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Title: Louder Than Words
Author: Lily Elena
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Rating: PG


"I hate you," says a voice that sounds like Draco's, from behind Harry.

Harry turns. Sees that it is Draco. Nods. Turns back. Sips his Butterbeer.

"Point, Malfoy?" he mutters after two minutes and twenty-three seconds have passed, and he doesn't bother to turn around again because he knows Draco is still standing there.


Draco coughs. Harry thinks if he turned around Draco would be blinking very fast.

"Just that I hate you," he says, finally, uncertainly.

Harry laughs. Extends a foot, kicks the chair opposite him. It slides out several inches.

"Said that already," Harry tells him.

"Merits repeating," Draco retorts. He crosses slowly into Harry's line of vision and then sits in the chair, tugging irritably at the clasp on his cloak for several seconds before it loosens.


Harry looks at Draco.

Draco looks at Harry.

"What're you doing here?" Harry asks, casually, as though the matter doesn't actually concern him in the least. He takes another sip of his Butterbeer. He taps out a rhythm against one of the table legs with his foot.

"Came to tell you -"

"That you hate me," Harry interrupts. "I know. So you've mentioned." He pauses. "And now you have, so..." he trails off, looks at Draco expectantly.

Draco blinks. "Have what?"

"Told me you hate me."

"Ah. Right." Draco nods.


There is a loaded pause. Harry sighs.

"What I'm asking you, Malf- Draco, is what you're still doing here."

He's not half as irritated as he sounds, but Draco doesn't seem to be picking up on that.

Draco looks affronted, and Harry thinks, well, it's taken you long enough. "Well what're you doing here, Potter, all by yourself?" He snorts. "Weasel and the Mudblood finally desert you?"

This is the Draco that Harry knows. He feels slightly more comfortable now.


"You know, I really hate you too, have I told you that?"

Draco laughs mirthlessly. "Not lately."

"Must've slipped my mind," Harry says. He feels a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth and manages, barely, to repress it.

Draco laughs again, a real laugh, and the sound is so strange, so foreign, that Harry is taken aback for a moment.


"You never answered my question," Draco tells him, resting his chin on the palm of his hand and drumming his fingers against his cheek.

"What question was that?"

"What you're doing here alone."

"I'm not alone," Harry says, and slowly Draco smiles.


There is another pause, and then:

"Buy you a drink, Potter?" he asks, rising and moving towards the bar.

Harry nods. "Sure."


"You know," Draco says, as he sets down another bottle of Butterbeer in front of Harry and opens his, "I still -"

"Hate me, I know," Harry says, and grins.

After a moment, Draco smiles back at him.


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