I Hate You, I Love You - Drarry

Part 11: Puzzle Pieces

Harry watched as Draco darted out of the bathroom. He kept waiting for Malfoy to whip his head around and look at him once more, but he never did.

Harry sighed and laid down on the freshly cleaned tiles., folding his arms behind his head. Staring into the purple gradient of the sunset behind the window. He closed his eyes.

Why did he stare at Draco that way? Why did he feel physically pulled towards him? The way he leaned into Draco, did Draco lean into him too? Or did he just imagine that? What was this confusion he was feeling?

Harry got up off the floor and stormed out of the castle, walking onto the Quidditch field. Yanking down the frozen door handle to the equipment shed, he eyed his Firebolt broomstick hanging on the communal hooks. He angrily snatched it off and straddled it for takeoff. One swift kick off the ground and he was shooting through the air at top speed. 

The chilly night air stinging his cheeks was exactly what Harry needed to clear his thoughts. The snow has subsided and was piled up several feet below him, but there was none falling from the low blanket of grey clouds. The wind whipped at his cloak folds and sent a violent shiver down his spine. But Harry tried to repress it. He didn't care how uncomfortable he was as long as he was away from Malfoy. It was just too much to be around him at the moment.

There was so much that Harry didn't realize was peculiar about Draco until now. Strikingly vivid memories looked so different in retrospect.

Draco had caught him cheating on the test a few weeks ago. Harry just now realized he had never got in trouble. The time they were locked in the cramped storage closet after Draco's transformation prank. They were so close to each other, it was impossible not to feel the heat radiating off of each other's bodies. Right before Hermione rescued them, Draco had leaned in towards him. The same way Harry had just an hour earlier in the bathroom.

Harry touched his cheeks as he remembered how Draco's breath had been so hot as it touched his flaming skin. But he kept flying away from the castle towards the Great Lake's end.

The strange items he had smelled in the Amortentia. Apples and hair gel wasn't it? Draco's hair gel. In the love potion, you are supposed to smell the things you are attracted to, or that remind you of someone you are attracted to. 

He came to a stop on his broom in the middle of the sky. Turning over his shoulder, he took in the sight of Hogwarts. The grand stone beauty planted in the middle of the Highlands. A place of comfort, of family, of familiarity. 

Everything. It just didn't make sense.

But the night of the blizzard. Just last night. 

Harry felt the strong, confusing desire to spy on him. He just wanted to see Draco's face. Why did he feel that way? Why did he feel the urge to brush his pale hair out of his eyes as he slept? But then he remembered what he witnessed in the following minutes.

He had seen Draco dreaming... passionate dreams about him. And the effects the fantasy had on his mind as he slept-talked his way into embarrassment.

Harry felt his breath hitch and he steered his broom back toward the castle with a determined, and slightly scared, feeling in his blood.

The way they were positioned as they woke up together next to the blazing fire. Harry could still feel the imprint Malfoy's thin arm made while it was wrapped around his ribcage.

The way they got along today as they playfully fought like children, ending in a mess of emotions and dirty soap water.

The way Draco said Harry. How he simply called him by his given name. With such care and feeling behind it.

Okay, he had to be overthinking this. So much for clearing his thoughts.

Harry swore he was never joy-flying again. 

Landing in the deep, powdery snow, he trudged into the storage shed and hung up his broom. He slowly walked back to the castle, shoving his frigid hands under his cloak. Stepping with care, he retraced his previous snowprints, stepping the exact way he had earlier, walking back through time. And then the puzzle pieces came together in his mind.

My parents don't want me.

It was so painfully obvious.

Malfoy's parents didn't accept the way he felt towards others, romantically. They didn't accept that Draco was... gay.

Harry remembered the words Draco said when he sobbed out his personal troubles, dumping all of them into Harry's lap.

I can't blame them. There's something wrong with me.

Harry gasped out a cloud of heat in the cold air and picked up the pace. Draco didn't like that he felt this way. Of course he didn't. He was raised by parents who invalidated his feelings, who believed it was wrong to live that way. How awful. Harry couldn't imagine what they did to him at Malfoy Manor, what kind of punishments they laid on him. Malfoy feared his parents so much that he didn't feel safe at his home anymore. Harry fumed at the thought of Lucius and Narcissa. How could such cruel people exist?

He thought back to the days when he feared Draco the most. How every day he woke up in constant terror of being messed with and how the rest of the school would make fun of him. That anger paled in comparison to the rage he was rumbling with now.

He just wanted Draco to be able to tell him about it. Have someone to make him know it's okay to feel that way. 

I can't tell you. You of all people.

Him. Draco couldn't tell him of all people what his problem was. That was the last piece of evidence he needed.

Stumbling up the wide cobblestone path of the castle, he came to a stop in front of the moving staircases. He didn't even eye the one leading up to Gryffindor tower. With a clumsy start, he inhaled a shaky breath for confidence and dashed straight in the direction of the Slytherin dungeons.