Chapter Text
"Is it just me, or does it feel a bit like Umbridge is back?" says Ron, when Headmistress McGonagall has finished explaining her new decree. "Girls and boys can't be within six inches of each other and all that?"
Hermione aims a deep frown at him. "No. Because it's completely different. These charms don't prevent people from doing things entirely, they just require them to get express consent before they do. Honestly, it shouldn't even mean a change in behaviour."
Harry is still gathering his thoughts on this. Sex is obviously one focus of McGonagall's new rule, and it's the one that's causing the most muttering across the Great Hall at present—but there's more to it than that. Last week, Greg Goyle was found body-bound with bruised ribs out near the broom shed. In the first week of term, Pansy Parkinson was in the hospital wing for several days after a group of fifth year girls took turns throwing hexes at her face, and right after that Draco Malfoy was hit with the edge of a nasty curse. Malfoy has been trying so hard to be invisible since eighth year began that even Harry has barely seen him—and Harry's grown up just enough by now to admit to himself that yeah, he has been looking, and it's not just because he thinks Malfoy's up to something evil.
Because he doesn't think that anymore. The only thing Malfoy's up to is hiding from all the students walking the halls with their trauma stuffed into bottles that are liable to shatter at any moment. The war is over—but people are still hurting, still hurting one another.
The charms will stifle any spells cast at other students, or physical contact with intent to which the other student has not given consent. That's what McGonagall said. If she could do this, Harry wonders, why on earth hasn't it been done before?
Admittedly, the mounting chatter surrounding him offers an explanation. It can't have been easy to get the necessary permission.
"But it will change things, though," Ron's telling Hermione. "If we want to do—basically anything, we have to stop and ask. What if I want to hold your hand, but we're in the middle of a conversation, or you're busy reading a book and don't want to be interrupted? Bloody inconvenient, that is."
"Well we'll just have to work around things like that. It's a small price to pay." Hermione leans closer to Ron, but to be heard over the din she has to speak loud enough that Harry, unfortunately, can also hear. "Besides," she says, "I think it's very sexy. Asking for what you want. Telling someone how much you want it. For instance: after we leave the hall I want you to kiss me. Push me up against a wall so I can feel the whole of your body pressing into me while you do it. We'll pick a corridor that's deserted—but there's always the chance someone will catch us, isn't there? And I won't care if they do, because I just really, really want you to kiss me."
Ron's ears have gone pink, and Harry can see the flush on his neck creeping downwards where his collar is open and his tie is pushed almost below the neckline of his jumper.
"And when exactly are you planning on us leaving?" asks Ron, voice squeaky.
Harry wishes fervently that he was deaf.
"Oh, not for a while yet," Hermione replies happily. "I've been absolutely craving croissants, and you know they only bring out the pastries after the first lot of dishes are gone. Why, has me telling you what I want us to do had some sort of effect on you? I thought it was just an inconvenience?"
"Alright, alright," Ron concedes. "Maybe it can be kind of hot, too."
"I'm glad we're in agreement." Hermione says, then returns her focus to her scrambled eggs.
Harry is careful to stay behind for an extra several minutes while the two of them depart from breakfast together, and makes his way back to the Gryffindor common room via only the busiest routes.
*
Harry hasn't been doing well in his classes in the month and a half he's been back at Hogwarts. He knows he should be doing better, now that he's not trying to fight Voldemort all the time, but it's hard to go from survival to normal life when you've honestly never had any experience with normality. The Dursleys did their level best to make sure Harry knew he was abnormal, and once he found out he was The Boy Who Lived his life hardly got any less unusual.
So here he is, staring at the blank parchment that's meant to be his Transfiguration essay, completely unable to will the homework into existence. After all, what harm can it do if he doesn't turn it in? Sure, McGonagall will be disappointed—but Harry can weather that well enough and besides, the professor has made it clear she's their teacher, not their personal coach. Returning eighth years are adults, responsible for their own learning.
Harry's not sure what good writing twenty inches on the potential dangers of animate-to-inanimate reversal spells will do him in the long run. It sounds like the kind of subject most useful to... Healers, probably? And Harry isn't even taking Potions Extension, so it's not like he's going to become one of those. He doesn't love knowledge for knowledge's sake the way Hermione does; Harry needs to know that what he's doing is likely to be important somehow, to him or to someone else.
What Harry always used to do when he was neglecting to study or sleep was keep track of Malfoy, so that's what he's doing again. It's familiar. Grounding. It lets him orbit something, someone, instead of floating off into space alone.
Harry's never known Malfoy to visit the greenhouses, but that's where he finds him this afternoon. Or, well, where he follows him to; Harry spots him lurking near the castle doors, waiting for a large gaggle of Ravenclaw-Gryffindor second-years to enter before slipping out. Harry lurks a little on his way out, too, because he just can't risk being waylaid by kids who want to ask him things or get autographs, or call his name so that Malfoy hears and gets away.
The greenhouse Malfoy goes for is empty except for Professor Sprout. The door starts falling shut behind him so slowly that Harry can hear the first snippet of a conversation:
"Draco," Professor Sprout says, not entirely sweetly but certainly with a hint of exasperated affection.
"Pomona," Malfoy replies, pulling the gardening gloves he's extracted from his robe pocket smoothly on.
The exchange is disturbingly familiar, as if Malfoy's presence here is commonplace, and Professor Sprout turns back to her work without any further comment.
The greenhouse door finishes closing, muting the sounds from inside. Harry isn't ready to be done yet, though. He pushes the door back open and is standing there, in the doorway, before he's sure what he's doing.
"Mr Potter?" Professor Sprout greets him, this time sounding quite surprised. "I wasn't aware you were coming."
"Harry, please," Harry answers, because for some reason it's painfully awkward to be called by his last name when Malfoy is on a first-name basis with the Professor.
"Yes, I suppose you boys are grown up now," Sprout sighs. "You're welcome to call me Pomona, if you'd like."
"Thanks," Harry grins, "Pomona."
There's a sharp clatter as Malfoy's trowel meets something hard.
"Why are you here, Potter?" he asks, sharply and irritably but without actually turning around to face Harry. "You'll forgive me if I have trouble believing you actually intend to garden."
"Why else would I come to a greenhouse, Malfoy?" Harry stands his ground, dares Malfoy to say it if he's going to accuse Harry of stalking him. Harry may have come to recognise some of his former behaviour for the obsession it was, and to see much the same thing in most of what Malfoy has ever done to him—but neither of them have ever outwardly acknowledged their mutual... fixation. They'll deny it, blame it on delusion or on each other. It's just what they do, and it keeps the pattern from changing.
Everything's different now, and Harry sort of wishes that at least this one thing could be consistent, predictable.
"I've never understood most of what you do, Potter," Malfoy sneers, "but perhaps you're here specially to irritate me. To toss dirt in my eyes. Would you enjoy that? Some of your Gryffindor friends certainly did when they barged in here on Tuesday."
Harry is about to address the first part of Malfoy's statement, but cuts the words at the last minute. "Who?" he demands instead. "Who did that?" He hasn't heard anything about it in the common room, but not everyone is reckless enough to gloat about the ways they've bullied other students. Harry doesn't want to believe any of his mates would do this—but the truth is, all of them have gone through much worse than a spray of soil, and some of them have real reasons to believe Malfoy deserved worse than the Wizengamot gave him, real reasons to want to see justice done themselves.
"Bergman. Lau. Holmes—Fiona, not Eldritch," Malfoy rattles off, then adds uncharitably: "and that block-shaped first-year with the awful birthmark on her cheek."
Harry knows the Gryffindors Malfoy's talking about, but he's relieved to note that none of them are really his friends; they're not in his year, he's never played Quidditch with any of them, and they weren't part of DA, either. It's a stupid thing to feel, because they've still done whatever they've done, but Harry sort of... doesn't want to have to figure out what to do about his friends joining in on the Slytherin-bashing trend that's become a fair few people's post-war coping strategy.
"It's good that that won't work anymore," he says firmly. "Thanks to McGonagall's charms."
Draco rolls his eyes, but Harry's ninety percent sure the disdainful gesture is covering real gratefulness.
"I may not much enjoy my battles of late, Potter, but I can fight them for myself. Merlin, I daresay it'd be refreshing to have the chance to, after being alternately sheltered and manipulated. Perhaps you'll even understand that if you think hard enough about it."
Harry's really not as dense as people—especially Malfoy—often decide he is, but he'll keep that quiet if it'll put Malfoy's guard down around him even slightly.
He thinks about Dumbledore, and everything in Harry's life carefully orchestrated to produce one result. The Dursleys, the rewards he'd get for facing down Voldemort as a child, the increasingly obvious ways in which Dumbledore had asked him to fight, to die. He thinks of Malfoy shivering atop the Astronomy tower, being not stopped but forced to make a terrible choice. Thinks of Snape, who was kept at hand for such tasks as killing his old friend, the truest believer in his own decent character. Dumbledore gave of himself too, of course—but that was a decision made, not a direction followed.
"Have the spells worked yet?" Harry asks, instead of saying anything like I understand already what it's like to be shaped your whole life for something horrible. Malfoy is still Malfoy. He isn't nice. He may have been born into disadvantage in that respect, but he's never made much of an effort to change his character for the better.
"How have you not tested them yet?" Draco is incredulous. "That's the first thing everyone did. Do you not actually have friends after all, or was it too unthinkable for the Saviour to subject anyone to so much as a pinch, or vice versa?"
Harry is vaguely aware that Pomona is moving about the greenhouse, floating stacks of pots and potion vials from the corner to a freshly turned garden bed.
"Everyone was, er, preoccupied, at breakfast. And then they all had Potions or Divination to go to and it was just me in the eighth year dorms," he explains.
"So what you're saying is that you're too much of a loner. Merlin."
"Says the man who's holed himself up in a greenhouse to get away from people."
"Excuse you," Draco argues. "Quite rude of you to ignore Pomona that way."
Harry hears Pomona snort amusedly, confirming that she can hear them from where she's working several yards away, and has been listening.
"Besides," Malfoy continues, "you are here in the very same greenhouse. By your own measure you must be hiding too."
Harry shrugs. More seeking than hiding, he thinks, but certainly won't admit. The thing is, they're both supposed to be seekers. It's unlike Malfoy to act this way. Like he doesn't care. He's always cared, usually far too much and about all the wrong things.
"Why don't you prove to me that the charms work, then?" Harry he says, the challenge a poor mask for his adjustment of the subject.
"What, by tossing dirt at you?"
"Yeah, do that," says Harry, because that sounds like a better test than actually coming to blows. Probably.
Malfoy gathers soil in his gloved hands with smooth movements, and Harry spends a second feeling vaguely unsettled by the way they've been talking almost civilly, without any sort of real viciousness, and the way Malfoy's actually now doing as Harry's asked.
As he's—
He realises his mistake—his stupid, fucking obvious mistake—as Malfoy draws his hand back and throws.
The dirt hits his chest like a dry brown snowball, some of it clinging to the wool of his jumper. He brushes it off, and then aims a quick Scourgify at himself.
He glares at Malfoy, because he can't very well glare at himself.
Malfoy meets his eyes and then bursts out laughing. It's... disconcerting.
"Thanks, Potter. Really," he says, wiping his eyes awkwardly with his forearm, "for that chance to enjoy one of life's little pleasures again."
Harry lunges for the flowerbed Malfoy's been digging up and gathers dirt of his own. He aims it at Malfoy. It flies towards his face, and Harry winces even though he knows it shouldn't hit its target. Despite the git asking for it, he hasn't actually asked for it. It halts just before it makes contact with Malfoy's skin, and falls away.
Malfoy looks enraged. Harry hadn't realised until now how much he's been missing that, after Malfoy's ghostly demeanour so far this year, the glimpses of desperation he'd caught during the war, the wounded-animal aggression of sixth year. It would have shocked his younger self to know that Harry would ever think of his childhood feud with Malfoy as a cornerstone of the good old days, but it's not that shocking now. It's more... nostalgic, than anything else.
"Really, Potter? You'd attack me, just like those other wretched housemates of yours? What makes it different when you do it, hmm? The Saviour can get away with anything?" Malfoy sneers, but the flatness is gone from his eyes, the dull grey turned bright and glinting like a freshly sharpened knife.
Harry reaches for another handful of dirt. "That's not why, but it is different. You know it is."
There's no way to express how it's different when Harry fights with Malfoy that doesn't sound pretty terrible, Harry thinks, but in essence the distinction is that the others don't know Malfoy. They haven't gone back and forth with him for years like Harry has. They haven't grown up in resistance to one another, balanced by their mutual momentum.
It's what Harry's been lacking lately, that balance.
Malfoy doesn't disagree with him, which is rare and definitely significant. Instead, Malfoy rips off the glove on his wand hand, pulls his wand from his pocket and stabs it towards Harry.
"Are you trying to get yourself cursed?" he sneers. "Do you want to end up a human bat bogey?"
Bat bogey threats. There's the nostalgia again. Harry feels a bit mental, but for once it's an alright sort of mental.
"I'd like to see you try."
*
They end up in the hospital wing, because although Pomona is apparently comfortable enough letting their little duel run its course while she sorts out the herbs, she does insist on clearing the scratches and scrapes with Madam Pomfrey before healing, allegedly to ensure no contaminants from the greenhouse have made their way into them. Privately Harry thinks the whole thing is more about teaching them a lesson, as they're escorted back into the castle and through corridors full of curious students. Madam Pomfrey's fierce scolding is almost as frightening as McGonagall's intensive lack of comment.
Hermione, of course, is engaged in a characteristic juggling act, both disappointed and academically fascinated.
"You might as well be a couple of first-years," she huffs judgementally. "Although, for once I actually wish I'd been there to see it. Unless there's a flaw in the charm work, which—" she spares a glance for McGonagall, "I'm sure there isn't, then your communication must have been very interesting to allow what was evidently, well, a brawl."
Malfoy snorts, though it obviously pains him with his nose (not broken, but leaking a thin stripe of blood down to the unusually pointy tips of his cupid's bow) still waiting to be healed.
"Sorry, it's just I'm not sure Potter here is master over any sort of interesting communication skills."
"Oh, and everything that comes out of your mouth is just gospel," Hermione snaps, and Harry is briefly gratified by the show of solidarity before his best friend turns on him once again. It's for science, Hermione pleads as she grills them both to within an inch of their lives. It's worse than Malfoy's elbow digging into the back of his neck, the downward pressure burying Harry's face in fertiliser. Harry catches Malfoy's eye and knows he feels the same way.