Chapter Text
“That’s it, everyone, you’re doing great.” Harry encouraged his students as he walked among their pairs observing their jinx and shield charm practice. These were 5th years, so Harry was reasonably confident in their skills. Perhaps too much so, as he wasn’t paying close enough attention and he was blindsided by a blast of red and green light to his chest that knocked the wind out of him and sent him thudding to the floor on his arse.
“Professor!” One student shouted as he ran toward Harry. He held up his hand in a ‘come closer and I’m hexing back’ gesture and the approaching student stopped in his tracks. Still trying to expand his lungs back to normal, and feeling pretty cross about the whole thing but no more worse for the wear otherwise, Harry continued with the pantomime. He pointed up and circled his finger signaling, ‘wrap it up,’ then motioned both hands over his head and toward the classroom door like a muggle air traffic controller and the students got the message. ‘Get out.’
They gathered their things and filed out of the room while Harry assessed the damage to his arse, and his ego. Within a few minutes he was breathing normally again and found no obvious injuries aside from his pride. But being the DADA teacher at Hogwarts Harry was used to accidents, and he figured since it was the last day of classes, and the students would be boarding the train home for the Christmas break tomorrow, he was going to let it go.
Silently Harry gathered his things to close up his classroom. Arms full of papers to grade over the break, he pushed open the door to the corridor with his hip and turned blindly, colliding hard with Draco Malfoy. Parchment flew about, and both men rebounded, slightly disoriented, shouting one anothers names at the same time, “Potter!” “Malfoy!”
Harry felt an immediate tug in his chest- a pulling discomfiting sensation. Rubbing absently at his ribs, he knelt to gather his fallen essays. Malfoy had yet to move- his shiny shoes planted motionless a foot from Harry’s face.
“You could help, you know.” Harry muttered indignantly to the floor, but Malfoy didn’t move.
When Harry had gathered all the parchment and gotten back to his feet with as much dignity as he could muster, he looked up at Malfoy to find him with a concerned look on his face. Brow furrowed, eyes searching, with the palm of his hand rubbing at his chest*– Malfoy’s expression made Harry feel immediately uneasy. The anxiety only seemed to intensify the uncomfortable wresting feeling in his chest.
Harry brought the papers close to him and folded both arms around them in a defensive position and turned to leave with a not-so-subtle eye roll. He took two steps away when he heard, “Harry” in a quiet, trepidatious voice and he froze. Turning back around he saw Malfoy looking appalled and finally making eye contact. Harry held his students’ essays like a shield as he stepped back toward the other man.
If Harry wasn’t so practiced in Malfoy observation, he might not have noticed the brief relaxation in his features that indicated a relief in his face. It was so fleeting that had he not studied Malfoy’s expressions for literal decades he wouldn’t have seen it before it shifted rapidly to one of horrifying realization.
“What’s going on, Malfoy?” Harry said, with only a note of their old accusatory rapport. (Since becoming professors at the school years ago they had played out an unspoken truce. Though it seemed their mutual dislike and appetite for the other’s attention had barely dulled, they mostly coexisted.)
“Come off it, Potter. What have you done?”
“Potter again, is it? When I was Harry just a moment ago?” Harry said with a smirk, relishing the opportunity to banter. But then he realized that Malfoy looked stricken. Harry couldn’t make sense of it, and with his last class of term over, he didn’t have the energy to puzzle it out. Enjoyment quickly waning, Harry turned again to leave. As he strode away, his annoyance bloomed hot in his chest. He made it just a few steps further this time before he stopped and turned back of his own volition.
Malfoy was still staring at him, but now his horrified countenance gave way to something Harry was much more accustomed to– a haughty look that translates to ‘got there, have you?’
“I am going to assume, “Malfoy started as Harry closed the gap between them again, lightening the tightness behind his ribs, “by your dumbfounded face that this is not the intended effect of your curse?”
“Curse? What are you on about?” Harry spluttered.
Malfoy seemed to study him for a moment, and perhaps deciding that he believed him, grabbed Harry by the wrist and pulled him up the corridor. He dragged Harry bodily into his potions classroom and closed the door behind them. Malfoy drew his wand and started performing some unfamiliar and nonverbal charms.
“Malfoy, what are you–”
“Shut up, Potter.” Malfoy cut him off, tightening his grip on Harry’s wrist and continuing his mystery charmwork. Frustrated, Harry stared into Malfoy’s eyes and ripped his hand away. He stepped around him and opened the door. He expected Malfoy to call after him or stop him, but when Harry glanced back he simply stood with his hands on his hips watching Harry with a raised brow and a sour look on his face. So Harry continued on out the door, the pulling in his chest growing with each step.
“Merlin, Potter, you’re as thick as it gets!**” Malfoy shouted at him. “Get back in here now.”
Harry spun on the spot and shouted back, “Look Malfoy I don’t have time for this. Whatever you want just tell me, otherwise I want to drop off these essays and make it to the goodbye feast before pudding.”
Malfoy just looked at him with a stern and annoyed expression. He stepped out the door and closed the gap between them as he said, “Are you quite through?” Taking hold of Harry’s wrist again, Malfoy walked back into his classroom as he began to explain.
“I am doing my level best, Potter, not to hex you right now,” Malfoy said, as he continued to wave his wand between them and watch a slight glow rise in the space between their chests. “But seeing as how we are somehow bloody bonded” he shouted, “I am taking care not to inadvertently harm myself before I understand the nature of the bond.”
Bonded. Bonded? Harry was trying to figure out what in hell Malfoy was playing at. His mind was whirring while Malfoy finished his charms and the glow, now sparkling red and green, split in half and absorbed into their chests. “What in Godric’s name…”