It started with a potion.
Not a dangerous one—at least, not at first glance. Draco had slipped a fizzing lilac draught into Harry's pumpkin juice during breakfast, and within seconds, Harry's voice squeaked out in a perfect imitation of a chipmunk. The Gryffindor table howled with laughter.
Ron nearly fell off the bench wheezing, and even Hermione snorted into her toast.
Harry turned bright red and glared across the hall. Draco, elegant as ever, raised his goblet of pumpkin juice in mock salute.
"Enjoying breakfast, Potter?" he called sweetly.
Harry coughed, then yelled back, "I'll g—get y—you f—for this!"
It came out in panicked helium squeaks. The laughter doubled.
Draco grinned. But it wasn't the same smugness as before. Something twisted in his stomach when he saw how others laughed at Harry, not with him.
That wasn't the point.
Was it?
By the next day, Harry retaliated.
As Draco strode into Potions, he slipped into his usual seat—and promptly let out a deafening, very un-Malfoy-like squeal. His chair had been enchanted to moo every time someone sat on it.
Slytherins laughed. Even Pansy.
Draco's cheeks flamed.
He turned to Harry, who was valiantly pretending to examine his cauldron.
"Oh, it's war," Draco muttered.
Snape didn't react to either prank. If anything, his eyes flicked between the boys with faint amusement—as if he knew exactly what was happening and had decided not to intervene.In the next week:
Draco transfigured Harry's quill into a squirming ferret during Transfiguration. McGonagall gave him a week's detention—but not before the class burst into tears laughing.
Harry snuck into the library early and replaced Draco's charms notes with a stack of Celestina Warbeck lyrics. During a pop quiz, Draco furiously muttered "My Floating Heart Belongs to You" instead of the Levitation Charm. Flitwick wept with laughter.
Draco enchanted Harry's robes to sparkle in shifting rainbow colors during a Quidditch match. The Gryffindor Seeker practically glowed.
Harry got him back by setting Draco's shampoo to smell permanently like wet cabbage. "It's called Eau de Slytherin," Ron said smugly.
The thing was, though… it wasn't mean anymore.
Their war was exclusive. No one else dared join in. It became a language. A rhythm. A ritual.
And when Draco caught Harry laughing—not at him, but genuinely amused by something he said—it struck him harder than any hex.
He didn't want Harry to hate him.
He didn't even want Harry to laugh with someone else.
That Night
The common rooms were quiet.
Draco stood alone by the window in the Astronomy Tower, looking out at the forest. His mind raced.
Why did he care that Potter had smiled at Diggory earlier that day?
Why did he feel a flash of rage when Granger touched Harry's arm and he didn't move away?
He was Draco Malfoy.
He didn't get… jealous.
"Pull yourself together," he muttered, gripping the stone ledge.
But the memory of Harry's smile, flushed from laughter, wouldn't leave his mind.
And neither would the whisper:
You like him.
He clenched his jaw.
If that were true—if—then he would never admit it.
At least, not yet.