Tempus Fugit DRARRY

Chapter 6: The Odd Couple

Never support two weaknesses at a time. It's your combination sinners - your lecherous liars and your miserly drunkards - who dishonour the vices and bring them into disrepute - Thornton Wilder

is when they're running you out of town and you make it look like you're leading a parade - William Battie

That day set a pattern that was to be often repeated. Now that the initial shock of their transition had worn off, Draco and Harry were able to throw themselves into the all-important task of finding a spell to send them back to their own time. They had searched in vain for a copy of the spell book they had been using the day their potion exploded, with little luck. Nobody seemed to know the whereabouts of Professor Snape, either, who had entered into the vocational path of being an Unspeakable and seemingly vanished into the ether. The nightly social outings ceased after the first couple of days, as the working week started and the rest of their friends went back to their jobs.

Harry and Draco then had the day to do as they pleased. Harry understood that he was taking a break from his career as a writer to contemplate new projects, and Draco had yet to learn about any job he might have. Not that the lack of a vocation bothered him. He had never been one to enjoy hard work, and was rather relieved that his future self didn't have a job that required him to abandon his occupation of professional laziness.

It did leave them with the problem of enforced company, and the tension that seemed to arise between them whenever they were left alone soon reached breaking point, and the sparking of several arguments. Every time Harry considered the feelings his future self had for Draco, he couldn't help but be baffled by it. He could not understand how he could find the slim, annoying blond to be anything but slim and annoying, and after the first few arguments was determined that somewhere along the line he had taken several bludgers to the head.

He was ignoring the little voice in the back of his head that spoke of Draco's peculiar attractiveness in the right light, the soft arctic grey of his eyes, and the way he smiled slightly when he was feeling pensive. Aesthetic values aside, any warmth towards Draco soon dissipated the moment the Slytherin opened his mouth. They seemed incapable of agreeing on anything, and taking a trip to the supermarket had proved so stressful that Harry had merely spelled in vast amounts of food using his new wand.

It was very different from the one he was used to. The added length of the shaft meant he had to compensate when performing even the simplest spells, and it was a pleasant surprise to find that this wand was much more powerful than the last. He could almost feel it vibrating when he touched it, and the strength of magic flowing through it was enough to send sparks from the tip. The first time he had tried a levitation charm with it, the vase he had been lifting had hurtled to the ceiling with the merest flick and smashed, showering them with glass.

Draco had been really pissed off that day.

Spending every day together had proved a strain on what was already only a scar of a relationship. Some nights they slept on opposite sides of the same bed, and some nights one of them took the sofa, just to get some privacy. It was around the fifth morning when Harry woke with Draco's foot in his ribs, and the third of many quarrels was started.

The trips to Hermione's library were a godsend, as they offered an excuse to sit for hours in silence, whilst they searched in vain for a spell, a potion, anything.

Both Harry and Draco had tried spells to make their search go faster, but with only a sixth year's knowledge of magic, their incantations were horribly vague, acting much like a Google search with only one keyword. The piles of books they had pored over increased by the day, and Harry would find his attention wandering after yet more hours of sitting on a dusty floor, his nose buried in some nameless tome. When the light began to dim, they would come to an unspoken agreement to go home, the silence becoming as much a necessary part of their communication as speech.