfoy, obviously, it was just that he didn’t trust the git further than he could throw him—but it was only a hip flask.
Harry frowned.
“Courtesy of your Invisibility Cloak,” Malfoy said, as if that explained anything. Liquid sloshed inside the flask when he shook it, and he smirked. “I liberated this from Madam Hooch’s secret stash on my last day with it.”
“What is it?” Harry asked, though he had an idea. Madam Hooch smelled like booze on the best of days, and reeked of it from three yards away on the worst.
Malfoy’s grin grew teeth. “Firewhiskey.”
“You made me come all the way up here to—” What, exactly? Harry cocked his head to the side, squinting at Malfoy with a new suspicion. “Malfoy,” he said. “Are you… drunk?”
“Not yet.” Malfoy shook the flask again. “How about it, Potter?”
Harry laughed. “You want me to drink that? With you?”
It was only when Malfoy’s face closed off that Harry realized how weirdly open it had been till then. “Got something else to do?” Malfoy hissed. “Sit in the corner, sulking like a gargoyle? Your date fled hours ago and not even your precious friends could be bothered to try and shake you out of your misery. Is it heartbreak, huh? Because Chang chose Diggory? Can you really blame her?”
“Well.” Harry let out a breath as the world shifted back in its place. That Malfoy had summoned him here to taunt and insult him actually made perfect sense. Far more so than what he had pretended to suggest. “I’ll be going, then.” Harry turned to leave.
“Wait. Potter!”
Malfoy lunged after him, but Harry only spun around when a hand gripped his elbow. He shook it off. “What?”
Facing the windows, Malfoy looked… otherworldly. His white and silver attire sparkled in the moonlight. His hair, dried and combed and parted in the middle, framed his face like a bright halo, and his eyes were frozen lakes. Harry could see his reflection in them: a dark, square shape with a spiky head.
“I’m…” Malfoy started. Stopped. Shook his head. “Don’t you want to try?”
They were almost as close now as they had been that day in the corridor. Malfoy’s breath tickled Harry’s face as he spoke, warm and moist, not the barest trace of alcohol on it.
“Why?” said Harry. He’d meant it to be cutting, but it came out quiet and soft because he’d grown self-conscious of his own breath.
“Because.” Malfoy shifted his weight from foot to foot, making a bit more space between them. His non-answer hung in the air till Harry thought there’d be no more. But then Malfoy rolled his eyes and sighed. “Because you’ve been decent to me. Twice. And I don’t like being indebted. Especially not to you.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Malfoy. And even if you did, what makes you think I’d want booze as payment?”
“Don’t be crass, Potter. It’s not about the booze. It’s about having a good time.”
Harry laughed. “Right. Because that’s totally our thing.”
“We had our moments.” Malfoy was unscrewing the flask. “The first day of school. The greenhouse. The lakeshore.”
“Er. First day of school, Moody turned you into a ferret because you were about to hex me behind my back. We ended up in the greenhouse because you made me drop an armful of Snape’s glassware. And at the lake, you threw my glasses in the water. If that’s your idea of a good time, I’d better be going.”
But he didn’t go anywhere. He just stood there, watching Malfoy sniff the thin whiff of smoke that rose from the flask when he opened it. “Smells old,” he said, and offered the flask to Harry.
Harry stared at it a few moments, then looked at Malfoy, then back at the flask. There was no doubt he would indeed better be going. Whatever this was, it couldn’t be good. Right? Right? The best thing to do, the only reasonable thing to do, was to leave without looking back.
Instead, he said, “You first.”
Malfoy snickered. “What? You think I’d poison you? Please.” But he withdrew his hand, and brought the flask back up for another sniff before tipping it into his mouth.
The apple of his throat went up and down. And then he choked, and started coughing out smoke: from his mouth, from his nose. Some even went out of his ears.
“Merlin’s balls!” he rasped, clutching the base of his throat. He glanced at Harry, eyes wet in the corners, and sneered. “It’s not funny. It burns like fiendfire!”
Harry grinned even wider. “It’s definitely funny.”
“Oh, yeah?” Still coughing, Malfoy pushed the flask into Harry’s chest. “Let’s see how our great Champion takes it.”
Harry grimaced right back at him, but he accepted the flask. A smoky, spicy aroma hit the back of his throat as he smelled it, carried on heavy alcohol fumes. The tip was wet where Malfoy’s lips had hugged it. Perhaps he’d even touched it with his tongue. The eels wriggled in Harry’s belly, and he wet his own lips, suddenly thirsty. When he glanced up at Malfoy, he found him staring with an insufferable, baiting smirk.
Before he could think himself out of it, Harry fit the tip to his lips, taking the briefest moment to taste the moisture on it, then tipped the flask and let the firewhiskey gush into his mouth.
Malfoy hadn’t exaggerated. It was like liquid fire. It burned its way down Harry’s throat and up his nose and drove hot tears into his eyes, but he didn’t choke. Only a little. Way less than Malfoy, who had no business doubling over with laughter.
“Shut—” Harry coughed out a small cloud of smoke. “Shut up!”
“Oh, you should’ve seen your face.” Malfoy wiped his eyes. “I should’ve dragged that kid with the camera here to take a picture. Skeeter would pay a fortune for it!”
Wincing, Harry glanced at the door.
“Nah,” Malfoy said. “She buzzed off. Bzzzz.” He mimed an insect in flight with fluttering fingers, then laughed a bit more at Harry’s uncomprehending stare before waving it off. “Never bother.”
Malfoy couldn’t be drunk already, could he? Harry took stock of himself, searching for the pleasant lightheadedness he had experienced once or twice after downing a couple butterbeers on an empty stomach, but he couldn’t feel anything like it yet. He smacked his tongue. Now that the burn was gone, the firewhiskey had a heavy, bitter-sweet flavor like nothing Harry had ever tasted before.
“This is foul,” he said, then tipped the flask again, taking care to only let a small sip in so he could roll it a bit in his mouth. It burned too much for that, though, and he swallowed as quickly as he could without choking on it. Smoke streamed out of his mouth as he added, “But kinda fun.”
“Give it here.”
Their fingers brushed as Harry handed over the flask, and then he caught a glimpse of Malfoy’s tongue as he, too, tasted the neck of it before taking another gulp. Harry’s insides twisted with renewed vigor.
Malfoy didn’t cough this time, and blew the smoke out of his mouth with purpose. “Yes,” he said, sounding only a little choked. He cleared his throat and made a grand, sweeping gesture with his free hand before speaking as if in front of a large audience: “Let it be noted in the annals of the school that on this day, December 25th 1994, a singular event has occurred, whereby Harry James Potter and Draco Lucius Malfoy agreed on something for the first time in their short but storied lives.”
Each word of the little speech was illustrated with gesture. Malfoy had always been theatrical, but now he was even more expressive than usual, his motions larger, his features fluid and animated. He was definitely drunk.
And perhaps Harry was too, because he was grinning at Malfoy’s performance, just short of laughing. As much as he hated to admit it, Malfoy could be funny, when Harry and his friends weren’t the butt of his jokes. And it was true, what Malfoy had said before about them getting along. Those few times they’d been alone and not fighting had been alright.
He reached for the flask, but Malfoy took another sip before giving it up. His throat bobbed as he swallowed. Then he pinched his nose and screwed his eyes shut, and all the smoke went out of his ears.
It was so goofy. Harry couldn’t help but laugh. After his own sip, he kept his mouth shut and drove all the smoke out through his nose, like a lazy dragon. Malfoy clapped and whistled.
“Shut up,” Harry muttered, blushing for no good reason. He was a little lightheaded now. And the heat of the drink in his chest was making him sweat. Pushing the flask back into Malfoy’s cold-fingered hands, Harry shrugged off his robes and laid them next to the gramophone. “Where are your friends, Malfoy?” he asked, leaning on the table the way Malfoy had done before. “Where’s your girlfriend? Shouldn’t you be sharing that—” he jutted his chin at the flask “—with her?”
Malfoy sauntered over, swirling the flask as if it were a wine glass. “Pansy was indisposed,” he declared. “It’s that time of the month.”
It took some effort for Harry to tear his eyes from Malfoy’s floppy wrist. “What time of the month?”
“Don’t you know, Potter?” Malfoy’s smirk was positively triumphant. “Girls bleed once a month. From their… bits. It’s called the period. It starts when they’re thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and lasts to the end of their lives. Ask Granger, if you don’t believe me. I’m sure she knows.”
As Harry stared, searching Malfoy’s face for mockery and deception, unwanted recollections pierced through the cozy fog that had risen around his mind. Of Aunt Petunia using the same phrase, that time of the month, in hushed conversation with Uncle Vernon while Harry dusted or washed the dishes. Of the strange medical supplies in the upstairs bathroom cabinet, square pieces of cotton wool in flexible netting, like tiny diapers, that he sometimes glimpsed, crumpled and brown with dried blood, when taking out the trash, and wondered who had been wounded and how come he hadn’t heard anything about it.
And then he thought of the blood dripping out of Malfoy’s shoes after their fight in the corridor.
“Is that…” he wet his lips. “Is that what happened to you? That day when we fought?”
Malfoy’s face went slack. “Do I look like a girl to you, Potter?”
The strange lack of challenge or venom in the question shocked Harry into taking it literally. Only for a moment, but it was enough for a massive shift in perspective. He took in Malfoy’s triangular face, straight eyebrows and straighter nose, his large, luminous eyes, and the forward-facing, plump lips that always glistened with moisture. Malfoy was too tall for a girl their age, perhaps. But his build was narrow and nowhere near as knobbly as Harry’s, his movements graceful, and sometimes, like just now, there was something decidedly girlish about his posture: the forward slant of his hips balanced by the backward slant of his shoulders, elbows angled inward and the forearms outward, and those limp wrists that had some kind of mesmerizing effect on Harry. He realized just how much Malfoy looked like his mother, not his father. And Malfoy’s mother was a beautiful woman.
Harry shook his head to clear it. It was one thing to have these thoughts at night, behind closed bed hangings, and entirely another to have them while staring brazenly into Malfoy’s eyes. It was the firewhiskey. It had scrambled Harry’s brains as sure as it had set his guts on fire.
“So what happened, then?” he said at last.
Malfoy gazed at him a few moments longer, then took another sip from the flask and blew out the smoke on a sigh. “I took a potion,” he said. “It was supposed to… help me study. Because my grades were bad, and Snape was about to get my parents involved. But the potion was a fluke.” He sipped again, then pressed the flask into Harry’s hands.
“It made you… bleed?” Harry couldn’t think of any potions that did anything like that, but then again, potions weren’t exactly his strongest suit.
“In the end, yes.” Malfoy grimaced. “Let’s not talk about it.”
For once, Harry was glad to go along with something Malfoy had suggested. The flask was about half-empty. Harry took a gulp, then set it down on the table, now definitely lightheaded. “I think I’m drunk already,” he said.
It was true. The warm feeling inside him wasn’t just the burn of the firewhiskey. Everything seemed soft, cushioned, slow and easy. A bit like flying, only without the biting wind in his face. Or perhaps swimming. He laughed for no reason.
“Looks like it.” Malfoy was smiling. He had a lovely smile. It was a shame he didn’t show it more often. “And you know what that means?”
Harry shook his head. His brain seemed to be lagging behind, as if floating. He shook his head some more, marveling at the sensation.
“It means,” Malfoy said, pointing his wand at the gramophone, “it’s time for some music.”
Something was off about it all. Harry frowned, trying to remember, and—oh! Malfoy had his wand. He wasn’t supposed to have it. When did he pick it up? Should Harry take his wand out too? Might be—
The gramophone blared to life, shaking the entire table, and Harry jumped.
“Sorry,” Malfoy murmured. At another flick of his wand, the gramophone started playing a tune at a more manageable volume. But it was met with a grimace, and Malfoy flicked his wand once more, changing the tune to something else. “Merlin,” he groaned, doing it over and over while Harry watched, unsure if he should be alarmed or amused. All the tunes sounded the same to him—it was the kind of music that had played in the Great Hall at first—but Malfoy seemed to be looking for something specific. At last, he sighed. “I suppose we’ll have to settle for this.”
The music he chose sounded a bit like the Weird Sisters, only there were no vocals. Harry had never heard anything quite like it in the Muggle world. There was a modern beat to it, but the instruments were all classical and the melodies were strange and unpredictable.
None of it was an obstacle for Malfoy. He lifted an arm straight up and spun under it in circles, as if holding onto an invisible rope. His head lolled back, far enough for his hair to spill from his forehead like a sheet of rain, and for his pale neck to stretch in a long curve.
Harry didn’t know where to look. Every part of Malfoy’s body was in motion. And there was something… unsettling about it. Something indecent, something adult, something Harry wasn’t ready for. He was reminded of the times Uncle Vernon came downstairs at night barefoot and sat in the living room watching the television with the sound muted. Harry had sneaked out of the cupboard once for a peek and saw a mostly naked woman with a very large bosom spin around a shiny vertical pole, gripping it tight between her bare thighs. He’d learned about pornography in the meantime. Dudley had a small collection of erotic magazines stuck between his mattress and the wall. Compared to some of the images in those, the show Uncle Vernon had been watching that night was innocent, but it had left a permanent impression. And now, looking at Malfoy as he danced alone, Harry had no trouble picturing him mostly naked, clinging to just such a pole.
Despite all the drinking, Harry’s mouth had gone dry. Perhaps because it was hanging open. He shut it and struggled to swallow. His cheeks burned.
On scrutiny, Malfoy wasn’t doing anything he hadn’t done down in the Great Hall. The moves were much the same. Only… down in the Great Hall, there’d been a throng of other people around him. Between him and Harry. Here, it was just the two of them.
Also, in the Great Hall, Harry had been forced to take in the sight of Malfoy in tiny little sips, like the firewhiskey from the flask, because he hadn’t wanted Ron or the Patil sisters, or anyone else—especially Malfoy—to notice. But now he could have his fill. Malfoy didn’t mind being stared at. He loved it! In fact—
“Well?” Malfoy said, and Harry winced as if hexed. Chasing his thoughts deeper and deeper down the abyss he normally didn’t dare peer into, Harry hadn’t noticed that Malfoy had been looking at him expectantly with an arm squared over a canted hip. “Come on.”
“Er… what?”
Malfoy beckoned.
Harry stared for another second, then burst out laughing. “You can’t be serious.”
“Why not?” Malfoy spun once more, turning his head artfully so his eyes never left Harry’s.
“For one, I can’t dance. And you’re doing just fine on your own.” Not to mention that the idea was preposterous. How drunk was Malfoy?
Malfoy’s teeth looked sharp behind his arsehole smirk. “Chicken.”
“Go to hell, Malfoy.”
Instead, Malfoy tucked his thumbs under his armpits and started flapping his elbows and clucking like a hen. “Paaaq! Paq paq paq! Paaaq!”
Harry grabbed the flask and took another sip, though a part of him could tell he’d already had more than enough. He blew the smoke at Malfoy, who’d drifted closer again, still doing the ridiculous hen routine.
“Paaaq, paq, paq!”
“What are you, eleven?”
“Hey,” Malfoy exclaimed, and caught Harry by the wrist just as he was about to take another gulp. “We’re supposed to share that, remember?”
His fingers were cool and dry, but they seared a brand into Harry’s skin. He relinquished the flask without resistance. “Dancing doesn’t scare me,” he said, sounding particularly obdurate and childish. What a dumb thing to say! He wasn’t supposed to fall for Malfoy’s tricks. But he was drunk, and Malfoy was intolerably fucking smug, and besides, the damage had already been done. “It’s just that I don’t know how.”
“That much was obvious downstairs.” Malfoy snorted. “That poor girl. Do you even know how many times you stepped on her dress?” Still smirking, he took a gulp from the flask, licked the neck of it, causing another insufferable wriggle in Harry’s stomach, then stoppered it. “For later,” he said, swirling it once more before he stashed it in his right pocket. Harry made a mental note of it. Could Malfoy have carried a flask in his pocket the day when they’d fought? “Now, come.”
Harry crossed his arms. His heart was beating hard and fast under them. “You can’t make me.”
Walking towards the center of the room, Malfoy laughed. “It’ll be fun. Look.” A gesture of his wand summoned a hazy blue light out of the floor. A rune of some sort? It was too far to make out. Malfoy lifted his eyes at Harry, who hadn’t moved, and let out a dramatic sigh. “Merlin’s sake, Potter. Just come here and let me show you. If you still hate it in five minutes, I’ll cease and desist, I promise.” He bowed with a ridiculous flourish, and his shirt hung open to let a searching finger of moonlight touch his bare chest.
Harry held his breath. He could… take a look. Out of curiosity. Because he wanted to see the rune Malfoy had drawn on the floor. Yes. Make sure it wasn’t anything nefarious.
As he unglued himself from the table, Harry realized his drunkenness didn’t end at the fuzzy, floaty lightness in his head. It extended to his limbs, which felt further away from him than usual and comfortably boneless; but also to his sense of balance, which lagged about a second behind his movements.
The blue light was no rune. It was a pair of glowing footprints, shaped like the pointy shoes Malfoy was wearing. Harry gave him a quizzical look.
“Step on it,” Malfoy said.
Harry glanced at the glowing feet again, then squinted at Malfoy.
“Oh, for…” Malfoy rolled his eyes and stepped on the footprints himself. As he did, the right footprint stepped back, the left back and sideways, and then the right followed so they stood together again. Malfoy stepped on them as they moved. Then the left footprint stepped forwards, the right forwards and sideways, and the left joined it, returning to the original position. “Ta-da!” Malfoy sang, spreading his arms.
“What is this?” Harry asked.
“Box step.”
That answered exactly nothing.
“It’s what you were trying, and failing miserably, to do on the Ball,” Malfoy explained. “This is how you learn the steps.”
It wasn’t how Harry had been made to learn the steps. Professor McGonagall had worn the same long robes as always during the ordeal of the dancing lesson, saying, “One, two, three—two, two, three,” over and over in time with the waltz like an incantation for a particularly stubborn spell. About half the class could do it effortlessly. But those who couldn’t had left the lesson as clueless as they had been when they’d entered it.
The footprints waited, twinkling invitingly. Malfoy was watching Harry with a familiar expression of challenge and anticipation Harry had never been able to ignore. He set his jaw and stepped on the blueprint, cringing preemptively, as he was still more than half-sure it was all a trap, and some hex would spring up on him. But nothing happened. Only the right footprint stepped back.
Harry followed the prints as best he could, feeling just as clumsy as back in the Great Hall. “Has it been five minutes yet?” he said, once again in the starting position. “I still hate it.”
Malfoy grinned. “Just do what I do. Look.” And he demonstrated the steps, standing to Harry’s left. “Come on,” he said. “Don’t be shy.”
I’ll give you shy, Harry thought. Frowning with concentration, he waited, then copied Malfoy’s moves in time with him.
Suddenly, the footprints made sense. They adapted to his speed, which was timed to the music, and after a minute, between looking at Malfoy’s feet and his own, Harry was actually able to go through the moves without stumbling.
“Try not to look at your feet,” Malfoy said. He was looking at Harry. But as soon as Harry lifted his eyes to meet Malfoy’s gaze, he lost count and stopped. Malfoy, of course, laughed. “How drunk are you, Potter?”
“Fairly,” Harry confessed, waiting for the moment to fall in step with Malfoy again. The absurdity of the situation made him laugh as well. “I mean—” he was a little breathless “—look at me. Dancing. With you, of all people.”
“Is that what you think this is?” Malfoy chortled. “I doubt we can realistically get you anywhere near actual dancing in five minutes. But at least you know the steps now. Chin up. See? There you go.”
In truth, Harry still mostly stared down, but now he could glance at Malfoy every now and then, and not trip over his own feet when their eyes met. Malfoy wasn’t out of breath, but a pink blush had spread over his cheekbones and ears and down his neck, and Harry remembered it. With each minute he remembered more of it, of what it had been like to be pressed close enough to Malfoy to feel his heartbeat as if it were Harry’s own. And that made him even more breathless.
The song changed, but not to Malfoy’s satisfaction. They stopped while he flicked through the selection till he found something he could tolerate again. Harry bounced on his toes, eager to go on. All the pent-up energy of his wasted evening simmered under his skin, like magic itching to be used.
Then Malfoy stepped in front of him and faced him. “When I step forward, you step back, the way you’ve been doing the whole time.”
And he did, but Harry didn’t move. Malfoy almost bumped into him, and his body heat washed over Harry in a heady wave.
“Why do you get to step forward while I step back?”
Malfoy blinked at him, bemused. “Because I’ll take the lead.”
“What if I want to be in the lead?”
“You can’t. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“And you do?” Harry put on his own arsehole smirk. “You know what you’re doing?” He gestured around them. At here. At now. At whatever this was.
The blush on Malfoy’s cheeks darkened. “I got us this far, didn’t I? You were miserable down there, Potter. Like some bespectacled, bedraggled dementor, sucking all the joy out of the party. And look at you now!”
It was true. Harry was having fun. “Bespectacled, bedraggled dementor?” He laughed. “You outdid yourself this time, Malfoy. I ought to write that down.”
“Indeed. My brilliance should be preserved for posterity.” Malfoy had taken the flask out of his pocket and was now unscrewing it.
“You sure that’s a good idea?”
Malfoy stared into Harry’s eyes over the flask as he drank, and all through licking it, slowly and pointedly, and blowing the smoke sideways, just an inch short of Harry’s face.
Harry gasped when the flask, still warm from resting against Malfoy’s thigh, was placed in his hands. For a moment there, he had forgotten to breathe.
“Where’s your Gryffindor sense of adventure?” Malfoy drawled in a voice deepened by the burn. If black velvet could speak, that’s what it’d sound like.
Dizzy with it all, Harry folded his free hand into a bracing fist and drew his tongue over the exact same place on the neck of the flask that Malfoy had marked a moment before. And Malfoy’s eyes, dark despite the moonlight in them, followed.
There was just enough of the firewhiskey left for another good gulp. Harry upended the flask, grateful for the distraction of the fire in his mouth and throat. Heat pulsed in his eyes, in his lips, in his ears, and the world shimmered with it, like a mirage over the sun-molten asphalt in the summer.
“Now,” Malfoy said, swaying a little himself. “Where were we?”
“You were about to take the lead,” Harry said helpfully. They were both slurring their words.
“I bet you’ve forgotten everything.” But he was counting down: three, two, one. And on the next beat, they moved together.
Harry had forgotten the steps. Good thing the glowing footprints were still there. Malfoy’s presence in front of him, far enough so there was no danger of bumping foreheads or stepping on each other’s toes, but close enough to feel the swish of cinnamon-scented air in his wake, was incredibly flustering. Harry didn’t dare look up. He switched between staring at his feet and glancing at Malfoy’s legs. They seemed to dip in the knee on the first step of each trio. Harry tried to mimic it.
“Would you look at that,” said Malfoy with mock awe.
“Yeah.” Harry laughed breathlessly. “Figured that one out all by myself.”
“Now try to look up.”
“I’ll trip.”
“You won’t.”
The black velvet, it was in Malfoy’s voice again, and maybe it never had anything to do with the firewhiskey to begin with. Harry steeled himself, as much as his swimming mind and boneless body would allow, and raised his eyes to meet Malfoy’s. His breath caught. But though his heart had crawled all the way up to his throat and threatened to leap out of his open mouth, he did not, in fact, trip.
Not at once, at least. The one second of holding Malfoy’s piercing gaze wiped Harry’s brain clean of thought like a Tergeo, and the next, he had to look down again, having lost all sense of which pair of feet belonged to him, let alone where each specific foot was supposed to go.
“Look up,” Malfoy repeated after a few counts.
Harry tried. But he got punched in the gut again and didn’t last even the one second this time.
“Up.”
“I can’t.”
And then Malfoy’s cold fingers were under Harry’s chin, lifting it till Harry had no choice but to look in Malfoy’s eyes. “You can.”
Harry was fairly panting now, though the dance was hardly strenuous. He was going to trip and make a fool of himself. He knew this. He was just waiting for it. But he made no attempt to wrest his chin from Malfoy’s gentle grip. Really, only the tips of Malfoy’s first two fingers touched Harry’s feverish skin but it was enough to shackle and leash him.
“See?” said Malfoy, so softly he could barely be heard over the music. “You’re doing great, Potter.”
Heat burst through Harry at the praise, pushing on the inside of his skin. Was this how Aunt Marge had felt when he’d made her blow up? Surely, he too was about to lift off the ground and float away, yet his feet were, by some miracle, still going through the motions. Salty moisture prickled his eyes. He took a breath to say something, he didn’t know what, just that he needed—when the song ended and they stopped.
Malfoy’s hand fell away with a groan as he trained his wand on the gramophone again.
Harry spun round and pressed the back of a trembling hand over his mouth. Sweat had beaded on his upper lip. Quickly, he wiped his eyes, thankful for the chance to get a hold of himself. His pulse was racing. The room seemed to have tilted somehow, and the mullions on the tall windows were all doubled even though—yes, he definitely did still have his glasses on. He was really drunk.
And he wasn’t the only one. Nothing was happening with the music because Malfoy was having trouble hitting the gramophone with his spells from the whole of eight feet away. He aimed with pursed lips and one eye shut under a fierce scowl. Harry was about to relieve him of his misery and draw his own wand when Malfoy managed it at last. The gramophone jumped, coughed and boomed. “Stupid thing,” Malfoy grumbled.
The song that played had the same kind of rhythm as all the ones before, but it was a little slower, and there was something strangely somber about it.
“No, let it play,” Harry said, seeing Malfoy take aim again. “I like it.”
“Oh?” Malfoy sniffed, but lowered his wand. “Alright, then. It’s your night, after all. Off with the shoes, now.”
Harry blinked at him dumbly. “What?”
“Your shoes, Potter. Take them off.”
Obviously, Harry’s first instinct was to say no. But then Malfoy was taking his own shoes off, for whatever reason, and, biting his lip, Harry bent to do the same.
“Why are we taking our shoes off?”
“Because,” Malfoy started, then paused while flailing his arms about to restore his balance. “Because I won’t have you trample me like you did that poor girl.”
“Parvati,” Harry muttered. “Her name is Parvati Patil.”
“I know her name, Potter.”
“Oh.”
Malfoy straightened, staggered, then stilled. Like everything else about him, his feet were long and pointy, clad in thin, dark gray socks. Harry’s socks were grayish too, though they had been white when they’d been bought for Dudley. At least they were a matched set, thank god, and only a little see-through over the big toes. Malfoy’s silent judgment fell upon them like a trunk released too early from levitation and Harry curled his toes protectively.
“Come, then,” Malfoy said.
“What about…” Harry looked down at the glowing footprints.
“You don’t need that anymore.”
“No?”
“No. Come.”
There were only two, maybe three steps between them, but to Harry it was a long and bumpy road. For hours on end, he’d sat in the Great Hall, thirsting like a straggler in the desert, and now he was finally at the well. Was this really happening? It was beyond his wildest fantasies. All of which had revolved around wrestling Malfoy into submission, a myriad colorful variations on what had happened—what he imagined had happened—after their fight in the corridor. But never anything like this.
Friendly like this.
Bright and lucid, the thought made Harry pause. That was Malfoy, standing there. The same Malfoy who had tried to get Harry and his friends expelled numerous times; who called them disgusting, racist names; who almost made Harry fall off his broomstick in the middle of a Quidditch match with his stupid masquerade last year, and very nearly cost Buckbeak his life and Hagrid his job.
The same Malfoy who’d, as a ferret, sought safety under Harry’s robes; the same Malfoy Harry had seen naked and found beautiful; the same Malfoy who’d made him laugh till his belly ached during detention in the greenhouse, and who’d taught him the Summoning Charm. The same Malfoy Harry had nearly kissed the last time they’d been close enough for it.
Christ.
“Like this?” Harry said once he was about a step from Malfoy, as they had been before the song changed. His voice came out early-morning raspy, and when he swallowed, Malfoy’s eyes tracked the movement in his throat.
Malfoy closed in till they were less than a foot apart. He took Harry’s left hand and fit it on his right shoulder. The silver waistcoat was every bit as cool and silky to the touch as Harry had imagined, and the embroidery rose from it like rolling hills. Harry held his breath as Malfoy laid a hand on Harry’s side: not on the waist, like Harry had held Parvati, but on the ribs, guaranteed to feel the panicked beating of Harry’s heart as they joined hands on the other side. Malfoy’s fingers were cool and smooth as water and Harry wanted them on his cheeks, on his neck, on every bit of his overheated skin. It was a wonder no sparks jumped between them for how electric the touch felt.
“Ready?” said Malfoy.
Harry wasn’t. No more than he had been in that tent a month ago, about to face an actual dragon. But just like then, he nodded anyway.
“On my count. Three, two, one—”
Of course, Harry had forgotten the steps, and Malfoy cursed when his knee knocked into Harry’s. “What now?”
“Can we go back there?” Harry used his chin to point over his shoulder, where the glowing prints patiently awaited a pair of inapt feet. “Just till I er… get my bearings.”
Malfoy huffed and shook his head, but then he walked Harry backward until he stood on the box step blueprint again.
“Alright,” Harry breathed. “Thanks.” He heard Malfoy take a breath for another countdown, and panicked. “Wait, wait.” He laughed nervously. The muscles on his side twitched when Malfoy’s hand slid an inch lower, then returned where it had been.
“Paaaaq, paq, paq,” Malfoy said, in nearly a whisper, making no attempt to mime a hen this time, but it cracked Harry up. Malfoy watched him laugh, amused. “You’re so strange, Potter. Wish I’d known I could scare you to death with a bit of waltzing in the first year. Would’ve made my life so much easier.”
“Shut up,” Harry groaned. He didn’t even know what was so funny, but for the second time in the last five minutes, he had to wipe his eyes under his glasses. “Alright.” He replaced his hand on Malfoy’s shoulder. “I’m good now. I think.”
“You think?”
“Just count, will you?”
This time, Harry was ready. He kept his eyes down and followed the glowing footprints, resolutely not paying attention to how close Malfoy was, now that they were moving. How hot and damp his touch had become on Harry’s ribs. How his thin, long hand wrapped around Harry’s and squeezed. Not thinking about how their breaths mingled between them, and how edible Malfoy’s cinnamon cologne smelled. Harry definitely did not want to lick it off Malfoy’s throat, or dig his fingers into Malfoy’s hair, or—
The next step Malfoy made was longer and wider. Harry followed, too bewildered even to panic. They moved away from the glowing footprints and into the center of the room, slowly turning with each count.
“Just keep it up, Potter,” Malfoy murmured. “You’re doing great.”
That same dangerous heat seared through Harry. He glanced up and immediately stepped on Malfoy’s toes.
When Malfoy didn’t comment, Harry chanced another glance at him, but quickly averted his eyes. Up close like this, it was too much, like staring straight up at the midday sky.
“Look up,” said Malfoy, as Harry knew he would.
“I’ll trip.”
“That’s what you said the last time too, and you were fine.”
“Last time I could look down and see where I’m supposed to step next.”
“Paq,” said Malfoy, and Harry looked up.
Malfoy’s face was tense—that was all Harry could gleam in the moment it took him to step on Malfoy’s toes.
“Keep going,” Malfoy said.
Somehow, Harry found his feet again. But then—
“Look up.”
It wasn’t just about the tripping. Obviously. Malfoy had been right, miming a chicken, because Harry was afraid. Harry was terrified, but he looked up, and didn’t trip this time.
“That’s it,” Malfoy said. His eyes burned with cold fire. “Look at me, Potter. Look at me,” he repeated, though Harry hadn’t tried to look away. “Don’t look at anything but me.”
“I won’t,” Harry whispered. He doubted he could even if he wanted to. It was as if he’d been put under Imperius. So intense was Malfoy’s stare, Harry felt ensnared by it. Could Malfoy have hypnotized him? With his dark, glittering eyes? The way a serpent might hypnotize his prey before he wraps around it and smothers it? Malfoy was a serpent, after all. Much more than he was a dragon.
Trouble was… Harry didn’t think he’d mind it too much if Malfoy did wrap around him and smother him a little right now.
Their turns were growing bigger and bolder. The room spun around them faster and faster, till it turned into a blur of striped lights and shadows blinking in Harry’s peripheral vision. Everything was so fuzzy and dreamlike, he thought he might wake up any moment. And he didn’t want to. He loved this! He loved every speeding second of it. He loved the drunken weightlessness of his limbs, and how he no longer had to think too hard to make them follow Malfoy’s lead. He loved the moonlight. He loved the patter of their socked feet on the cold, stone floor, and the sweaty press of their hands. He loved being hidden here, away from all the prying eyes. And most of all, he loved the way the world swirled around them as they stood still in the center of it, drowning in each other’s gaze.
“This is crazy,” he cried, laughing. “It’s like flying!”
“Wanna fly, Potter?”
“Yes!”
Malfoy pushed him, while bringing their joined hands up, so that Harry spun under them, the way Pansy had spun when Malfoy had danced with her in the Great Hall. Only Harry’s return to Malfoy’s arms wasn’t half as graceful. They collided hard enough to knock the air out of each other’s chest in a loud huff.
The music stuttered, then cut out.
Dancing posture forgotten, they stood in a loose embrace: Malfoy’s arms around Harry’s waist, Harry’s hands clawing at Malfoy’s shoulders. Their panting breaths sounded obscene in the sudden silence. The room kept spinning.
Then Malfoy’s hand started sliding up Harry’s back and panic swelled huge in his chest, overwhelming. It was going to happen, they were going—
A girl’s scream echoed in the corridor outside, followed by laughter and running footsteps. A group of upperclassmen, judging by the male voices. They were getting closer.
Malfoy jumped away from Harry as if burned. Heat blossomed in Harry’s cheeks. Luckily, Malfoy was too busy watching the door with horror to catch it. He was no better, though. The soft pink blush that had graced his cheeks before had darkened into an unattractive red and was now smeared all over his temples and forehead and neck.
The upperclassmen were about to reach the door.
Maybe Harry could charm it shut and locked in time—he pulled his wand out, but Malfoy shook his head vehemently, gesturing at the same time to be quiet with a finger over his lips.
The footsteps and voices were at the door. And then they were moving away.
Malfoy let out a sigh of relief that sounded like he’d been holding his breath for an hour, and leaned on his knees. Watching him, Harry recalled how concerned Malfoy had been about Seamus spreading the rumor that Malfoy was gay. How Malfoy had started dating Pansy literally the day after. Whatever had been about to happen between him and Harry, Malfoy did not want to be caught red-handed.
“You alright?” said Harry when, after a minute, Malfoy hadn’t moved.
“Dizzy,” Malfoy said. He straightened up and raked a hand through his hair. His forehead glistened with sweat.
Harry glanced at his wristwatch. “Surprised they haven’t rang for curfew yet.”
“What’s the time?”
“Half past midnight.”
Malfoy looked around, smacking his tongue. “My lands and titles for a glass of water.”
“Give me the flask.”
“There’s nothing left, Potter. We drank it all.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Just give it to me.”
Malfoy rolled his eyes right back, but took the flask out of his pocket and handed it over. Harry opened it and pushed the tip of his wand inside. “Aguamenti!”
Of course, he didn’t have the wherewithal to stop the spell once the flask was full and water exploded from it, splashing over the stone floor and soaking their socked feet.
“Merlin’s sake, Potter,” Malfoy grumbled. But he didn’t even try to step away from the spillage, groping for the flask instead. He drank from it in big, loud gulps. A few drops trickled out of the corners of his mouth and zigzagged down his throat. “Thanks,” he gasped, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
Harry kept his eyes on the flask as he filled it again, for himself. “Thank you. Never thought I’d say this, but I had a good time in the end.”
“And you learned to dance.”
“Yeah. That too.” Harry drank. The water was lukewarm and oily. That Malfoy hadn’t commented on it was nothing short of a miracle.
“Any time, Potter.”
“You don’t mean that.”
Malfoy gave a theatrical sniff. “No, I don’t.” Ignoring Harry’s chortling, he pulled his wand out and directed a current of hot air at their soaked feet with a whispered incantation.
The spell was all over the place, just like Harry’s Aguamenti, but after a minute, the small puddle on the floor evaporated and their socks were as good as dry.
“Do me a favor, then, Potter,” Malfoy said as they sat on a pair of nearby chairs to put their shoes on.
“Er…” It took some seconds to remember what they’d been talking about before. “Sure.”
“Don’t… mention this—” Malfoy waved a hand at the room “—to your friends. Or anyone else, for that matter. I don’t want people… talking.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
Malfoy nodded. Having laced up his shoes, he stood up, staggered, and clutched the back of his chair for balance. “Gods,” he groaned. “Did we truly waltz in this state? Or was it all just a drunken dream?”
A dream. A drunken dream. Eels made another lap round Harry’s belly. But then he realized the question, although probably not meant to be answered, was a way out—if Harry wanted it. He swallowed. “It’s. Up to you, really. I’m er. I’m good either way.”
Malfoy regarded him blankly a few moments before his features quickened with understanding. He licked his lips. He took a breath. And all the while, Harry held his own.
But instead of speaking, Malfoy only shook his head, ending some internal quarrel. He smoothed his front, cleared his throat, and gave Harry a terse little nod as he turned to leave.
“Malfoy!” Harry stood up. Now that it came to it, he didn’t feel like parting ways. And yet, when Malfoy spun round, there wasn’t anything Harry could say other than, “See you around, I guess?”
“Little to be done about it, unless you finally get expelled, or better yet, killed in the Tournament.”
Harry snorted. “You wish.”
Walking backward, Malfoy smirked, winked, and then he was gone.