In which you meet Draco again after six months.

THIRD YEAR

It was wintertime, wandering the halls with your heavy cloaks and scarf. You laughed at something Hermione said to you, clutching onto the heavy leatherbound books as you hiked up your white scarf over your chin, an eerily familiar feeling creeping into the back of your mind.

"I'm telling you! Ron accidentally spelled a book to chase him last year!" You continued to laugh as Hermione recounted the details that you had missed when you returned to America, involving the Chamber of Secrets, and Ron's broken wand. "It was utterly terrible! He was running around the common room screaming and Harry was trying to stop it,"

You didn't know which was funnier–Ron's terrified face or Harry's franticness to attempt to help his friend. It was a difficult decision and you just decided to laugh about it entirely.

Just as quickly as your laughter began to fade, you bumped into someone in a flurry, your book flying to the ground and your bliss replaced with temporary horror. A gasp left your lips as you quickly dropped to the ground, your hands scrambling to pick them up with haste.

"I'm sorry, I–!"

"Watch where you're–!"

Both you and the person you ran into stopped talking at the same time, your eyes lifting to catch onto the same stormy grey ones you had found yourself quite pleasantly surprised by.

Draco had changed completely in half a year. His baby fat had begun to melt away, a prominently strong jawline was forming and his white hair flopped in front of his face–unlike the horrible slick back he had during the second year. While you were busy staring at him, Draco took it upon himself nobly to continue picking up your heavy leatherbound books, carefully stacking them by size with his slender hands, gentle and meticulous in his efforts.

Blinking, and instead of staring, you began to grab the rest of the book, albeit a bit fast than Draco had as he was already beginning to stand. You stood up fast, flustered and your hair a bit wild from the quick movement you had just done.

"Hello," he said, another shock passing through you as you registered his voice once more, blinking fast again.

Physically, Draco had become a far different person. He was tall and lanky, his pale skin still carrying its boyish charm, yet he had somehow managed to fit into the Malfoy name. Well, in a way that you had assumed.

"Hi," you responded, your breath feeling like it had wooshed away from you, your lips still poised to say someone but Draco held your books out to you.

You somehow jostled the books you were holding to a different side of your arm so you could reach out and take them. Your finger brushed Draco's as he began handing the books to you, both of you stopping for a little as you looked back at each other. There was a flicker in his eyes, like a flame in a dark, dark room.

He retracted his hand once you had gotten a grip on your books once again, adjusting your hands so that they sat effortlessly in your arms was when you looked at him, his lips parted as if the words were stuck in his throat, closing his mouth before pursing his lips together. He blinked a few times rapidly, the pureblooded wizard either perplexed or not able to get the words out to you.

There was silence between you, unspoken tension of your last encounter only six months ago.

"Let's go, Draco," a boy shouldered past you, grabbing onto the upper part of Draco's arm and pulling him away from you, just as you heard Hermione's urging whispered in your ear, the girl ready to drag you away.

Even as Draco pulled his friend's arm off of him and smoothed down his robes, his eyes never left yours until you began to turn, and did his gaze begin to leave yours.

Late in the astronomy tower is what you often were, sitting there past curfew as you gazed at the stars in the bright sky. With your time beginning to grow the more you visited, there were more chances for you to admire the stars above Hogwarts, yet you could never get enough of it. America was wonderful–but the lights from the city often blocked out the natural beauty of the world itself.

The flutter of paper flapped in the silence of the cold night, the only other sound complimenting it is your breath, the hot air coming out in little puffs. It wasn't until you looked to the side did you see the fluttering paper, the shape of a swallow approaching you before landing softly in your lap, resting back into the neutral position it was initially crafted into.

You looked around, only to spot a pair of grey eyes barely peeking out from the darkness of the astronomy tower, a jolt of fear shooting down your spine when your first saw them. But the shock wore off, slowly ebbing away as you stared at the eyes a little longer, and the longer you did the more comforted you became.

Looking down at the paper swallow, you carefully unfolded it, making sure you didn't rip the edges or crease any parts of it, so it might be able to return to its original form.

I'm sorry.

Two simple words, yet those two words were enough to have you read them over, and over again. Slightly flawed script, yet beautiful and legible handwriting stared back at you. You blinked and reread it.

You had told him months ago to find his priorities. Back when the two of you were only thirteen, and now at the age of fourteen, he had somehow figured out a way to apologize. Albeit, a bit dramatically, at least there was something.

When you looked back up from the letter, you saw Draco still peering at you curiously, his eyes still watching you, and now used to the dark, his silhouette still. He was still in his robes, a stark contrast to your fluffy pajamas and the warm blanket you had wrapped around your shoulders.

You smiled at him before reaching your hand out of the blanket you had wrapped it in and lightly tapping on the stone floor beside you, motioning for him to join you. You watched him, wordlessly, as his stance shifted in the slightest, his eyes now watching your hand as you motion for him to sit with you. It was cold in the astronomy tower, but Draco didn't shiver.

It was a moment before he began to move, and for a moment you thought that he was headed towards the stairs to leave the tower, which would leave you with silence and utterly alone for the rest of the night. But he sat beside you, not close, enough room between the two of you to fit both Harry and Ron if they were here.

The blanket wrapped around you felt a little too warm, a little too big now as you watched him tuck his knees in, pulling them into his chest and resting his chin on them. He seemed like he was contemplating something–like he was thinking deeply. You didn't know what he was thinking.

Without a second thought, you took your wand into your hands and muttered a similar enchantment you were sure Draco had done himself, the paper forming itself back into a crane. The paper became animated, and a smile appeared on your face as it leaped into your hand. You lifted it into the air and it took flight, fluttering around the astronomy tower with light and quick movements.

When you looked at Draco, you saw his eyes stare at the fluttering crane, his own creation animated and with a mind of its own as it swooped down, landing on his head with careful ease. You stifled a laugh as Draco looked up worriedly as if he had done something wrong, but his eyes went to yours as you laughed.

Something seemed to settle between the two of you as the paper took flight, soaring and gliding in the silent night, moonlight on its wings as the two of you sat in content silence.

You don't know how much time passed before you began to stand and Dracon began to stand up with you. Your blanket was still snuggly wrapped around you and you looked at Draco.

"Thanks for joining me," you said, your voice almost too loud in the quiet tower.

Draco seemed dumbstruck but your statement before he needed his head. As the two of you headed towards the stairs to leave, Draco held his hand out to yours and you took it gently. His hands were cold.

As you both descended the stairs and reached the hallways, there was a look of sudden expectancy in both your eyes as you stared at each other.

"Y/N," Draco said, his eyes completely trained on you, not wandering the halls behind you or looking anywhere else. "..Can we be friends?"

You blinked, an offer you had debated that would ever come up. You had thought of it in your time back home in America, and the fact that the boy who you thought simply chose to forget about you was reaching toward you with the hope of friendship was quite surprising.

From what Hermione and Ron and Harry had told you, Draco had only become far more sour and untrustworthy. But the Draco in front of you was anything but.

He was tender, quiet, and kind. He made sure he didn't scuff your books when he picked them up earlier today. He made sure he didn't speak out of turn the whole time you were together, though you found his silence a bit unnerving. You wished he would blurt something out.

But he just stared at you with eyes longing for an answer, and it felt like time stopped when you finally looked at him in the eyes. When you finally registered Draco for who he was, not what others said. He was laid bare in front of you, and he was willing to allow you to see something no one else did.

Your lips parted as you gazed at his high cheekbones and shaped brows before they trailed to his dark eyelashes and raincloud, stormy eyes.

"..I'd like that."