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ejcarpe · 7 days ago

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twin flames [ch. 4] // ao3

Summary: Harry has a hunch about the identity of his secret admirer.

Harry traced the familiar script with his thumb, reading that final line over and over–

I need to get Harry bloody Potter OUT OF MY HEAD

A voice that sounded suspiciously like Mad-Eye Moody shouted from the back of Harry’s mind – constant vigilance!

That Harry would happen to stumble upon these letters that spoke directly to his soul was one thing, but for the writer of those letters to know him, to be thinking about him – it was too much of a coincidence, right? He should be suspicious. Worried, even. Voldemort was back, and enchanted, alluring objects were familiar territory for him.

And yet…

Harry’s thumping heart was louder than his rational thoughts. He looked down in wonder at his own name in No One’s clean cursive, and he had to bite his cheeks to keep from smiling.

Why was he in No One’s head?

Despite his greatest wishes, Harry was rather famous; he had to concede to that fact. Ron had always teased him about his admirers – usually younger girls who giggled and whispered when he walked down the hall. But it wasn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility that there was a boy or two interested…

Harry swallowed. Just the possibility made his brain feel like a muggle pinball cabinet. Flashing lights, whirring noises, thoughts banging around in his head faster than could be logically followed. All he knew was that it made him feel a bit dizzy, like a steep dive on his broom. He took a breath, trying to tamp down the giddy feelings. After all, he may have been in No One’s mind, but he also was not wanted there.

Desperate curiosity hit him like a cramp. No One was probably someone he knew, had shared classes with at least. Would Harry talk to him the very next day and not even know? The idea drove him mad.

In the morning, Harry scanned the Great Hall, half-expecting No One to stand out from the crowd. Like he’d light up or something. But no, it looked the same as every other morning. As he ate breakfast, though, Harry found himself staring over at the Ravenclaw table, specifically at Michael Corner. The other boy was bent over a journal, scribbling at hyper-speed. Writing with his left hand. Harry narrowed his eyes, watching with keen interest as Michael lifted spoonful after spoonful of sugar into his tea.

Harry’s palms went sweaty.

Michael was– well, Harry assumed some people would find him handsome. Girls, or boys like No One. He had thick, dark hair and hooded eyes that gave him a mysterious air. Suddenly, Michael looked up from his breakfast, frowning when he noticed Harry staring. Harry looked away as fast as if he’d met eyes with a Basilisk.

“Are you alright, Harry?” Hermione asked from across the table, brown eyes probing.

Harry nodded, not trusting his voice.

Ron leaned close, lowering his head and brushing shoulders with Harry to see from his level. He laughed. “He's just drooling over Cho again.”

Harry blinked. He hadn’t even noticed Cho sitting there beside Michael. He flushed, aiming his eyes down at the scuffed wood of the Gryffindor table.

***

“You guys go ahead,” Harry told Ron and Hermione as they stood to leave Transfiguration. “I’ll meet you in the Great Hall. I’ve gotta talk to McGonagall.”

“Everything okay?” Ron asked with a furrowed brow.

Harry kept his head down, pretending to be exorbitantly focused on packing up his bag. “Yeah, ‘course. Just had a question about the essay.”

“What’s your question?” Hermione asked with a curious tilt of her head. Harry scolded himself. Of course, she was already suspicious. If he really had a question about homework, he’d just ask her.

“Oh, just about the length,” Harry mumbled noncommittally.

Hermione answered promptly, “A foot and a half–”

“But,” Harry fumbled for a different excuse, “Angelina also asked me to ask about having extra Quidditch practice this week.”

“Seriously?” Ron groaned. “But we already practice constantly! My arms still hurt from last week.”

“It’s just for the match against Slytherin,” Harry lied. “She’ll probably say no, anyway. Pitch is probably booked up. But I said I’d ask. You guys go to lunch – I’ll catch up.”

Ron shrugged, mostly concerned about the possibility of extra Quidditch drills, but Hermione stared back with her bushy brows raised. She knew he was lying. Of course, she knew. He just hoped she wouldn’t call him out on it yet.

Even though a small fire had been burning in his stomach since reading last night’s letter, Harry couldn’t ignore the unease he still felt. While he’d been called oblivious more times than he’d have liked, Harry wasn’t stupid, and his worries about the strange, flameless candle couldn’t be so easily brushed aside.

But, still, he didn’t want to give the candle up.

All day, he’d weighed his options. He couldn’t tell Hermione, not yet. She would blow things out of proportion, steal away the candle, and demand to sift through the letters with a fine-tooth comb. Telling Ron wasn’t an option, either, because he’d just crack and tell Hermione. Harry considered Sirius, who he felt would offer help, but given that the man spent his days hiding in a cave disguised as a dog, Harry wasn’t sure how helpful he’d be. Besides, Sirius would ask the exact kinds of personal questions that Harry didn’t want to answer yet. Once upon a time, Dumbledore would have been the obvious choice. Now Harry couldn’t hardly imagine Dumbledore opening the door for him, let alone offering aid.

Finally, Harry had landed on someone – someone knowledgeable and fair, someone who wouldn’t pry.

“Professor?” Harry approached McGonagall where she sat grading papers at her desk.

“Yes, Mr. Potter?” McGonagall peered at Harry from over the rims of her glasses.

“I, um…” Harry scuffed his shoe against the floor, double-checking over his shoulder that Hermione and Ron had truly left. “I wanted to ask about some of the stuff in the Gryffindor common room. Like the furniture, portraits, books…candles, that sort of thing. Where do they come from?”

McGonagall’s thin lips twitched with interest. “Each common room contains its own special touches from the previous generations.”

“So they’re all things that once belonged to Gryffindors?” Harry asked.

“Many of them, yes.” McGonagall nodded. “Some were donations from alumni. We replace the couches every few decades. Spells to repair the upholstery don’t work indefinitely, and…well, Gryffindors are not always gentle with them.”

“That tracks.” Harry gave a half-smile. “Is there, like…an inventory of all the items and where they came from?”

“Oh, I wish,” McGonagall replied wryly, “but many of them are a few centuries old, and their stories have faded with time. Some more of the many mysteries this castle offers.”

Harry hesitated. “Could there be anything…dangerous? Or that shouldn’t be there?”

McGonagall raised an eyebrow. “Are you reporting something?”

“No, no, just…hypothetically.” Harry winced as he said it.

McGonagall gave him a long look. It seemed like she wanted to roll her eyes, but instead, she offered Harry a patient smile. “Each common room is cleared out and inspected over the summer. If anything dangerous was inside, it would have been removed.”

“Even Dark objects?”

Now both her eyebrows shot up. “Mr. Potter, if you suspect–”

“I don’t, Professor, not really.” Harry sighed. “I think I’m just…a bit paranoid, I guess. With everything going on.”

McGonagall’s expression softened. She reached forward and patted Harry’s arm gently, albeit a bit awkwardly. “No one could blame you for that. But rest assured, Potter, you are safe at Hogwarts.”

Harry managed a tired smile. “I know.”

***

It was a strange feeling for Harry to miss someone he’d never met. Two days had gone by without a new letter from No One, and Harry was burning with questions. It felt like a trick No One was playing – dropping Harry’s name so casually, driving him mad with it. It was almost cruel. Harry imagined writing him back, giving him a piece of his mind, but just the thought left him flustered.

At the DA meeting that night, Harry threw himself into teaching, pairing everyone up to practice blocking, offense, and disarming. They all took to it well, disarming with glee. Wands flew left and right as spells crashed against shield charms like fireworks. It was a welcome distraction – until Harry found himself watching Michael Corner again. Michael’s dark eyebrows were drawn in concentration as he struggled to cast a shield fast enough to block Ginny’s Expelliarmus.

Harry wandered over with his hands in his pockets, observing as Ginny began to cast. Like clockwork, Michael’s wand went flying, and Harry quickly reached out to catch it. Taking a step forward, Harry placed the wand back in Michael’s hand, their fingers brushing. Harry looked down at Michael’s hands with a sharp inhale. Ink-stained fingers.

Harry drew his hand back, tucking it quickly into his pocket, as he cleared his throat. “Michael, you, uh, should try casting faster.”

“Faster?” Michael asked.

“Like, erm,” Harry began, scratching at the back of his neck, “Expelliarmus is five syllables, yeah? That’s a mouthful, and time you should be using to your advantage. Don’t wait. Cast as quickly as possible.”

Michael nodded thoughtfully, brushing dark hair from his face. “Yeah, I’d never thought of it that way.”

Harry gestured for him to step forward and try again. A few paces away, Ginny grinned, hopping between her feet like a boxer preparing for a fight. She lifted her wand and before she’d so much as opened her mouth, Michael was slashing his wand through the air. “Protego!”

The disarming spell bounced off Michael’s shield, deflecting back at Ginny and sending her wand up in the air. Dean Thomas dove to catch it, then held it over his head, forcing Ginny to jump for it.

Michael turned back to Harry with a grin. “Thanks, Harry.”

“Yeah, er, ‘course.” Harry swallowed, his mouth a desert. Michael nodded, and something suddenly came over Harry – a desire to reach for Michael’s hand, to ask him about pianos and his mother and Selion Griefborne. How could he ask without asking? He opened his mouth and what tumbled out was, “Do you ever miss the sea?”

Michael tilted his head, bemused. “Sorry?”

“Oh, um,” Harry laughed nervously. “Sorry, I know that’s random. I was just thinking about, erm, the sea. How I’d like to go.”

“Oh…” Michael blinked then shrugged. “Not a fan myself.”

“Really?” Harry asked, deflating.

“Nah.” Michael shook his head. “Too much sand.”

Harry felt his face fall, the flush receding from his cheeks. Ginny finally wrestled her wand back from Dean and squared up to duel with Michael again. Harry stood back, leaning against the wall like he was observing everyone at once, but really, his mind had wandered back to his room, to the smell of clove that was starting to linger in his sheets.

When the meeting came to an end, Harry watched as Ginny ran up to Michael, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed him. Something twisted uncomfortably in Harry’s gut, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away. It was something to the left of jealousy, not a clawing beast but a black hole. Consuming, leaving him empty. Michael brushed one of his ink-stained hands through Ginny’s hair. Ginny grabbed the back of Michael’s neck, pulling his face to hers. Harry picked at the skin of his own bottom lip, uneasy. He tried to picture himself in both of their positions, but he could only let himself imagine kissing Michael for half a second before his brain rejected the image, shoving it to the side as a ludicrous idea. He couldn’t picture it. Kissing a boy. Though, he couldn’t quite imagine kissing a girl either.

This strange, nameless sensation tugged at him, giving way to several conflicting feelings at once. Annoyed at Ginny for kissing Michael, unsettled at Michael for kissing Ginny, disappointed that Michael probably wasn’t No One, and frustrated that No One wasn’t here, in front of him. Harry felt that one thing with total clarity – he wanted him there.

As Michael and Ginny finally pulled apart, Harry must have been grimacing from his place against the wall because Ron leaned up beside him and said, “Ugh, I know. It’s just wrong, right? The two of them? I mean, what does she see in him?”

Harry shrugged, averting his eyes to examine the floor tiles. “Couldn’t say.”

Ron laughed then, giving Harry a friendly nudge. “Cho is looking at you, though.”

Harry’s head snapped up to see Cho was indeed looking at him from across the room. When they met eyes, she smiled shyly, offering him a small wave.

Harry smiled, waving back automatically.

“Honestly,” Ron chuckled again, “this is getting ridiculous. I dunno what you’re waiting for at this point, mate.”

Quillstrokes scribbled across Harry’s mind the way some would remember a loved one’s laugh. Harry sighed. “Me neither.”

***

Harry’s heart fluttered in his chest as he reached into the white smoke and pulled out a letter. Anticipation dripped like water down his skin. Tonight's letter looked lengthy. Words sprawled across the entire parchment, perfect cursive from edge to edge. Harry curled up between the soft glow of his Lumos and began reading.

Dear No One,

I’ve been thinking a lot about myths and legends. Heroes, villains, that sort of thing. There’s so much we don’t learn in History of Magic. It’s all dreary eighteenth century shite. I mean, seriously, how many bloody rebellions can the goblins have? At some point, they must realize they’re not very good at them. They’re still second class citizens, but hey, at least Urg the Unclean’s got himself on a Chocolate Frog Card.

Wizarding history is actually quite interesting, though. If one prioritizes the interesting parts. Like Wizarding Ancient Greece. My mother has a book of legends that I always asked her to read to me before bed as a child, which is kind of funny, in hindsight, because it can be quite gruesome in places. But she always did if I asked. My favourite story was about the Garden of Hesperides.

It was the most beautiful garden in existence, planted at the very edge of the Earth. It was a perfect place, all shimmering sunlight and unreal horizons. From its cliffs, one could see the curve of the world, the barely-there gap between land and sky. This was the home of the Hesperides, the first true coven of witches.

In the center of the garden was an immaculate tree that bore golden apples. The fruit was not only beautiful but also magical. One bite would give eternal life. (Some believe this is where Nicholas Flammel got his idea for the Philosopher’s Stone!) Now, this tree was not there by mere chance. It was created as a wedding gift for the goddess Hera and had been planted strategically for its protection, for only the Hesperides knew how to enter the Garden.

But Hera did not trust the Hesperides, not entirely. For they were clever, cunning witches, and Hera feared they might eat all the fruit themselves. So what’s a goddess to do? Hera needed a guardian, a protector for her precious tree who was dedicated to nothing but that duty. She found this guardian in the form of a dragon called Ladon. He crawled from the earth at her command, a serpentine body and one hundred heads, each with its own set of watchful eyes, its own rows of sharp, deadly teeth, and its own whispering voice. Ladon crawled on his stomach through the Garden and coiled himself so tightly around the Golden Fruit Tree that he might have been a part of its trunk.

I get how he felt sometimes, tasked to protect that tree for all of eternity. He wasn’t alone, really; the Hesperides were there, but he must have been alone in his burden. The witches could leave, could feel and think for themselves. Ladon had only one purpose, one reason for existing. A hundred faces, a hundred voices – which one was real? Were any of them? Did Ladon even know?

There’s no answer. Because the story of Ladon isn’t actually about Ladon. It’s about this tosser called Heracles. He was sent on a journey to complete these trials – it doesn’t matter why, really. Some stupid hero tripe. But one of his tasks, his Labours, was to steal an apple from Hera’s tree. And so he did, because he was the Hero. And Ladon was an obstacle in his way, just another monster.

The Hersperides ran off, but Ladon stayed. He fought. Ladon defended the Tree with everything he had, even as his heads were chopped off. He kept fighting until he was slain, and Heracles marched off to his next labour, the next step in his Hero's Journey. But Ladon lay in the Garden, curled around the Tree he’d failed to defend, and he watched the sun set as his blood painted the perfect grass red and ugly.

Hera took pity on her beast, at least. She raised his soul into the stars where he lives to this day. Was that his reward for such fierce loyalty and dedication? The glory of the stars? Or was it the oblivion of space? I often wonder.

Love,

No One

This was Harry’s favourite kind of letter. He liked them all – the poems, the ramblings, the rants. But the stories were something else. He pictured No One at a mahogany desk, writing with a huge, elaborate quill, the ancient wisdom of many century’s worth of storytellers wrapping around his shoulders like a cloak. These were the letters he re-read, again and again, like bedtime stories.

As always, the story felt too poignant, like its author was hiding in the cracks of Harry's walls and peeking into his brain at night. After reading the letter over twice, Harry lifted his candle, with its white, unlit wick, and turned it over in his hands. The wax was cream-coloured with a red base, very Gryffindor. He understood why no one in the common room ever looked twice at it. The image of a sword was carved in the front, a small, simple etching. Harry gently traced his finger over it, wondering if he even could send a reply to No One. Perhaps the candle was a one-way delivery system.

Tempter, Harry grabbed his wand and pointed it delicately to the wick before whispering, “ Incendio. ”

The wick lit, casting a soft glow across the closed-in circle of Harry’s four-poster. He held the candle upright, careful to not set his bed curtains ablaze, as he examined it curiously. Contrary to his expectations, Harry’s bed was not flooded with a wave of cinnamon-clove smoke. Though the smell was still present, the smoke was not, as if it had been sent somewhere else instead. Harry's heart picked up speed in his chest.

The urge to write back was almost overwhelming. Harry went so far as to grab a piece of parchment from his trunk, but his thoughts were wordless, more like a swarm of butterflies flapping wildly about than a string of coherent phrases he could put in order. Instead, he closed his eyes and felt the heat of the candle like a caress across his face.

That night, Harry’s dreams were filled with dragons, stars, blood-soaked flowers, and a soft voice whispering in his ear, just quiet enough to be unrecognizable. He woke up feeling strange, empty and full at the same time. He looked at Michael at breakfast with a hollow sort of dissatisfaction. It seemed silly now, how sure he'd felt just the day before. He wandered around the rest of the day like his head was stuffed with cotton balls until h e was roused from his head by the grating shout of “Potter! Are you deaf?”

“What?” Harry snapped back, begrudgingly lifting his head from the Potions desk.

“Quit daydreaming and get the rest of the ingredients from the storeroom,” Malfoy barked rudely, pulling Harry viciously from his thoughts of No One.

Harry blinked up at Malfoy’s snarling face with impatience. “I already did.”

“Wrong,” Malfoy said. “You got a stag beetle instead of a scarab, turmeric powder instead of ginger, and these are certainly not snake fangs.” Malfoy inspected the clear phial with a scowl. “They’re bat teeth. Are you trying to ruin our potion on purpose, Potter?”

Malfoy exaggerated the alliteration – our potion on purpose, Potter? – smacking his lips together on each P like he was delivering a punch. Harry rolled his eyes but couldn’t muster the energy for a proper comeback. Malfoy furrowed his thin, blond brows, looking almost put-out, as Harry went off to retrieve the right ingredients.

When he returned, Malfoy yanked the ingredients from him with a snarl, shoving Harry away from the potion. “You’ll do the written part while I brew.”

“Oh, will I?” Harry muttered.

“Yes,” Malfoy said. He grabbed their potion vial from the previous class, removed the stasis charm, and gently poured the liquid into the cauldron. “This is the most complicated part of the process. You’d just muck it up.”

Harry grabbed his ink and quill with a huff, rolling up his sleeves to begrudgingly document each step of Malfoy’s brewing. It was mostly tossing things in the pot and stirring, but Malfoy wore a look of concentration usually reserved for professional curse-breaking – or Ron’s Annual Gryffindor Wizard Chess Tournament. Harry could only be pleased that the boy’s focus kept him too busy to spend the entire hour snapping orders and insults like usual.

Toward the end of class, Malfoy reached over to grab the last ingredient – a vial of pixie tears – from Harry’s side of the desk just as Harry stretch his arm out. Malfoy’s hand grazed against Harry’s elbow, but one would think he’d come into contact with a Blast-Ended Skrewt by how quickly he pulled his hand away, sneering like Harry had pushed him into a vat of lava. Harry felt his eyes roll of their own accord. “I know you’re used to brushing elbows with your fellow posh twats, but I’m not actually diseased or anything.”

“As far as you know.” Malfoy grimaced back.

Harry grumbled to himself, returning to finish up the last section of their written assignment as Malfoy turned back to brewing. Finally, mercifully, Malfoy stirred the last ingredient into the potion, bringing their Everlasting Elixir to a gentle simmer. After poking his wand beneath the cauldron to lower the heat, Malfoy exhaled slowly, grey eyes scanning the table to check if he’d missed anything.

Harry felt the exact moment Malfoy’s gaze landed on the paper beneath his arms because the temperature seemed to rise ten degrees at once.

“Potter!” Malfoy said through gritted teeth, like Harry’s name was a curse. He pointed incredulously to the parchment. “Is this a joke?”

Harry sighed. “What now?”

Malfoy snatched the paper from Harry’s grasp with a grip like he planned to rip it right up. “We can’t turn this in. Your handwriting is atrocious.”

“It’s not that bad!”

Malfoy ran his finger across a line of truly challenging chicken scratch. “What does this say then, hm?”

“Er…” Harry leaned in, squinting at his own messy handwriting. He would guess it probably said add scarab beetle wing and stir counter clock wise , but it looked a lot more like odd scabby giggle wine can sour couture clown wives.

“Exactly my point,” Malfoy said with an exaggerated sigh, “and now I have to re-do the whole thing, which was probably your plan all along.”

“That would require me to be thinking about you, Malfoy, which is something I actively avoid,” Harry snipped back as the blond boy bent over the desk, his own parchment laid next to the report Harry had written as he worked to decode and copy Harry’s atrocious handwriting.

Malfoy’s face went red with irritation, but he was otherwise too worried about finishing their project in time to respond, which suited Harry just fine. After a week of potion prison with Malfoy, Harry would be glad to never hear his whiny, posh voice again. Even if their potion did look a lot better than whatever bubbling monstrosity Ron and Seamus were struggling to keep contained in their cauldron. Harry felt a prick of satisfaction at the sight – he’d been silently annoyed at Ron for pairing up with Seamus in the first place, since Seamus had been publicly calling Harry a lying nutter all term. At least some level of karmic justice was still in action.

The smirk hadn’t yet faded from Harry’s face when his gaze fell upon Malfoy’s scribbling quill. His body seemed to understand before his brain did, the blood draining from his face in a rushed exodus. Taking a step closer, Harry stood beside Malfoy, blinking down uncomprehendingly at the perfect cursive.

No One’s cursive.

No One’s perfect cursive.

It was like a bad dream. Surreal and confusing. Harry wondered in a rush how Malfoy had managed to steal No One’s handwriting because–

He had to have stolen it because–

It couldn’t be that–

Harry tried to swallow, but his throat felt lined with sand.

Malfoy moved his hand – his left hand – to start a new sentence, smudging the ink just so. Harry thought he might puke. He stumbled back, away from the gruesome scene like Malfoy was writing in No One’s blood, parading his corpse around like a trophy.

“Oi, Potter!” Malfoy spat, not taking his eyes away from his task. “You need to bottle the potion.”

Harry didn’t move or respond. He merely stood still, his hands gripping the empty desk behind him like it might save him from drowning.

Malfoy looked up, took in Harry’s pale face, and wrinkled his nose. “What’s your problem?”

Harry swallowed. “What?”

“Class is almost over,” Malfoy said pointedly, drawing his words out slowly like Harry couldn’t speak English, “so you need to bottle the potion.”

“Oh…” Harry mumbled, making no effort to move. He was too busy trying to stay upright, breathing through his nose. “Right…”

Malfoy groaned and threw his quill down with a roll of his eyes. “Can’t you at least wait until class is over to go all loony?”

Harry couldn’t respond. Approaching the parchment Malfoy abandoned, his eyes traveled over Malfoy’s handwriting, the miles of familiar looping letters that Harry knew more intimately than he knew most people. He peeked at Malfoy out of the corner of his eye – pointy, pale face wrinkled as he scooped up ladles full of potion – and Harry's thoughts exploded into a chorus of chaos, until all he could hear was his heart pounding to the sound of fuckfuckfuckfuck.

#harry x draco #draco x harry #drarry #draco malfoy #harry potter #hp fanfic #drarry fic #drarry fanfic #harry potter fanfiction #draco lucius malfoy #slow burn #twin flames

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ejcarpe · 11 days ago

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twin flames [ch. 3] // ao3

Summary: Draco turns to the Dark Arts for help.

“–and then Tracy cast a tripping jink, and Longbottom fell all the way down the stairs, right into Padma Patil’s bosom,” Blaise laughed as he recounted, “and she, of course, started screaming and then smacked him across the head with her Charms textbook. It was fantastic. I can’t believe you lot missed it.”

Draco traded glances with Vince and Greg, who were leaning back on their beds, chewing at the insides of their cheeks impatiently. In the mirror, Draco fixed his hair, examined his skin, met eyes with Theo’s reflection – the other boy adjusted the knot of his tie, looked at Blaise, then back again.

Finally, Blaise said, “Alright, well, I’m going to meet Daphne in the library before breakfast. Anyone want to come?”

The rest of them shook their heads, oozing nonchalance. With an indifferent shrug, Blaise grabbed his bag and left. The four remaining boys released a collective exhale when the door shut behind him. It was arduous to hold their tongues all the time, especially in the same room where they slept.

“Thank God he’s gone. I thought he’d blather all day,” Greg said the moment he could, sitting up eagerly. “Are all our fathers away?”

Draco nodded. Beside him, Theo did too.

“Does anyone know where?” Greg asked. “Father only said somewhere cold.”

“Mother told me that Father would be away for weeks,” Draco confided, turning back to the mirror to fuss with his hair. “What about you Theo? Did your father tell you anything before they left?”

Theo shrugged, leaning against the wall. “Just little things. They’re still recruiting. I think that’s what they’re off doing – looking for allies.”

“You didn’t know that, Draco?” Greg asked, dark brows furrowed

“Of course, I did.” Draco said, pushing the lie contemptuously through his teeth. “My father is in the Dark Lord’s inner circle. But, obviously, he’s had to be very careful about what he says in letters.”

In truth, Lucius had yet to write once. Draco had only heard from him through his mother’s quill, and each of her letters said something like Your father says…your father wants…you father tells me… followed by the vaguest, non-information known to man. Draco had crushed the last one into a ball upon reading it. In the mirror’s reflection, he caught Theo’s side-eye, but the other boy’s gaze quickly flicked away.

“In fact…” Draco continued, speaking with a firmer voice than necessary, “I’ve been told to focus this year on improving my skills. In Dark Arts, and the like. It’ll be important, of course, for when we’ve graduated. The Dark Lord only invites powerful wizards into his leagues.”

Vince and Greg looked between each other, and then back to Draco with curious smiles.

“Dark Arts?” Vince grinned. “Like what?”

Draco shrugged coolly. “Maybe I’ll show you sometime.”

It wasn’t much later that Vince and Greg started getting antsy for breakfast, so they all made their way out of the dormitory. As they passed through the door, though, Theo caught Draco by the wrist, holding him back. He spoke quietly, leaning close, his blue eyes probing. “Are you actually practicing Dark Arts?”

“I…” Draco hesitated. Theo was more observant than Vince and Greg, harder to lie to. “Maybe not in a practical sense. Yet.”

Theo smiled softly, his hand like a warm cuff where it still gripped Draco’s wrist. He looked left and right, even though they were surely alone, whispering in the empty corridor outside their dormitory. “It was a good idea, though. We should be learning Dark Arts. If for nothing else, to defend ourselves. Has your father taught you anything?”

“No,” Draco admitted quietly. “He always said he would, when I’m of age, but…that seems like too far away now.”

“Same,” Theo said. “Would you be interested? In taking matters into our own hands?”

Slowly, Draco nodded.

“I think I might know where we can get some…reading material,” Theo said with a sly smile.

Draco raised a brow. “My, my, Theo. Have I been underestimating you?”

“I like to read.” Theo shrugged shyly. “Come on, let’s get to breakfast before Vince and Greg eat the whole spread.”

***

As it had unfolded nearly every day that term, when Pansy spotted Draco approaching the Slytherin table, she slid away from Daphne and Millicent to sidle up beside him, pressing against him in a straight line from shoulder to foot. Draco swallowed his sigh. “Good morning, Pansy.”

“You, as well, darling,” she replied, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek. Draco felt his body stiffen at the feeling of her lips – sticky with lip gloss that he’d have to counteract with skin potions later. Still, he forced himself to relax and smile at her. Not a second later, Pansy’s cold fingers brushed against Draco’s forehead as she started fussing with his hair. Draco grit his teeth – his hair was already immaculate; he’d made sure of that before leaving the dorm.

“Pansy,” Daphne Greengrass leaned over to ask, “are you coming with us to Hogsmeade next weekend? I want to go dress shopping.”

“Oh, well, I’ll have to see if I have other plans…” Pansy chewed her lip, glancing hopefully at Draco, who quickly averted his eyes, turning to hastily pull Vince and Greg into a conversation about Quidditch. From across the table, Theo raised a brow. Draco threw a tomato at him, grinning when it slapped across his face.

When the topic turned to mind tactics for the match against Gryffindor (Draco’s area of expertise) he threw himself wholeheartedly into brainstorming ways to torture the Weasel, so he hardly noticed when Pansy unstuck herself from his side. It wasn’t until the Slytherins began their trek to History of Magic that Draco noticed Pansy walking ahead of him, arms looped with Daphne and Millicent, instead of clinging to him like usual. In Binns’s class, Draco slid into his regular seat beside Pansy – only for her to stand with a huff and sit beside Blaise instead, dropping her books roughly onto the desk, rage unvoiced yet still loud.

It progressed in this fashion for the rest of the day. In classes, Pansy sat as far away from Draco as possible and glared at him any time he spoke. At meals, she put as many people between them on the bench as would fit. By evening, the girls were all huddled together on one end of the common room, looking over at Draco like he’d bought them all crups only to line them up and kick them one by one. Draco lounged on a black leather couch with the other Slytherin boys, arms crossed and brow furrowed as he struggled to finish his Potions essay – all while the girls’ eyes burned holes in his skin.

Finally, he smacked Blaise’s arm, interrupting him mid-story, to ask, “What’s got Pansy in such a snit?”

Everyone rolled their eyes. Even Vince and Greg, tragically.

“What?!” Draco snapped.

Blaise narrowed his eyes. “Are you actually stupid?”

Draco hit him again.

“Ow! It’s a reasonable question!” Blaise rubbed at his shoulder. “She wants you to court her, officially, you idiot.”

“ Court her?” Draco wrinkled his nose. “We’re fifteen.”

“And Pureblood,” Blaise added. “She’s not expecting an official proposal, but you’ve got to give her something. I mean, what are you to each other? You can’t blame her for being confused when you lead her on all the time.”

“I don’t lead her on–”

“You let her fuss all over you, and you parade her around in public,” Blaise argued, “but you won’t ask her to be your girlfriend or even to go to Hogsmeade.”

Draco let his head fall in his hands. “I never promised her that I’d–”

“Is it true you kissed her at the Yule Ball last year?” Blaise asked pointedly. When Draco looked up with a pale face, Blaise smiled evilly. “You did, didn’t you, you slag! She’s been coy about it, but I could tell–”

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” Draco whined.

From where he sat beside Draco, dutifully reading his textbook as if he wasn’t listening, Theo muttered, “How do you kiss someone by accident?”

“It just…happened…” Truthfully, Draco hardly remembered it. He turned back to Blaise with a sneer. “Why are you off gossiping with the girls anyway?”

Blaise shrugged, unembarrassed. “Intel is currency.”

Draco groaned, sinking into the sofa in defeat, the memory of the dreaded Yule Ball swirling in his head. It had been a strange evening in a lot of ways. Pansy got angry with him very early on, and in hindsight, even Draco had to admit that it made sense why. He’d decided she was taking too long to get ready, so instead of waiting for her in the common room, he’d gone with Vince and Greg to loiter in the Entrance Hall and trip people coming down the stairs.

When she finally did arrive, Pansy had stared at Draco meaningfully for many long minutes before finally asking, “Draco, how do I look?”

He’d blinked at her, taking in the mass of pink frills adorning her body. “You look…nice.”

She had glowered, dark eyes sparkling with malice. “ Nice? ”

“Very nice?” Draco replied, offering her his arm, which she took with a roll of her eyes.

In Draco’s defense, he did dance with her. For a few songs. Well, two. But he never much liked the Weird Sisters. After Draco turned her down for three songs in a row, Pansy went off dancing with Blaise, which suited Draco just fine – it gave him more time to wander around abusing Hufflepuffs with Vince and Greg.

It wasn’t as if Draco was the only boy who had been a disappointing Yule Ball date. He remembered the Patil twins moaning to anyone who would listen that Wealey and Potter were downright dreadful. They’d danced even less than Draco had! And Draco would know because the three minutes spent watching Potter waltz had been the best part of the whole evening. His body had moved stiffly and without rhythm, his face red and screwed up. Potter had faced a Hungarian Horntail with no sweat, but as he awkwardly shuffled around the dance floor, he looked ready to drop dead. It was a sight to behold. Draco had asked Pansy to dance right afterward, just to show off that he knew how.

But as they danced, he kept glancing over Pansy’s shoulder, to where Potter sat slumped in his chair beside the Weasel, both of them pouting like first years. Then, after the dance had ended, Draco kept looking. For whatever reason, he forgot how to look away. He kept up his usual string of jabs – mocking the Weasel’s dress robes and Potter’s hair, how funny it was that Potter had been rejected by Cho Chang and now his date was off dancing with a Beauxbatons’ boy.

Then Potter took a sip of his drink. Draco noticed his neck, the shape of his throat. And just that. He waited for a barb to arrive in his mind, but nothing came. Just the thought of Potter swallowing, repeating in his head as heat crept up his face.

That was the beginning of Potter’s mind-invasion, the first seed planted.

Draco handled it by abruptly standing and inviting Pansy to take a walk in the courtyard. As they wandered between the rose bushes, Pansy kept batting her eyelashes and going on about how it was such a perfect night (even though she'd been angry for most of it), but Draco kept thinking about stupid Potter’s stupid neck and forgot how to hold a conversation, which led to a silence so awkward it made his skin itch, at which point Draco panicked, leaned in, and kissed her. It lasted all of three seconds. They hadn’t spoken of it since.

Now, as Draco willed himself to disappear between the couch cushions, Pansy’s anger like a cold burn, he knew one thing – this was all Potter’s fault.

***

“He’ll be here.” Theo said.

“When?” Draco snapped, his head tilted back against the corridor’s wall, willing the blood to stay in his nose. They’d used the Weasley twins Skeeving Snackboxes to get out of Charms early. The effects were wearing off fairly quickly, but Draco found the whole act of clutching his nose and bleeding onto his robes degrading. And on top of that, the ginger menaces had charged them double.

“Cause we don’t usually sell to Slytherins,” Thing One had explained. “Call it a Snake Tax.”

“That’s not fair,” Theo had argued. “You can’t discriminate against our entire house.”

“Fine.” Thing Two laughed. “A Twat Tax, then.”

They couldn’t really argue with that.

Now, patience short and noses stuffy, Draco and Theo waited in the Slytherin dorms, in the hall outside the seventh year boys room. Finally, they heard footsteps and turned to see Cassius Warrington, long-limbed and lumbering down the hall.

“About time,” Draco muttered under his breath, to which Theo kicked him in the shin.

Cassius quickly ushered them into the dorm room, casting a Colloportus and Muffliato at the door before turning back to the younger boys. “Right, let’s make this fast. What are you two looking for?”

Draco looked to Theo who cleared his throat. “Instructional material.”

Cassius snorted and turned to unlock his school trunk. Outfitted with an Extending Charm, the trunk was like its own shopping district. Draco saw that the inside was separated into compartments. Some with bags of weird powders and herbs, another containing little bottles of potions, and stacked in the back – books. Cassius pulled about a dozen from the trunk, one after the other. Draco and Theo kneeled on the floor, looking over the titles: The Forbidden Magicks Vol. I, The Pureblood’s Guide to Blood Curses, A Study of Infernal Rituals, and on and on.

“Quite the collection,” Draco said to Cassius with a raised brow.

Cassius simply shrugged, leaning against the post of his bed as the younger two made their selections. Draco reached for a book called The Unraveling Mind: A Treatise on Emotional Dominion . He looked down the chapter list, names like Your Mind is a Vault, Taming Your Urges, and How to Charm Friends and Subjugate People . Grabbing that and An Intro to Dark Spellwork , he looked up to Cassius. “What’s your price?”

Cassius shrugged. “I could part with them for seventy galleons. Per book.”

Feeling Theo stiffen beside him, Draco laughed aloud. “Funny. I’ll pay seventy for the lot. Mine and Theo’s.”

“You’re trying to rob me blind, Malfoy!” Cassius argued. “Sixty each?”

“Ten.” Draco put on a bored expression, biting back a smirk when Cassius groaned. Thank Merlin his father had taught him to haggle: start obscenely low, make them fight for each sickle, and don't let them know what their product is worth.

“I can’t believe you got him down to thirty galleons!” Theo said in a thrilled rush when they got back to their own dorm.

“I know!” Draco laughed. “I would have paid the seventy if he’d really insisted.”

“You didn’t have to buy mine, you know,” said Theo.

Draco shrugged. “It’s not like I’ll miss the money. I just wasn’t keen to let Warrington extort us.”

After putting one of the books in his trunk, Draco crossed the room to sit beside Theo on his bed, opening up The Unraveling Mind. Theo held out his hand with a curious expression, taking the book to skim through.

“This is interesting,” Theo said quietly, flipping to the end. His eyes widened. “And intense.”

Draco snatched the book back. “Intense how?”

“Well, it’s all mind magic,” Theo said, “Everything from Legilimency to the Imperius Curse. Look in the back – there’s Soul Spells.”

“Woah,” Draco breathed, skipping to the back chapters.

Suddenly, they were interrupted by footsteps. Draco lunged forward to shove the book in Theo’s trunk, slamming it closed just before Blaise came barging in.

The evening hours dragged on, Draco suffering restlessly through them, until finally he could hide behind his bed curtains and open up An Intro to Dark Spellwork. The first couple chapters were rather rudimentary, more Overcast than Dark, but still, there were some neat little tricks – a pricking jinx, a bewilderment charm, the fire-ant hex. What a great time to learn these new spells, Draco thought with a smile: they had double potions with the Gryffindors the very next day.

In the morning, Draco tucked the book into his bag before leaving, eager to give the jinxes a proper go in front of Vince and Greg. As he walked down the hall between the larger boys, Draco felt his mouth curl up when he spotted bright red hair a few feet ahead.

“Hey,” he said softly to Vince and Greg, “Would anyone like to see Weasley with his pants full of fire ants?”

Vince chuckled eagerly as Greg said, “Only every day of my life.”

Draco slipped his wand from his pocket and, with a charged excitement, pointed it at the Weasel’s back. “Formicario!”

The effect was instant. Weasley unleashed a girlish shriek, dropping his things and swatting at his robes. “Get ‘em off! Get ‘em off!”

Granger and Potter held their hands out helplessly, eyes wide as they tried to understand what had set their friend off.

Beside him, Vince and Greg erupted into laughter, collapsing onto each other as Weasley’s face went redder than his hair, hands moving to rip off his robes in a desperate panic.

“Ron!” Granger stilled his hand. “There are no ants – not really. It’s a spell – calm down!”

Potter’s head swiveled, locking immediately onto Draco, who watched his face shift from bewildered to furious the way most watch a shooting star.

“Malfoy!” Potter shouted, pushing through the hall to get to him. With a laugh, Draco backed up, ready to take off running, but he didn’t turn fast enough, transfixed as he was on the seething green eyes that hunted him. Potter quickly cast a tripping jinx that sent Malfoy to the ground, the contents of his bag spilling out in front of him. He watched from the floor as the face-down copy of Intro to Dark Spellwork slid across the stone and came to a stop in front of Severus Snape’s black leather shoe.

The man bent down, dark eyes meeting Draco’s for a single, warning moment, before vanishing the book entirely. Draco gaped, too preoccupied even feel embarrassed by how undignified it was to be sprawled out on the floor. Defeated, he got to his feet.

“Potter!” Snape beckoned. “Assaulting a fellow student? I’d say I’m shocked and appalled, but from you, it can only be appalling. Twenty points from Gryffindor.”

Potter scoffed. “But I was only–”

“Make it thirty,” Snape snarled.

“But he hexed Ron–!” Potter cried indignantly.

“Enough!” Snape snapped, ushering Potter away like he was a gnat. Potter lowered his gaze to glower at Draco, who flashed a smirk from behind Snape’s back.

“You two,” Snape turned on Vince and Greg, who were watching the encounter like it was a riveting stage play. “Clear the hall. Draco, you will be coming with me.”

“But I–” was all Draco got out before Snape’s pale hand was curling around his collar and dragging him back toward the dungeons. Draco could only follow along with his hands gripped into fists, hoping the punishment wouldn't be too severe.

“What is the meaning of this?” Snape demanded the moment the door to his office slammed shut. He held the Dark Arts book in hand, gripped tight like one would the neck of a snake.

“Education?” Draco said weakly.

Snape rolled his eyes with surprising fervor. “Have you any idea how idiotic it is to be carrying this around?”

“I didn’t do anything so horrible with it,” Draco argued. “Just messed with Weasley. And he’s fine–”

“It doesn’t matter! The subject is banned entirely. Headmaster Dumbledore has no tolerance for Dark Magic,” Snape lectured. “If anyone but me found this, you would be expelled – where did you get this from?”

Draco pressed his lips together tightly, crossing his arms. Snape blinked at him impatiently, but he was a Slytherin too, so he knew it was futile: Draco wouldn’t snitch on a housemate. With a tortured sigh, Snape crossed the room and threw the book into the fireplace. Draco’s jaw dropped as he watched his thirty galleon book set ablaze. “Detention with me, every night this week.”

Draco tried not to pout, but it was difficult – Snape’s detentions were notoriously foul. He’d probably be stuck de-veining flobberworms or scraping burned pig’s blood out of cauldrons.

“Come with me,” Snape ordered, opening the door for Draco.

“Where, Sir?”

“To your room,” Snape said simply.

With a sinking feeling, Draco put one foot in front of the other, Snape’s shadow looming over him, leading him to the Slytherin dormitories. The common room went silent when they entered, the handful of students inside turning to stare at the pair like they would a prisoner with his executioner.

Snape let himself into the dormitory, walking in a straight line to Draco’s belongings where he wordlessly unlocked the trunk and began searching its contents. Draco’s spirit sank as he waited for Snape to uncover The Unraveling Mind. That is, until he remembered with a surge of relief that he’d stuffed the book into Theo’s trunk the day before. Snape searched to the bottom of the trunk, then under the bed and in the bedside drawers before turning to Draco with untrusting eyes. “Do you swear there is nothing else?”

When Draco nodded, Snape gave a final glare. “Do not be so foolish again. Come – my class is about to begin.”

When they entered the classroom, the Potions Master caught Draco by the shoulder and forced him into an empty desk, away from the other Slytherins. Draco furrowed his brow, trying to ask a silent question, but Snape did not even look his way before striding to the front of the room, robes billowing behind him like thunderstorm clouds.

The next potion project, Snape explained, was to brew an Everlasting Elixir.

Draco’s mind turned over – was this part of his punishment, to complete the project on his own? Hardly a punishment, Draco thought with interest – more like a good challenge. But then Snape finally met his gaze, an evil smile ghosting across his face.

“Potter!” Snape snapped. Across the room, Potter looked up from the desk where he sat with Weasley, face already filled with dread. Snape gestured for him. “You’ll be partnering with Draco on this project.”

Draco objected, “Sir!”

“What?!” Potter whined at the same time. “Why?”

“Because I’ve said so!” Snape said impatiently, looking down his nose at Potter. “I daresay, Potter, you should be thanking me. Surely, you’ll get a much better grade without your pet Weasley’s influence.”

Potter opened his mouth to argue, but Snape was already striding away, gone like a puff of black smoke. Potter’s complaint became a groan as he turned to Draco with a look of disgust he didn’t bother to veil. Draco grimaced right back at him, willfully ignoring the traitorous flickers of excitement in his stomach at the thought of sitting beside Potter all week. The other boy slumped in the seat, crossing his arms over the desk and glaring ahead.

As they began to brew, Draco forced himself to focus on the potion – he needed an O on his Potions O.W.L after all – and ignore Potter, but it was hard. The git kept tapping his fingers against the desk, humming and staring off into space with a wistful look on his face.

“Potter!” Draco snapped when he saw the idiot roughly chopping their strangler fig into uneven chunks. Draco elbowed him in the side, ripping the knife from the other boy's hand as he pushed him out of the way. “Are you illiterate? It says zest and then slice, not chop into it like a half-blind troll.”

Harry tutted. “Fine, then you do it.”

“Yeah, okay,” Draco rolled his eyes, “Why don’t I just do the entire project for us then? Do you need me to wipe your arse too?”

Potter scoffed, his face going red, and Draco felt his annoyance disappear at once. Potter’s gaping, angry face was a powerful draught, soothing and addictive. When Potter licked his lips, gearing up for a comeback, Draco felt his mouth go dry as his eyes tracked the movement. Entirely of their own accord, of course.

“Why, Malfoy? Interested?” Harry retorted.

At once, Draco yanked his gaze up, scared Potter had caught him staring at his mouth, but Potter wasn’t looking at Draco at all. That was almost worse. Instead, he was glaring at his Potion’s textbook, muttering, “Not like you don’t have your nose in my business enough.”

Still without looking at him, Potter grabbed the knife back from Draco, warm skin brushing Draco’s hand, soft but searing.

“Whatever,” Draco mumbled back, rushing to busy himself with adding seven drops of witch hazel into the simmering cauldron.

***

The slash of a pink tongue across pink lips. Black eyelashes, fluttering over a forest of green. Furrowed brows, the angry set of a jaw. Tan skin on calloused hands, fists clenched. The pillar of his throat, moving as he swallowed his words. Eyes that seemed to glow in their fury, like those of a cat in the dark.

These images plagued Draco’s mind – a tornado through his house, a swarm of locusts set upon his fields. Logically, he knew that Potter was the same as he always had been – an annoying git – but he couldn’t stop having these…thoughts about him. These reactions. Like symptoms of an illness.

At dinner, he barely touched his plate and kept his head resolutely down, lest he accidentally lay eyes on Potter across the Hall and start the storm of thoughts again. In detention with Snape, flashes of Potter struck him like lightning – bright, brilliant terror. He needed to do something about the situation. His mind was a wild hippogriff, and it was liable to start bucking soon. Thank Merlin, he thought, that Snape hadn’t found the Mind Magic book. He would surely be needing it soon.

Late that night, after subtly retrieving his book from Theo’s trunk, Draco snuck out to the common room, sinking into the corner arm chair. He lit the smokeless candle, the only light in the room besides the green glow from the windows and the occasional flash of scales outside. He inhaled deeply, cold mint in his lungs like a salve.

In the flickering candlelight, Draco opened The Unraveling Mind and jumped to the chapter about Occlumency. Controlling the mind, defending it against invaders. Draco nodded to himself. That’s what he needed. As he read about Legilimency, a shiver ran up his spine–

“Look at me when I’m speaking to you!” His father often snapped during a lecture. Draco’s blood chilled, as he pictured his horrible Potter-filled thoughts spread out on a table like evidence, his father picking through them with a disgusted grimace. He read faster, finger tracing down the paragraphs, desperate to save himself from that fate.

Clear your mind of all thoughts and feelings , the book instructed. Draco wished to throttle it and shout – how?!

Many wizards employ visualization techniques , the book continued calmly, unmoved by Draco’s threats.

Draco took an impatient breath, closing his eyes and picturing his scattered thoughts as things he could control. He imagined them as shells on the beach, picking them up one by one. They just dissolved into sand in his hands. He pictured them as doors he locked shut, but a cold, ferocious wind blew them right open. As tulip flowers he cut from the stem – they grew back at once, taller and brighter. Filling a bathtub – he pulled the drain, but the liquid still ran over, leaking onto the bathroom tiles.

It was just the fact that there were several screaming voices in his head.

Snape thought him foolish, like a little boy messing with things beyond his ability. His father was worse, hadn’t even bothered to warn him about the dangers of Dark Arts, like Draco was too dim to figure out how in the first place. Draco’s relationship with his father had never been entirely perfect, always a bit sharp, but in recent years, it was bordering on perfunctory. An afterthought.

Draco had this fear that was too much to bear; he couldn’t put it into words, but it hovered like a ghost over his mind at all hours of the day. He thought of his father’s strict voice and cold eyes–

“Look at me when I’m speaking to you!”

What if he already knew? What if he’d seen behind Draco’s eyes, where Potter had planted a flag in the ground? Had he seen into his dreams – dark eyelashes, perfect scowl, tan hands on a broom handle – or did he sense it some other way? In the rhythm of Draco’s walk, the whine in his voice, or turn of his wrist?

Frustrated, Draco slammed the book shut and grabbed for the journal he’d hidden under the chair. If his thoughts insisted on overflowing, he had to let them spill somewhere. The letter writing was something Draco didn’t like to think about, just something he did. A purge at the end of the day. An exorcism. And the moment the letter burned, he pretended it never existed at all.

Dear No One, he wrote now.

I love the sound of grand pianos.

My mother plays. When I was little, I would lie on the sofa while listening and stare into the fireplace. It always seemed to me like the flames were dancing, which made sense where my mother’s concerned. She has a knack for bringing life to the deadly.

I love my mother. I do, but the older I get, the more I realize that I do not know her well. She doesn’t tell me things. Father doesn’t either, but he’s never pretended to. Mother, though, will sit with me for hours, share meals, tea, walks in the garden. All the while, saying nothing.

I know why I’m frozen now – I grew up in a glacier, raised by ice people.

But when my mother plays piano, I can hear her thoughts. She speaks through the scales. My soul leaves my body and holds hands with hers. And the unsaid things, I understand.

She didn’t play once this summer. I’m scared it's because she knows that I’m–

I just need to grow up. Get my mask in the place. Glue it down if I have to. I need to buy some bloody flowers to start these stupid bloody courting rituals, I need to get a new bloody spellbook, and I need to get Harry bloody Potter OUT OF MY HEAD

Love,

No One

Draco dipped the edge of the paper into the flame and watched his words disappear into nothing.

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