Drarry Oneshots 2

Strangers Many Hours

Top!Harry

Bottom!Draco

Summary: Never mind the moments in the forgotten alcoves of Hogwarts. Never mind the secret meetings and secret kisses.

After all, you don't have to like someone to kiss them.

Only now the War is over, and Malfoy's different. And Harry's no longer sure how he feels about the other boy.

I reject JK Rowling and her TERF rhetoric. Trans women are women.

Author: MythAnd (on ao3)

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By the time the Hogwarts Express chugs into the station, Harry feels he's going to vibrate out of his own skin. Hermione and Ron are flanking him, but his back is exposed, and the stares of curious onlookers buffet him like a physical force.

He sees a sixth-year side-stepping closer, a Chocolate Frog card clutched in one hand and a quill in the other. Harry feels his heart rate begin to increase, and a familiar anxiety builds under his sternum.

It'll be his face on that card - he just knows it - and she's going to ask for a signature. She'll ask, and he'll have to smile and talk and be the Harry Potter that she needs him to be - the caricature, the symbol, the hero .

He hates this part.

On one hand, Harry gets it - he does, really. The War's only been over for three short months, all of the dead finally buried. There are still boarded-up shops in Diagon Alley, Hogwarts still carries the scorch marks of dark spells, and the denizens of the wizarding world are desperate to move on. Wix everywhere are giddy with delight in their new, Voldemort-free world, but they are still surrounded by the scars of the War. Harry knows that to many he represents a physical embodiment of this new, peaceful world.

But even as he understands this, he can't help but wish they'd all leave him alone. Some part of him - a foolishly hopeful part - had thought that maybe this year would be different. Maybe this year, this so-called eighth-year offered to those who missed their NEWTS, this year in which he's been promised no dark wizards nor insidious plots ... this year, he thought, he could be a regular student. He'd thought, just for a moment, that maybe he wouldn't have to be Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived Twice, but just regular Harry.

More fool him.

The girl is three steps away, Harry's heart is pounding an erratic tattoo in his chest, and Hermione is eyeing him with a concerned look in her eye.

And then Ginny Weasley suddenly steps in front of him.

"Wotcher, Harry? How's it feel to be a student again?"

Ginny's smile is open and easy, but there's something fierce in her eyes. Over her shoulder, Harry can see the sixth-year try to shuffle around Ginny, but his friend just cocks her hip and smoothly shifts, blocking the girl's approach.

Something in Harry's chest relaxes. His and Ginny's relationship, forged throughout the near-constant threat of death, may have fizzled, but their friendship has remained intact, and for this Harry is intensely grateful.

"Good. Really good," he responds, giving her a weak but genuine smile. "How's it feel to be a prefect?"

She grins brightly and waggles her eyebrows. "Bloody brilliant. The little sprogs aren't going to know what hit them."

On Harry's right, Ron groans. "Merlin's beard, Ginny. You're going to be worse than Percy, aren't you?"

The smile drops from her face, and she leans around Harry to punch her brother in the arm. "You take that back, Ronald!" she snaps.