Stop All the Clocks (This Is the Last Time I'm Leaving Without You)

chapter 3

Malfoy was right where Harry expected to find him. Harry had arrived at the Ministry a little early this morning, hoping to catch him before their lecture began. Malfoy always came in early, long before even their instructor, and always claimed the same seat at the front of the room. He looked up from leafing through his notes as Harry walked over, his expression blank and his grey eyes guarded.

"Hi," Harry said, sliding into the seat next to Malfoy's.

Malfoy watched him warily for a moment, then said, "Potter," in a carefully polite voice and turned back to his notes.

"Look, I think we need to talk," Harry said, when it became clear that Malfoy didn't intend to say anything else. "About, er, you know..."

"About how you let me fuck you on Friday night?" Malfoy asked without looking up from his notes. His voice was still carefully polite, contrasting with his crude phrasing, and Harry didn't quite know what to do with that.

Harry felt his cheeks grow warm. "Uh, yeah. That."

Malfoy turned a page, the crisp rustle of parchment loud in the empty room. "I don't see that there's anything to discuss."

Harry frowned at him. "But..." He trailed off. Malfoy wasn't even looking at him. He tried again. "Don't you think that after what we did, maybe we should..."

"We should what?" Malfoy asked, looking sharply over at Harry. "We should date? Be boyfriends? Fall in love and get married and live happily ever after? Because I don't think either of us is capable of that."

Harry's fingers found a loose thread at his cuff, and he tugged at it until it snapped free. "Well, no, but. I mean. I just think things should be... different, now."

Malfoy snorted. "We were drunk, Potter. We had sex. Stop trying to make it into anything more."

Harry was starting to get annoyed. "You told me not to pretend with you-"

"Exactly. So quit trying to hide from the truth of it. I suppose all you Gryffindors are like this, believing that you should only spread your legs for your one true love. But the world doesn't work like that, and neither do I." Malfoy turned his attention back to his notes. "We were both very drunk. It didn't mean anything. Let it go."

"But-"

"Let it go," Malfoy said again without looking at him. "You'll just have to find your happy ending somewhere else, I'm afraid."

Harry wanted to argue with him and he didn't really understand why. It wasn't like he wanted Malfoy like that, with hearts and flowers or any kind of happily-ever-after shit. It wasn't that he thought he should only be intimate with people he cared for, and he'd had his share of one-night stands over the past few years. He didn't even like Malfoy, and Malfoy certainly didn't like him. All he knew was that fucking Malfoy had somehow changed everything in some deeply fundamental way that Harry didn't quite understand yet, and Harry hated the idea of Malfoy treating him with the same slightly chilly professionalism that he extended to Harry and Harry alone out of all their classmates. But he didn't think he could convince Malfoy of something he didn't even understand himself. So after a few more moments of silence, Harry sighed to himself and left. Lecture started in twenty minutes, and he thought he'd have plenty of time for a cuppa.