In which Draco fails to make Harry’s life miserable.
Friday, November 20, 1994
As the Slytherins queued for Potions with the Gryffindors the next day, Potter stood a few paces ahead of Draco, who couldn’t resist his curiosity, and carefully cut the distance short. Freshly shampooed, Potter’s hair had a deep, dark luster and smelled softly of strawberries and mint. The collar of a standard issue white shirt gleamed clean and crisp under the silken curls. His robes seemed straight out of laundry, impeccably pressed and giving off the familiar, faint scent of lavender. Even his glasses, which Draco could see through from behind, were free of greasy fingerprints, polished to a shine brighter than ever.
The doors swung open to reveal the unwelcoming scowl on Professor Snape’s face, and the crowd poured inside. Draco gave Potter one last glance as he passed him by. Among all the signs of unusually thorough grooming, Potter’s tie stood out the most. It looked… entirely adequate. Draco couldn’t help lifting his eyebrow in silent appreciation.
Their eyes met, and Potter lowered his at once, then slowly lifted them again, oddly insecure. His cheeks darkened. And Draco understood, in that inscrutable way he sometimes understood things about Potter, that it had been his own unscrupulous, judgmental scrutiny, cataloging the details of Potter’s unkempt person yesterday evening, that had triggered this remarkable transformation.
Where a whimsical and macabre plot device is introduced.
Thursday, November 19, 1994
Draco drew the barbs of his crow-feather quill back and forth over his lips. His half-written History essay swam languorously in his unfocused vision, lit by the dappled, green-tinted sunshine that filtered through the lake outside the window. The tickling sensation had a strange rapport with the fickle, dancing light, especially when he teased the very tip of his upper lip. With perfectly measured pressure, he could make the tingling travel all the way down to his toes.
In his mind’s eye, it wasn’t the feather tickling his lips, but the soft, barely-there baby hair on the nape of Potter’s neck. Draco had seen it a few times, lighting up like a golden halo when the sun struck Potter’s profile just so in the Transfiguration classroom, even though Draco usually sat on the other end of it. Unlike Potter, Draco had exceptional eyesight.
Draco hesitates in front of Potter’s door. Everyone else has gone out for breakfast, and it’s really none of his business if Potter has decided to sleep in and skip it. Potter has more than a few legitimate friends far better suited to worry about that sort of thing than Draco. But none of them have noticed Potter’s absence from the common room this morning. Draco has. How could he not? It’s like being out of air.
Tracking the movement of Potter’s eyes, Draco runs a greasy finger over the thickest of his scars. “You like them, don’t you? Pervert.”
Potter tosses his head back, jostling the mass of his curly fringe from his forehead. “I bet you were into scars long before you had any of your own, Malfoy.”
Yes, Draco wants to say. I want to lick yours. What he says instead is, “Fuck you.”
“Fuck you,” Potter echoes, putting the same pregnant emphasis on the F.
Draco bites his lower lip, wrestling down the rise of euphoria. “Your turn,” he says. “Take that off.”
It’s a Tumblr event where every day throughout December, people make Harry Potter fanwork recommendations in response to a set of prompts. And I took part! I didn’t have a rec for every day, but I did for more than half, and the exercise helped clear some of my rec backlog. It was also an opportunity for me to use some of my artwork! In what follows, the background of each banner is my very own scanned watercolor or acrylic painting. 😊
