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It was safe to say that the Yule Ball hadn't gone anything like Harry had hoped. He might have been (but only maybe) slightly less miserable than Ron. Or maybe he just showed it less. He doesn't want to be around Parvati, and he doesn't want to keep looking at Cho and Cedric either. In this, his eyes seem to keep landing on one figure only:
Draco Malfoy.
But why? Maybe it was the ridiculous Vicar's robes that kept drawing his attention. Or maybe it was that despite the Vicar's robes, he managed to look... nice. And why would Harry notice that? And why tonight, when it was so inconvenient?
The walk with Ron and finding out about Hagrid was a welcome distraction. But when they returned inside, he found the party had nearly ended, but Pansy seemed to have gotten distracted somewhere (or perhaps had gone to the toilet for all he knew), and Draco Malfoy, in his Vicar's robes, is hanging around the back wall looking none too pleased with life. Slightly listless, Harry would say, and why was he still watching? He should just go outside.
So he does, and that's where he meets up with Cedric. Cedric gives him the very cryptic clue about the egg, which incenses him, and then he's contemplating going up the stairs to continue towards his dorm, but he falters... and goes back into the ballroom instead.
Sure enough, Malfoy's still hanging out by the wall. Still looking listless. Still without Pansy. Harry begins to wonder if maybe they'd had a fight about something. Though what they would have a fight about... she adored him. And something very bitter twists in his stomach to think of that.
'Hullo.'
Malfoy turns to look at him, and scathingly at that. 'What do you want, Potter?'
Harry shrugs. (What did he want?) 'Dunno. Seeing as how my date got fed up with me, thought I'd come and see where yours went.'
Malfoy laughs like the sneer curling his lips. 'Mine? That's none of your business, Potter. But you're better off without that Patil girl anyway.'
'I agree, actually. Why I'm not too torn up about it. You though... what's up with you? Don't seem exactly yourself, over here all alone.'
'I'm not alone!' he spits. 'I just don't happen to have anybody with me right now. Except you! So are you going to stand around here annoying me or what?'
'Am I annoying you?'
Malfoy gives him a look somewhere between a grimace and a glare. 'Of course! Standing there, famous Harry Potter, thinking he's so handsome... well? Go woo some girl and leave me to my own problems!'
'What problems?'
'None of your business!'
'Because my main problem seems to be that I can't stop myself from looking at you.' He says it very quickly, and maybe Malfoy wouldn't even hear him.
No such luck, judging by the way he's being stared at now.
'I don't... I don't see how that's my business. It's your own fault you haven't got robes like mine. No taste at all.'
'I agree. Not a fashionable bone in my body.'
'Why are you agreeing with me?! You're supposed to argue!'
Harry shrugs. 'I don't feel like fighting. Though you're making it a bit difficult. Do we have to hate each other all the time?'
This seems to have caught Malfoy off guard, because for a minute, he doesn't speak at all. Then, 'Well, I guess just for one night, Potter...' He draws himself up. 'I'll let you walk me back to the dungeons if you really want to. I don't have the patience to wait around for Pansy to come back anyway.'
He says it with a sneer, with a drawl, but there's something different in the way he speaks. Maybe like underneath all that, he's asking to be accompanied. Harry decides to take it.
'As you wish, Master Malfoy.' And he makes a grand sweeping gesture with his arm towards the door.
• • •
The walk to the dungeons is surprisingly pleasant. Malfoy only makes a couple digs, and they seem to be more designed to tease than to anger or wound. They get along by discussing all the ways in which the party had been terrible, and then they've arrived at the entrance to the dungeons. Too soon, in Harry's opinion. Malfoy was surprisingly okay when he wasn't being a twat.
Malfoy leans against the archway. 'Well, alright, what now?' he asks, rather roughly.
Harry's mind races. What indeed, now? He shrugs. 'Say goodnight and hate each other again tomorrow, I guess.'
'Oh.' Malfoy doesn't sound too enthralled, by all accounts. 'Sounds right. Well... goodnight, then.'
Harry feels like he's losing something, a chance, a moment, something... and fast. But he's encouraged by the fact that Malfoy hasn't turned away and left already, but rather is waiting for him to return the finalisation of their deal. Harry chomps the inside of his lip. What should he do? What was this moment, this chance he was losing? Why was Malfoy waiting for him? What did it mean?? And why wasn't Pansy around? Why had he allowed Harry to walk him back at all? Harry's brain feels about to explode from all the questions, and so he does the only thing that makes sense to him: instead of saying goodnight, he grabs Malfoy's arm, pulls him in, and kisses him.
On the lips.
What surprises him the most is when Malfoy reacts as strongly as he does. By instinct alone, Harry reaches down and hoists him up, and Malfoy wraps his legs around Harry's waist, apparently intent on devouring him. Whereas Harry... Harry's more interested in the slope of his back, the slant of his sides, the bones of his hips... what things he'd never been able to touch before— even been able to imagine before.
Eventually, they tumble to the ground, and neither one of them cares. What were a few bruises as compared to a companionship neither one had really known they wanted?
It was one goodnight... but the start of something beautiful, reckless, hidden... something neither one of them would have given up.