And just like that, Gryffindor winning the Quidditch Cup was old news.
All anyone could talk about was the fact that Harry Potter and Draya Malfoy were fucking.
But that's not what bothered Harry. He couldn't care less about the gossip, or that everyone knew. If anything, he was relieved it was all out in the open.
No, what was bothering Harry was that he hadn't been able to speak to Draya about it since Snape had dragged him off the pitch and ordered him to remain in detention for the entire weekend.
When he was released on Sunday evening (Snape had 'kindly' provided Harry with a camp bed for the night, and bread and water throughout the day), Harry thought better of it than to go sneaking around the castle looking for her, even though he was desperate to hold her in his arms.
His return to the Gryffindor Tower was met with mixed reactions. Seamus slapped him on the back ("Two hot chicks fighting over you, you lucky bastard!"), Ginny stuck up her middle finger in his face and stormed up to her dormitory, and Hermione just shook her head and tutted before burying her head back behind her school book.
"Don't act like you didn't know!" Harry hissed angrily as he threw himself down on the sofa next to her. "It was your Murtlap Essence which actually got us together in the first place!"
"Yes, after you cut her open! Oh, Harry! What is wrong with you?" She said with an exasperated sigh, smacking her book shut down on her lap. "And what about Ginny? She's entirely in love with you, you know? You've broken her heart."
"I know, and I regret that." Harry muttered, driving a hand through his hair. "But she's like a sister to me, Hermione. I can't pretend there's anything there, not when I've got this amazing thing with Draya."
"Oh, Harry," Hermione sighed, shaking her bushy head, "you must realise that's just your penis talking? She's very attractive, and most people have probably fantasised about her naked, but that doesn't mean you should actually do anything about it! Think who her family are! For Merlin's sake, her father is currently in prison for trying to kill you just last year!"
"It's more than just sex, Hermione," Harry gritted, cringing at the way she was referring to his 'penis'. "I care about her. A lot."
"You care about a girl who calls your best friend slurs all because of her blood? You care about a girl who once wrote an entire song demeaning the Weasley's all just because she wanted to humiliate Ron?"
"Yeah, okay," Harry smarted, fidgeting in his seat, "I agree that wasn't her best side-"
"Wasn't her best side?! She doesn't have any other side, Harry! She's literally the devil who happens to have a very attractive body!"
Angry, Harry twisted round to glare at her. "Hermione, you're one of my best friends, and I love you, but I will not sit here and listen to you talk about Draya like that. There's so much more to her than you realise. She's not as tough as she makes out, it's all a front to protect herself!"
"Well then introduce her to a therapist - not your penis!"
"AND WILL YOU STOP BRINGING MY COCK INTO IT!"
Furious, Harry sprang to his feet and stormed across the common room, ignoring the snickers from the surrounding Gryffindors. The second he reached his dormitory, he went straight to his trunk and retrieved his map.
The tension he'd been experiencing eased a little when he located her in the girls dormitory of the Slytherin quarters. Sitting down on the edge of his bed, he lightly touched a finger to the ink of her name, smiling to himself.
"Happy with yourself, are you?"
Startled, Harry dropped the map. He looked up to see Ron glowering at him from the doorway, chest rising and falling heavily.
"Ron- I, uh- didn't hear you come in."
"I guess it wasn't enough that you were the Boy Who Lived," Ron snarled, taking a menacing step towards Harry's bed, "or the Triwizard Champion, or even the Chosen One. Now, you've got to be the King Lothario: stud of Hogwarts, breaking hearts all over the place - INCLUDING MY SISTER'S!"
Harry jumped to his feet just as his furious friend drew up to him, his eyes sparking with anger.
"Ron," Harry said, holding up a hand in an attempt to calm him down, "it wasn't like that, mate-"
"I AM NOT YOUR MATE!"
Harry fell silent. He didn't know what to say, there was nothing he could say.
"You broke the bro code, man." Ron continued, jabbing a finger in Harry's chest. "You don't fuck around with a bro's sister unless you are planning on sticking a ring on it!"
"It was a misunderstanding." Harry pleaded. "I wasn't messing her about."
"Did you sleep with her?"
Harry said nothing. He couldn't lie to Ron. Not now. "I'm sorry. It was one time and it was before she was even with Dean."
"SHE WAS FIFTEEN WHEN SHE GOT WITH DEAN!"
Oh shit, Harry hadn't even thought about that. Damn, he was getting himself into some seriously hot water.
"WHEN? WHEN DID YOU TAKE ADVANTAGE OF MY SISTER?"
Harry wished he'd stop shouting, he was getting spit all over his glasses. He carefully removed them and wiped the lenses on the sleeve of his robes.
"It was last summer just before we returned to Hogwarts." Harry explained, replacing his glasses on his face. "You fell asleep before me and you were snoring. I couldn't sleep-"
"And so you decided to fuck my sister?!"
"Well... yes. But it wasn't like that. I went downstairs to sleep on the sofa, but Ginny was still down there. She was crying."
"Oh, this just gets better and better." Ron scoffed. "So, not only was she underage but she was upset too?"
"I promise you I only intended to comfort her." Harry said as calmly as he could. "She had just found out that Michael Corner had dumped her and I just wanted her to know she was still beautiful."
"And you had to do that on my family's sofa did you?"
"No! We went to her bedroom."
"WHAT?! YOU BANGED MY SISTER WHILST I WAS SLEEPING PEACEFULLY ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WALL?!"
"Actually you weren't that peaceful. We could still hear you snoring as we- uh- well... you know."
Ron looked as though he was going to explode.
"Anyway," Harry added quickly, keen to smooth things over. "As soon as we did it I knew we'd made a mistake. It felt wrong, somehow. And I thought she felt the same way because she immediately took up with Dean the following day. And things were just sort of left like that. Until now. Believe me Ron, the last thing I intended to do was hurt her. She's like a sister to me."
"Well if that's how you treat a sister then it's probably best you're an only child." Neville's voice piped up from behind his closed bed curtains.
"Fuck off, Longbottom!" Ron growled. "Can't you tell we're trying to have a private conversation here?"
"Then I suggest you don't do it where I sleep!"
"Nor me," growled Dean Thomas' voice from the other curtained four poster. "Especially when you're talking about my girlfriend."
"EX!" Harry and Ron both roared together.
Their bellows were met with silence. Harry and Ron shared a look, briefly united in their shared anger. For a moment, it felt as though everything was back to normal between them. But then Ron quickly averted his gaze, awkwardly shuffling his feet.
"So," he said gruffly, scratching the back of his neck. "Malfoy, huh?"
"Yeah," Harry said carefully, feeling a flicker of hope that Ron seemed to be calming down.
"You like her?"
Harry hesitated, taken aback by this unexpectedly forthright question. Was it a trick?
"Yeah," he said eventually, deciding to just be honest, "I like her a lot."
"She's fit," Ron agreed, nodding. "I'll give you that."
"It's not just that." Harry said, feeling suddenly quite defensive on Draya's behalf. "It's more than that."
"Fuck. Then you're even more of a bloody fool than I thought."
Now it was Harry's turn to feel a spark of anger. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Ron simply shrugged, his eyes narrowing. "She's a Malfoy. Her family worship the bloke who is trying to do you in and rid the world of people like Hermione. You figure it out."
With one last scathing look, Ron turned, heading over to his own bed.
Harry reached down and retrieved the map which had fallen by his feet, trying to ignore the dull feeling in his chest as his eyes scanned the Slytherin quarters.
But this time when his eyes landed on Draya's name, he found it was with a sense of unease, Ron's parting words swimming in his mind.
******