“Professor Moody!” In the sudden silence, all eyes turned to Professor McGonagall. She pushed past the crowd. “Is that… a student?”
The white ferret hung in mid-air, twisting and squirming in futile bids for freedom.
“Well, um…” Moody began, but didn’t get far.
“Professor Moody, transfiguring students is not an acceptable means of punishment! You should know better than that. Release him at once!”
With a flick of Moody’s wand, the ferret fell in the grass. It started in one direction, then another, fast as lightning and blind with panic, and a gasp rose from the crowd. The many pairs of shoed feet drew back, forming a widening enclosure as student after student stepped back, startled by the animal’s speed and aggression.
As usual, Harry was the only one to stand his ground. The ferret rushed at him and climbed up his left leg, its vicious little claws tearing at his skin like his jeans were nothing. He yelped and jumped back, but it was too late. The ferret had already burrowed its way under his robes. It all happened in a heartbeat. Fairly panicked himself, Harry seized the ferret just before it reached his shoulder, and pressed its small ribcage against his chest. His heart raced, but nowhere near as fast as the ferret’s.
As Draco’s. Harry suddenly realized that was Malfoy there, hiding in his robes.
“Just as well.” Professor McGonagall sighed. “Keep him safe, Mr. Potter. Are those his things?”
“What?” cried Harry. “Why me?” The ferret dug its claws into his skin, adding pain to his annoyance. “Can’t one of his friends do it? Professor!”
But she paid him no heed. At a gesture from her wand, Malfoy’s clothes folded themselves into a tidy little parcel, the flap of his school bag lifted, and the parcel slid inside neatly, followed by Malfoy’s wand and a pair of textbooks that lay forgotten in the grass. Then the bag flew over to Harry and draped itself over his right shoulder.
He stomped his foot, furious. “Professor!”
Already walking away, she merely motioned him to follow. He had about half a second to glance at Ron and Hermione, who looked as shocked as he felt, and at Goyle and Crabbe, who stared at him open mouthed but made no attempt to come to Malfoy’s rescue. Professor McGonagall said, “Hurry up, Mr. Potter,” and the crowd parted to let them through.
Stunned and wide-eyed, Harry rushed after her, gripping the ferret—gripping Malfoy—under his robes. It—he—hung to Harry’s jumper for dear life, its claws needling into Harry’s ribs and shoulder hard enough to draw blood.
“Stop scratching!” Harry hissed at it, trying to find his balance under the burden of Malfoy’s bag. What the hell did he carry in there? Harry could swear it was heavier than Hermione’s. The strap was overlong for him, and the bag bounced awkwardly off the back of his thigh, pushing and pulling as if it had a mind of its own.
As he broke into a jog to catch up with Professor McGonagall, who was already at the door, the ferret began to squirm with renewed vigor. Harry pressed it harder and it let out an aggrieved squeak. “Sorry,” he muttered, then remembered who he was talking to, and all the awful things Malfoy had said about Molly not five minutes ago. “Not sorry!” But he did loosen his grip a little. The last thing he needed was Lucius Malfoy breathing down his neck for the rest of the year for cracking his precious son’s ribs.
Professor McGonagall held the door for him. The cool air of the entrance hall felt like a balm on Harry’s heated face.
“Where are we going, Professor?”
“To my office, Mr. Potter.” Professor McGonagall’s voice rose effortlessly above the din of a hundred echoing conversations as students hurried from one class to another all around them. “Please make sure Mr. Malfoy doesn’t escape. A transfigured student loose on the grounds… I dread to think what might happen to him.”
Harry thought of Buckbeak, spitting out ferret bones onto Hagrid’s bed, and tightened his grasp again as the squirming and scratching intensified. The damn ferret was going to ruin his jumper. “If you don’t stop that, Malfoy,” he whispered into his shoulder, “I’ll take you to Hagrid instead. D’you know what he does with ferrets? He feeds them to the hippogriffs!”
The squirming abruptly ceased. Relieved, Harry used the opportunity to readjust Malfoy’s bag on his shoulder and lengthen his stride—Professor McGonagall had gone ahead of him again and he didn’t want to be left alone with Malfoy.
But then he slowed down as he felt a tremor pass through the ferret. A bit like when Crookshanks purred. Harry perked his ears but it was too noisy to hear anything. Did ferrets purr? Not that Malfoy would ever purr for Harry, not in a million years.
The ferret was shivering—with fear.
A sudden pang of sympathy and guilt twisted in Harry’s chest. This wasn’t Malfoy. Not really. Malfoy would sooner die than run to Harry for aid. No, this was a helpless little animal who didn’t know any better. It was in his power, at his mercy, and he’d been cruel to it for no good reason.
Harry heaved the bag behind his back and carefully felt under his robes with his right hand while still clutching the ferret with his left. Its fur was silky, its little body feverishly warm. Harry scratched it behind the ears. “I was joking,” he said, as softly as he knew how. “It’s alright. Shhh. You’ll be alright.”
To his astonishment, the ferret’s shivering abated. Harry risked loosening his hold on it. “There, that better?”
The ferret climbed a bit higher with its hind legs, fitting its bony rump under Harry’s hand, as if trying to make itself as small as possible. Harry glanced down. The ferret’s pointy little face was peeking out from under the flap of his robes. At first, Harry thought its eyes were entirely black, but then he noticed a rim of the familiar bright grey around the enormous pupils. He grinned. “You’re kinda cute like this, Malfoy.”
It didn’t seem possible, but the ferret’s eyes grew even rounder, and Harry belatedly realized what he had said. Reddening, he pulled his robe over the ferret’s head and hurried after Professor McGonagall, who was waiting at the door to the courtyard.
“Professor?” he asked as they stepped out.
“Yes, Mr. Potter?”
“Is he—is Malfoy still—can he understand us?”
“It’s difficult to say. Even a trained animagus may forget their human self if they spend too long a time in their animal form. But Mr. Malfoy is only a boy, and this was done to him against his will. I imagine just the shock of it could obliterate his reason. All the same, Mr. Potter, it would be prudent to abstain from saying anything you might regret later.”
Too late for that, Harry thought grimly. “Will he remember any of it?”
“Like I told you,” Professor McGonagall said, holding the door to her classroom for him, “it’s difficult to say.”
It was cool and quiet inside. Dust motes danced in the thick rays of sunshine spilling through the tall windows. Professor McGonagall led the way to the front of the classroom and the door of her office. Harry lifted his robe, exchanged another glance with the ferret, who had started to tremble again, and petted it a bit more freely, down its neck and over its shoulders.
It’s Malfoy, he tried to convince himself. I’m petting Malfoy. And he’s letting me. In fact, the ferret seemed to enjoy it. Its eyes weren’t as round anymore, and the shivers subsided.
At the flick of Professor McGonagall’s wand, a fire leapt from the logs in the fireplace, instantly warming the room.
“Now, listen to me, Mr. Potter,” she said. “When I turn Mr. Malfoy back to his human form, he will be… without clothes. I shall leave this room at once to spare him further humiliation, and trust you to take care of him.”
She could not be serious. Harry opened his mouth to protest, but she raised a hand to stop him. “I understand that you and Mr. Malfoy aren’t on the best of terms, and that this might be unpleasant for you. But we must think of what’s best for Mr. Malfoy now, and I’m sure he would rather be… attended by another boy than by his elderly professor.” A hint of a blush crept over her stern face. “He will likely come out of it disoriented and confused. He might not be able to stand or speak until he has regained his human senses. He needs your help, Mr. Potter, and I expect you to provide it while observing the highest standards of chivalry our House stands for.”
His mouth still hanging open, Harry frowned. What did that even mean?
“You can put the bag down.”
Harry closed his mouth, opened it again, then shook his head clear and let the bag slip from his aching shoulder. Of all the things that had happened to him since he’d learned he was a wizard, this was possibly the most bizarre. But if he survived the gaze of the basilisk, he would probably live through seeing Malfoy naked.
“Now, put Mr. Malfoy on the carpet, next to the fireplace, and hold him there gently.”
Her wand was at the ready, but extracting the ferret from under Harry’s robes proved easier said than done. It clung to his jumper with desperate determination. As Harry pried its front claws off, it dug in with the rear, and the other way around. Harry started to sweat. He tried to get a firmer grasp on the ferret and his fingers slipped around its long neck. It squeaked in distress.
“Sorry, I didn’t—ow! What’d you that for?”
The ferret had bitten his finger. It didn’t hurt much, but the wound bled profusely. Harry stuck it in his mouth.
“Patience, Mr. Potter,” said Professor McGonagall softly. “He must be terrified.”
Harry sucked his finger clean, though it continued to bleed. He took a breath and tried a different tactic.
“It’s alright,” he told the ferret, stroking its back. “Shh, it’s alright. Don’t be afraid. Nothing bad will happen to you, I promise. I’m not going anywhere. Just let me… pick you up…”
And the ferret let go of Harry’s jumper, folding into a soft, warm ball around his hands.
“That’s it,” Harry whispered. “You’re doing great. Now let me just… that’s right. Hold it right there. It’s alright. It’s alright.”
Harry was still holding the ferret when Professor McGonagall cast a wordless spell on it, and he only understood what that meant after she had already escaped the room and closed the door behind her.
Harry’s hands were full of Draco Malfoy. A naked Draco Malfoy.
Now, Harry had seen his share of naked boys. Mostly Neville, who routinely forgot to take a fresh change of clothes with him to the washroom, but occasionally others too. He had seen Oliver Wood in the showers after Quidditch practice more than once, and every time, Harry’s heart had skipped a beat. But none of it compared to this.
It was almost too much to take in. The expanse of clear, pale skin of Malfoy’s slim back, flushed pink around his ribs where Harry had squeezed him. The white baby hair like a halo on the nape of his neck, his cheeks and the sides of his arms. Thin veins that forked blue in places Harry had never seen veins on anyone before: the shoulders, the forearms, the thighs. Delicate ankles and long-toed, wiry feet.
One of Harry’s hands rested between Malfoy’s shoulderblades, the other on his waist. He had never touched another person like this. Not even Ron, who often walked around the dorm shirtless and had no qualms about casual touching. Harry’s palms tingled with sensation, while his mind reeled: from the warmth and softness of Malfoy’s skin, the vulnerability of his naked body, the stunning intimacy of holding him.
For a few moments, Malfoy was motionless, calm and pliant under Harry’s hands.
And then he started shaking violently.
“It’s alright,” Harry repeated, not the least certain of it. “You’re okay. It’s over. You’re going to be fine.” He rubbed Malfoy’s back clumsily.
Malfoy let out an inhuman whine and clung to Harry’s shoulders, clawing at Harry’s clothes and burrowing his face into Harry’s neck.
On instinct, Harry draped the front of his robe over Malfoy’s back, wrapping his arms around him. Hugging him. Hugging Malfoy. Harry’s heart pounded at a breakneck pace. Hesitantly, he slid his right hand up to the nape of Malfoy’s neck and started to stroke. Christ. Malfoy’s hair was every bit as smooth and silky as the ferret’s fur.
“It’s alright,” Harry continued the mantra. “You’re okay.”
The fire crackled. It was too warm for it—unless you were naked. Sweat started trickling down Harry’s scalp. His back ached from the awkward position, bending forward on his knees, and the bite wound throbbed painfully. Glancing down, he realized he’d stained Malfoy’s hair with blood. He still couldn’t believe the git had bitten him.
After a minute or two, Malfoy stopped trembling, but regardless of his discomforts, Harry didn’t feel like letting go. He had no idea whether Malfoy had regained his human self by now, but Harry was sure this strange moment would be over the second he moved away. And he didn’t want it to be over.
Highest standards of chivalry, Professor McGonagall’s voice reminded him from the back of his mind. We must think of what’s best for Mr. Malfoy.
Harry tried. He cast about for Malfoy’s bag, but it was back near the door. He’d have to get up and fetch it, which would mean leaving Malfoy in front of the fireplace, exposed.
Would that be so horrible?
Chivalry, Mr. Potter. Chivalry.
He pressed his mouth into a firm line and moved to take his own robes off instead. Malfoy reacted by curling up under his armpit.
“It’s alright. I’m not going anywhere. I’m just gonna… put this on you. Okay?” He draped his robes around Malfoy’s bony shoulders. “And now I’ll go get your things.” But Malfoy clung to him as he started to pull away. Harry gently pried Malfoy’s fingers from his jumper. It baffled him that he’d never noticed just how slender Malfoy’s hands were. Like a tight handshake might grind his bones to dust. Harry held on to them, rubbing circles over Malfoy’s wrists. “It’s alright. Your bag’s just over there. I’ll be back in a second.”
He stood, a bit shaky on his feet, and allowed himself one last look at Malfoy, who sat on his haunches, turning his head about in clipped, jerky movements of a frightened animal. Harry swallowed, taking in Malfoy’s hairless chest, the skin folding over his narrow waist, the sparse golden curls thickening under his navel. His bits were mostly hidden between his legs, but Harry caught sight of what little wasn’t, and his stomach dropped as if he’d missed a step going down the stairs.
Quickly, he fetched Malfoy’s bag and took out his bundle of clothes. When he turned around, Malfoy finally looked him in the eye, and Harry knew at once he was still more ferret than boy.
“It’s alright,” Harry said for the fiftieth time, approaching slowly. “You’re safe. These are your clothes.”
Malfoy gave no sign he had understood a word of it, following Harry warily with his unblinking eyes. He backed up when Harry bent down to put the bundle on the carpet in front of him, and Harry’s robes slid from his shoulders, leaving him completely naked.
Bloody hell.
“Just put these on, okay?” Harry tapped the bundle.
Malfoy stared at him, his eyes all pupils, with only a thin ring of grey. Beautiful, Harry thought, and started to panic.
“Come on.” He pulled Malfoy’s robes out of the bundle. The black satin unfurled like smoke and a whiff of some sweet, exotic aroma tickled Harry’s nostrils with the memory of cinnamon buns. He made a careful step forward, unable to look away from the undulation of Malfoy’s belly as he sniffed the air between them. The closer Harry hovered, the further Malfoy leaned back. His knees parted to accommodate the position and suddenly Harry could see everything. “Malfoy, please,” Harry moaned, terrified by the way his own body was reacting. “Just let me put this on you?”
Something seemed to clear from Malfoy’s eyes at the sound of his name. At last, he allowed Harry to wrap the robes around his back. And then he clutched them over his chest.
“P-Potter?” he said.
“Yeah.” Harry stepped back.
“W-What happened?” Malfoy’s voice was thin and shaky.
“Moody turned you into a ferret. Professor McGonagall turned you back. We’re in her office.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Er. You kinda… well. Professor McGonagall had me bring you here.”
Malfoy looked at the bundle of clothes on the carpet, looked down his person, and wrapped his robes tighter around him. Pink blotches bloomed over his pale cheeks.
“You… don’t remember?” Harry said.
“No,” Malfoy said. Harry let out a breath, but then Malfoy went on. “I remember… no, never mind.”
“Well.” Harry cleared his throat as Malfoy started sorting through his folded clothes. “I guess I’ll give you some privacy.” And he went for the door.
“Wait.”
Harry looked over his shoulder.
“No, turn around. But don’t go yet. Please.”
Normally, Harry’s instinct would be to do the exact opposite, just to spite Malfoy, who had no business ordering him around. But Malfoy didn’t sound like himself. Malfoy never said things like please and thanks and sorry. Malfoy always looked at people down his nose, and always wore that ugly sneer, like he was smelling something foul, just like his mother. But there was no sneer on Malfoy’s face now. He was looking at Harry with wide, pleading eyes that were still far too dark to be entirely human.
Harry nodded.
He stood facing the door while Malfoy dressed and his heart hammered the whole time. He heard the rustle of satin pooling on the carpet, then a brief scuffle as Malfoy tripped while pulling on his pants. The familiar sound of trousers weighed with a belt came next, one leg in, then the other, the rattling of the buckle, and then the slide of cotton on skin as Malfoy put on his shirt.
“You decent?” Harry asked, just to say something. The restlessness had climbed into his throat and pulsed there like an egg about to hatch.
“Yes.”
Harry turned to find Malfoy tying his tie. He gazed at Harry. His eyes had regained some of their usual coolness. “You breathe a word of this, Potter…”
The unspoken threat had no bite in it whatsoever. It sounded more like a plea. Harry rolled his eyes. “There’s nothing I can say that the whole school doesn’t already know. About two hundred people saw McGonagall pack your clothes into your bag. Even Crabbe and Goyle must’ve figured out why. You should’ve run into their robes if you’re so afraid of what I might say, not mine.”
Malfoy froze. “What?”
“You ran up my leg and under my robes. That’s why I’m here, Malfoy.”
Malfoy let his half-finished tie fall limply over his chest. “You’re lying.”
“I wish,” Harry lied.
Malfoy swallowed, looked away and finished his tie, doing a better job with it blind than Harry had ever managed with a mirror. “It’s your scent,” he said. “You smelled… safe. Sane. Everyone else reeked of fear, mockery or cruelty.” He wrinkled his nose, sniffing. “I can still smell you, Potter, from all the way there.” Malfoy pulled his jumper over his head, leaving his hair in a delicate mess that made Harry slightly dizzy. “Like… cedarwood and lemons.”
Harry was speechless. He had never heard Malfoy speak so… normally. It even sounded like he was complimenting Harry. When Malfoy had said he could still smell him, Harry had expected something grossly insulting. Instead…
“Must be something you ate,” Malfoy concluded, bending to gather his robes. He was in his socks. Professor McGonagall had forgotten to pack his shoes.
“I ate roast beef and mashed potatoes,” Harry said, oddly fascinated with Malfoy’s socked feet and unable to look away.
The feet approached until they were an inch from Harry’s toes. He looked up. Malfoy’s face was just as close to his own. Malfoy stared at something behind Harry’s shoulder, sniffing. “It’s not your hair,” he said. “Say something.”
“What?”
Malfoy sniffed. “It’s not your breath either.”
Harry lifted his hand to cover his mouth, exhaled into it, and sniffed. His breath definitely didn’t smell like cedarwood and lemons, but it wasn’t horrible. He hoped.
Ignoring all that, Malfoy bent to sniff Harry’s shoulder, and it was all Harry could do to hold his ground and not step back. “It’s not in your clothes,” Malfoy whispered. “It’s in your skin.”
And the next thing Harry knew, Malfoy’s nose was pressed to his pulse. Which galloped at full speed.
“Er…”
“You wouldn’t believe it, Potter,” Malfoy murmured into Harry’s neck, sending wave after wave of shivers down Harry’s spine. “I could almost hear them. All the different scents. They told me stories, only I can’t understand them anymore. It was incredible.”
He stepped back abruptly, and Harry swayed in his wake, drunk on sensation.
“It wasn’t half bad, being a ferret, you know.”
Harry blinked at him. “So you do remember?”
One corner of Malfoy’s lips curled into a smirk. He put on his robes, then lifted Harry’s from the floor.
“Those are mine,” Harry said dumbly.
“I know.” Malfoy laughed. Not in his normal, derisive way, but almost… friendly? It was utterly confusing. Like he was a whole other person. Harry wondered if this was what Malfoy was like when alone with his Slytherin friends, or with his family. It made Harry feel strange. Almost like he was envious? It didn’t make sense.
“I can smell the gravel from the lake shore on them.” Malfoy was still on about Harry’s robes. “Crumpets and butter. And… Ugh. Hagrid’s hound. And…” He sniffed, then brought the robes up and sunk his face in them. “I suppose that’s what Gryffindor Tower smells like. Pine cones and smoke. It’s… cozy?” He looked at the robes as if they were trying to sell him something very obviously fake. “I always imagined it must be the most dismal part of the castle.”
“That’d be the dungeons,” Harry said.
Malfoy smiled. He really, genuinely, smiled, and Harry’s stomach did a funny little backflip. “If only you knew.”
Completely confounded, Harry almost confessed to Malfoy that he did, in fact, know. But before he could say anything, Malfoy walked up to him once more and handed over Harry’s robes. “Thanks for this. And sorry about your jumper,” he said.
Sorry. Thanks. Harry gawked for another second or two before registering the rest of what Malfoy had said. “What about my—”
He looked down. A trail of small incisions zigzagged up the left leg of his jeans where the ferret’s claws had pulled out bits of thread. The damage to his jumper was far more extensive, though it didn’t look like it was outright torn. But that wasn’t what Malfoy had apologized for.
There was a small wet stain just under Harry’s chest.
“What the—Malfoy! Did you piss on me?!”
“Of course not! What do you take me for?”
“What is this, then?” Harry pinched under the stain, not wanting to touch it, and tugged the jumper away from his body. How had he not noticed?
“Honestly, Potter. Can’t you smell it?”
Bewildered, Harry pulled the stain up and gave it the most cautious of sniffs. There was an odor. And it wasn’t nice. Like… sewers and garlic and burnt rubber. But it wasn’t piss. “What is it?” he repeated, his nose wrinkling.
“I’m not spelling it out for you. Ask ‘professor’ Hagrid. He should be able to tell you everything you ever wanted to know about ferrets but never dared ask.”
“I don’t want to know anything about ferrets, thank you very much,” Harry grumbled. It was a lie. Burning with curiosity, he could barely keep from sniffing the stinky stain again. “I can’t believe you pissed on me, Malfoy. I should’ve taken you to Hagrid after all.”
Malfoy laughed once more: the same easy, earnest laughter that tugged on the corners of Harry’s mouth. “You wouldn’t.”
Blushing for no reason, Harry snatched his robes from Malfoy’s outstretched hand. “Would too.”
But Malfoy just shook his head with infuriating confidence.
“Right,” Harry snorted. “Because I’m so chival—chivar—”
“Chivalrous, yes.” Malfoy’s voice went soft and deep. “Mon chevalier resplendissant.”
“What?”
“Never mind, Potter.” Malfoy looked away, distractedly patting the pockets of his robes. He was blushing too. “You wouldn’t happen to know where my wand ended up?”
“In your bag.”
While Malfoy searched, Harry shrugged into his own robes, sniffing at them too, but he could detect no trace of the alleged odor of cedarwood and lemons. Malfoy was probably making it all up, to… to…
But then Malfoy pointed his wand at him, and Harry stepped back on reflex.
Malfoy rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to hex you. Stand still.”
Harry’s heart raced. All his instincts screamed at him to grab his own wand and hex Malfoy first, but instead, he stood his ground.
“Liberasorde,” Malfoy murmured, making an elegant wand gesture. His magic washed over Harry like a fresh breeze, and he thought he caught the spicy scent of Malfoy’s robes on it, but it dissipated too fast to be sure. When he looked down, the stain from his jumper was gone.
Malfoy moved to put his wand away, but then he sighed and gestured at Harry once more. “Reparo.” And the threads pulled from Harry’s jeans and jumper wove themselves back into place.
“Huh,” Harry said. “Thanks.”
“Don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation to keep.” Malfoy heaved his bag over his shoulder and ran his long fingers through his hair. Harry watched, filled with a dreadful certainty that he’d never be able to look at Malfoy again without noticing his hands. “Do I look normal?”
“Er.” Harry pushed his glasses up and squinted. “You have a bit of—” he gestured around his own mouth.
Malfoy rubbed his face. “What?”
“I think it’s blood.”
Malfoy went pale in a moment of unadulterated panic and his eyes turned nearly black again. There was still a bit of the ferret in him.
“Not yours,” Harry hurried to say. “Mine. You bit me. Tosser.” And he lifted his bloodied finger, now all crusted, as proof.
“How barbaric,” Malfoy exhaled, a hand raised to his throat. “I take it back. Being a beast was awful.”
“Oh, come on. You always wanted a piece of me.”
Malfoy gave him a strange look, and it suddenly occurred to Harry that they had never had a conversation this civil—even… a little… fun?—before. Somehow he was sure that a similar thought had occurred to Malfoy too, because they both flushed even more.
“Give me your hand,” Malfoy said, extending his own.
Thinking it a gesture of… reconciliation? Harry moved for a handshake, though it was odd to do it with the left hand. But Malfoy pulled back, frowning. “The other one.” Some of his familiar impatience had returned to his voice and Harry was weirdly relieved to hear it.
“Oh,” he said, offering his right.
Malfoy took him by the wrist. His touch was cool and dry and shockingly gentle. He tapped Harry’s injured finger with his wand, closed his eyes and whispered, “Episkey.”
Warmth rushed up Harry’s hand, from his fingertips all the way to his elbow, as the small punctures closed and the skin evened out, leaving no trace of the injury. He heard himself gasp. It felt nothing like Madam Pomfrey’s detached, politely disinterested healing magic, or Hermione’s occasional intervention, which had a distinctive sisterly energy to it. This was…
“Your turn, Potter,” Malfoy said, dropping Harry’s hand unceremoniously. He pointed at his face. “Clean me up.”
Harry gaped at him. “Who? Me?”
“See any other Potters around?”
“I don’t know that charm.”
“Use the one you do, then. I don’t have all day.”
“I don’t know any cleaning charms.” Harry’s cheeks fairly burned now.
“Oh, for the love of…” Malfoy sighed theatrically. “Repeat after me: Liber—”
Harry cleared his throat. “Liber.”
“—a—”
“A.”
“—sorde.”
“Sorde.”
“Liberasorde.” Malfoy demonstrated the wand gesture.
Harry took out his own wand and mimicked it. “Liberasorde,” he muttered. “Liberasorde. Okay.” He swallowed and pointed his wand at Malfoy’s face. “Liberasorde!”
Malfoy staggered from the force of the spell, his hair whipping back as if in a gale-force wind. “What the hell, Potter?!” he spat, gripping the back of an armchair to regain his balance.
“S-sorry,” Harry stammered. “I didn’t—it’s my—sorry.”
Malfoy rubbed his cheeks and made a circle with his jaw, the motions of a man struck by a fist, not a cleaning charm. “Well?” he barked. “Did it do anything, at least?”
“Er… yeah.” Harry grinned sheepishly. “You’re all clean now.”
“Stupid Gryffindor,” Malfoy grumbled. “All brute force and no finesse.”
Harry’s smile wilted. “You could’ve gone to the washroom,” he pointed out.
“Shut up, Potter.” And there, the sneer was back.
Well. Malfoy seemed to be himself again, and Harry remembered why he hated him.
Actually, a whole month passed before Malfoy was entirely himself again. Strangely subdued, he rode out the wave of bouncing ferret jokes as it rose and fell with a calm sort of detachment very far from what Harry had expected of him. No one was cornered, threatened, pushed around or hexed for laughing behind Malfoy’s back, and the few who dared do it to his face (“Who’s the weasel now, Malfoy?”) were merely glared at. It was so easy to spook him by mentioning Moody that Harry almost felt sorry for him. The Slytherin table was as boisterous as always during meals, but Malfoy said little, laughed less and ate nothing but meat, which he sniffed studiously before every bite as if it might spring back to life on his fork and take vengeance. Occasionally, he’d lift his eyes and meet Harry’s stare. And… that was it. They’d look at one another for a few beats, then Malfoy would get back to sniffing his food. No scowling, no sneering, no squinting. Just a hint of a pink blush to match the heat crawling up Harry’s neck.
A few days after the incident, Harry stole away to visit Hagrid while Hermione and Ron were occupied with their Herbology assignment.
“So… I held a ferret the other day,” said Harry between bites of a red apple, sitting on the stone wall while Hagrid shoveled manure inside the hippogriff enclosure.
“Aye, I heard.” Hagrid laughed into his beard. “Had it coming, he did.”
Harry’s ears went hot. “Well. The ferret,” he emphasized. “It didn’t exactly piss on me, I don’t think. But there was a stain—”
“And it smelled like rotten eggs?”
“Yeah. What was that?”
Hagrid laughed some more. “The bastard sprayed ya.”
“Sprayed me?”
“They spray when scared, like skunks. Only it don’t smell so bad, or stick to the skin.”
“But I didn’t do anything to him,” Harry said on a reflex, to remember a second later how the ferret had squeaked when he’d gripped it around the ribs, and the marks on Malfoy’s pale skin.
“Musta done it on purpose, then.” Hagrid paused to wipe the sweat off his forehead. “I can show ya if ya want. Got a bunch of ‘em on a hook back at the hut. They have these wee anal glands—”
Harry almost choked on his apple. “Er… I gotta run, Hagrid. Thanks!”
About a week later, he went with Hermione to the library while Ron was out playing gobstones with some Ravenclaws.
“Hermione,” Harry said, feigning disinterest, “d’you speak French at all?”
She looked up from the book in her hands. “Not enough to converse, I’m afraid. I only had four years of extracurricular tutoring in primary school. But I can read and write, if the subject is straightforward enough. Why?”
Harry dug in his pocket for the folded piece of parchment where he’d scribbled, to the best of his recollection, what Malfoy had said that day. “Does this mean anything?” He cleared his throat, embarrassed out of proportion. “I can’t really pronounce it.”
“Let me see?” said Hermione, extending a hand, but Harry was shaking his head vehemently. If anything could be worse than his pronunciation, it’d be his spelling.
“Er.” He swallowed. “Un chevalier resplendi—resplendan—Ugh. Resplendent?”
“Resplendissant?”
“Yes! That! What does it mean?”
“Un chevalier resplendissant is… a radiant knight? Or more like… a knight in shining armor, I suppose.”
Goosebumps rose all over Harry’s arms. “And if it were, ‘mon chevalier’, would that mean, ‘my knight’?”
“Oui,” said Hermione, smiling. “T’as un très bon français, Harry.”
He blushed furiously. It had nothing to do with her compliment.
My knight in shining armor.
Day after day, Harry stubbornly practiced the spell Malfoy had taught him. He had a special prop: the crumpled piece of paper with Malfoy’s sketch from last year, of Harry riding his broomstick into the clouds and getting hit by lightning. Harry had accidentally dropped it into tea at some point, so it was stained and smeared, but he didn’t dare use the spell on it directly. He’d duplicate it (which was good practice too), then cast Liberasorde on the copy as gently as he could.
Which wasn’t very gently at all. The first time, he’d vaporized the paper and blew the shirt Neville had forgotten to put away out the dorm window. Two months later, he graduated to pushing the duplicated note no farther than the other end of his bed, free of stains and wrinkles, but also of all the ink. It would still feel like a slap, if he were to aim it at a person. When Malfoy had done it, it felt like a caress.
“What’ve you got there, mate?” Ron said.
Harry jumped. He was so immersed in making his magic gentle, he hadn’t noticed the door open and close. “Practicing finesse,” he grumbled. He tapped Malfoy’s sketch with his wand, whispering, “Facsimile,” then tapped the new copy and murmured, “Liberasorde.” Because he didn’t take the time to focus, the duplicate tore in a hundred scraps that took to the air like confetti. “It’s a cleaning charm. It’s not supposed to hit hard.”
Ron snorted. “Everything you do hits hard.”
“I know. But what if I don’t want that?”
Ron sat at the foot of Harry’s bed. “Hit me.”
“You’re not dirty.”
“Sure am. Spilled juice all over my jumper at lunch, I did.”
“If you say so.” Harry gestured with his wand. “Liberasorde.”
Ron swayed as if shoved, grabbed the bedpost for balance, and coughed. “Yeah, alright.”
Harry groaned and tossed his wand on the bed, throwing himself back into the pillows as the frustration simmered under his skin, an itch he was unable to scratch.
“You’re too wound up, that’s why,” Ron said. There was a rustle of paper, and laughter. “No wonder, if you use this for practice. I can’t believe you saved it.”
Harry jerked as if burned. Before he knew it, he’d plucked the sketch from Ron’s unresisting hand and clutched it against his chest.
Ron gaped at him.
“Shut up,” Harry said, feeling his face go red.
“Didn’t say a word, did I?”
“How do you do it? When you want a spell to be… gentle?”
“Well, I…” Ron shook out his shoulders, flapped his wrists, and joggled his head from side to side, letting his tongue loll out and making ludicrous noises. Then he pointed his wand at Harry and said, “Liberasorde.”
To Harry’s relief, Ron’s magic wasn’t all that gentle either. It whooshed through his hair (which was in need of washing), and felt nothing like a caress. But it wasn’t like a slap either.
“Your turn,” Ron said.
Harry rolled his eyes, but he sat up. He halfheartedly shrugged his shoulders, waved his hands, and shook his head.
“You gotta make the noises too, or it won’t work.”
“You’re making this up.”
“Nope. It’s an ages-old Weasley trick to gentle magic. Mum taught me, she did.”
The image of Molly going through this ridiculous routine made Harry snort. Feeling silly, he shook his head again, but with his mouth open and his tongue hanging out this time, sounding like a right muppet.
“There you go, mate,” said Ron, laughing. “I knew you could do it.”
Despite himself, Harry laughed too. He picked up his wand, duplicated the sketch, and pointed at the copy, still grinning. “Liberasorde.”
It only moved an inch.
Then the Goblet of Fire spat out Harry’s name, Ron would no longer speak to him, and now half the school was wearing Malfoy’s stupid badges. The pointy git was sickeningly smug about it.
“What’s this, Potter?” he said, halting his strut down a deserted hallway when he saw Harry loitering in an alcove, alone. “Not even your friends can tolerate the stench?” He pressed his badge, making it turn red and read, POTTER STINKS.
Harry didn’t need much these days to get angry. He dropped the book he’d been pretending to read and stood up. “If there’s a stink on me, Malfoy, we both know who left it there.”
Malfoy’s smirk morphed into a sneer. He took a step forward. “I warned you, Potter. Just try to spread that around and I’ll—”
“What? You’ll what?” Harry stepped forward as well. His heart thudded, his blood running hot with the promise of a fight. “Spray me again, ferret? Oooh, I’m so scared.” And he mimicked clutching his robes over his chest, the way Malfoy had done that day to hide his nudity, adding an effeminate flair to the gesture for good measure.
Another threatening step forward brought Malfoy within a few inches from Harry’s face, close enough to feel the moist touch of his breath, to smell the cherry syrup and chocolate he ate with his pancakes for breakfast now that he was finally off his meat-only diet. Out of nowhere, Harry recalled with shocking clarity the feeling of Malfoy’s face nuzzling at his throat and goosebumps broke all over his skin.
“If it’s a fight you’re looking for, Potter—”
Harry shoved him, palms open on Malfoy’s chest, and Malfoy staggered, then launched himself at Harry with a growl. The next thing Harry knew, they were wrestling with abandon, feet scraping for purchase, hands bunched in robes, in hair, tugging, pinching, clawing, pushing, and it was the best Harry had felt in days, in weeks, in years!
Unfortunately, Malfoy still had a few inches on him and the weight to match. Without their wands, Harry was not his equal. Malfoy gained on him till he had him pinned to the wall, forearm like a steel rod pressing on Harry’s collarbone, ready to go for the choke. Who knew those slim, delicate fingers could grip so viciously?
Winded, his glasses askew, Harry tried to squirm away, but Malfoy had the upper hand. They were breathing hard into one another’s faces and grimacing with exertion. Malfoy’s hair stuck out at angles. His cinnamon-flavored cologne filled Harry’s nostrils and he was overcome with memories of what had happened in Professor McGonagall’s office.
“It’s alright,” he whispered, giving in to intuition. “Shh. It’s alright.”
Malfoy’s face went slack. He only faltered for a moment, but it gave Harry enough of an opening to hook his hand on Malfoy’s forearm and pull it away from his windpipe.
“It’s alright,” he repeated, voice wavering between tenderness and barely suppressed anger.
A dizzying array of expressions flitted over Malfoy’s face. Confusion turned into something almost hurt, that tightened into fear, which hid behind a scowl. He stepped back as if punched. His eyes were all pupils.
“Tell me, Malfoy,” Harry panted, straightening his glasses. “What do I stink of today, hm?” He stepped away from the wall—Malfoy took another step back, looking alarmed. “What? Cat got your tongue? Let me guess. I no longer smell safe and sane but lonely and pissed off!”
Off, off, off, off, echoed the stone corridor. Harry realized he’d shouted at the top of his lungs. He moved forward, and Malfoy retreated till his own back hit the opposite wall. Harry crowded him.
“Are you happy now, ferret?” Propping himself up on his toes to make up for the height difference, Harry slammed his hands on the wall on each side of Malfoy’s head. Malfoy shrunk, letting out a small, frightened noise. “Are you fucking happy?”
“Cedarwood,” Malfoy whispered on a shuddery breath.
“What?”
“Cedarwood and lemons.” Malfoy’s voice was small and shaky. “That’s what you smell like. I can still feel it.”
The badge on his chest claimed otherwise. With a growl he was going to be ashamed of later, Harry ripped it off, tearing Malfoy’s robes.
Looking as if he’d been stabbed, Malfoy stared down and held a trembling hand over his heart, where the badge had been. Harry’s vision cleared. Shocked by his own violence into a kind of tired stupor, he retreated.
Malfoy swallowed, straightened his robes, and strode away at a pace just short of running.
The badge, which had reverted to its green version, glowed feebly against the flagstones, like a dying firefly. I should step on it, Harry thought. But instead he picked it up, dusted it off, and stuffed it into a pocket of his robe.