It Started With A Closet. . . A Drarry Fic (No Smut!!!)

In The Closet

Draco's POV

Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter both hated each other. That much was clear to anyone.

But Draco didn't mean it. Not usually, anyway; it was all just an act. An act to hide the fact that he had always had a crush–a ginormous crush–on the Boy Who Lived (twice).

Pansy Parkinson was the only one who knew. Blaise Zabini knew Draco was gay, but not about his feelings towards his supposed arch-nemesis.

Draco, however, was far too scared to do anything remotely flirtatious towards the young Potter, so Pansy took it upon herself to give them more than just a small nudge in the correct direction of a romantic relationship.

And that's how the two boys had ended up locked in a fairly small closet, only as big as a king-sized bed. They both had their wands, but no unlocking spell they tried worked on the locked door. Draco subconsciously wondered what magic Parkinson had used to ensure such a state.

They sat in opposite corners, Harry practically looking everywhere but Draco in a nervous state, while Draco stared at the other boy, narrowing his eyes and feigning a suspicious look, which he was very good at hiding. (That he'd feigned the look, that is.)

Draco had known right away that it was Pansy. Nobody else knew about his crush, and he intended to keep it that way. This was just the thing she'd do, too.

After an uncertain amount of time had passed of sitting in silence in the bare closet, Harry sighed, resigned, stood up, and reseated himself next to Draco, but still not looking at him as he proceeded to speak.

"Look, Malfoy," he said tiredly, as if sitting here in silence was the most exhausting thing next to a long Quidditch match. There was a foot of space between the two. "If we're going to be locked in here for . . . some time . . . we should at least act civilized. Wanna make a temporary truce?"

A moment of silence.

"Might as well, Potter," Draco responded neutrally, as if his greatest enemy offering a truce wasn't the most unexpected thing Draco had thought to come out of his mouth, and something he actually really wanted. "No point in fighting right now."

"Exactly."

They were silent for a while longer.

The truth was, though, that they hadn't fought at all since the start of the school year two months ago. It was after the war, and they hadn't even so much as spoke to one another. Draco had been avoiding Harry, deciding that he couldn't take another year of endless quarrel between the two when he really, since the first day on the train, had wanted him to like him, for him to accept his friendship and care about him, protect him the same way he always protected Weasley and Granger.

"What time do you think it is?" Harry asked suddenly, jolting him out of his own thoughts.

"Well, we were locked in here just before dinner started. . . I'd say it's around curfew?" Draco guessed.

Harry hummed a response, frowning slightly.

"What, Potter?" Draco asked him, biting back an insult that he hated for how natural it had come to him.

"I just. . . I really hate small talk, but I can't seem to decide whether it's better or worse than ever-lasting silence." There was a pause before he added, or more like mumbled, "And I'm also claustrophobic."

That was mostly why he hated being in the cupboard under the stairs for more than the first decade of his life.

"You're afraid of small spaces, Potter?" It wasn't mocking; more like amused.