24

"'Mione," Harry whispered as he approached her table in the library, "I need to ask your advice on something." Hermione looked up from her book wearily, casting her eyes over her friend to take in his latest way to blatantly disregard the school uniform. Sure enough, he was in his trademark ripped jeans, dragon skin boots and a sleeveless red tee with the name of some band printed over it. He had kept his hair long after the blonde girl had 'fixed it' for him, and was that... eyeliner? She reigned in a comment; this had surely been Fleur's idea- she was always encouraging Harry's more flamboyant tendencies.

"I suppose," she eventually answered, already itching to get back to her reading.

"Okay, so, you know Tommy's only like... a spirit or whatever?"

"Yes..." Inwardly, she groaned. Anything involving Voldemort, or 'Tommy', as Harry had dubbed him, was sure to end badly.

"Well, do you reckon he'd still get an owl addressed to him?" Hermione stared at her friend incredulously, wondering if she had actually heard that right.

"Why, exactly, do you want to know?" she asked carefully.

"So I can send him a bloody letter, 'Mione, why else?" Harry answered with a grin to soften his words, though Hermione still adopted an annoyed frown from being sworn at.

"And what do you want to write to the most evil wizard of the century for?" She asked icily. Harry leaned back in his chair with a grin on his face.

"Well, mostly it's just going to be lists of other people who are called Tom. And I was going to send him a French dictionary, 'cos Fleur told me something pretty funny about his name the other day. Other than that, I was just going to ask him how he's doing, what he's up to, you know. Tell him how nice it is to have a body and not have to put up with Pettigrew all the time. Just like, bug him, you know?"

"You want to bug the dark lord?" Hermione screeched.

"And remember," Harry told the small contingent of owls in front of him, "As soon as you've dropped the letters off, fly away really quickly, got it?" they all hooted back and Harry grinned. Standing to attention, he snapped off a salute to the owls who hooted one last time before flying out of the owlery and into the night sky.

"Well, isn't this cute," an all too familiar voice drawled from behind Harry and he groaned, already groping around in his jacket pockets to find his hip flask- something told him that he would have to be drunk to put up with Malfoy at this time of night. "Ickle Potter talking to the owls."

"Just get to the fucking point, Malfoy," Harry snapped, "You insult me, I insult you, and we both go to bed."

"No, I don't think I will, actually," Malfoy said softly, smugly almost, and he took a step closer to Harry. The two boys stared at each other in silence for what seemed like a lifetime- Malfoy's expression was indecipherable, but Harry was clearly bored and growing for annoyed by the minute. Harry was about to give up and leave when the blonde spoke suddenly.

"Why'd you get Moody to turn me back into a human?" Harry opened his mouth to answer, but the questions kept coming. It seemed that Malfoy had opened a floodgate that was unwilling to close again anytime soon. "And why did you give me and Blaise our stuff back? And why didn't you tell anyone? And why did you flirt with me on the train, and why were you civil to Blaise and why were you at Grimmauld Place, and why haven't you had my father arrested yet and why-"

"Fuck, Malfoy, one at a time or I won't answer a bloody thing," Harry said, taking a swig from his hip flask and automatically offering it to Malfoy. To his surprise, the blonde took it with a trembling hand and took a large gulp before handing it back. Harry eyed the other boy with renewed interest, suddenly realising that he had never seen Malfoy like this before, never seen him with so many of his barriers down. He couldn't help but wonder what had happened to the cruel boy he usually was.

"Come on then," he said after he had finished his inspection, "Hurry the fuck up. First question."

"Why'd you tell Moody to turn me back? After what I did to you, I deserved it, surely." Harry rolled his eyes- he had had to answer this question hundreds of times since the incident, although he had never offered his professor an explanation. Neither had mentioned his failure to turn up to Moody's office, which Harry found curious- most professors would have given him detention for that.

"Because of exactly that. What you did to me. That bloody psycho had nothing to do with it- aside from his position as a professor. And I don't think transfiguring students is one of the official punishments. It was my fucking fight, and he had no place sticking his nose in." Malfoy nodded slowly, seeming to accept the answer as the truth before moving on to his other queries.

"And giving me and Blaise our stuff back?"He asked the question quietly, as though afraid somebody would hear and punish him for it. Harry shrugged.

"I felt bad for looking at it all. It was kind of an impulse thing, I guess," Harry cocked his head and took another drink from his flask, "Plus, you were pretty cute as a kid." Malfoy sneered at this, but it lacked the usual venom. It crossed Harry's mind very briefly that he was having a civil (albeit slightly drunken) conversation with his worst school enemy, but he dismissed the thought rather quickly, knowing that it was only a matter of time before they started screaming at each other again.

"Why were you at Grimmauld Place then?" Malfoy asked, deliberately forgetting that he'd ever asked about Harry's flirting on the train and skipping onto the next question.

"I live there," Harry replied shortly, taking a large gulp of fireshiskey.

"I thought you lived with muggles though?" Malfoy frowned.

"I did. They kicked me out. So now I live with Siri. Next question," he added quickly when he saw the blonde open his mouth- probably to either ask why he was kicked out, or to mock Sirius. Neither was a conversation that he particularly wanted to have.

"You fought my father at the World Cup. Why haven't you just had him arrested already?" The blonde's voice was soft as he asked his final question, remembering the hurt he had felt when he realised why his father had really taken him to the Quidditch cup. Harry scoffed, the alcohol lowering his sanity just enough that he didn't see the danger in insulting Lucius Malfoy in front of his son.

"Yeah, 'cos that would do a whole lot of fucking good, wouldn't it? The inbred tosser would just throw some of his money around and be let off the hook in a few hours, at the very most. Fucking Lucy-"

Whatever else Harry was going to say was lost as Malfoy's fist rammed into his gut, causing him to double over. He recovered himself quickly, however and, ignoring the pain, he launched himself forward, slamming the blonde into the wall behind him, pinning him there by his throat. How long they stood there, panting heavily with their bodies' mere centimetres apart, neither knew. Neither spoke- all the insults that they would usually throw at each other seemed to have been knocked from their minds and all they could do was stare into each other eyes, each surprised by the amount of anger and hate they found there. At some point, however, Harry flicked his gaze downwards and noticed, through the haze of alcohol and pain that was muddling his brain, just how close their lips were. He floundered for a second, gaze resting on Malfoy's plump lower lip, before he made his decision.

"Fuck it," he muttered, before slamming his lips to Malfoy's, capturing that plump lower lip into a bruising kiss that took both of their breath away. The blonde boy froze for a terrible second, but Harry persisted and the second passed quickly, the ferocity of the kiss overwhelming both boys until all thoughts, good or bad, had gone from their minds. Malfoy's arms wrapped around Harry's back, and Harry's hands were in Malfoy's hair, teasing it from loose in a way that some dim part of his mind knew would make the blonde look even sexier. Then Harry pulled away from the kiss and a wave of fear ran through Malfoy, but it was immediately assuaged as he felt a trail of bites and kisses being planted down his neck.

"Draco," Harry murmured, just loud enough to be heard and the Slytherin froze. What was he doing, he thought. What the hell was he doing? And then, father will kill me- and him. Sharply, he pushed Harry off of him, surprising the other boy so much that he fell backwards and landed on the floor, staring confusedly up at Malfoy. Who promptly fled without a single glance back.

Harry groaned as he pulled himself up from the owl-dropping covered floor, unable to form a single coherent thought. It was only once he had dragged his feet back to Gryffindor tower (so distracted that he didn't even bother to check the map) that he managed to put the words he needed together:

What the bloody fuck had just happened?