“I never wanted to be a hero,” he spits out, breathing in his face, and tries to ignore Malfoy's troubling breath on his own.
Malfoy narrows his gaze, setting his eyes in Harry's as if searching for something inside them. “And I never wanted to be this.”

What a fool he’s been. The shame of having believed – hoped?, prayed? – of being able to be forgiven by him adds to the shame he has felt for himself for a long time, so, when he’s crying on Pansy’s shoulder that night and she thinks it’s because he’s just exhausted from the war, he lets her believe it.?

Draco nods and dies a little every day, without contradicting her, but then the summer ends. And his life must go on, too. And he's tired of being a ghost, so: “Of course I know”, he confirms, the last day he will allow the Manor to make him one, taking his mother's hands in his own and returning her gaze.

“But I won’t, Mother,” he says, stressing every word, while his mother's eyes widen in disbelief. “Because I’m fucking tired to be yours and Father’s puppet. I don’t care about meeting you’re fucked-up expectations anymore. I won’t be like you, or him. I won’t be a coward. And if I have to lose my privileges or your affection for this, I will.”

And he passively lets himself slip into the life that everyone expects of him, and forces himself not to think about Malfoy anymore, about his white fingers, his bitten lips, his fierce mouth twisted in a sarcastic sneer, his little gasp when he touched his arm – because certainly no one would expect that from him.

For the first time since being hired by the Department of Magical Games and Sports, Draco decides to eat at the Ministry Canteen with his colleagues instead of sitting at his desk with his sad-lunch-sandwich, as Lee calls it.

A few tables over, Harry looks at him and does a double take. Then a third. Then a fourth. Then he keeps his eyes fixed on him as he exclaims: “What the hell is he doing here?”?

(To make matters worse, the titles were really bad, and Hermione and Ron loved them. The Boy Who Lived – To KISS OTHER BOYS !? was Hermione’s favourite. Turns Out Harry Potter Is Really Passionate About Snitches And Broomsticks After All was Ron’s. They hung them all on the kitchen’s pinboard of their flat. Harry hates his best friends sometimes.)

Harry scoffs at their disinterest and looks back at Malfoy, observing the way the person sitting next to him is making him laugh. Seeing Draco Malfoy laugh sincerely for the first time in his life distracts him enough to take a few seconds to realise he actually knows the person sitting next to him.

(Harry is tempted to think he does it on purpose just to distract him, but to think it would mean admitting to being distracted by watching his white fingers dig into his slightly long blond hair and pick it up in a short ponytail that caresses his neck like a an albino snake, so he doesn't think about it.)

Unfortunately, Malfoy also wins the third game, this time without cheating. His eyes widen comically as soon as he manages to catch the snitch, squeezing it against his chest as if fearing he might lose it, and “I won!” he exclaims, looking at Harry with wide eyes and parted lips for a moment still, then he scowls his expression in his usual collected one, pressing his lips tightly together and keeping his chin up. “I mean, I won, of course. I knew it would happen.”

Harry frowns again and Malfoy exhaustively taps his own forehead with a finger, his eyes still closed. “It was left by the same man, after all,” he adds, his voice lower.
Harry is about to say that it was a completely different situation and he received his own without his consent, but his mouth clinks shut when he remembers Malfoy’s words.
Because you know everything, don’t you?

“Your scars…” Potter starts to say, a guilty look in his unnerving innocent green eyes. “I–”
“I know,” Draco sharply cuts him off. “You don’t have to say it.”
“I want to say it.”
“Well, sometimes our apologies don’t exactly go in the way we planned them,” Draco blurts, with more bitterness than he intended, then winces at the vulnerability that he has shown.

Draco takes his wand from his bag and points it at Potter, who tensens for a moment but then seems to be trying to appear relaxed. Draco bites back an amused smile and mumbles a spell under his breath. Potter's hair is instantly dry, his curls bouncy and rumpled but still looking charming and heartbreaking-soft, as usual.
Potter observes his work in a mirror as Draco performs the same spell on his own hair. "Wow," he comments. “Way better than with my spell."

“Oh. How’s, uh, your type, then?”
Brave, Draco thinks but doesn’t say.?Kind. Clever. Painfully oblivious.
“Tall. Broody. Mysterious.”

“‘Course not, we were drunk and stupid, I didn’t know what I was doing. Honestly, I felt pretty sad and lonely that night, I would make out with anybody just to feel something.”
Draco nods along, wetting his lower lip just to see Potter’s gaze lowering immediately on his mouth. That fucking idiot.?
“Understandable.”
“Really?”
“Been there myself.”
Potter chuckles and Draco smiles in return.
“Are you still feeling pretty sad and lonely?”
Potter seems to think about it for a moment, then shrugs. “Not really, no.”
Draco’s smile gets sharper. “Are you feeling drunk?”
Potter frowns. “No? I just had a beer, you can't really believe my resistance to alcohol is that –”
Draco nods without giving him time to finish speaking. “Good to know,” he says, before getting up on his feet.
“What are you –” Potter tries to say, but stops talking when Draco walks around the table just to stop in front of him, leaning forward to take his chin between his long fingers, looking straight in his eyes.
Draco leans over, getting close enough to feel Potter's breath on his lips, and glances at his mouth, still open in mid-sentence, while Harry keeps his eyes on Malfoy's, feeling the world spin around him as Malfoy’s hair tickles his cheek. Harry is almost tempted to lift a hand and touch that white-blond strands, bringing them behind Malfoy's ear, cupping his cheek and –?and?—
“Owl me if you change your mind about your sexuality, then,” Malfoy murmurs, his voice so low and smooth and sexy it twists Harry’s stomach, before straightening his back.

“A pleasure! So, how did it happen? Did he kiss you before or after punching your face?”

“Date him? Date?Potter? Date Stupid Potter? Are you really asking me if I want to go through all the awkward stages of the first dates? If I want to be nice to his dumb friends? If I want to make him laugh, hold his hand and say sweet things in his ear before falling asleep? Merlin.” Draco pauses, catches his breath, and then, with his cheeks on fire: “Yes. Of course!”

“Blaise told me you spent every night of the fifth year saying his name while jerking off.”
“I!? What!? How could he— I used silencing charms!”
Pansy opens her mouth wide in surprise and covers it with the fingers of one hand. “Salazar, you?really?said his name while jerking off?!”

“Or you could just go on a date with me!” Harry concludes his sentence, annoyed by the constant interruptions, only to blush under Malfoy's incredulous gaze. “Just to. Um. Understand how my mind works. If it even works. At all. That is.”