#sdkmn

thank u @uncannycerulean for tagging me in a @ficwip snippet post, which is much less intimidating than a "post something you wrote recently" tag because the prompt word means i don't have to choose a good bit 😅

the prompt word is VISIT – here's a bit from chapter 6/20 of the "harry makes friends with the slytherins while polyjuiced" WIP i've been mentioning for approx 5 years (🙄😵‍💫🤢) but desperately want to post this year

thank you so much @ghostofnoir for tagging me to drop a WIP snip!! a couple of weeks ago i'd've probably said i don't have a WIP on the go, but i'm slooowly starting to accept that i'm probably going to attempt to finish another chaptered fic 😭 atm i'm in the stage of refusing to write anything at all bc i want to "feel ready" (haha) but as it happens i do already have 30k of it sitting there waiting to be whipped (WIP'd) into shape the plot tl;dr: harry sneaks into a nightclub under polyjuice and accidentally makes friends with the slytherins, who don't know who he is. this is a lil chunk from (probably) chapter 4 – a bit from chapter 2 was previously posted here!

“Draco,” he says, “come and dance with me.”

Malfoy glances at Nott, who frowns at Harry. Harry knows he should feel bad for interrupting them, but the alcohol and Polyjuice in his system make him feel like himself again, like he can be impulsive, like he should be—so he keeps his gaze on Malfoy, keeps his hand extended in invitation.

“Oh, all right,” Malfoy says, shrugging—but Harry is watching him so closely that he doesn’t miss the way Malfoy looks at him through his eyelashes with a small, pleased smile teasing the corner of his mouth.

The shots, the anonymity, the thrill of being in Phoenix—it all bolsters Harry, makes him feel confident, makes him feel free. Once they’re in the middle of the crowd, music thumping around them, through them, Harry pulls Malfoy close and murmurs in his ear that he’s sexy when he dances.

Malfoy snorts and tosses his head. “I’d return the compliment, but I have no idea what you actually look like.”

Harry hesitates. The powerful feeling inside him falters. “Sorry,” he says—almost a question.

Malfoy shrugs. “I don’t care what you look like, as it happens,” he says, though his voice is a bit too casual. “You have a hot personality.”

Harry covers the swooping in his stomach with a laugh. “A hot personality?”

“That’s what I said. Now, come on. Dance with me, if you think I’m so sexy.”

Harry dances with him. There’s no hesitation when they touch each other now—just lingering eye contact, hands finding shoulders, waist, hips. Harry presses closer automatically. Malfoy tips his head back and moves to the music.

cheers @tackytigerfic for the tag!! your snippets are always gorgeous and delightful and it’s a little embarrassing even looking at my light-hearted silliness after reading anything of yours – the way you can make anything heartwrenching in such an effortless(-seeming) way is consistently incredible! but here’s an early bit from my “harry goes to a club under polyjuice and accidentally befriends the slytherins” drarry wip anyway

“Pansy is right,” Nott says. His dark eyes are fixed on Harry’s face. “We don’t know who he is. He could be a reporter. He could be an Auror trying to frame us for something.”

“He could be one of our parents,” Parkinson adds, and a shiver goes around the table.

“I’m not any of those things,” Harry offers—he’s not trying to frame them for anything, after all. “And I was just dragged over here without warning, actually, so I’m just going to go…”

“Don’t be silly,” Zabini says. “Millicent, dear heart, budge over, would you? There you go, sit there, here’s your drink.” He puts the trifle bowl of terror on the events leaflet that Bulstrode’s martini just vacated. “The whole point of Phoenix is that your past doesn’t matter. That’s why us lot are here, isn’t it?”

Harry, still standing, tries to look politely blank. He very carefully doesn’t let his gaze fall to anybody’s left arm.

“It is unfair though,” Malfoy says, “if he knows about us and we don’t know about him.”

“Really, I’m not gonna stick around—”

“Who says he knows anything about us?” The question comes, quite unexpectedly, from Goyle.

“If he’s over the age of twenty and has ever read a newspaper, he knows about us,” Malfoy says. He tosses his head as if he’s trying to be careless, but his voice is tight. “Or at least some of us.”

The thought Harry might be under twenty is the only one that seems to make Zabini pause. “You’re not underage, are you? I don’t give a shit if are and you’re drinking, but I’ll have to adapt my behaviour towards you considerably if so.”

“I’m not underage,” Harry says.

“What if he’s old?” Parkinson says. “Like, too old.”

“Out of interest, how old is too old?” Harry asks.

“Forty?” Parkinson says.

“Fifty,” Malfoy and Bulstrode say.

“I dunno, ninety or so?” Zabini says. “But I’m open to being convinced otherwise.”

“Blaise!” Bulstrode wrinkles her nose. She has freckles. It’s the first time Harry’s been close enough to her to notice.

Zabini is watching Harry carefully. “Maybe up to a hundred?”

“Oh my god,” Harry says. “I’m not a hundred.”