Intense

Tempermental

The train door clutters shut behind him. Draco steps onto the platform of Hogsmeade station.

Anger lingers in the breath he lets out, rolling his eyes at nobody in particular. He takes a moment to scan his surroundings, not quite thoroughly enough as he rounds to his right and a body slams into him. Somewhere in the distance, a nightingale echoes a trill into the wet air.

"Watch where you're going, prat." He barks, instinctively shoving the weight away from him.

"Hello to you, too, Draco." Your familiar voice makes his lungs stutter in his chest.

He swallows the lump of guilt that bubbles up the back of his throat, watching you wobble to stability. He fights the urge to reach out and steady you himself.

You brush his shove off the front of your clothes, and Draco looks you up and down. His sneer etches deeper into his face even as his heart picks up. A bag, cartoonishly large, weighs you down on one side. Book-shaped indents show through the fabric. How scholarly.

Your teeth catch a gleam of light from one of the lanterns, pointing a smile at him. It makes him want to kiss it off you. An uncomfortable wriggling under the skin of his arm unsettles him, makes him clench his left fist until his knuckles curl up past the hem of his sleeve. He reaches over to tug it further down.

"Dreadful summer you've had, no doubt." You say. His frown deepens, brows tilting in. He decides that Potter isn't the only subject that sounds bad in your mouth. "It's all over the papers. You alright?"

"Chuffed." He sarcastically huffs. His lips curl up around it as he speaks.

An amused puff of air files through your nostrils, your smile closing around your teeth. He internally mourns the sight of them. The tension in his chest settles into background noise, sparks popping to life against each of his individual ribs. Your hand reaches out to him in his peripherals.

He's almost giddy for the contact, but another pang of white-hot pain swells in the ink that's etched into his arm. He panics as your fingers creep around the fabric now dwelling at his wrist. With a scared breath and the quiet snag of your nails on fabric, he jerks his arm away.

You break the eye contact he hadn't realized he'd been lost in to glance down and then back up again. Your eyebrows draw tight, one quirked up in confusion. Your smile falls. Draco feels his face heat up; sweat prickles at his pores.

Your hand lingers awkwardly in the space between the two of you. Part of him wants to reach out and grab it, lace your fingers together and feel your palms on his, only the more apprehensive of him nudging the urge to dormancy.

A smaller, more fragile part feels like he's fourteen again. The last of his oxygen leaves his body when your eyes meet for the second time.

Thick silence hangs in the air, but then your fingers are rerouting themselves higher. He lets his arm fall back to his side, subtly trying to hide it behind himself. Your fingers brush up and slip under the lapel of his jacket. Draco feels like he's swallowed his own tongue.

"I'll see you around, yeah?" You say it as the playful grin creeps back onto your face.

For a moment, he forgets he's been given any task to complete this year at all.

He nods dumbly in agreement, head swimming when you back away from him. He hadn't noticed when his face had relaxed, nor when his mouth had started to hang open, but he sucks a shaky breath into tight lungs and forces it closed as you turn away.

The airiness in his diaphragm filters out as the memory of his mission this school year comes back to him. He waits until you're weaving into a fog-marred group of other Ravenclaws before he lets himself breathe out.

Standing there, watching you go, even as dread boils in his stomach; all he can bring himself to coherently think is: Merlin, I'm so in love with him.