It's Not A Love Potion (Drarry)

Chapter 13

Oh god. This was it. It had to be. What else could make Draco look like that? That mix of despair and – shit – happiness that Harry never thought was possible to see on a person's face. On Draco's face.

God, Harry was so selfish. He was so stupid. How could he have let himself do this? Actually like—

No, he wasn't going to think about that. It was over now. He always knew it would be temporary, that Draco never actually wanted to...

Harry'd just put off thinking about it, more and more, and now...

Now...

He abruptly stood up.

"Back later," he said vaguely to Ron and Hermione, and headed for the door.

Draco caught up with him before he'd even left the Entrance Hall. "Did you hear—?" he asked. "Do you know?"

Harry tried to feign enthusiasm. "I can guess," he said, forcing himself to grin. "Is it ready?"

"Yes," Draco hissed, eyes alight. "I'm supposed to go to Snape's office now. You're coming with me, right?"

Harry took in Draco's eager face, the sheer hopefulness of his expression, and couldn't refuse. "Yeah, sure," he replied, and followed Draco down the cold stone corridor to the dungeons.

The journey to Snape's office seemed to take far longer than usual, but Harry found himself wishing they'd walked slower. He shook his head sharply to rid himself of the idea. It was over, he had no business thinking things like that anymore.

Draco led the way in, as usual, not even bothering to wait for a reply after knocking before pushing open the door and stepping briskly into the room.

"Malfoy... and Potter, how touching," Snape greeted them with a sardonic bow of his head. Neither Harry nor Draco responded.

"I got your message, Professor," Draco said.

Snape shot him a glare. "Obviously. Perhaps it was sent too late; Potter's intelligence levels seem to have rubbed off on you, Malfoy." Harry resisted the urge to tell Snape that his intelligence levels weren't the only thing that had been rubbing off on Draco.

Draco flushed. "Sorry, sir, but does that mean... that is to say, is it ready? The antidote?"

Snape opened a draw in his desk and produced a phial of deep red liquid with a small flourish. It looked like red wine. Or blood. Harry distinctly heard Draco's breathing speed up.

"Rather like the original potion, you need only ingest a single mouthful for it to be effective. If you would prefer, you can take this away and drink it elsewhere, however I would advise—"

"No, I'll have it now," Draco interrupted, starting forwards.

Snape's mouth twitched. "Very well," he said, shooting a mocking glare at Harry. Harry glared back defiantly. Whatever Snape thought he knew, he was wrong. Totally and utterly wrong. "I think, in this case, your impatience is entirely understandable. Doubtlessly you are keen to be rid of the unwanted... by-products of Orexis Votum." Cold black eyes bored into him.

"Something like that," Harry heard Draco mumble. He refused to break eye contact with Snape.

Wait, on second thoughts, eye contact with Snape was the last thing he needed, his pride be damned. He wrenched his gaze away and stared determinedly at the floor of Snape's office. He just knew that Snape was smirking. Bastard.

"Don't let it linger in your mouth for too long; it will react with the saliva and possibly nullify its effects."

"Right." There was a clink of glass on glass and Harry looked up to see Draco reaching out to take a thimble-like phial from Snape's hand and hold it to his mouth. Their eyes met just as the rim touched Draco's lips and Harry wondered if he was imagining the slight hesitation in Draco's face.