Fumbling Towards Ecstasy

Chapter Three

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Harry looks. In fact, he looks quite a lot. It's easy to notice things about a person when you're actively stalking them. Draco Malfoy always sits rigidly straight in his chair. Draco Malfoy always writes in dark, charcoal grey-ink; never black. Draco Malfoy never wears his ties tight, he always loosens them slightly off his neck. Draco Malfoy smells like lavender, fresh ink, and spiced cloves. Draco Malfoy puts an absurd amount of honey in his tea when he thinks no one is looking. Draco Malfoy sticks his tongue out the corner of his mouth when he's really concentrating. Draco Malfoy will not eat an apple unless it's green.

The list of things that Harry knows about Malfoy that he probably shouldn't goes on, and living with the blond should have, knowing Harry, rapidly expanded said mental catalog of quirks and traits that Malfoy has even more; yet if anything Harry notices less and less. Draco Malfoy tenses up when referred to by his last name. Draco Malfoy hardly leaves his green armchair by the window. Draco Malfoy spends a weirdly long amount of time in the loo for someone who hasn't seemed to shower in weeks. Draco Malfoy, when he isn't sneering, is actually quite beautiful.

But that's about the extent of the additional knowledge Harry has gained concerning Malfoy, who appears to simply exist and nothing more. Save for their brief, stiff conversation on the first night of eighth year, they hardly speak. In fact, Harry can't remember the last time he's heard Malfoy speak at all. Over the past month, the silence inside their dorm has shifted from suffocatingly awkward to genuinely peaceful. Outside their dorm, Malfoy has no friends or acquaintances to speak of, and the professors never once mention his name. Lately, Harry, bored out of his mind and itching to hear the blond's voice, has occasionally attempted to start a conversation with the blond, but the most he gets in response is a soft hum or a slight shake of the head at best.

Harry looks, but he doesn't see until tonight, when the tell-tale creak of the door being opened late into the night reaches his ears.

"You're weirdly late." He doesn't look up from the Advanced Potions textbook he has balanced in his lap. "Got lost?" He teases. Malfoy doesn't even offer him the usual soft hum, so Harry sighs, glancing up from his book only to toss it aside, leaping up from the bed immediately after. "Christ Malfoy! What the fuck happened to your face?"

Malfoy flinches as Harry nears, keeping his head tilted down low and face partially obscured by the shadows, but he can't hide the blood dripping from his split lip nor the limp in his step, and certainly not the way his entire body is shaking. Without thinking, Harry reaches for Malfoy's shoulder, only to retract his hand when Malfoy jerks away violently.

"Don't-" Malfoy's voice is airy and trembling, cracking from disuse. "Don't t-touch me."

"Okay, it's okay. I won't." Malfoy's eyes follow Harry's hands as he lifts them up a little in a gesture of surrender, before he drops his gaze back down to the floor again. "What the hell happened?" Malfoy shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut as he stumbles away from Harry into the bathroom, shutting and locking the door with a sharp click.

Usually, Harry would have rolled his eyes and simply returned to his homework, or better yet gone to sleep, when Malfoy would lock himself in the bathroom. He did it every night, locking the door and running the shower water. But his hair was always dry and his clothes the same when he eventually reemerged. This time though, Harry closes the textbook and sits at the edge of his bed anxiously.

Malfoy doesn't take long in the loo. He doesn't even turn on the shower, but he also doesn't clean up his face. Harry frowns at him when he stumbles back into his own bed, failing to cover his wince as he hits the mattress.

"Are you okay?" Malfoy has his back to Harry now but he can still see the blond, having forgotten to draw his curtains.

"'M fine."