immeasurable depth. He wasn’t thinking about the lake itself, but instead of the mirror image reflected on its
face- Draco Malfoy. He was working the oars of the boat almost effortlessly, wiry muscles working inside
his robes, a distant look on his face as he stared out into the distance.
Harry had been shocked when Draco asked him to go out on the lake, even though he’d seen him out here
rowing his boat around constantly. The two had made a point of totally avoiding each other for over a year
now, abstaining from not only their usual verbal shots and one-uppings but from all forms of physical or eye
contact. Neither of them had truly been able to forget the night at Hogsmeade even though they’d made one
hell of an effort at it.
They drifted through the lake in silence for awhile, Draco watching the water ahead for rocks and Harry
watching Draco’s face for any kind of readable emotion. It seemed to drag on forever, and it probably was
an hour, before Draco finally spoke, suddenly and softly, moving only his lips as he continued rowing the
boat. “Potter,” he said, using the name he’d called Harry every day of their lives they’d spoken save one,
“we’re graduating in a month.” As if Harry hadn’t known, graduation was all anyone had been able to talk
about for the last hundred-some days, and they were right in the middle of final exams.
“Yeah,” Harry responded distantly, surprised at the bitter undertones that flowed through his voice. It
wasn’t like he’d tried to talk to Draco and had been cut off, but he couldn’t shake the feeling it had been
Draco’s fault. There was a drawn our awkward pause, and not wanting for another hour to go by before a
second exchange of single sentences, he added, “is that why you brought me out here?”
“Ask me a question,” Draco’s response was almost instaneous, as if he’d been waiting to ask it no matter
what Harry had said. He let the oars fall into the boat and they drifted free as he turned to face Harry,
wrapping his arms around each other to fight off the unusual biting cold that was in the air.
Caught off guard, Harry could only stare at him. “What?” he asked.
Draco’s expression didn’t change. “You heard me,” he said in a flat voice, “ask me a question. I know there
has to be something you want to know, Potter. Something that’s been knawing at you. So ask.”
Something? There was a million things he wanted to know, but it wasn’t fair for Draco to just say so and
have Harry bring up all the unresolved issues that lay between them. So he’d start with an easy one, one that
most of the school had been wondering about for some time now. “Why’d you drop from Slytherin’s
Quidditch team?” he asked, and Draco had his full attention now.
A contemptuous look filled Draco’s face. Harry hated that look, but Draco wore it almost constantly.
“Avoiding your real question is so typical of you Potter, but if you must know, then fine. I’d lose.”
Harry blinked. “You’d lose?”
“I’d lose.”
Oh God... don’t let the conversation turn into another verbal pissing contest where Draco crafted everything
he said to get under Harry’s skin. The game was obvious, but Harry didn’t mind playing. If Malfoy only
wanted to answer direct questions, then he would get plenty of them to answer. Harry sure had plenty to
ask. “So why would you lose?” he asked shortly, the outside cold conflicting with the heat rising up the back
of his neck.
Draco had the conversation planned out that he would answer everything Harry asked truthfully, but was
surprised how fast it had gotten difficult to do so. “Well,” he said, “whenever I got up in the air I’d be
looking for the snitch, but I’d be remembering how that spit between your jawbone and your neck tasted.”
Harry seized up even as Draco smirked thoughtfully, watching him in cold amusement. So it had just been a
game to Draco, something to throw back in his face later purely for shock value? He stared at the floor of
the boat in confusion, refusing to meet Draco’s gaze. If this was the way Draco wanted to answer his
questions he’d rather not ask them.
“Potter.”
Don’t look up, don’t look up, don’t look up. Nothing good could come from looking up. Just wait until
Draco got fed up and decided to row back to the dock, with his little game left unfinished. Harry was sick of
being forced into playing over and over again when he didn’t know any of the rules and the other person
could switch the pieces around whenever he felt like it.
“Potter?”
Don’t look up, don’t look up, don’t look up...
“Harry?”
He looked up. Stunned. Draco had only called him that once before, and it had been followed by a kiss so
intense it had left him reeling. But Draco didn’t make a move towards him this time, just caught his eye with
one of the strangest looks Harry had ever seen. “What!?” he asked, angry now. At Draco, for bringing him
out here, at himself for agreeing to come. Draco’s answer was all the more infuriating.
“We’re graduating soon,” he said simply.
“You said that already!” Harry snapped, “And!?”
What Draco said next was so surprising it shocked all of the anger out of him, at least for the moment. “And
I’m scared.”
Now that was something Harry didn’t have an answer to. Draco wasn’t afraid of anything now that he’d
grown up, not even the massive octopus that lay beneath the lakes surface. Of course maybe he was just
very good where Harry was bad- at hiding his emotions behind a silent exterior. Or he was a lying bastard,
who saved his emotions for when he needed to front them. Harry faked a harsh sounding laugh. “Of what?”
he asked.
Draco’s response wasn’t really an answer to Harry’s question, but it did answer a few others. “Seven years,”
he said slowly, thoughtfully. “It’s been seven years since we started here. That’s more than half of our lives.
More than half of our lives we’ve known each other, Harry. It’s hard to imagine a year going by where I
haven’t seen you.
Harry had no idea how to respond to that without sounding like a stupid jerk, so he decided to try for
sounding petty instead. “You haven’t looked at me all year.”
That caused Draco to laugh softly, but the laugh sounded kind of pained. “I’m always looking at you,” he
said, his laugh cutting off abruptly. “Just never when you’re looking at me.”
What the hell do you want from me? Harry asked silently, what does he want me to say? What’d happened
between them had been _amazing_ but it had only been one night, a long time ago, and it had been cut off
instantly at the roots. With only a month of school left... it just wasn’t making any sense. “So that’s what
your afraid of?” he asked, knowing there was no chance in hell that it was.
Draco scooted across the boat, easily closing the distance between them. “Seven years, Potter,” he repeated,
“for seven years my entire life has involved you in one way or another. It took me awhile to figure it out, but
when you hate someone its not something you nurse for seven years without just blowing up and punching
the person. So I tested a little theory of mine.
Harry nodded slowly, and mumbled under his breath, “...Hogsmeade...”
Moving even closer to him, Draco spoke as if Harry never had. “And I proved it right.” He placed his hands
on both of Harry’s and clasped them tightly. “It turns out that without the-boy-who-lived, I’m just the
boy-who-doesn’t-want-to.”
Harry opened his mouth to respond, but he never even got the choice. Draco met his lips with his own, and
when Harry tried to raise his hands in a half hearted protest he simply pressed them to the bottom of the boat
even as he pressed his body down against Harry’s.
And the boat drifted on down the lake.