A Throne of Blood and Stars

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Draco slowly walks back to his dorm. He ignores everything and everyone in his path, ignores the professors that greet him.

He goes straight up to his room. He shuts the door, lays down, and he sleeps.

"You know you don't have to keep coming up here to check on me."

Draco blinked, a little frown setting on his lips. "But," he heard himself answering, unsurprised. "I cannot trust you. Not by yourself."

There was a hunched over figure sitting on a ledge, looking up at the stars skittered across the sky. "You don't trust me," it chuckled flatly. "By myself."

It was quiet for just a split moment, where the figure rose, taller than Draco, and turned. Draco wanted to gasp, to turn and run. But something kept him grounded, something that felt a lot like familiarity. So he stayed still as green eyes came closer and he could feel the warmth radiating off his shoulders, and he shuddered.

"Awfully similar, the situation, don't you think?"

And then Draco did gasp, did make to turn and speed off but he was spun around and held to something firm. It took a spaced out second for him to realize it was a chest.

"What...What are you doing?"

"Just hugging you. I just needed a hug. I haven't seen Hermione or Ron yet. And you look like you needed it just as much as I did."

Draco sagged forward, letting his forehead droop into his neck. He doesn't remember what a hug is supposed to feel like. He knows his mother's hugs were always too quick and too light and his father's hugs always felt too stiff. Here, in these arms, Draco feels warmth envelop him like a wreath. He sighs. "I just wanted..."

"I know, don't worry. To check up on me."

"Yes," Draco breathed, but in count of inhaling oxygen he also smelled chocolate and soap. "Harry...you used soap."

Draco lost the arms around him and he looked up, Harry was looking at him with a raised brow and a confused twitch playing on his lips. "I do, just like everybody else."

"I mean you smell like it," Draco answered dumbly. He felt out of his comfort zone, from all the time he spent spiting this boy, he now felt something else that he could not place his finger on.

Harry laughed. He laughed loud and long into the night. "Seven years of feuding and here you are, smelling me."

Draco wanted to laugh, too. To scoff and play it off as a weak moment. But his chest felt too full, too weary of what would happen if he let this go. "I like it," he mumbled instead, crossing his arms around his torso.

Harry set himself apart from Draco, still amused and still grinning. He tugged Draco's hand towards where he was hunched over, threw his legs over the ledge and hung his elbows off the rail. Draco could only stare as the wind whipped his bangs up and down, amazed at how Harry remained unbothered.

"I don't feel the cold much anymore," Harry suddenly piped up, his voice sounding concerned as he fumbled with his sleeves. "But I bet you're freezing."

Draco had not noticed how numb his fingertips had become, or how his jaw was so tensely clamped he could have broken his teeth. He supposed he had felt warmth from the body next to his, but not a physical warmth, more like an emotional warmth. He's okay, he thought. He's here, he's alive.