Pansy recovered her voice the quickest. "Draco! You have a tattoo!"
Draco turned slowly to look at her. It was the first time she had spoken to him all year – with her history, she could hardly afford to associate with anyone who had faced trial if she wanted to have any career prospects after Hogwarts. At least she had the grace to look sheepish.
"Of course he does." Finnegan snorted. "Voldemort gave it to him."
The room fell quiet, and Draco felt a flush rising along his chest and neck. He had been stupid to think they would ever see him as anything else.
"Actually, I did."
Potter's calm voice cut through the silence. Draco turned without meaning to, his eyes pleading with Potter to just drop it – it was a lost cause.
"You drew that, Harry?" Dean Thomas suddenly spoke up.
Draco watched in surprise as Thomas craned his neck to get a better look at the dragon. It was still huffing and blowing smoke, though its roars had quietened to grumbles now.
"Yeah," Harry said, leaning back against his desk now that there seemed to be no immediate threat. "Take a better look at it, if you like."
To Draco, it felt as though the entire room – it was probably just him – was waiting with bated breath in the moments before Thomas stood up. He crossed the floor and made brief eye contact with Draco to confirm it was alright before he knelt over and inspected the tattoo closely. In a daze, Draco held his forearm out so it could be seen more easily.
"Wicked," Thomas breathed. "Harry, this is unreal. How did you get it to move?"
Harry shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. "Practice."
"Practice? How'd you get-" Thomas looked up, eyes alight with excitement. "Show us yours!"
Harry held his hands up, stammering slightly, but was saved from responding by Professor Mimble's entrance.
"Take your seats," Mimble said, oblivious to the tension in the room, and began writing on the board.
The class was oddly silent through the lesson, and Draco wasn't oblivious to the looks that were being sent his way. But it was a relief to have no one say anything outright.
When the lesson ended, Pansy came over to him, a speculative look in her eye.
"Can I see?" she asked.
Draco held out his arm wordlessly, and she ran her fingers over the ridge of the dragon's back. The dragon shied away, but didn't run. She blinked in surprise.
"And Potter did this?" Her eyes met his, asking a very different sort of question.
Draco shifted uncomfortably. How did she know? He had never professed any interest in the speccy git, surely.
Finnegan's gruff tone interrupted their conversation. "You think covering it up is going to make it go away?" he spat. "We all know what you did."
Draco froze, willing himself not to respond, but something in him had snapped, and he couldn't hold back any longer. "Of course it doesn't make it go away," he said with a sneer. "You think looking at a ruddy, great dragon on my arm is going to make me forget what it hides? My arm is more noticeable than ever, you imbecile."
Finnegan's eyes narrowed, making his face twist into an ugly scowl. Draco continued before he could get a word in.
"It about choices," he spat. "I'll never forget that I chose the Mark – though the fact that it was hardly a choice is something you and your little saint friends will never understand – but now I'll always remember that I chose something else too."
His speech delivered, Draco felt suddenly drained, his energy sapped from his very bones. Ignoring the eyes of the entire class upon him, he turned to leave.
He was stopped, of course, by Potter, leaning in the doorway with his arms folded. He raised one eyebrow – having more than reached the end of his tether – but Potter wasn't looking at him.
"You do understand, Seamus," Potter said slowly. "That most people who were affiliated with the Death Eaters moved to Durmstrang, don't you?"
Draco's tattoo started to growl again, and several people turned to look at him. He noticed Granger's eyes widening in realisation, and decided that could only mean bad news.
Finnegan opened his mouth to object, but Potter, in his stubbornly pigheaded fashion, kept talking. "Anyone in the lower year levels has left. Durmstrang has welcomed them with open arms, because the school is well used to running classes that advocate reform without abandonment of the Dark Arts."
For the first time, Finnegan paused.
"If we're talking about choices," Potter's eyes flicked to Draco and back again, "it might be an idea to actually notice a few, and appreciate what they mean, instead of getting stuck on old assumptions. We just finished fighting one war on prejudice; I'm not keen to start another." Before Draco was aware of what had just happened, Potter hoisted his bag over his shoulder, ready to leave, and turned to him. "You coming, Draco?"
In the silence that followed, Draco picked up his bag, avoiding all of their eyes, and followed Potter out the door.
***
News began to spread through the school that Draco Malfoy was protected by Harry Potter's tattoo, and it was all Draco could do not to fly to bloody Durmstrang just to escape all their stares.
"So, does it react whenever he gets angry?" Pansy asked at dinner. "Or only when he gets angry for you?" She smirked.
Draco sighed. "Only when he gets angry for me," he muttered, having watched one of Potter's infamous temper tantrums from across the Great Hall at breakfast that morning, and felt nothing on his arm.
"How adorable," she said, still smirking.
It didn't take much longer for news to spread of Potter's own tattoos, which meant he must have shown them off in the Gryffindor Common Room. Draco tried to stamp down the burning jealousy he felt when he heard the news, but failed miserably.
But along with the rumors, came something new. Draco was still the subject of stares and whispers, but they were not so malicious. He was no longer targeted in empty corridors, his books sent flying with spells, or his legs suddenly stuck together so that he stumbled and fell. Part of this was the supposed protection of Potter, of course – Draco had very mixed opinions about that fact – but part of it, too, seemed to be a sort of curiosity held by the rest of the school. Draco's image had changed from hated Death Eater to something of an enigma – a Slytherin who wore muggle clothes, smiled at Hufflepuff first years in the corridor, and let Harry Potter tattoo him.
The Hufflepuff thing was a mistake. He had remembered a particularly funny part in the book he was reading, and was merely laughing at the memory. By the time he realised what had happened, it was too late, and he decided to just go along with it.
It was a start. It was small, and its foundations were shaky, but it was a start. Which was why he knew he had to break things off with Potter.
When Potter left the Gryffindor table after dinner and strode directly to the Slytherins, looking for all the world as if he couldn't see or hear the looks and whispers he was leaving in his wake, Draco decided it was now or never.
"Room of Requirement?" Potter asked quietly.
Draco nodded and followed him out of the doors. Apparently Potter required a supremely comfortable couch, for which Draco wasn't complaining, and they settled on it in silence, each sprawled slightly in the corners so that they could face each other.
"You look like a deer in headlights," Potter said drily, his eyes running over Draco and seeing far too much.
"A deer in what?" Draco asked, before he realised he was letting Potter lead the conversation, and that was not acceptable. He shook his head. "I've been thinking."
Potter smiled wrily, but his eyes looked strangely sad. "About what?"
Draco shifted uncomfortably. "This is bound to crash and burn," he said slowly, horrified to hear his voice catch on the words. He cleared his throat. "It's all so new, and people are only just beginning to entertain the idea that they might accept me. Imagine how that's going to turn when we fight."
"That's assuming we do fight," Potter interrupted.
Draco glared at him. "We will fight, you utter pillock," he snapped. "You'll get tired of being kind, and I'll get sick of feeling sorry for myself, and our tempers will be at their worst – and we both have awful tempers; don't deny it – and guess what happens when Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter get irritated?" He stared flatly at Potter. "They take it out on each other. Gosh, what a healthy relationship this is going to be."
To his profound irritation, Potter laughed.
"Alright, fine," Potter said, holding up one hand in acquiescence. "We will fight, that's true. But, Draco, do you really think I'm going to get tired of being kind to you?" His expression turned serious. "Is that all you think this is for me? Some pet project? A way to satisfy my hero-complex, but it's a struggle to be on my best behaviour around you?"
Draco smirked. "So you admit you have a hero-complex?"
Potter rolled his eyes. "I do not have a hero-complex. And you're missing the point. Why do you think the dragon moves, Draco? Why do you think it roars when I'm worried about you?"
Draco frowned, ignoring the way that admission slotted into place like the missing piece from a puzzle. "It roars when you're yelling. That's all."
Potter gave him a withering look. "It roars because I couldn't sever the connection," he said, a touch bitterly. "I tried to keep my distance when I was inking it. I really did. But I couldn't. I couldn't break away from you enough to just cast the spell and move on. Instead I had to leave behind some, some-" he paused, struggling for the word, "essence of myself."
Draco pulled a face. "Essence of Potter? Gross."
"I know you're deliberately acting like a git, so how about you drop the pretense and talk to me honestly."
Draco opened his mouth to deliver a scathing retort, but he stopped at the last second. Potter gazed at him, temper slightly flared, but otherwise calm and open in a way Draco knew they would have both refused to show each other before this year.
"This is just all so new," Draco finally said, his voice quiet. "We don't know how it's going to go, and everyone is going to be watching."
Potter's lips slowly curved into a hesitant smile. "I wouldn't have it any other way," he said lightly. "Not for this. A secret relationship makes it look like we're ashamed. I'm not ashamed."
Draco remembered the day Potter had shown Draco his tattoos: second chances, hope, blinding obsession. Draco.
How long had they gravitated towards each other without ever knowing what it meant? Without ever knowing what was missing?
"I'm not ashamed," Draco said finally, trying and failing to hold back his own smile.
Potter moved so that there was no longer any distance between them. Draco was impressed with the graceful maneuver; Potter's teenage clumsiness seemed to have finally disappeared.
Potter reached up so that his hand was tangled in Draco's hair. Draco suppressed a shiver, but he could see in Potter's eyes that he had noticed all the same.
"So you're not going to do anything rash?" Potter asked quietly, leaning in so that Draco could feel his minty breathy on his lips.
"What, like start dating Harry fucking Potter?" Draco breathed back before he could stop himself.
Potter huffed a laugh. "No, like leave Hogwarts and live in the muggle world."
Draco smirked, closing his eyes. "Ah, that." The movement brought their lips closer; they brushed together when he spoke. "Who would do an idiotic thing like that?"
He felt the corners of Potter's mouth curve up into a smile. "Just checking," he said, before he tightened his grip in Draco's hair and kissed him.