Drarry In Love

The acrid stench of burnt lacewing flies and curdled Boomslang skin clung to them as they burst out of the Potions classroom, the dungeon corridor offering little relief from the cloying atmosphere of their failure. Slughorn, in his infinite and infuriating wisdom, had declared that the upcoming N.E.W.T.-level practicals required “inter-house unity” and had promptly partnered Harry with the one person he’d rather feed to a Blast-Ended Skrewt.

“If you hadn’t been so heavy-handed with the powdered Bicorn horn, Potter, we might have actually produced a passable Draught of Living Death,” Draco sneered, his pale face flushed with anger as he stalked alongside Harry. He ripped his leather gloves off, one finger at a time, the motion sharp and venomous. “But no, Saint Potter has to do everything with the subtlety of a rampaging troll.”

“Me?” Harry rounded on him, his own temper, already frayed from a week of relentless tournament speculation and sleepless nights, snapping like a dry twig. “You’re the one who stirred counter-clockwise a full three times before adding the Sopophorous bean juice! I saw you. You were trying to sabotage it from the start.”

“Oh, forgive me,” Draco drawled, his voice dripping with condescension. He stopped, forcing Harry to halt with him in the middle of the cold, echoing corridor. “I forgot I was working with the Chosen One, whose innate brilliance in all things magical surely compensates for his inability to read simple instructions. My mistake. I should have just let you toss the ingredients in at random and hoped for the best. It seems to work for everything else in your charmed life.”

The words hit a nerve, raw and exposed. Charmed life. The irony was so bitter it felt like bile in Harry’s throat. “Shut your mouth, Malfoy.”

“Or what? You’ll run and tell Dumbledore on me?” Draco took a step closer, crowding Harry’s space. The air crackled, the animosity between them a tangible thing, thick and suffocating. His grey eyes, the colour of a stormy sea, glittered with malice. “You’re nothing without your powerful friends, are you, Potter? A pathetic orphan who stumbled into fame.”

That was it. The final straw. A red haze clouded Harry’s vision. “Better than being a coward who hides behind his father’s name.”

The shift in Draco was instantaneous. The sneer vanished, replaced by something harder, colder, and far more dangerous. Before Harry could brace himself, Draco surged forward, slamming him back against the unyielding stone wall of the corridor. The impact knocked the air from Harry’s lungs, his head connecting with the cold, damp stone with a dull thud.

Draco’s hands were fisted in the front of Harry’s robes, yanking him forward until their faces were mere inches apart. The clean, sharp scent of Draco’s expensive cologne—something like sandalwood and winter air—filled Harry’s senses, a bizarre counterpoint to the rage radiating from him in palpable waves. Harry could feel the heat of Draco’s body, see the faint silver of his irises constricting around his pupils, feel the spray of his furious breath against his lips.

“You don’t know anything about me,” Draco hissed, his voice a low, guttural snarl that was nothing like his usual aristocratic drawl. It was raw. Unfiltered.

Harry’s heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic, trapped bird. He could feel the solid muscle of Draco’s forearm pressing into his chest, pinning him. His own hands came up, intending to shove him away, but they faltered, gripping the fabric of Draco’s sleeves instead. The world had narrowed to this single, explosive point: the press of Draco’s body, the fury in his eyes, the unbearable, humming tension that vibrated between them.

And then, in the space of a single, ragged breath, the nature of that tension warped. Harry’s gaze dropped from Draco’s furious eyes to his mouth. He watched as Draco’s lips parted, a silent snarl still shaping them, pale and surprisingly full. He saw the flicker in Draco’s own eyes as they followed his, a flicker of… something else. Not just hate. Something wilder. Hungrier.

The anger hadn’t vanished. It had transmuted, curdling into a desperate, violent need. With a sound that was half-growl, half-groan, Draco crushed his mouth to Harry’s.

It wasn’t a kiss. It was a collision. An act of aggression. Draco’s lips were hard, demanding, his teeth scraping against Harry’s own in a brutal claim. Harry’s mind went blank with shock, every coherent thought obliterated by the sheer, stunning force of it. He tasted fury and that sharp, sandalwood scent, a dizzying combination that set his blood on fire. A whimper of protest died in his throat as Draco’s tongue thrust past his lips, hot and wet and demanding, a brazen invasion.

The fight was still there, but now it was a battle of mouths, of tongues clashing and tangling in a rough, wet duel. Harry’s initial shock gave way to a surge of heat that pooled low in his belly, sharp and shocking. Without conscious thought, his hands tightened on Draco’s arms, pulling him closer, impossibly closer. He kissed back, meeting the punishing force with a desperate, confused hunger of his own. He bit down on Draco’s lower lip, hard enough to draw a sharp hiss of pain that was swallowed by their kiss.

Draco answered by grinding his hips forward, a deliberate, punishing motion. Harry gasped into his mouth as he felt the undeniable, rigid length of Draco’s cock pressing against his thigh through the layers of their school trousers. The blatant evidence of arousal sent a jolt of pure, unadulterated lust through him, so potent it made him dizzy. His own body, that traitorous bastard, answered in kind, his own dick swelling, hardening with a painful, immediate ache.

One of Draco’s hands left his robes, sliding down his chest with agonizing slowness, fingers splayed over his furiously beating heart before continuing its descent. The hand settled over the front of Harry’s trousers, right over the burgeoning thickness there. Draco’s grip was possessive, his fingers pressing down, and Harry choked on a moan, his back arching against the cold stone. This was insane. This was Malfoy. And fuck, he was about to come in his pants from a simple, clothed touch.

The sound of his own muffled pleasure seemed to shatter the spell.

Draco tore his mouth away, shoving Harry back against the wall again, this time with a finality that felt like a physical blow. He stumbled back a step, his chest heaving, his lips swollen and dark from the force of their kiss. His grey eyes were wide, wild with a mixture of horror and a raw, stark hunger that mirrored the ache in Harry’s own groin.

For a moment, they just stared at each other, the only sounds in the corridor their harsh, ragged breaths. A faint, dark flush stained the high points of Draco’s cheekbones. He looked at Harry’s mouth, then at his own hand as if it had betrayed him, a look of utter self-loathing twisting his features.

Without another word, Draco turned on his heel and fled, his long-legged stride eating up the length of the dungeon corridor until he disappeared around the corner, leaving Harry slumped against the wall, breathless, bewildered, and burning with a shameful, incandescent heat.

Of course. Here is the narrative for the second bullet point of the chapter "Shards of Animosity."

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The heat from that encounter in the dungeon corridor clung to Harry for the rest of the day, a phantom warmth under his skin that was both sickening and thrilling. He’d scrubbed his mouth raw in the lavatory, trying to erase the taste of Draco, of sandalwood and rage and something that tasted terrifyingly like want. But the memory was branded onto him. The punishing force of Draco’s lips, the possessive grip of his hand, the shocking, solid press of his erection against Harry’s thigh—it all replayed in a dizzying, shameful loop behind his eyes.

He couldn't face the Gryffindor common room. He couldn't bear the cheerful chatter, Ron’s oblivious questions, or Hermione’s perceptive gaze which would surely see that something was deeply, fundamentally wrong. The weight of it all—the tournament, the constant threat of Voldemort simmering in the background of his nightmares, and now this volatile, confusing firestorm with Malfoy—was crushing him. He felt utterly, terrifyingly alone.

So he walked. He walked until his legs ached, seeking out the most deserted parts of the castle, the corridors that even the ghosts seemed to avoid. He ended up in a high, narrow passage near the West Tower, lit only by a single slit of a window showing a sliver of the darkening, bruised-purple sky. The air was cold and still, the silence a welcome balm. He slumped against the stone wall, the same unyielding cold he’d felt pressed against his back hours earlier, and let his head fall back with a sigh that felt ripped from his soul.

He closed his eyes, and the images returned, vivid and unwelcome. Draco’s face, inches from his, pupils blown wide in his stormy grey eyes. The raw, guttural sound he’d made. The way Harry’s own body had betrayed him, leaping to life with a desperate, aching need that he hadn’t known he was capable of feeling, especially not for him. He’d wanted it. Gods, in that moment, pinned and powerless, he had wanted it. He’d wanted the violence, the anger, the brutal claiming. The realization was a fresh wave of nausea and heat. He was supposed to hate Malfoy. Hate was simple. It was clean. This… this was a filthy, tangled mess.

Loneliness was a hollow ache in his chest. Who could he ever tell? Who would understand that the boy who tormented him, who stood for everything he fought against, was also the one who could ignite such a shameful, powerful inferno in his blood with a single, hate-fueled kiss? He felt like a freak, broken in some essential way. The weight of being the Chosen One felt heavier than ever, a cloak of isolation he couldn't shrug off.

A soft scuff of a shoe against stone broke the silence.

Harry’s eyes snapped open. Standing at the far end of the corridor, half-shrouded in shadow where he’d just turned the corner, was Draco Malfoy.

The world stopped. Harry’s breath caught in his throat, and every muscle in his body went rigid, bracing for the inevitable sneer, the cutting remark. This was it. Malfoy had found him, vulnerable and alone, the perfect target.

But the sneer never came.

For a long, suspended moment, Draco just stood there, watching him. In the dim light, his face was pale and stark. He wasn't smirking. He wasn't posturing. He was just… looking. And in his eyes, Harry saw none of the usual aristocratic disdain. He saw a flicker of something else, something he couldn’t name. It wasn’t pity. It wasn’t triumph. It was something quieter, more complex. A flicker of recognition, perhaps, as if the raw exhaustion and despair on Harry’s face was something he understood on a level that went beyond their rivalry.

Harry stared back, his heart hammering a frantic, unsteady rhythm against his ribs. He felt stripped bare, his loneliness and confusion laid out for his enemy to see. He saw the slight parting of Draco’s lips, as if he meant to speak, but no sound emerged. The air between them was thick with unspoken words, with the memory of their bodies pressed together, with the ghost of a kiss that was more like a declaration of war. Draco’s gaze dropped for a fraction of a second to Harry’s mouth, and Harry felt the phantom pressure there again, a tingling, electric memory.

The moment stretched, taut and fragile. It was Draco who broke it. He gave a small, almost imperceptible shake of his head, as if to clear it of a thought he didn't want. His expression shuttered, the familiar mask of cool indifference sliding back into place, but it didn’t quite settle right. It looked brittle. Without a single word, not a taunt or an insult, he turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing softly before fading into the vast silence of the castle, leaving Harry utterly alone once more.

Harry slid the rest of the way down the wall to sit on the cold floor, his legs suddenly unable to support him. The silence Draco left behind was louder and more unnerving than any insult he could have hurled. He hadn't mocked him. He had seen him at his lowest, and he had simply walked away. And that, somehow, was the most terrifying thing of all.

Of course. Here is the narrative for the third bullet point of the chapter "Shards of Animosity."

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The following morning was a study in exquisite torture. Harry felt as though he’d been flayed, every nerve ending exposed and screaming. Sleep had been a distant, impossible dream, replaced by feverish, fragmented replays of the dungeon corridor. He’d woken with the phantom taste of sandalwood and fury on his tongue and the distinct, shameful ache of a phantom touch against his thigh. He felt branded. The ghost of Draco’s mouth on his, the press of his body, the possessive grip of his hand—it was a litany of sin that had etched itself onto his skin.

He moved through the castle like a wraith, his senses dialed to an unbearable high. Every flash of platinum-blond hair in his peripheral vision made his heart seize. He saw Malfoy across the Great Hall at breakfast, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle, looking pale and drawn, his movements sharp and agitated. He wasn't sneering. He was pushing food around his plate with a silver fork, his jaw tight, a dark smudge of sleeplessness under his eyes that mirrored Harry’s own. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second across the cavernous room, and the connection was as sharp and painful as a physical blow. Harry had looked away first, his stomach churning.

The bell signaling the end of Charms shrieked through the castle, releasing a torrent of students into the corridors. Harry was swept up in the tide, a piece of driftwood in a human river. He kept his head down, his focus on the worn stone floor, trying to make himself as small and unnoticeable as possible. He just had to get to the Transfiguration classroom. He just had to avoid…

The flow of the crowd bottlenecked near the grand staircase. Students pushed from behind, jostling and shoving. Harry was pressed forward, trying to keep his balance, when he was suddenly forced sideways against someone moving in the opposite direction. He instinctively put a hand out to steady himself against the wall, but another body was already there.

And then it happened.

The back of his hand brushed against the back of another. The contact was feather-light, skin against skin, lasting no more than a second. But it was enough. A bolt of pure, unadulterated heat shot up Harry’s arm, so potent and shocking it felt like a jolt from a faulty electrical wire. It wasn’t just warmth; it was a searing, living fire that bypassed his skin and went straight for his blood, his nerves, his very core. In that single, fleeting moment, every memory of the previous day crashed over him: the violent kiss, the scrape of teeth, the hot invasion of Draco’s tongue, the hard, blatant pressure of his erection.

He knew, without even looking, whose hand it was.

He snatched his hand back as if he’d touched a burning coal, a sharp gasp catching in his throat. At the exact same moment, the other person flinched away with equal violence. Harry’s head snapped up, and his eyes locked with Draco Malfoy’s.

Draco’s face was a mask of pure shock. His grey eyes were wide, his pupils blown, the carefully constructed wall of indifference from the previous evening utterly shattered. He was staring at Harry, his lips slightly parted, his breath visibly hitching. In his eyes, Harry saw it all reflected back at him: the same stunned disbelief, the same searing heat, the same terrifying, undeniable pull. The air between them, thick with the noise and chaos of the corridor, suddenly became a vacuum, silent and charged with a voltage that made the hairs on Harry’s arms stand on end.

A traitorous, immediate heat flooded Harry’s groin. His cock, that fucking bastard, gave a distinct, painful throb, beginning to swell against the confines of his trousers. The sensation was so abrupt, so shameful in the middle of a packed hallway, that a dark flush crept up his neck. He saw a flicker in Draco’s eyes as his gaze dropped for a nanosecond, as if he could somehow see the effect he was having, before snapping back up to Harry’s face.

The moment broke. Draco’s shock curdled back into a familiar, defensive fury. His expression twisted into a snarl of self-loathing and disgust, aimed as much at himself as it was at Harry. With a low, guttural sound of revulsion, he shoved his way past, his shoulder deliberately slamming into Harry’s with enough force to make him stumble.

Harry was left reeling in his wake, his hand tingling as if it had been burned, his heart hammering against his ribs like a war drum. He stood frozen amidst the oblivious, churning sea of students, his body alight with a confusing, mortifying fire. The brief, accidental touch had confirmed it. Yesterday wasn’t an aberration. It wasn’t just anger. It was something else, something raw and real and terrifyingly mutual that now hung between them, a live, sparking wire just waiting to be touched again.

Of course. Here is the narrative for the fourth bullet point of the chapter "Shards of Animosity."

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The library had always been a sanctuary for Harry, a place of quiet contemplation where the noise of his life could be muted by the sheer, comforting weight of a million silent words. But now, the silence was a torment. It gave the memories room to breathe, to expand and take shape in the dusty air. Every time he tried to focus on the diagrams of dragons in Men Who Love Dragons Too Much, his mind would betray him, replacing the intricate scales of a Hungarian Horntail with the stormy grey of Draco Malfoy’s eyes. The accidental brush of their hands in the corridor had been a brand, a searing confirmation that the fire in the dungeon was no fluke. It was a shared, terrifying inferno.

He was tracing the curve of a dragon’s claw with his finger when a shadow fell over the page. A very specific shadow, one that made the fine hairs on his neck stand on end and sent a jolt of ice and fire through his veins. He didn't need to look up. He could smell it—that clean, sharp scent of sandalwood and winter air that was now irrevocably linked in his mind with fury and a soul-deep, shameful ache.

Slowly, Harry lifted his head.

Draco stood at the end of the narrow aisle, blocking the only exit. He wasn’t smirking. He wasn’t posturing. He looked like a predator, coiled and tense, his face pale and stark in the dim light filtering through the high, arched windows. He was haunted. Harry could see it in the dark smudges under his eyes, in the tight set of his jaw. He was haunted by the same thing that was tormenting Harry.

Without a word, Draco started toward him, his steps slow, deliberate, and utterly silent on the stone floor. Harry’s heart began to hammer against his ribs, a frantic, trapped thing. He pushed his chair back, standing to face him, his own body tensing for a fight. He would not be caught sitting down. He would not be made to feel small.

Draco didn’t stop until he was standing directly in front of Harry, crowding him, forcing him back a step until the hard edge of a bookshelf pressed into his spine. The space between them was electric, a humming, vibrant void that sucked all the air from Harry’s lungs. He could see the faint, silvery flecks in Draco’s irises, see them constrict as his gaze dropped to Harry’s mouth.

“What do you want, Malfoy?” Harry managed, his voice coming out as a rough rasp.

Draco’s eyes snapped back to his, glittering with a raw, unnerving intensity. He leaned in closer, his voice a low, guttural growl that vibrated through the silent air and straight into Harry’s bones.

“You’d better not get yourself killed, Potter,” he hissed, his breath warm against Harry’s lips. “It would be dreadfully boring.”

The words were an insult, but the tone was anything but. It was a threat, a promise, a possessive claim wrapped in the familiar language of their animosity. It wasn't about boredom. It was about something deeper, something darker that Draco couldn't or wouldn't name. It was the most terrifying thing Harry had ever heard him say.

And then the pretense of control shattered for them both.

With a sound that was a choked-off groan of frustration, Draco closed the final inch between them. This kiss wasn't a collision like the first one. It was a desperate, frantic claiming. His mouth slanted over Harry’s, hot and wet and demanding, his lips parting Harry’s with a brutal sort of reverence. One of his hands came up to fist in the hair at the nape of Harry’s neck, yanking his head back to give him better access.

This time, there was no shock to paralyze Harry. There was only a tidal wave of heat that obliterated all thought. He whimpered into Draco’s mouth, a pathetic, needy sound, and his hands came up to grip the front of Draco’s robes, pulling him closer. He kissed back with a feverish, desperate hunger that matched Draco’s own. He opened his mouth, and Draco’s tongue swept inside, a hot, slick invasion that tasted of desperation and mint and that indefinable, maddening taste of Draco himself.

It was a wet, messy, open-mouthed kiss, a battle for dominance that neither of them was winning. Tongues tangled and dueled, teeth scraped against swollen lips. Draco pushed him harder against the bookshelf, his body flush against Harry’s, and the friction was agonizingly, exquisitely perfect. Harry could feel the hard ridge of Draco’s cock pressing insistently against his stomach, a solid, demanding heat that promised all sorts of filthy things. A responding jolt of pure lust shot through Harry, and his own dick swelled, hard and aching, grinding against the rigid length of Draco’s through the layers of their wool trousers.

Harry moaned, a raw, broken sound swallowed by their kiss. The sound seemed to drive Draco wilder. He shifted his hips, a deliberate, rocking motion that sent sparks of pleasure straight to Harry’s groin. One of Draco’s hands left his hair, sliding down his back, fingers digging into the muscle there before settling on his arse, squeezing one cheek hard, possessively. Harry gasped, arching into the touch, into the punishing friction between their crotches. He was going to come, right here, in the fucking library, pinned against a shelf of books on magical herbs by his arch-nemesis.

Draco tore his mouth away, both of them panting, their chests heaving. His forehead rested against Harry’s, their lips still slick and swollen, mere inches apart. His grey eyes were blown wide, dark with a mixture of raw lust and utter self-loathing. He looked at Harry as if he were a disease he’d willingly infected himself with.

“Potter,” he breathed, the name a curse and a prayer all at once.

He stared at Harry for one long, agonizing moment, his breath ghosting over Harry’s lips, the silence of the library pressing in around them, thick and suffocating with the evidence of their sin.

The world narrowed to the point of contact. Draco’s fingers were a manacle of heat and pressure around Harry’s forearm, but it was his thumb that stole the air from Harry’s lungs. It pressed, not hard, but with an unnerving, deliberate firmness into the delicate, blue-veined skin of his inner wrist. Right over his pulse. Harry could feel his own frantic heartbeat thudding against Draco’s flesh, a frantic, trapped bird beating against its cage.

Draco’s silver eyes, so often cold with contempt, were now burning with a feverish intensity that Harry had never seen before. They weren't just looking at him; they were devouring him, stripping him bare right there between the towering shelves of forgotten lore. The scent of old parchment, dust, and something uniquely Draco—sharp, clean, like winter air and expensive soap—filled Harry’s senses, overwhelming him.

"Malfoy, what the fuck—" Harry started, his voice a raw whisper, but the words died on his lips.

Draco’s gaze dropped from Harry’s eyes to his mouth. The shift was so slight, so quick, but it felt like a physical blow. A silent, damning admission. The air crackled, thick with unspoken things, with years of animosity that had suddenly curdled into something else. Something dark, and hungry, and terrifyingly new.

Harry’s mind was a maelstrom. Shove him off. Punch him. Hex his smug face into next week. The litany of appropriate responses played on a loop, but his body refused to obey. He was paralyzed, pinned by that searing gaze and the proprietary heat of Draco’s hand on his skin. The war inside him had begun: Gryffindor courage against a treacherous, coiling curiosity. Revulsion against a sudden, shocking pull.

And then Draco moved. He didn't release him. He leaned in.

The space between them vanished. Draco’s mouth crashed against his, not in a gentle exploration, but in a bruising, desperate collision. It was a kiss born of conflict, all teeth and punishing pressure. It tasted of fury and confusion. Harry’s first instinct was to recoil, to fight, but the shock of it was a lightning strike to his system, short-circuiting every rational thought. A ragged gasp was torn from his throat, a sound of protest that was half a surrender.

Draco took the sound as an invitation. His tongue, hot and wet, pushed past Harry’s lips, insistent and demanding. It was an invasion, an act of sheer possession, and Harry’s mind screamed no. But his body, that fucking traitor, arched forward. His hands, which should have been pushing Draco away, fisted in the front of Draco’s expensive wool robes, clinging to him as the world tilted on its axis.

The kiss changed. The initial violence bled away into a raw, frantic passion. It was no longer an attack, but a mutual, desperate catechism. Draco’s tongue swept through his mouth, exploring and claiming, and Harry, god help him, began to kiss back. He met the slick slide of Draco’s tongue with his own, a clumsy, untutored dance of long-suppressed… something. He didn’t have a name for it. All he knew was the dizzying heat of it, the way a groan rumbled in Draco’s chest, vibrating through their locked mouths.

Draco’s other hand left the bookshelf and slid down Harry’s side, his long fingers mapping the curve of his hip before settling, with shocking possessiveness, on his arse. He squeezed, hard, pulling Harry’s body flush against his. The friction was immediate, undeniable. Through the layers of their school trousers, Harry could feel the hard ridge of Draco’s erection pressing against his stomach. A jolt of pure, unadulterated lust shot through him, hot and sharp, pooling low in his belly. His own cock, already stirring, swelled tight against his jeans, aching with a need that was as terrifying as it was exhilarating.

He was hard for Draco Malfoy. The thought was a splash of ice water, but it was too late to stop. He was drowning in the sensation of it all—the taste of Draco’s mouth, the rough texture of his robes under his desperate grip, the solid heat of his body, the hard proof of his desire pressing into him.

Just as Harry felt he might completely unravel, might drag Draco further into the shadows and do something utterly unforgivable, Draco tore his mouth away.

They were both panting, their chests heaving. Spittle and sweat slicked their skin. Draco’s lips were red and swollen, his silver eyes wide with a dawning horror that mirrored Harry’s own. He looked from Harry’s debauched mouth, down to where their bodies were still pressed together, and a flicker of self-loathing crossed his pale features.

With a choked sound that was half-disgust, half-panic, Draco shoved himself back. He released Harry’s arm as if he’d been burned, the sudden absence of his touch a cold shock. He stared at Harry for one more heart-stopping second, his expression an unreadable storm of fury, desire, and confusion.

Then, without another word, he turned on his heel. The sharp swish of his robes was the only sound as he swept out of the aisle and disappeared, leaving Harry utterly wrecked in his wake.

Harry slumped back against the bookshelf, his legs threatening to give out. He was breathless, his lips tingling and bruised. A sticky wetness was beginning to cool on the front of his trousers. He slowly lifted a trembling hand to his wrist, to the place where Draco’s thumb had pressed his pulse into a frantic rhythm. The skin was tender, branded by the touch. The silent war he’d felt brewing moments ago was no longer silent. It was a raging, chaotic inferno in his veins, a battle between a lifetime of hatred and a single, searing moment of inexplicable, undeniable want. He was lost. And a terrifying part of him knew, with sickening certainty, that this was only the beginning.

The applause for Cedric Diggory had just begun to fade, a warm and satisfied murmur that settled over the Great Hall like a comfortable blanket. The three champions had been chosen. The tournament was set. Harry felt a knot of tension he hadn't realized he was holding finally loosen in his chest. For once, something momentous was happening at Hogwarts that had absolutely nothing to do with him. He could just be a student, a spectator. He could watch from the sidelines, safe and blessedly anonymous. He grinned at Ron, who was still clapping enthusiastically for the Hufflepuff champion, and felt a surge of simple, uncomplicated relief.

Then, the Goblet of Fire, which had dimmed to a cool blue, flared violently.

The flames roared up, turning a furious, blood-red, and spat a fourth piece of parchment high into the air. It was a dying, desperate gasp, an unnatural violation of the magic that had just concluded. A hush fell over the hall, so sudden and complete it was like a physical blow. Every eye was fixed on the slip of scorched paper as it fluttered down through the suddenly cold air.

Dumbledore, moving with a swiftness that belied his age, snatched it from the air before it could touch the ground. His fingers uncurled. For a long moment, he just stared at the name written there, his face illuminated by the magical candlelight, a mask of grim disbelief. The silence stretched, thin and fragile, until it snapped.

"Harry Potter."

Dumbledore’s voice wasn't a shout, but it carried to every corner of the cavernous room, sharp and clear as shattering glass.

Harry didn't feel anything at first. Just a distant, hollow ringing in his ears. The name didn't sound like his own. It was a curse, an accusation. He felt the weight of hundreds of pairs of eyes turning towards him, a physical pressure that threatened to crush him. He saw Hermione's hand fly to her mouth, her eyes wide with confusion and dawning horror. He saw Ron’s jaw drop, his expression shifting from shock to a dark, unreadable suspicion.

Then the noise began. It wasn't applause. It was a tidal wave of sound—shouts of outrage from the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students, angry muttering from the Hufflepuffs who felt their champion had been cheated, and a low, vicious buzz of whispers from every corner of the hall. Cheater. Liar. Attention-seeker. The words slithered through the din, sinking into him like tiny, poisoned barbs. He felt hot and cold all at once, his skin prickling as if he were standing naked in the center of the room. He couldn't breathe. He was drowning in their judgment.

His gaze, wild and desperate, swept across the sea of faces, searching for... he didn't even know what. An ally? A friendly look? Instead, his eyes locked, as if drawn by some grim magnet, with Draco Malfoy's.

He braced himself for the inevitable. The triumphant sneer. The mocking laughter. The look of pure, unadulterated glee at seeing him publicly humiliated and endangered. It was what Malfoy did. It was who he was.

But it wasn't what Harry saw.

Across the room, through the flickering candlelight, Draco’s face was stark white, whiter than his ridiculously pale hair. His usual mask of aristocratic disdain had been completely obliterated. His grey eyes, normally narrowed in a perpetual sneer, were wide with genuine, unfeigned shock. His mouth was slightly agape, the silver glint of his Slytherin tie seeming to tighten around his throat. And under the shock, there was something else. Something complex and deeply unsettling that twisted in the pit of Harry's stomach. It was a flicker of raw, primal fear. Not the taunting fear of a bully seeing his victim in trouble, but the chilling, gut-deep terror of someone who understood, on a level Harry couldn't begin to fathom, the true danger of the flame that had just whispered his name.

The image burned itself onto the back of Harry's eyelids. While the rest of the world was screaming that he was a cheat, the one person he expected to revel in his downfall was looking at him as if he were already dead.

He moved before he was told to, before Professor McGonagall could even start to shepherd him towards the antechamber where the other champions waited. He was on his feet, stumbling away from the Gryffindor table, his chair scraping loudly in the renewed silence that followed Dumbledore’s pronouncement. He didn't look at Ron. He couldn't. The dark suspicion he'd seen on his best friend's face was a blade twisting in his gut, sharper and more painful than any curse. He didn't look at Hermione, whose horrified pity felt just as suffocating. He just looked at the massive oak doors of the Great Hall, a single point of escape in a world that was closing in on him.

He pushed through the throng of students, ignoring the hands that grabbed at his robes, the hissed insults that followed him like a cloud of stinging insects. Cheat. Potter stinks. Liar. The words were a venomous chorus, and he felt his cheeks burn with a shame so hot it was painful. He wasn't running towards the champions' room. He was running away. Away from the staring eyes, the pointing fingers, the suffocating weight of a destiny he never asked for and a crime he didn't commit.

His feet found the familiar path to the Grand Staircase, his legs moving on pure, panicked instinct. He took the steps two at a time, his breath coming in ragged, desperate gasps. He didn't know where he was going, only that it had to be up. Away. Higher than the whispers and the glares could reach. The portraits he passed watched him with curious, judgmental eyes, their painted inhabitants murmuring to each other as he fled past.

Finally, he reached the top of the Astronomy Tower. The air was thin and bitingly cold, a welcome shock to his overheated skin. He shoved open the heavy door to the outer balcony and stumbled into the vast, open night. The wind hit him like a physical blow, whipping his robes around his legs and tearing at his hair. He gripped the cold, damp stone of the parapet, his knuckles white, and leaned out into the void. Below, the grounds of Hogwarts were a patchwork of darkness and moonlight, silent and indifferent. The Black Lake was a sheet of polished obsidian. For a moment, the sheer scale of it all made him feel blessedly small, his problems insignificant against the sweep of the starry sky. He closed his eyes, drinking in the cold, clean air, trying to force the hammering of his heart to slow. He just needed a minute. One minute to breathe before he had to go back down and face them all.

The rasp of the heavy door swinging open behind him was a violation.

Harry’s entire body went rigid. His eyes snapped open. He didn't have to turn around to know. It was a sixth sense, a prickling on the back of his neck he’d developed over four years of mutual animosity. He’d expected taunts, maybe a hex in the back while he was distracted. He’d braced himself for the inevitable, sneering victory lap.

He slowly turned, his hand inching towards the wand in his pocket.

Draco Malfoy stood in the doorway, a pale specter framed against the darkness of the stairwell. The moonlight caught him, turning his hair to spun silver and carving his face into sharp, aristocratic planes. He stepped out onto the balcony, letting the door swing shut with a deep, final thud. And Harry’s breath caught in his throat.

The shock he'd seen on Malfoy's face in the Great Hall, the flicker of raw fear, was gone. It had been burned away and replaced by something far more terrifying. His grey eyes, usually cool and mocking, were blazing with a white-hot intensity. His mouth was a thin, hard line, and a muscle jumped in his clenched jaw. Every inch of him, from his rigid posture to the way his hands were balled into fists at his sides, radiated a pure, undiluted fury. It was a cold rage, sharp and honed, and it was directed entirely, unequivocally, at Harry. He looked like a man staring at the embodiment of his own damnation, and he looked ready to tear it apart with his bare hands.

"You cheated," Draco said. The words weren't shouted; they were far worse. They were low and sibilant, a venomous hiss that cut through the howl of the wind. He took a deliberate step forward, and then another, his polished black shoes making no sound on the stone. The fury radiating from him was a palpable force, a cold pressure in the air.

Harry’s hand, halfway to his wand, fell back to his side. "I didn't," he shot back, his voice cracking with the strain of the last hour. "I didn't put my name in."

"Liar," Draco breathed, advancing again. Harry instinctively took a step back, then another, until the back of his legs hit the low stone wall of the parapet. The cold seeped through the fabric of his robes, a sharp, unforgiving line against his skin. He was trapped.

"It's never enough for you, is it?" Malfoy sneered, his face a pale, furious mask in the moonlight. He was close now, close enough for Harry to see the frantic, silver glint in his wide grey eyes. "The Boy Who Lived. The saviour. The Gryffindor hero. You couldn't just let someone else have the spotlight for one bloody night. You couldn't stand it, seeing Diggory get the glory. You had to find a way to make it about you. Always about Saint Potter."

Every word was a perfectly aimed dart, striking the rawest of Harry's insecurities. It was what they were all whispering downstairs. It was what he'd seen in Ron's eyes. To hear it articulated with such surgical cruelty from Malfoy made something inside him snap.

"You think I want this?" Harry's voice rose, shaking with a rage of his own. "You think I want to be in this tournament? To have the entire school hate me? To have everyone look at me like I'm some kind of… of monster?" He gestured wildly at the grounds below, at the castle full of his accusers. "I would give anything to be anyone else right now! Someone no one ever looks at!"

"Don't you dare play the victim with me," Malfoy snarled, leaning in. The wind whipped his white-blond hair across his face, but his eyes never left Harry's. They burned. "You have no idea what you've done. This isn't some schoolyard game, Potter. This isn't about winning a Quidditch match or getting house points."

"Then what is it about?" Harry challenged, baffled by the sheer intensity, the undercurrent of genuine panic in Malfoy's voice. This wasn't their usual script. This was something else entirely. "What are you so afraid of?"

Malfoy flinched as if Harry had struck him. The question seemed to shatter his composure for a fraction of a second, revealing the raw fear beneath. But it was immediately swallowed by an even colder, more potent rage.

"You fool," he whispered, the sound almost lost to the wind. "You absolute, arrogant fool. Do you think this magic is a toy? An unbreakable vow has been made. The Goblet has bound you. You have to compete, whether you want to or not." He took the final step, his body caging Harry against the stone. "There are people—powerful people—who have been waiting for an opportunity like this. A way to get past the school's wards. A way to get to you. And you just handed it to them on a silver platter because you couldn't bear to be out of the limelight."

Harry stared at him, his own anger faltering in the face of Malfoy's chilling certainty. He wasn't just taunting him. He was warning him. The fear Harry had seen on his face in the Great Hall hadn't been for a rival; it had been for an outcome he seemed to understand with terrifying clarity.

"I didn't do it," Harry said again, but this time it wasn't a defense. It was a plea. A desperate attempt to make him understand.

Malfoy just shook his head, a slow, grim motion. A look of utter disgust twisted his features, aimed not just at Harry, but at the entire situation, at a fate that now seemed horribly, inextricably linked between them. The fury in his eyes was so absolute it was almost luminous, a terrifying fire in the pale moonlight. He looked at Harry not as a rival, but as a catastrophe he was desperate, and failing, to contain.

The words were a raw wound, torn from some deep, dark place inside him. Before Harry could even process the warning, the space between them vanished. Draco’s hands shot out, fisting in the thick fabric of Harry’s Gryffindor robes. He yanked, hard. Harry stumbled forward with a choked gasp, his chest slamming into Draco’s with a solid thud. The cold stone of the parapet bit into the backs of his thighs, the only thing keeping him from toppling backward into the abyss. He was caged.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" Draco snarled, the words a hot, sharp puff of air against Harry’s lips. Their breath mingled in the frigid night, a visible cloud of shared panic and rage.

Up close, Draco was a terrifying spectacle of contained violence. The moonlight bleached all color from his skin, leaving only the stark black of his pupils in the furious silver of his irises. A single, perfect vein pulsed at his temple, a frantic, desperate rhythm. Harry could feel the heat radiating from him, a furnace of pure fury that burned away the night's chill. He could smell him—the clean, sharp scent of expensive soap and something else, something metallic and wild, like ozone before a lightning strike.

Harry’s hands came up instinctively, pressing against the hard wall of Draco’s chest to push him away, but it was like shoving against granite. Draco’s arms were rigid, his grip on Harry's robes unrelenting. The knuckles of his pale hands were white, digging into Harry’s sternum with bruising force.

"Let go of me, Malfoy," Harry ground out, his voice tight and strained. But there was no force behind the words. His mind was reeling, thrown completely off balance by the sheer, shocking intimacy of the assault. He could feel the frantic thud of Draco’s heart against his own ribs, or maybe it was his own heart hammering against Draco’s. The distinction was lost in the violent press of their bodies.

"You think this is a game?" Draco hissed, his face so close Harry could see the tiny, frantic tremor in his lower lip. His eyes were wide, possessed. "You think my father and his… friends… won't see this for the gift it is? An invitation? They have been waiting, Potter. Waiting for a crack in Dumbledore's defenses. And you just blew the doors wide open for them."

The mention of Lucius Malfoy sent a jolt of cold dread through Harry, sharp enough to cut through his anger. This wasn't about schoolboy rivalry. This was real. This was the dark, shadowy world he’d only ever glimpsed, the world of Death Eaters and hushed, fearful whispers. And Malfoy, for all his blustering arrogance, was clearly terrified of it. Terrified of what Harry had just accidentally become embroiled in.

"I told you," Harry said, his voice dropping to a desperate whisper. "I didn't do it."

"It doesn't matter!" Draco shook him, a sharp, violent rattle that made Harry’s teeth click together. "You think He cares about the truth? He cares about power. About opportunity. And you… you witless, glory-hound, Gryffindor moron… you just served yourself up."

The insult was familiar, almost comforting in its predictability, but the terror lacing it was not. Draco's grip seemed to change, the anger in his fingers lessening, replaced by something that felt more like desperation. His knuckles were no longer digging in to hurt, but to hold on, as if Harry were a lifeline and a lead weight all at once. The line of his jaw was impossibly tight, and for a second, Harry thought he might be on the verge of tears. The thought was so absurd, so utterly alien, that it stunned Harry into silence.

He stopped pushing. His hands flattened against the fine wool of Draco's sweater, feeling the taut muscles of his chest beneath. He was aware, with a sudden, shocking clarity, of every point of contact between them. The press of their hips, the brush of their thighs, the solid, unyielding heat of Draco's body against his. A strange, unwelcome warmth began to coil low in his belly, a traitorous flicker of heat that had nothing to do with anger and everything to do with the raw, animal energy crackling in the air. His breath hitched.

Draco must have felt it, the subtle shift in Harry's body, the infinitesimal relaxing of his resistance. His furious tirade faltered. The sound of their harsh breathing filled the sudden silence, punctuated by the lonely howl of the wind around the tower. Draco’s gaze, which had been darting around Harry’s face as if searching for a sign of understanding, suddenly fixed on his eyes. The inferno in them banked, the silver turning molten and uncertain. The fury was still there, but it was now warring with something else, something confused and hungry and just as terrifying. Slowly, as if pulled by a force he couldn't control, Draco’s eyes dropped from Harry’s. They lingered for a beat on his parted lips, still damp from their mingled breath. The air grew thick, heavy, charged with a new and infinitely more dangerous kind of tension.

The silence that fell was heavier than stone, broken only by their ragged breaths puffing white in the frigid air. Harry’s back was still pressed against the cold, rough parapet, the chill of it a stark contrast to the searing heat radiating from Draco’s body. Draco’s hands were still fisted in his robes, knuckles white, but the grip had lost its violence. It was anchoring them now, a desperate point of contact in the dizzying aftermath.

Harry’s lips were tingling, bruised and wet. He could taste Draco—a sharp, clean taste like winter air and something else, something uniquely, infuriatingly Malfoy. He stared into those pale grey eyes, now wide and dark-pupiled, searching for the familiar sneer, the arrogant cruelty. But it was gone. In its place was a raw, mirrored shock, and beneath it, the smouldering embers of the same desperate heat that was coiling low in Harry’s own stomach.

Draco’s throat worked as he swallowed, his gaze dropping to Harry’s mouth for a fraction of a second before snapping back up. The decision was made in that flicker of an eye. He didn’t let go. Instead, his head lowered again, slower this time, deliberate. There was no anger left, only a stark, terrifying wanting.

"Potter," he breathed, the name a ghost of a sound, and then his mouth was on Harry’s again.

This time, it wasn’t a crash. It was a claiming. The kiss was deep and searching, Draco’s lips moving against his with a surety that sent a tremor through Harry’s entire body. A low sound, something between a whimper and a groan, was torn from Harry’s throat, and he hated it. He hated himself for it. But his body, that traitorous vessel, was already lost. His eyes fluttered shut.

When Draco’s tongue traced the seam of his lips, a bold, insolent request, Harry parted them without a conscious thought. The invasion was immediate, hot and slick, and the kiss devolved into something primal. This wasn't a fight anymore; it was a mutual consumption. Harry’s hands, which had been braced against Draco’s chest, slid upwards, his fingers tangling in the impossibly soft, silver-blond hair at the nape of Draco’s neck, pulling him closer, harder.

Draco groaned into his mouth, a raw, guttural sound that vibrated through Harry’s teeth. One of his hands released its grip on Harry’s robes, sliding up his chest, over the frantic beat of his heart, to cup the side of his neck. His thumb stroked the sensitive skin just below Harry’s ear, and Harry arched into the touch, a fresh wave of heat washing through him. He could feel the solid length of Draco’s erection pressing against his thigh through their layers of clothing, a startling, undeniable proof that this madness wasn’t one-sided. The knowledge was a spark to dry tinder. Harry felt his own cock, already thick and heavy, give a hard pulse in response.

He shifted his hips, a small, involuntary movement, chasing the friction. Draco’s other hand slid from his robes, down his torso, a burning trail of heat that made every nerve ending fire. The hand paused over the strained fabric of his trousers, fingers splayed just above the ache. Harry’s breath hitched. He was pinned between the cold stone and Draco’s hot, demanding body, lost in a storm of sensation he couldn't begin to understand.

Draco broke the kiss, resting his forehead against Harry’s. They were both panting, their breath mingling as one. His grey eyes were hazy with lust, lips swollen and red.

"You have no idea," Draco whispered, his voice thick and rough. His hand finally closed over the front of Harry's trousers, his grip firm and possessive. Harry gasped, his head falling back against the stone as Draco’s fingers tightened, pressing the length of him, learning his shape through the fabric. "What you do."

The words made no sense, but the feeling did. The humiliation and rage of the evening, the fear of the tournament, it all melted away under the crushing weight of this forbidden, impossible want. He wanted to push Draco away, to curse him, to run. But what he did was press his hips forward, a silent, desperate plea for more.

The days that followed were a blur of hollow-eyed panic. The memory of the alcove was a brand on his mind, a secret, shameful heat that flared at the most inopportune moments. It was a ghost haunting the edges of his vision, the phantom pressure of Draco’s hand on his cock, the slick heat of his tongue, the raw sound of his own wanting. It clung to him like the scent of old parchment and woodsmoke, a constant, maddening reminder of his own betrayal.

He spent his nights in the library, a fortress of silent, dusty knowledge that offered no sanctuary. He was isolated, a pariah in his own house, Ron’s absence a gaping wound that refused to scab over. Hermione tried, bless her, smuggling him sandwiches and whispering frantic encouragement, but she couldn't see the true depth of his terror. She didn't know about the dragons. And she certainly didn't know that while he was supposed to be researching ways to avoid being incinerated, his traitorous mind was replaying the feel of Draco Malfoy’s hips pressing into his.

Tonight was no different. The library was a vast, shadowy cavern around him, the only light the small, flickering orb he’d cast over his table. Towers of books, precariously stacked, formed a barricade against the world. Magical Defenses Against Great Beasts, The Compendium of Common Curses and Their Counter-Actions, Shield Charms of the Fifteenth Century. Useless. All of it was useless. He ran a hand through his already untidy hair, tugging at the roots in frustration. He was going to die. He was going to walk into an arena in front of the entire school and be burned alive by a nesting mother dragon, and his last thought would be of the astonishing softness of Draco Malfoy’s hair.

A low groan escaped his lips. He slammed The Compendium shut, the sound echoing unnaturally in the silence. Leaning forward, he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to scrub the image of storm-grey eyes, dark with lust, from his brain. It was no good. The memory was embedded deeper than that. He could still feel the shocking, solid length of Draco’s erection against his thigh. He could still feel the answering, shameful pulse in his own groin. Even now, sitting here in the cold, fear-drenched library, the memory was enough to send a sluggish, unwelcome heat coiling in his stomach. His cock gave a faint stir against the rough denim of his jeans, a pathetic twitch of life that felt like a mockery.

He was so tired. The panic was a physical weight, pressing down on his chest, making it hard to breathe. It was a cold, sharp thing, entirely different from the hot, suffocating want Draco had ignited in him. The two sensations were now tangled together inside him, a monstrous knot of fear and desire that was slowly strangling him. He didn't know which was worse: the certainty of a fiery death, or the confusing, terrifying possibility that he had wanted what happened with Malfoy. That some broken part of him still did.

He dropped his hands, staring blankly at the swirling wood grain of the table. He was so alone. There was no one he could tell, no one who would understand any of it. He had to face the dragon by himself, and he had to face this new, bewildering war inside himself by himself, too. He picked up another book, Men Who Love Dragons Too Much, and let it fall open with a sigh of utter defeat. It was hopeless. He was going to die, and he deserved it. For what he’d let Malfoy do. For what he’d wanted him to do.

The sudden, violent CRACK of a heavy object hitting wood jolted him from his stupor. Harry flinched so hard his chair scraped backwards, his wand leaping from the tabletop into his hand, the tip already glowing with a half-formed shield charm. The orb of light above him flickered violently, casting frantic, dancing shadows across the towering shelves. His heart hammered a panicked rhythm against his ribs, his breath catching in his throat.

There, in the center of his cluttered table, lay a massive, leather-bound tome. It had landed with enough force to send his other books and parchments skittering, and it lay open, its pages splayed like the wings of some fallen, ink-stained bird. His eyes shot upwards, scanning the dark upper gallery of the library. For a moment, he saw nothing but the endless spines of silent books. Then, a flicker of movement. A pale hand withdrawing from the railing, the glint of silver-blond hair as a figure stepped back into the deeper shadows of the stacks.

Malfoy.

Of course. The knot of fear and exhaustion in Harry’s gut tightened into something sharp and angry. He lowered his wand, his knuckles white. A moment later, Draco Malfoy appeared at the far end of the aisle, emerging from the gloom like an apparition. He moved with a languid, aristocratic grace that set Harry’s teeth on edge, his Slytherin robes hanging open over a dark grey jumper and tailored trousers. He looked infuriatingly composed, as if he’d just happened to be taking a midnight stroll through the library’s most deserted section.

As he drew closer, Harry’s body betrayed him. The air grew thick, charged with the memory of their last encounter. The scent of woodsmoke and old parchment that clung to Malfoy seemed to reach him across the distance, triggering a cascade of unwanted sensations. He could feel the phantom pressure of a hand on his thigh, the ghost of lips against his neck, the shocking, solid heat of Draco’s erection pressed against him in the dark. A sluggish, shameful heat began to pool low in his belly, and his cock, which had been a dead weight moments before, gave a traitorous stir. He hated it. He hated Malfoy for being able to do this to him, and he hated himself for letting him.

Draco stopped at the edge of the table, his silvery eyes sweeping over Harry’s dishevelled state with clear disdain before landing on the book. "Potter," he drawled, his voice a low, silken thing that was far too loud in the oppressive silence. "Clumsy of me. It slipped."

A smirk played on his lips, sharp and familiar. It was the same condescending expression he’d worn a thousand times. But it was wrong. It didn’t reach his eyes. For a split second, as Harry met his gaze, the grey irises were unguarded, and they held not mockery, but a flicker of something tense and uncertain. Draco’s eyes darted away, down to the book, then back towards Harry’s face, but they didn’t quite connect. The mask of cool indifference was back in place an instant later, but Harry had seen it. He’d seen the crack in the facade.

Stunned into silence, Harry followed Draco’s brief glance down to the book. A Compendium of European Dragon Breeds. The pages it had fallen open to were dominated by a terrifyingly detailed illustration of a beast with scales like black iron, a crown of bronze horns, and a long tail bristling with vicious spikes. Beneath the image, a title in stark, block letters: The Hungarian Horntail. The text beside it, written in a neat, spidery script, detailed everything: its attack patterns, its formidable armoured hide, its one significant vulnerability—its surprisingly sensitive eyes.

It was everything. It was the key. It was the answer he had been too terrified and exhausted to find for himself, delivered to him by the last person on earth he would have expected. This wasn’t a prank. A prank would have been a book of hexes that backfired, or a tome that shrieked insults at him. This was… help. It was a backhanded, insulting, condescendingly delivered offering of help, but it was help all the same.

Draco watched him, his expression unreadable now. The silence stretched, thick with the unspoken history of the alcove, with the looming threat of the arena. The space between them crackled with a tension that was part old animosity, part something new and dangerously volatile.

Finally, Draco’s smirk faltered again. He gave a slight, almost imperceptible shrug, a gesture of dismissal that seemed to encompass the book, the library, and the entire impossible situation. "Try not to get ink on it, Potter," he murmured, his voice laced with its usual venom. "It's a rare edition."

And with that, he turned on his heel. His footsteps were crisp and deliberate on the stone floor, echoing in the cavernous room before fading into complete silence, leaving Harry alone with the dragon on the page and the ghost of his enemy’s presence. Harry stared at the empty aisle, his heart pounding a frantic, confused rhythm. He was still staring when he finally looked down and realised his hand was shaking.

For a long moment, Harry did nothing but stare at the empty space where Draco Malfoy had been. The silence of the library pressed in, heavier than before, thick with the phantom scent of woodsmoke and the lingering charge of Draco’s presence. His heart was a frantic drum against his ribs, a wild, panicked rhythm that had nothing to do with dragons and everything to do with the boy who had just vanished into the shadows.

He looked down at the book. The Hungarian Horntail. Its sensitive eyes. A summoning charm. It was so simple, so elegant, it was almost stupid he hadn't thought of it himself. But he hadn't. He'd been drowning in terror, and Malfoy had thrown him a lifeline.

A lifeline made of barbs and insults.

A hot, furious energy surged through him, burning away the exhaustion. This was a game. It had to be. Malfoy didn't do things without a reason, and his reasons were never good. Was the information faulty? Was this some elaborate Slytherin plot to make him look like a fool before he was barbecued? To give him a sliver of hope only to watch it get extinguished along with the rest of him? The anger was a clean, sharp thing, a relief after the murky swamp of fear and confusion. It was familiar territory. Hating Malfoy was easy.

He slammed the book shut, the sound a satisfying crack in the silence. He didn't bother gathering his other things. He just turned and ran.

His footsteps echoed on the stone floors of the deserted corridors, chasing after the ghost of Malfoy's own. He rounded a corner into a long, moonlit gallery, tapestries of faded battles hanging like silent witnesses on the walls. And there he was. Draco was walking slowly, his pace unhurried, his back to Harry. It was as if he were waiting.

“Malfoy!” Harry’s voice was raw, too loud.

Draco stopped but didn't turn around. His shoulders stiffened slightly under the dark wool of his jumper.

Harry closed the distance between them in a few long strides, his breath coming in harsh pants. He grabbed Draco’s arm, spinning him around. “What the hell was that?” he demanded, his voice shaking with a mixture of rage and something else he refused to name.

Draco’s face was a pale mask in the gloom, his silver eyes flashing. He wrenched his arm from Harry’s grasp with a sneer. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Potter. Has the pressure finally scrambled that minuscule brain of yours?”

“The book, you git!” Harry shoved him, a clumsy, desperate movement. “The dragon. What’s your game? Are you trying to get me killed? Give me some bogus advice so the Horntail rips my head off instead of just burning me to a crisp?”

For a second, Draco just stared at him, his expression one of utter disbelief. Then, his face hardened into a furious mask. He moved so fast Harry didn't have time to react. One moment he was standing in the middle of the corridor, the next his back was slammed hard against the cold stone wall, the impact knocking the wind from his lungs. Draco’s body was pressed against his, caging him in. A strong forearm shoved up under his chin, the bone pressing hard against his collarbone, tilting his head back at an awkward angle.

The air was instantly electric. All Harry could see was Draco’s face, inches from his own, his features sharp and incandescent with rage in the moonlight. The faint, clean scent of him—that maddening mix of winter air and parchment—filled Harry’s senses, short-circuiting his anger and replacing it with a jolt of pure, terrified adrenaline. He could feel the heat of Draco’s body through their clothes, the solid line of his thigh pressed against his own. Beneath the fury, deep in his gut, a shameful, insistent pulse began to beat. His cock gave a hard, definitive jerk against his jeans, a visceral, undeniable response to the violence, to the proximity, to the boy pinning him to the wall.

“Don’t be an idiot, Potter,” Draco hissed, his voice a low, venomous whisper that was somehow more frightening than a shout. His breath was warm against Harry’s cheek. His grey eyes were blazing, boring into Harry’s with an intensity that stripped him bare. “I have no interest in seeing a Hungarian Horntail roast you. The smell would be appalling.”

The insult, so deeply, characteristically Malfoy, hung in the charged air between them. But the fury that had propelled it was gone. Harry watched it drain from Draco’s face like colour from a photograph, leaving his features stark and pale in the moonlight. The blaze in his grey eyes cooled, not to indifference, but to a molten, unnerving intensity that was somehow more frightening. It was the same look from the alcove, a look that stripped away years of animosity and left something raw and volatile exposed.

The pressure of Draco’s forearm against his throat lessened, just slightly. It was no longer a threat of violence, but a means of holding him in place, of closing the space between them until there was no room for anything but this. Harry’s breath was trapped in his lungs. He could feel the solid, unyielding length of Draco’s thigh pressed hard against his own, a line of heat that seared through their jeans. The earlier, shameful pulse in his groin had become a hard, insistent throb, his cock now painfully rigid against his zip, aching with a want he couldn't rationalise or control. He was pinned, helpless, and his body was singing a traitor’s song.

Then Draco’s free hand came up. Harry flinched instinctively, his eyes squeezing shut, bracing for a fist to the jaw, a sharp jab of fingers into his ribs. But the blow never came. Instead, he felt a touch so light, so shockingly gentle, it was like being struck by lightning. Long, cool fingers brushed a stray lock of hair from his forehead. The backs of Draco’s knuckles ghosted over his temple, the touch feather-light, reverent almost. It was a caress, an impossibly tender gesture that made no sense. It was the antithesis of the boy pinning him to the wall, the boy whose leg was a rigid bar of muscle against his, whose erection Harry could now feel, a thick, solid ridge pressing into his hip.

Harry’s eyes snapped open. Draco was watching him, his own gaze dark and dilated, his lips slightly parted. The silver of his eyes was almost black in the gloom, swallowing the moonlight. He seemed to be memorising Harry’s face, the frantic pulse in his throat, the parted lips, the confusion warring in his eyes. The air crackled, thick with the unspoken.

Draco leaned in closer, until his breath ghosted over Harry’s ear, warm and smelling faintly of mint and something uniquely his own. His voice, when it came, was a low, rough murmur, a vibration that travelled from his chest, through the arm holding Harry captive, and into Harry’s very bones.

“Just stay alive,” he murmured.

It wasn’t a plea. It wasn’t a request. It was a command. A raw, possessive order that laid a claim Harry couldn’t begin to understand. Stay alive for me. The unspoken words echoed in the space between them, more powerful than if they’d been said aloud. A dizzying, terrifying warmth bloomed in Harry’s chest, a stark contrast to the cold stone at his back and the fear knotting his stomach. It felt like hope, but it was a dangerous, poisoned kind of hope that tasted of Malfoy.

For a heartbeat, they remained like that, locked together in the silent corridor, suspended in a moment of impossible intimacy. Harry could feel the frantic beat of Draco’s heart against his own, a rhythm as wild and unsteady as his.

Then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over. Draco flinched as if burned. He ripped himself away from Harry, shoving off the wall with a violence that left Harry staggering. The sudden cold where Draco’s body had been was a shock to his system. Draco took two quick steps back, his chest rising and falling rapidly, his face once again a mask of carefully constructed contempt. The vulnerability was gone, shuttered away behind a sneer that didn’t quite reach his turbulent eyes.

“Don’t make me regret it, Potter,” he spat, the words sharp and brittle. He gave Harry one last, scathing look, a look that tried and failed to erase the last minute from existence, then turned on his heel and strode away, his dark robes swirling behind him. His footsteps were sharp and angry on the stone, echoing down the long gallery until they faded into nothing, leaving Harry utterly alone.

The cold of the castle wall seeped through the thin fabric of his robes, a stark contrast to the fire still blazing under his skin where Draco had touched him. Harry’s breath hitched, his lungs struggling to pull in air. He slid down the stone slightly, his legs feeling unsteady. His heart was a frantic, trapped bird beating against his ribs, the rhythm a chaotic drum against the sudden, ringing silence of the corridor.

He could still feel it all. The unyielding pressure of Draco’s forearm pinning him, the hard muscle a solid bar against his collarbone that had stolen his breath. He could still see the fury in those quicksilver eyes, the familiar sneer twisting his pale lips. But then… then it had all dissolved. The anger had evaporated like mist, leaving behind an intensity that was far more unnerving than any hex.

And the touch. Merlin, the touch.

Harry’s own hand rose, trembling, to his forehead. His fingers ghosted over the spot where Draco’s had been, tracing the path along his hairline, over the edge of his scar. He’d expected the touch to be mocking, cold, or cruel. Instead, it had been shockingly gentle, the pads of Draco’s fingers unexpectedly warm and dry against his skin. It wasn't a shove or a prod; it was a caress. A brief, possessive, almost-tender stroke that had sent a jolt straight down his spine and into his gut. A confusing warmth had flooded his chest, pooling low in his belly, making him feel hot and shaky all at once.

He squeezed his eyes shut, the image of Draco’s face just inches from his own burned into the back of his eyelids. The low, rough murmur of his voice. Just stay alive. It wasn’t a taunt. It was a command. A plea? No, that was impossible. This was Malfoy. Malfoy, who delighted in his misery, who had been crowing about him being the "Heir of Slytherin" two years ago and had mocked him relentlessly about the Dementors last year.

Yet, his body betrayed him. The memory of Draco’s proximity, the scent of expensive soap and something uniquely him, made the heat in his stomach tighten into a knot of undeniable arousal. A slow, heavy pulse started between his legs, and Harry’s eyes flew open in shame and disbelief. His cock was beginning to harden, a dull, insistent ache against the seam of his trousers. For Malfoy. He felt a wave of nausea mixed with a confusing, shameful flutter of excitement. What the fuck was wrong with him? How could his body react this way to his sworn enemy? The aggression, the dominance of being pinned, followed by that disarming gentleness… it had short-circuited his entire system.

He pushed himself off the wall abruptly, stumbling as he tried to put distance between himself and the ghost of the encounter. He needed to get away. He needed to think. But his thoughts were a maelstrom of grey eyes, pale fingers, and the lingering warmth spreading through him.

Hungarian Horntail.

The words cut through the haze of confusion. Draco knew. He hadn’t just dropped a book; he had given him the answer. He’d told him what he was facing. The raw terror of the First Task came rushing back, a welcome anchor in the sea of his bewildering new feelings. A dragon. A Hungarian Horntail. The deadliest of them all, according to the book now lying open on his table in the library.

Draco Malfoy, for some insane, incomprehensible reason, was trying to save his life. And the knowledge of that, even more than the threat of the dragon itself, left Harry feeling completely and utterly undone. He started walking, his steps quick and uneven, back towards the Gryffindor tower. He had a dragon to survive, but he had a sinking feeling that the memory of Draco Malfoy’s touch would be just as dangerous.