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The closet was definitely not up to code and Harry knew a lot about closets.
It was narrow and dark, and it hummed faintly like it resented being used for something as undignified as student parties. The old oak door creaked every time someone stumbled out of it, hair mussed, shirt untucked, friends roaring with laughter and catcalls.
Harry watched it from the edge of the common room, arms folded, back pressed against the cool stone wall. The music in the enchanted gramophone pulsed through the floorboards, low and dirty, and the fairy lights overhead flickered in time with it.
“Stop scowling,” Hermione said, elbowing him in the ribs as she passed him a Butterbeer spiked with something that was definitely not Butterbeer.
“I’m not scowling,” Harry protested automatically.
“You’re brooding then,” she corrected. “It’s a party, Harry. Live a little.” Her eyes flicked toward the game in the center of the room. “And if you’re worried, I checked the spellwork. The closet is perfectly safe.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” he muttered, taking a drink.
Of course, that was when Draco Malfoy laughed.
The sound cut through the music from across the room. Harry’s gaze snapped over before he could stop himself.
Draco was holding court on one of the old green sofas, a bottle dangling elegantly from his fingers, ankle hooked over his knee like he was in a damn catalogue for wizarding knitwear. His hair was shorter now, styled like he woke up with it perfect and didn’t give a toss, which Harry knew for a fact was a lie because he’d seen the amount of product in the bathroom they all shared on the sixth floor of the North Tower.
A knot of Slytherins and a few brave Ravenclaws clustered around him. Pansy was sprawled on the armrest, Blaise leaned back with lazy interest written all over his face. Draco said something Harry couldn’t hear, the group burst out laughing, and Draco didn’t even bother to look pleased with himself. He just arched a brow, as if the world had finally caught up with how clever he was.
Harry glared into his drink.
“You could go talk to him,” Hermione said mildly.
“I’d rather eat flobberworms.”
“Liar.” She patted his arm like she was humoring a particularly stubborn child. “Just remember that this was your idea, all right?”
Harry blinked. “How is this my idea?”
“You said,” she pitched her voice higher in a mocking imitation of him, “‘We should all try to be normal students for once.’”
“I didn’t mean this,” Harry hissed back, gesturing helplessly at the closet, where two Hufflepuffs stumbled out, faces flushed and grinning.
Ron wandered over, red-faced and cheerful, wisps of steam still curling off his shoulders from some ill-advised firewhisky shot charm. “Oi, we’re starting again! Get over here.”
“I’m not playing,” Harry said.
“You are,” Ron said firmly. “You missed the first round. And the second. And Pansy’s been trash-talking you for ten minutes straight. It’s getting creative and kind of impressive, but I promised I’d drag you in before she starts writing poetry.”
Harry groaned. “There are wars I’ve been less afraid of than Pansy Parkinson’s creative energy.”
Hermione smirked. “Then go face your destiny, Chosen One.”
The game was simple, at least in theory.
Pansy stood in the middle of the common room, a gleaming glass bottle hovering in midair between her hands, rotating slowly. The circle around her was a messy halo of students sitting cross-legged on the rug or dangling from the edge of sofas, drinks abandoned on the floor.
“All right, you degenerates,” Pansy called. “You know the rules. Bottle spins, it picks a pair, they go into the cupboard”—she jerked her chin at the waiting door—“for seven minutes. No hexes, no memory charms, and no filming spells, Justin, I can see you thinking about it.”
The room laughed.
“The magic will choose fairly,” Hermione said from Harry’s left, because of course she’d helped calibrate the spell. “No repeated pairs, no skipped turns—”
“No fun, Granger, that’s what you mean,” Pansy interrupted. “Anyway. Shall we traumatize ourselves?”
Cheers.
The bottle spun.
Harry tried to look anywhere but at Draco, which of course meant he could feel Draco like a static charge at the edge of his awareness, every small movement, every shift in posture dragging Harry’s attention back.
Names were called. Pairs stumbled into the cupboard and reemerged seven minutes later, disheveled or bored or red-faced, depending on who went in with whom. Harry clapped when he was supposed to, laughed along with everyone else, but his mind drifted.
He was tired of always being the one who was needed. The hero. The one with the scar and the legacy and the weight of everyone else’s safety stapled to his bones. Eighth Year was supposed to be…different. A chance to be just Harry. To want things for himself that had nothing to do with defeating dark wizards or reforming the Ministry.
Things like the way his chest tightened when Draco Malfoy walked into a class and took a seat three rows down, stretching out his legs like he owned the place. Or the way Draco’s voice dropped when he was truly interested in a topic, the quick flare of something like delight when a complicated potion was mixed perfectly into place.
Harry had no idea when “rival” had quietly shifted into “problematic, recurring thought”.
The bottle paused, the green glass catching the flicker of the fairy lights, then whipped into motion again. Harry watched it spin, expression carefully blank.
“Next up,” Pansy sing-songed as the bottle began to slow. “We have…”
Harry realized too late that it was pointing straight at him.
“Potter,” Pansy crowed, eyes gleaming. “And—”
The bottle swung the last few centimeters and stopped.
“—Malfoy.”
The room sucked in a collective breath.
Draco’s eyebrows rose, very slowly. He was lounging in his seat, but his focus sharpened immediately. His gaze flicked from the bottle to Harry, lingering, assessing, then curving at the corners with wicked amusement.
“Oh, this is going to be fun,” Pansy said happily. “Don’t break the closet, boys. Or do. Honestly, live your truths.”
Harry’s heart slammed once, hard, then started racing. He could feel his ears heating, and he refused, absolutely refused, to admit he was blushing.
“No way,” he said, already on his feet.
“Scared, Potter?” Draco drawled, standing as well with absurd grace. He smoothed an invisible wrinkle from his sleeve. “I thought you loved tight, dark spaces. You did all your best work in a broom cupboard, didn’t you?”
Laughter rippled around them. Harry clenched his jaw.
“I’m not scared,” he snapped. That restless thing inside him, the one that had always driven him headfirst into trouble, reared up, reckless and hungry. “Let’s get this over with.”
Draco’s smile sharpened. “After you.”
The closet door swung open by itself with a theatrical creak. Inside, it was just big enough for two people to stand uncomfortably close without having to press against each other. Shelves lined the walls, filled with old potion vials and dusty textbooks. A softly glowing hourglass hovered near the ceiling, its sand suspended in midair, waiting.
As soon as they stepped in, the door slammed shut behind them, and the hourglass flipped over.
The sand began to fall.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Harry’s back brushed one side of the cupboard; Draco’s shoulders nearly touched the other. Their knees were almost touching. Harry could feel the heat coming off Draco in waves, could hear the shallow, controlled cadence of his breathing.
“Well,” Draco said, breaking the silence. “I suppose there are worse ways to die than suffocating on Potter’s heroic presence.”
Harry snorted despite himself. “Relax, Malfoy. It’s not like we actually have to do anything.”
“Oh, good,” Draco replied lightly. “I was concerned I’d be subjected to one of your inspirational speeches. ‘We can snog our way through this, if we just believe in love and teamwork—’”
“Shut up,” Harry muttered, but there wasn’t much heat in it.
The cupboard smelled like old paper and Draco’s cologne, something clean and sharp, like winter air over water. It made Harry’s thoughts feel too bright, too fast.
Draco shifted, and the movement brought them even closer. His arm brushed Harry’s; the contact was a little electric jump under Harry’s skin. Draco stilled.
“You’re tense,” Draco observed. “I thought you’d be used to tight squeezes. What about all these years in the Gryffindor common room?”
“It’s not the space,” Harry said.
“Oh?” Draco tilted his head, blond hair catching the faint light from the hourglass.
Harry hesitated. The sensible thing would be to mumble something and wait out the seven minutes in awkward silence. But he’d never been particularly good at sensible, and there was something about being trapped in the dark with Draco Malfoy that stripped his patience down to bone.
“Maybe I don’t fancy being a spectacle,” he said instead. “Again.”
Draco went very still.
“Ah,” he said softly. “The Boy Who Lived doesn’t like being watched. Tragic.”
The words were glib, but his tone had lost its usual lazy amusement. In the confined space, Harry could hear something thin and brittle under the sarcasm.
“Yeah, well,” Harry said, folding his arms. “You can talk. You love an audience.”
Draco’s lips twisted. “Is that what you think?”
“Isn’t it?” Harry shot back. “You’re always… performing. Even here. Like you’re still in the Great Hall with half of Hogwarts hanging on your every insult.”
“That’s rich,” Draco said, a bite entering his voice. “Coming from you.”
Harry opened his mouth, temper flaring, ready to snap, but Draco cut across him.
“You don’t get it, do you?” Draco’s voice was low now, the words tight around the edges. “People look at you and see a savior. Light, redemption, whatever ridiculous mythology they’ve built around your ridiculous scar. People look at me and see a Death Eater’s son who should be grateful he’s allowed to breathe the same air as the rest of you.”
Harry flinched. It wasn’t an argument he could swat away. The war was a shadow clawing at all of them, even here, months later with classes and exams and drunken parties trying to drown it out.
“I don’t—” he started.
“Please don’t say you don’t see me like that,” Draco said tiredly. “Because you might actually mean it, and that would be worse.”
Harry blinked. “Why would that be worse?”
Draco huffed out a breath that might have been a laugh. “Because then you’d be even more of a saint than everyone says, and I’ve had quite enough of saints, thanks.”
The sand in the hourglass trickled down, silent and inexorable.
“Shouldn’t be allowed to attend,” Draco said abruptly, almost to himself, tone sardonic. “That’s what one of those bloody gossip rags wrote, did you know? They said I was ‘a danger to us all’.”
Harry stared at him. Draco’s face was turned toward the narrow strip of light under the door, his profile carved in silver.
“Why do you read what they write about you?” Harry asked.
“Well don’t you?” Draco shot back.
Harry shifted his weight, throat tight. “Not if I can help it.”
“Must be nice,” Draco murmured, “to have that option.”
There it was. A crack in all that polished composure; a glimpse of the ferocious, aching need underneath. To be seen as something other than a cautionary tale. To be… human.
Harry’s chest squeezed.
“I really don’t see you as a Death Eater’s son,” he blurted. “I mean, I know you are, obviously, but that’s not— It’s not all you are.”
Draco turned to look at him, eyes pale and searching in the low light.
“Oh?” he said softly. “What else am I, Potter?”
Harry swallowed. His pulse was loud in his ears. Words crowded behind his teeth, jostling, desperate.
You’re the only person in Magical Theory who argues with me like I might be wrong. You’re the only one whose attention feels like a spotlight instead of a burden. You’re infuriating and sharp and so bloody alive I can feel you across a room.
“You’re…” Harry started, then faltered, heat rushing to his face. “You’re smart. And you work harder than you pretend to. You’re a right git, but you’re… brave. In your own annoying way.”
A startled laugh escaped Draco. “Brave? Me?”
“You came back to Hogwarts,” Harry said. “You testified. You chose to be here, with everyone watching and judging and waiting for you to mess up. That’s… That’s brave.”
“Stupid,” Draco corrected automatically. His gaze dropped to Harry’s mouth and back up again so quickly Harry almost thought he’d imagined it.
The cupboard shrank around them. Or maybe it was just Harry’s awareness of distance collapsing into something unbearably taut. His skin buzzed. His thoughts felt like they were made of static.
“You think I’m brave,” Draco said slowly. “You think about me?”
Harry’s laugh was short and helpless. “Unfortunately.”
“Unfortunately,” Draco repeated, a dangerous light sparking in his eyes. “And here I was thinking it was only me.”
Harry’s brain stuttered. “What?”
“Oh, relax, Potter,” Draco said, but his voice had gone a little hoarse. “You’re not the only one afflicted with poor taste.”
“Poor taste?” Harry spluttered. “I’m poor taste?”
“You’re so tragic,” Draco told him. “You get this ridiculous little line between your eyebrows when you’re concentrating, and you…” His mouth twisted. “You help people without even thinking about it, and it’s terribly inconvenient for those of us trying not to…care.”
The last word came out like it hurt.
“Draco,” Harry said before he could think better of it.
Draco froze.
It was the first time Harry had said his name like that.
The sand in the hourglass was more than halfway down.
“Why did you come here?” Draco asked suddenly, sounding almost desperate. “Back to Hogwarts. You could have gone straight into the Aurors. You had an open invitation.”
Harry swallowed. “Because I wanted… something that was mine. Not because the world needed me to do it. Because I wanted it.”
“And what do you want?” Draco’s voice was tight. He leaned in a fraction, eyes flicking over Harry’s face. “Right now.”
Harry’s heart slammed. His gut answered before his brain could even marshal an argument.
You.
Everything else was noise.
“I want,” he said, his voice coming out rough, “to stop thinking about what everyone else wants from me.”
Draco’s breath hitched. “For once,” he murmured, “we agree.”
His hand lifted, as if of its own accord, fingers brushing Harry’s jaw. The touch was shockingly gentle, like Draco was expecting Harry to flinch away.
Harry didn’t.
He leaned into it instead, just a little. Enough.
Draco’s pupils blew wide. His composure wavered, a crack of raw want showing through, terrifying.
“This is insane,” he whispered.
“Probably,” Harry agreed.
He closed the last inches between them.
The kiss was clumsy at first. Harry bumped Draco’s nose, and one of them swore softly against the other’s mouth. But then Draco’s hand slid into Harry’s hair, nails scraping lightly against his scalp, and Harry made a helpless sound he would never, ever admit to later.
The world narrowed to heat and pressure and the dizzying realization that he had wanted this for longer than he had let himself know.
Draco tasted like spiked Butterbeer and something sharper, maybe minted tea. His lips were softer than Harry had expected, but the way he kissed was not soft at all. It was hungry and precise.
Harry grabbed at his waist, dragging him closer until their bodies pressed flush in the cramped space. Draco gasped against his mouth, fingers tightening in Harry’s hair.
“Fuck,” Draco breathed, breaking away just enough to pant, their foreheads pressed together. “Okay. All right. This is… Merlin.”
Harry laughed breathlessly. “That good, huh?”
“Don’t get smug,” Draco warned, eyes bright. “I’m having a temporary lapse in standards.”
Harry kissed him again to shut him up. Draco made a muffled noise of approval and kissed back with vicious enthusiasm.
Time blurred. Harry lost track of how many times they broke apart just to stare at each other for a dizzy second, then crashed back in like they were being dragged together by gravity.
At some point Draco muttered, “Don’t stop, Harry,” under his breath, sounding half-high on it, and Harry’s stomach swooped. He slid a hand up Draco’s back, feeling the fine tremor under his fingers, the way Draco swayed into him like he couldn’t help it.
The sand in the hourglass was almost gone.
“Wait,” Harry said suddenly, pulling back.
Draco’s expression shuttered so fast it made Harry’s chest hurt. “If you’re about to say this was a mistake—”
“No.” Harry cupped his face with both hands, forcing Draco to meet his eyes. “No, it’s not that. I just— The opposite, actually. I don’t want this to be just a stupid party game. I don’t want to walk out there and pretend it was a dare and nothing else.”
Draco stared at him, breathing hard. “You think I do?”
Harry swallowed. “I don’t know. You’re very good at pretending.”
Draco’s mouth twisted. “Yes, well. It’s either that or let everyone see how utterly pathetic I am. I spent my adolescence worshiping the Dark Lord, Potter—I don’t have the best track record in… wanting.”
Harry’s grip on him softened. “You were a kid,” he said. “We both were.”
“Still counts.” Draco’s gaze flicked toward the hourglass. One last sliver of sand was falling. “Look. I haven’t— I mean, I’ve—”
He broke off, color flaring high in his cheeks.
“You haven’t…?” Harry prompted gently.
Draco huffed. “Had a male lover, all right? Shagged a guy. Kissed, yes, obviously, I’m not a monk, but this—” He gestured between them, frustrated. “This is new territory. For me.”
Something in Harry unraveled a little.
“Okay,” he said softly. “Me too.”
Draco blinked. “You’re joking.”
Harry shook his head. “Turns out saving the world doesn’t leave a lot of time for self-exploration. And then after… I don’t know. I didn’t want to be someone’s experiment, or crazy story. So I just… didn’t.”
Draco’s eyes searched his face, cautious hope flickering there. “So you’re not…”
“Not what? The experienced fuckboy? Sorry to disappoint.” Harry allowed a crooked smile. “I’m not a virgin, if that’s what you’re worried about. Just…new to this. To guys. To… you.”
The last word slipped out before he could stop it.
Draco sucked in a breath like he’d been punched. “That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said,” he whispered.
The last grain of sand fell.
The hourglass chimed softly, the sound like a spell releasing. The lock on the cupboard clicked.
Harry’s stomach dropped. His hands tightened reflexively on Draco’s hips.
“We don’t have to go out yet,” Draco said suddenly.
Harry blinked. “The door unlocked.”
“Yes, and?” Draco drew his wand and murmured a spell so fast Harry almost missed it. The hourglass stuttered, sand leaping back up in a glittering arc as it flipped itself over.
“Another seven minutes,” Draco said, a challenge in his eyes. “If you want them.”
Harry stared at him. At the faint flush on his cheekbones, the swollen curve of his mouth, and his tousled hair.
“Yeah,” Harry said, voice steady this time. “I want them.”
Draco’s answering smile was slow and wicked.
“Come here, then,” he murmured.
Harry did.
When they finally stumbled out of the cupboard, hair mussed, lips red, shirts rumpled like they’d been grabbed and pulled and unbuttoned and re-buttoned , the room erupted.
Wolf-whistles, cheers, a few fake sobs of disappointment. Someone, probably Seamus, yelled, “About bloody time!” and Ron was standing on a coffee table, pumping a fist in the air like his favorite Quidditch team had just won the Cup.
Harry flipped him off without breaking eye contact with Draco.
Draco stepped out with his chin high, expression schooled into lazy amusement.
Pansy narrowed her eyes, sharp as a curse. “Well?” she demanded. “On a scale of one to ‘life-changing’, how was our little social experiment?”
“Overrated,” Draco said smoothly. “Potter drools.”
Harry snorted. “Malfoy bites.”
Pansy’s grin was shark-like. “Oh, now this is interesting.”
Hermione appeared at Harry’s elbow, eyes bright with suppressed delight. “You all right?” she asked.
Harry’s lips twitched. “Yeah. I think I am.”
Draco was already being dragged back into his corner of the room by Pansy and Blaise, who were firing questions at him like spellfire. He rolled his eyes, but Harry caught the way his gaze kept darting back, checking, as if to make sure Harry was still there.
He was.
Harry lifted his bottle in a small salute. Draco’s mouth quirked.
Seven minutes, he thought, could change a lot.