9 Chapter (1)

Harry supposed the only plus to not having grown since his school days was that his old Invisibility Cloak still covered him down to his feet, if he crouched.

He had been standing in the dungeon hallway for thirty minutes. He had heard the brick wall clicking closed as he turned the corner upon his arrival, but he hadn’t been sure if that meant someone had just gone in ore out. The hours between morning and nightfall had been treacherous, but those mere minutes in the hallway were utter agony. After half an hour, the curiosity at what was on the other side outweighed his fear of whomever he may encounter.

He closed the space between the door and himself, muttering the password.

“Sepultura.”

The bricks clicked open. Harry looked down to each end of the hallway, and upon seeing no one, entered themon rooms.

They were not in the state of disrepair that Harry had expected. In fact, they looked quite lived in. There was a dining table at one end, a desk covered in potions equipment towards the middle, and a desk at the very end. There were books strewn across most of the flat surfaces, as well as floor to ceiling shelves filled with more books, a lot of them Muggle by the looks of them.

Harry walked slowly towards where the boys’ dormitories had been, peeking his head inside. There was only one bed in there, big enough to fit about three Hagridsfortably. Lying on the bed he saw the cat with the bifocal markings he had seen around the castle. She looked up at him, seeming to see him despite his cloak, sighed, and returned her head to her paws. Someone was living here.

That had been the last thing he suspected. He thought, perhaps, McGonagall was hiding some artifact from the war that she didn’t want the students fiddling with, or something that Dumbledore had entrusted her with upon his death. What he did not expect was apartments.

He stood quietly, listening for any sign of life, but determined apart from the cat, he was very much alone. He ventured back into themon room, walking slowly along the bookshelf and running his finger along the spines. He stopped when he came to a rather thick, tall book with an unmarked binding. He pulled it out and leafed through it briefly.

It appeared to be clippings from newspapers and magazines. Upon further study, he noticed most of them seemed to be about him. There were a few about Hermione and Ron, their wedding announcement, a bit about Ron bing a partner at Wizard Wheezes, a bit about Hermione bing an Auror. There were one or two clippings about Neville, some about Ginny, but those mostly concerned him. It seemed he was the star of this scrapbook. The only other person who came close in terms of being mentioned was Draco Malfoy. Intrigued, Harry carried the book over to the desk, sitting in the chair. He let his arms peek out from below the Invisibility Cloak, but remained covered, in case anyone should return.

He opened to the first page to find an article he had saved himself, the one written the day he had given Malfoy his wand back. On the page directly across from it, there was a page from a gossip magazine he didn’t subscribe to detailing the same meeting, but the photograph was taken while Harry and Malfoy were sat at the table. The pained look that Harry had memorized from the Prophet photo did not feature on Malfoy’s face here. Instead, it showed the blonde boy watching Harry as Harry stared fixedly at his own hands. So fixedly, in fact, that he had failed to notice the smile playing on Malfoy’s lips, and a touch of what Harry would call fondness, if he didn’t know better, in his eyes. He read the headline.

New Beginnings: Romeo and…Romeo?

Harry hurriedly skimmed the rest of the article.

It’s not hard to see that Draco Malfoy, 17 year old former Death Eater, only has eyes for his former nemesis, Harry Potter. But then again, who doesn’t? Potter is set up to be the most sought after man for the next decade, at least. But has Malfoy lucked out? Sources close to both say this meeting may have been more than a simple truce. The look on a certain blonde’s face seems to point that way. Is a forbidden love between two star crossed teens on the horizon? What of Potter’s current flame, Ginny Weasley? More as the story unfolds.

There was a bit of writing scrawled in the margin of the article in a slanted, clean script.

Was hardly making eyes at him. HARDLY.

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Harry watched the photograph for a little while longer, watching Malfoy’s eyes skim across his face and the smile on his lips became more evident. How had he missed that? What about his hands had been more interesting? Why couldn’t he have looked up? More importantly, what did it mean? Clearly, the magazine was just looking for anything to publish about the two of them. But what was Malfoy really thinking? Surely, that Harry’s hair was a disaster or despite being a hero, his clothes were still cheap, something terrible like that which only he would find amusing.

The next page was Malfoy’s obituary. Harry could barely bring himself to look at it, turning the page quickly.

The next page was an article that was not unfamiliar to him, but was one that he certainly had avoided. It was the story Ginny had leaked on him to get back at him for breaking up with her. She had since apologized, and he had epted it. They had only been kids at the time, hardly ready to handle their emotions, let alone the press coverage they received. But just because the article was water under the bridge didn’t mean it didn’t sting to look at. Mostly because there was some truth to it.

Potter Carrying a Torch for Former Nemesis?

He wasn’t sure carrying a torch was the right phrase for it. But then again, it felt different than any other grief he had experienced. He felt as though anything he could say to the others, they already knew. But with Draco, he hardly knew what he wanted to say to him. It was the only loss he had experience that was surrounded so entirely with want. He wanted to say sorry, he wanted to know Malfoy, he wanted Malfoy to be happy. He wanted so much for Malfoy.

He shook his head and turned the page, finding a piece of parchment with the same slanted script swirling across it.

Potter.

I’ve started writing letters I can never send. How stupid is that? I wanted to ask if you felt like the whole rivalry thing was really less about hating each other and more about not knowing what to do with how much we if that whole thing I’ve read about you and the Weaslette is true?

Potter,

You’re really sulking about over

Potter,

It’s really pathetic that you are wasting your physical prime apparently pining over some dead

Potter.

I miss you, too.

Harry slammed the book shut. This was some cruel joke. He couldn’t imagine why McGonagall would go through such lengths to play out some long con on him, but he would definitely be having words with her, and most likely resigning. That note had clearly been written so he would think…It was clear they were meant to be written by…He couldn’t even bring himself to think it. His eyes stung with tears.

“Stop it, stop, you’re being pathetic,” he told himself, rubbing at his eyes.

The cat ventured out of the bedroom, meowing at him. Harry stopped to look at her, then was made aware of a distant clicking noiseing from the entrance. He hurriedly ducked under the desk, pulling his cloak tight around him.

He held his breath.

A tall, cloaked and hooded figure of about six feet entered the room, water dripping from the rim of their hood.

“It’s absolutely pissing down,” they said, as the cat hopped up onto the table next to them. “I’m just back for dinner, I’ll be going back out later. Feeling a bit restless.” they continued, reaching out to scratch the cat’s head. They then reached up to pull back their hood. Harry had to bite his hand to keep from yelping.

It couldn’t be. It absolutely could not be. But it was. Right in front of him, as plain as day, was Draco Malfoy. He was taller than he had been, and broader in the shoulders. His skin was incredibly pale, but not sickly, more porcelain-like, his cheeks a high pink with exertion. His hair was the same white blonde it had always been, but he was wearing it a little longer and not quite as quaffed as he had in school. It fell in his face as he unfastened his cloak, and he tucked it behind his ear, where it remained for all of one second before promptly falling again. Back in school, Malfoy hadn’t worn Muggle clothes much, but now he wore a pair of blue jeans, a grey sweater, and a pair of leather work boots that looked incredibly out of place on him, but somehow still managed to look put together in such an overwhelmingly Draco Malfoy way.

The cat meowed.

“I hardly think there’s a chance of anyone seeing me with the rains like this,” Draco replied, as though the cat had spoken. His voice. Harry hadn’t realized how much he had missed it until he heard it. It was still the same slow, drawl that had gotten Harry’s blood to a boiling point for all those years, but there was something different about it. All it’s sharp edges had melted away, and now it was something soft and weing.

The cat meowed again, heading towards the door.

“No, you can’t go out,” Draco chuckled. “You’ll juste back all wet and be grumpy with me.”

Harry’s heart clenched at how easily Draco laughed. He had never seen him this at ease. Draco pushed his hair back from his face again and sat at the table, which had remnants of some sort of tarte sat on it. Draco picked at it disinterestedly, picking up a book and looking through it. He didn’t seem to be reading it really so much as holding it. He set it down in his lap for long periods of time, during which he would sit and stare at the windows that looked into the lake, chewing at his thumb.

Harry was so busy watching the man in front of him that he almost ot that man wasn’t supposed to be breathing, let alone sitting and daydreaming fifteen feet away from him. This is what McGonagall had been hiding. Draco had been here all along, locked in the dungeons for most of it, if hisplexion was anything to go by.

The cat, now closer to the door, mewled again, startling both Draco and Harry out of their thoughts.

“Potter, you absolute menace,” Draco sighed.

Harry tensed at his name. Draco knew he was there, somehow, had sensed hi—

“I already told you you can’t go out tonight, Harriet,” Draco said, walking over to the entrance.

The cat hissed.

“Ok, you can go out, but if you get soaked, you’re sleeping in the hall tonight, Potter,” Draco warned. “I don’t need my room smelling like a wet cat.”

Draco tapped the door and let out the cat, returning to the table.

…Draco named his cat Potter.

Draco was alive, he had a cat named Potter, and, Harry realized now that reality had set in, he kept a book of all the articles he had ever been mentioned in. And he missed Harry.

But he said that he missed Harry, too, which implied he knew that Harry missed him. Which meant he probably heard Harry that night. Of