#ask phia

“Are you fucking blind? The Wimbourne Wasps have a much better chaser than the Falcons!” The two of them made their way out of the stands, filing through the corridors with the rest of the crowd.

Oliver smacked his hand over his face and dragged it down. “Look, Flint, I don’t know how many times I need to go over this with you, but obviously Henderson isn’t nearly as agile as Brooks, just look at his FPG! It knocks Henderson’s off the fucking map!” Flint’s face was lighting up like a tomato. It was kinda cute, Oliver thought. If only it wasn’t hiding such stupid Quidditch opinions.

“You keep bringing up the FPG, Wood, but honestly there is no power there!” Flint talked with his hands a lot. Oliver liked it. They were calloused and large, perfect for a chaser. “He just does those fancy tricks and it has everybody hooked, but he can’t fool me with that pretty flying!” Flint was looking ahead, throwing his right fist into his left palm. “It takes force, too, you know?” He turned to look at Oliver. “Wood?”

Oliver looked at him, head tilted. He grabbed Flint by the sleeve and dragged him off into a small enclave. “Wood? What are you–”

“Kiss me,” Oliver said, looking into surprised eyes.

“I, uh,” Flint was stammering, and even as his arms went to back Oliver against the wall, he seemed a little unsure.

“Tell me a secret.”

The words hung in the air, and Draco folded in on himself, angling away from Potter in the room they were trapped in.

“Come on, Malfoy! You know that is the only way to escape! This spell requires us to be honest with each other, or we can’t get out.”

Draco squeezed his eyes shut. “I just…I don’t want anyone else to hear.”

Potter, still out of his line of sight, made a smacking sound, and when Draco glanced at him, Potter’s forehead was red. “Look, Malfoy, I’m turning my radio off.” He twisted a dial on a device he shoved back into his robes. “This can just stay between us. Alright?” Draco shrugged slightly, and bit the words back on his tongue. Was it worth it? He didn’t have a lot of secrets left. That’s what he gets for trying to run an honest, clean campaign. The veritaserum during the trials after the war helped, too, he guessed.

Potter sighed and leaned back against the bolted door. “I’ll go first then, shall I?” He took a deep breath and said, “I like you. There, okay? That’s my secret, I have for a bit by now. You’re bossy and irritating, but you smell nice and you get things done. And you’ve changed now. So I like you.” Potter stood straighter and walked over to a cabinet, tinkering with something to busy his hands.

Draco frowned. “That was unfair, Potter.”

Potter whirled on him. “You–I–Un–What? Unfair?” He snorted and shot a dark look at Draco. “Oh please, enlighten me how expressing my unreciprocated feelings is ‘unfair’ to you?”

Draco glared right back. “Please, Potter. Everyone knows that I like you. The whole Wizarding World knows. And saying that you like me just to mess with me is downright cruel.”

Potter was looking at him in shock, tinkering hands stilled. “You…what?”

“Eloquent as always, Potter,” Draco said, and turned away again. He heard Potter trying the doorknob and snickered ruefully. “It won’t work, Potter.”

“I don’t get why not,” Potter said.

“I told you,” Draco said. “The whole Wizarding World knows that I like you. It’s not a secret. And you can’t just make up a secret.”

“I wasn’t–” Potter started heatedly. He blew air through his nose and tugged at his hair, pacing. “Look, Draco,” Draco shuddered. “I was telling the truth, okay? And it is a secret. Only Ron and Hermione know.” Draco squeezed his eyes shut.

“I used to dream that you would take me away.” Draco’s fingers where white in his lap. Potter turned towards him.

“What?”

“I used to dream that you would save me.” Draco looked down at a loose thread on his cuff. “Sometimes the dreams were good, you would kill…him, Voldemort, and my father would help. The Malfoys were welcomed to cheers and you would look at me and tell me that of course you were coming to save me. Of course all our stupid arguing at school made me important to you.” Potter was staring at him. But the only way out of this now, Draco knew, was to get the bloody door unlocked so he could apparate away.

“Sometimes they weren’t good. You would kill Voldemort, and you would kill my father as well. You would tell me that he deserved it. I wasn’t sure you were wrong. I’m still not always sure.”

Potter was walking towards him, and Draco shoved himself to his feet and walked away from him, and slowly made his way around the room to the door.

“Any of my dreams, any of them at all, was better than my reality. Even when you were laughing at me, especially when you would carry me out. And the thing is, I never helped stop him. I was too scared. Even in my dreams.” Draco took a deep breath and leaned his forehead against the door, and hand on the handle. “But the real secret, Potter, is that sometimes, I still don’t think I’ve changed at all. I would still have done everything the same.”

There was a soft click, and Draco opened the door and apparated on the spot, feeling the wards come undone around him as he spun further away from the room.

Luna was giggling as she hung off of Ginny, and Ginny huffed as she tried to pull Luna right side up.

“Come on, Lovegood. Let’s get you to bed.” Ginny hoisted her up from the crowded booth and wrapped her arm around her waste. “See you lot later,” she said, grinning at their friends.

“Yes, please, Ginny! Take me to bed,” Luna whispered somewhere near Ginny’s ear.

Their friends chuckled and waved them off. Harry wiggled his eyes at her, and she grinned as she gave him her two fingered salut. She spun them around and started weaving her girlfriend through the crowd.

“Mmm, Gin, you’re really strong, you know.” Luna was tracing her fingers up and down the Ginny’s nape. Ginny suspected Luna was a lot less drunk than she was letting on. Sometimes it was hard to tell whether Luna was truly sloshed, or whether she was just drunk off of their friend’s laughter.

“Am I now,” Ginny said, slyly.

“Oh, yes,” Luna replied. “I really love it when you show your muscles off in bed, you know.” She blinked owlishly at Ginny, and Ginny stumbled a little, too caught up in swirls of blue and grey.

Ginny pushed them through the door of the pub and they stumbled out onto the sidewalk. She could feel Luna’s breath against her neck, and rubbed her thumb against the skin right under her shirt at her pant line. She glanced at Luna again briefly and huffed a laugh.

“If you keep looking at me like that we won’t make it to a bed.”

Luna rubbed her smile into Ginny’s shoulder. “That would be ok with me, you know. I’ve been looking forward to a repeat of New Year’s.”

Ginny bit her lip and groaned. Her eyes darted over the streets. They were fairly close to their flat, and she could have Luna spread out and begging in under ten minutes…but that alley over there did look fairly dark, and ten minutes really was a lot of time if you thought about it….

Ginny grinned and Luna’s breath hitched as Ginny man-handled her against the wall.

“Oh, yes,” Luna sighed.