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Draco pushes up hard from the frost-crisp ground of the Quidditch pitch, cold air filling his lungs, pure and sharp. It stings his face and makes his eyes water, but he feels awake, blood rushing. He flies up and up, his broom from three years ago familiar in his grip. His long coat flaps behind him, his Quidditch uniform from his fifth year too small to wear now.
Above, the clouds are steel wool obscuring a tarnished, solstice sun, pale and almost moon-silver. He flies for it, and the air bites harder and harder; it whistles in his ears and gets up his sleeves and cuffs, finds every bit of exposed skin and numbs it.
When he can’t feel any part of himself, not even his hands or thighs gripping the broom, Draco stops. He looks away from the weakly flaring sun and peers down, down, down to the matchbox-size pitch.
He closes his eyes and counts to ten.
Tilting the handle of his broom, he darts for the ground, eyes still closed. He listens to the air in his ears and clothes, pretends he can sense it warm ever so slightly as he descends, pretends he can feel the earth coming up to meet him.
He opens his eyes and jerks the broom up, panic seizing his heart and muscles before the message that he’s got time, he’s safe, even reaches his brain.
He’s stopped level with the goal hoops and hovers a moment, catching his breath, which burns his lungs like firewhiskey. His heart is a fist thrashing his ribs, and it heats him back up.
Finally, he makes his way to the ground, a bit shaky, legs unsteady like he’s been travelling the ocean for months. He carefully climbs the Slytherin stands where he finds Theodore Nott sitting. Waiting for him.
“Get your escape in for the day?” Theo asks, all bundled up, a book in hand.
Draco sits next to him and rests his broom on his left. “Escape would be to keep flying.”
“Your plan is to make for outer space?” Theo’s smile is wry, and it heats Draco like a warming charm.
“Only if you come along. You’re the only person I can stand anymore,” he adds. It’s true. Returning to Hogwarts to repeat his last year has been lonely when it hasn’t been uncomfortable. Theo is an exception. He’s known him all his life. Draco’s never wronged Theo, not seriously, and Theo’s reputation has remained intact despite his Death Eater father. He is safe to know, in most ways. In others, in ways Draco can’t help, he is the least safe person to be with.
Theo shakes his head. “Sorry. I prefer keeping my feet on the ground and using more conventional means of escape.” He lifts the book in his hands. Creature of the Lake: The Giant Squid Through the Ages, the title reads.
“Sounds fascinating.” Draco’s sarcasm is thick but friendly.
Theo adjusts his glasses, and Draco is embarrassed by how charming he finds it. “You’d be surprised how kinky it can be. There’s some stuff about the Merfolk...” Theo begins before Draco cuts him off.
“I believe you,” he says, holding up his hand.
Theo smoothes a mittened hand over the book’s cover. “Nothing else makes you feel like that?” he asks, glancing up at the sky.
Yes, Draco thinks, or guesses. He clenches his hands and shoves them in his coat pockets. “Maybe,” he hazards aloud.
“That sounds like a ‘no’ to me,” Theo replies, and Draco frowns, inexplicably hurt, as if Theo should have read his mind. As if Draco wanted him to. He stands abruptly, and Theo startles. He sets the book aside and joins Draco, rising. “Stop running, Draco.”
“Don’t you mean flying?”
“Same thing.” Theo takes his arm, and Draco considers shaking it off, falling back on petulance, but he doesn’t. He sighs, lethargy from his flight catching up to him.
“Well?” Draco asks after a quiet moment of mutual staring.
“The sky has limits, too, Draco,” Theo says, soft but intense. His cheeks are red, and so are his lips. He must have been biting them. Draco wishes he’d leave that to him and lowers his eyes when he thinks it.
“What doesn’t?” Draco shrugs, feigning carelessness.
Theo’s hand moves up his arm to his shoulder, and then he’s leaning in, breath fogging up the air between them before their lips join, chapped but warm and soft.
It’s brief, and Draco wants another, and another, and more. For now, he swallows and licks his lips. “That your answer then?” he manages.
“Don’t make me say it like some bloody Hufflepuff,” Theo chuckles.
Draco grins. “I prefer your answer anyway.”
“I thought you might. If you come back to our dorm, I’ll give it to you a few more times. You know, if you’ve had enough of freezing your face off.”
“More than enough,” Draco admits. He grabs his broom and follows Theo down from the stands and across the pitch, the sky close above them.