(no subject)
Untitled H/Hr
G
They end up shunted to one corner, on one couch, their heads together amid the hubbub, suspended in their shared sleeplessness, crowd-watching and talking about nothing. He's surprised when she lets out a long breath and tells him she cheated on her last Arithmancy exam.
Solemnly, after a pause, he says, "I didn't finish that essay for Flitwick on Friday."
She glances at him and then at the nearest table leg, her head cocked to one side. "When I was little, I was afraid of barnacles."
He is grinning. "I didn't like you when I met you."
"I thought you looked like a baby raccoon."
They sidle glances at each other.
"You know I didn't mean what I said the other night, Harry," she says then, looking earnestly at the side of his head. It is an offering.
"It's all right," he says, not meeting her eyes. "I know that."
He thinks he can hear her swallow in relief. "I wouldn't -- you're a, a better friend than I am, I think."
Now it is his turn to swallow. "Naw," he manages, trying to corral the pressure in his chest into something coherent. "You and Ron, you're sort of like, well, my family." It's a reach; he bleeds out pearls that never make sense or answer her properly, and this time it doesn't bear even a sliver of the weight in his heart. But she's making a curious expression in the corner of his eye, and bumps her shoulder along his companionably.
This is so much better, he thinks, remembering how miserable he was when he woke this morning. He feels like his own stranger. He looks at his hands and they are tan under the strange lights in the common room, straight-fingered, slim-shaped, rounded off in perfect half-moons at the ends of his fingernails. He doesn't want to go to bed for the first night in a long time.