#hp draco

—You’re shocked the first time he speaks to you kindly: “You’re good at Herbology, right? Mind helping me not kill my mandrake?” You blink, nod, and whisper, “Okay.” He hears it like a thunderclap.

—You never raise your hand, but Draco starts glancing your way during group work. If anyone talks over you, he’ll suddenly clear his throat and snap, “Let them speak.”

—When you shyly smile at him for the first time, he has to look away immediately. His heart stutters and he mutters something rude just to cover the blush rising to his cheeks.

—Draco doesn’t know how to flirt with someone as soft as you. He tries to gift you chocolates (then says “Not that I care if you eat them or not”), and you thank him so sweetly it stuns him into silence.

—You start bringing an extra quill to class, because Draco never has one. He never thanks you aloud, but he always takes it gently, his fingers brushing yours like it’s accidental.

—He defends you behind your back, when other Slytherins say you’re “too sensitive” Draco cuts in coldly with “They’ve got more manners than all of you combined.”

—You confess first, but it’s barely audible. You don’t even mean to say it, just a soft, “I think I like you” when you’re sitting beside him at the Black Lake. Draco freezes. You panic.

—But then his hand brushes yours, trembling just a little. He says nothing either. Just doesn’t move his hand away. That’s how it begins.

—Draco walks you to class now, and even though he rolls his eyes when people stare, he slows his steps to match your shy pace. “Don’t worry. Let them stare.”

—You start giving him little, thoughtful gifts: pressed flowers, neatly folded notes with facts about constellations (he actually keeps them in a drawer). You never say much. But Draco feels seen for the first time.

—He’s protective, but not possessive. When he senses you’re uncomfortable in loud spaces, he offers his arm and says, “Come on, let’s get out of here.” No pressure.

He sat only a few tables away.

His school jumper sleeves were pushed up, forearms tense as he scribbled notes furiously, his brown hair slightly mussed like he’d run a hand through it one too many times, his lips moving soundlessly as he read. It was an interesting situation, truly. Oliver Wood? Instead of composing Quidditch formations, devising tactics, and barking training orders at his teammates, he was reading and writing notes for what looked like a Transfiguration essay Professor McGonagall had assigned earlier that morning.

The rest of the world blurred when you looked at him.

You felt this familiar ache in your chest, the one that always came when you watched him without meaning to. It was silly, really. Half the school admired Oliver Wood — the steadfast Gryffindor Keeper, the dedicated captain, the boy who lived and breathed Quidditch. Despite this, you still looked forward to seeing him at classes, passing by each other in the hallways, and sneaking off to watch his team practicing new moves by the Quidditch Field. Yet you couldn't help but wonder if he had ever thought of you? Hell, he probably doesn't even know you. To him you were.. what? Just another classmate. A face in the stands.

You didn't notice that your thoughts had gone astray when your eyes met with his warm hazel eyes, your heart lurched. You thought to yourself that maybe.. maybe if you stay still he won't see you. The suddenly —

“Oi!” Oliver said, voice carrying easily in the hushed library. Startled, you almost knocked down your bottle of ink.

“Merlin’s beard! You startled me Wood! What is it?”

You said trying to sound casual yet the cracks on your voice gave it away.

“You’ve got ink on your nose.”

Heat rushed to your cheeks as you rubbed furiously at your face, mortified. Oliver chuckled, the sound warm and unbothered.

“Better,” he said simply, then turned back to his parchment. Just like that, the moment was gone, and he was back in his own world — quills, strategy notes, and probably Quidditch diagrams disguised as schoolwork.

You wanted to scream.

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Later, by the Great Hall during dinner, you watched him again. This time, from a safer distance. Oliver sat with his teammates, noticing their fiery red hair, their giddy smiles, and laughs bouncing through the walls of the Great Hall probably the results of successfully pranking a student. You immediately knew they were — The Weasley Twins: George and Fred.

Yet, your eyes were only set to one. The shimmering glow of the enchanted candles, casting his profile in soft gold.

“You’re staring agaaaiinnn!” Your friend sing-songed.

You whipped your head away. “I am not!”

“You are. You've got it baaaaaddd!”

“Shut up!” you hissed, though you couldn’t deny it. Every time he ran a hand through his hair, every time he smiled at some passing teammate, your heart clenched. He was so close, yet felt galaxies away.

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The night before the big Gryffindor vs Slytherin match. You found yourself in the Quidditch field, you swore you only needed air after all you have to sort out your thoughts and feelings. Fate (or perhaps cruel luck) led you straight into Oliver.

He sat by the stands, parchment littered with half-finished plays. His quill was tucked behind his ear, his brow furrowed in concentration as he meticulously polished his broom. You were about to turn around and leave when.. “Late night too, eh?” he said when he noticed you hovering.

You swallowed hard, clutching the hem of your jumper like a lifeline. “Y-yeah. Couldn’t sleep.”

Oliver smiled faintly, though exhaustion shadowed his eyes. “Big match nerves. Not for you, I mean—” he laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. “For me. I’ll be fine once I’m in the air.”

Your heart twisted. He had no idea. No idea how you stayed up nights replaying every word he spoke to you, no idea that you cheered yourself hoarse from the stands just for him, no idea that you would give anything to be more than just another face in the crowd. Or so you thought.

“Good luck tomorrow,” you managed, voice soft.

He grinned then, wide and bright, and it was almost enough to undo you. “Thanks. Means a lot, hearing it from you.”

You left the field with your chest aching, your secret still buried deep, and Oliver Wood, as always, blissfully oblivious.

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⚜️Author's Notes: I am still trying to figure out how to redirect a blog without it redirecting to chrome in my phone..😮‍💨⚜️

You hadn’t wanted to, of course. Not really. In the heat of yet another argument, you’d convinced yourself that a breakup would be good, but in the time since then, you’ve only been spiraling into memories of what had been yours before you took it all away. You had been happier with Draco, hadn’t you? Now all you can do is second-guess yourself and wonder if you had been wrong to end the one brilliant thing that had belonged to you and no one else.

It had been inevitable that you and Draco would start dating. That’s what your other friends of Slytherin House had said, at least, when the news broke. It seemed like the entirety of Hogwarts had known within a few hours of your first date together. Gossip spreads like wildfire in a school like this, and as it turns out, more than a few of your fellow students had been expecting you two to get together for quite some time.

At first, it had seemed like yet another victory in your pocket. Draco loved you and you loved him. The two of you were the talk of the town. Stealing Draco’s heart might have been the best hat-trick you’d ever pulled off, and he might say the same thing about you. You traded scarves and stole his jackets, bought each other roses and studied side by side in the common room every night, borrowing glances when you were sure the other wasn’t looking. Every move felt like a miracle– look at this person, who loves only me. Somehow, I managed to make them fall in love with me, despite all odds and all other people, and now they’ll be mine forever.

Only– forever isn’t a true thing, not in the wizarding world, and certainly not in fast-paced Slytherin. Every day, there are new battles to be fought, more prizes to be won, and victories that can be won by one person and one person only. You and Draco stopped competing together and started fighting against each other to secure the top places. Instead of being happy for each other when you got high exam scores, it felt like more nails in your coffin. Wouldn’t he grow tired of you if you couldn’t get your grades up? And he went to bed afraid, lay up all night wondering, wouldn’t you move on if Draco couldn’t win more Quidditch games?

Regardless if the two of you actually depended that much on each other’s academic and personal successes for your love to flourish, it certainly felt that way. The other Slytherin students, which at first had welcomed your relationship with open arms, turned against you, whispering to each other like snakes whenever you passed them in the corridors. Nowhere felt safe except by each other’s side, and then not even that. You swore Draco was mocking you to Crabbe and Goyle. He thought you were bad-mouthing him to Pansy and Astoria. 

And then, after weeks of rumors and indecision, it all came to a fiery head. You accused each other of not actually caring about each other and lying about what you’d done and worse things, too. When the voices were raised and the words got bad, you pulled for the last weapon you had up your sleeve and announced that you wanted to break up with him. You were assuming that Draco would recognize the move for what it was, a last-ditch attempt for him to realize that you were on fragile ground, but instead his eyes just flashed and he agreed that separation would be best for you two.

All of a sudden, it was over. Years in the making, only months in the having. The two of you have never been able to do anything but escalate a situation– grades, love, and this, now– so of course Draco would never back down from a fight. One of you always had to be better. One of you always had to have the last laugh. And now you’re both alone, forever on opposite sides of a classroom or common room, staring daggers at each other’s backs because it’s the only glimpse you’ll ever be able to catch of the person who had once sworn to love you forever.

It’s terrible because not only have you lost your love, you’ve lost your friend. You and Draco were the best of friends before you started dating, it’s why you felt confident enough to risk your heart on a Malfoy. You knew he would never hurt you because he never has, and then he did. Sitting with the broken fragments of your heart in your hands, your first instinct was to go to Draco about this, and then the truth slowly sunk in that you couldn’t, that you never could trust him with your honesty again. Draco knew every part of you, broken and bare, good and bad and ugly, and he ended things anyway. If Draco Malfoy can break your heart, then where is the proof that love could ever exist anywhere again?

Friendships end. Friendships always end. You know this to be true. Either by sudden death or slow drifting, best friends never stay that way forever. You’ll have irreconcilable differences that lead to jaded arguments, or time will intervene and you’ll stop seeing each other around, then stop making attempts to care. You’ve chosen the first end, it seems, but since when would anything with you and Draco end with a lackluster indifference? You would either pledge yourselves to each other forever or go out with enough chill to ice you both out for good. There was no world in which you could go quietly.

Perhaps this is true, perhaps it was meant to be all along that two people so ambitious and excitable as you two could never end with anything but terror, but Merlin, if you don’t hate it now. You straggle from class to class, hardly able to convince yourself to put in the effort to care about what you’re learning. You’ll lock in long enough to study for exams, and turn in halfway decent papers, of course, but your heart isn’t in it anymore.

And how could it? You have no heart. It’s gone, lost to you forever in the annex of a corridor a few turns away from the Slytherin common room, where Draco stalked away from you, unaware or perhaps not caring about the blood he tracks wherever he goes. He ripped your heart in two and washed his hands of the agony. You wish you could do the same, but every new day just reminds you of how much you wish you were with him.

Still, you move on, or you try to, at least. Draco clearly has. He hardly spares a word for you, not even a gloating reminder that he’s got the upper hand since he isn’t wallowing in self-pity on a day-to-day basis. He’s simply busy all of the time, too busy for you. You’re not so busy that you don’t notice it, and certainly not busy enough that it wouldn’t hurt.

Yes, you miss Draco, but who wouldn’t? What a time in your life. There are some people in life that you simply won’t be able to forget, and you have a feeling that Draco Malfoy is one of them. As much as you would love to push him into the past and lock him up with all the other dusty relics of times long since gone, he refuses to be barricaded with the rest of your childhood playthings and old friends.

He’s always been too ambitious for his own good, hasn’t he? And so have you. It’s what drew the two of you together in the first place, and it’s what drew you apart. You try to use that same strength to push yourself onwards and upwards, and it works for a time, but never completely. You can throw yourself back into your studies and spend your free time laughing with friends, but there will always come a time at the end of the day in which you have nothing to occupy your heedless minutes, when the gloomy thoughts come creeping back in again and you wonder– just why did you have to let him go, really?

Not even the strictest schedule in the world can free you of regret, it seems. You feel like you’re being torn apart at all seams even as you attempt to force yourself back together again. Your nerves are flighty, your senses on constant high alert, and you can’t seem to stop your eyes from scanning the room whenever someone exits or enters, just in case Draco might come in, just in case he might see you as anything but your best. You have to prove that you’re doing better than him, but you’re not sure if you can convince him of that when you can hardly convince yourself.

Days go by, blending into weeks, and then two months have come and gone and you’re no better off than you were at the start. Things with Draco are still painful, like testing a wound just to watch the stitches come undone. Every interaction with him is terrible. You run into each other in the corridors and he practically flinches with an effort to look away again. You both raise your hands to answer the same question in class and you almost sprain a muscle in your effort to quickly pull your arm down again. You and Draco approach the entrance to the common room at the same time and have to stand there, side by side, pretending you don’t notice each other at all. 

It’s an awful sort of hell, having to feign indifference to the one person who used to be able to read you like a book. Maybe he still can, maybe not even time and separation can heal Draco of that great gift, or maybe he just doesn’t care enough to attempt to read between your lines anymore. Maybe he’s not faking apathy with you. Maybe he truly just doesn’t care.

Despite your tendency to think that way, your friends seem to have none of it. They keep telling you that he stares when he thinks you’re not looking, that every time some boy asks for your help on a problem in class, Draco snaps a quill or otherwise looks like he’s going to burst a blood vessel from failing to keep himself in check.

You don’t have the heart to believe them. Your friends will tell you whatever they think is right to get you to smile again. You know you’ve been ruining the mood whenever you complain about Draco, but you’ve been trying to work on that, too. You’ve been trying to work on a lot. It doesn’t always go the way you plan it.

Still, when they talk like that, you can’t help but secretly listen along. You catch Draco looking one time, then again. The second time, he doesn’t look away, but keeps holding your gaze like an oath, a promise. He used to smile whenever he caught your eye in class, but this time, his gaze is more serious. It feels like life and death, and it’s only just the two of you happening to look the same way at the same time.

Everything feels charged. You cross paths and the entire corridor seems to crackle with energy. You know how this feels, you remember it from the first time around, so at this point, it isn’t a question of if you’ll make another mistake but when.

When, as it turns out, is about a week later. You’re walking back from the library, late one night when a problem set got the better of you. After finishing the work at long last, all you want to do is go back to the Slytherin common room so you can go to sleep. Halfway back, though, you run into Draco, obviously coming from a similar situation given the ink stains on his writing hand.

Usually, this is the part where one of you doubles back or otherwise hides from the other, but instead Draco looks at you, and says, “Walk with me?”

You agree before you know what you’re doing. At first, your footsteps echo in the silent halls, and then you gather up the courage to speak again. “It’s been a while since I saw you.”

Draco scoffs. “That’s ridiculous. I saw you in class this morning.”

You give him a dour look. “You know what I mean. I don’t think you’ve spoken to me on purpose since–”

Since the fight, that is. Since both of you walked out on each other. Draco looks away for a moment, and when he speaks again, the syllables are terse and clipped. “I didn’t think you wanted to talk. After all, you were the one who ended things.”

You sigh. “I didn’t want to, though. It was a stupid thing to say and we were both angry at each other. We’d had arguments before, I thought we’d talk it over in a day or two and then be fine.”

“And then we weren’t,” Draco supplies.

“And then we weren’t,” you repeat listlessly. A moment later, you can’t help but add on somewhat desperately, “Where did we go wrong, Draco? What happened to us?”

Draco’s gaze is bleak and painful. “I don’t know. I’ve tried thinking it over loads of times. I thought you liked me.”

“I did,” you insist. Then, quieter:  “I do.”

He risks a quick glance your way. “Still?”

You don’t dare look at him outright. He’s always been an expert at calling your bluff, anyway. You reckon he doesn’t need to hold your gaze to know when you’re telling the truth. “Always. I never thought you’d leave me, Draco. I didn’t know what to do without you. I tried to move on, but I couldn’t.”

“Neither could I,” he reveals. “Every time I saw some bloke flirting with you, I wanted to hex him. Worst part was, I couldn’t admit to being angry because I wasn’t supposed to be jealous.”

“You were jealous over someone asking me for help on the homework?” You ask, a quiet laugh rising to your lips.

“They weren’t just interested in the homework,” Draco insists, although his irritation starts to fade when you laugh outright.

“Alright, then. Let’s say you did have something to be jealous about. Would that mean that you– that you wanted–”

“It means that I want you, Y/N,” Draco says, quickly stepping in front of you so you’re forced to stop walking and look directly at him. “I want you back. I want us back. What do you say?”

He’s close, so close. He hasn’t been this close since an empty room and a furious argument. This time, though, you’re not unhappy. Far from it.

“I say yes,” you tell him, and the words have hardly left your lips before he leans forward and kisses you.

You’ve had many victories over your time at Hogwarts. You’ve aced exams, you’ve done well in competitions, you’ve won the boy you loved, twice. This kiss feels like the best of them all.

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