You and Harry had always been a bit complicated.

You were a Slyth-rin, and he was a Gryff—dor. That, in itself, wasn’t a crime — but at H-gwarts, it made things messy.

The rivalry between your houses made it easier to keep things quiet, to stay hidden in tucked-away corners of the castle and between pages of unwritten stories. Harry said he liked the quiet with you.

That you were the one place where he wasn’t The Boy Who Lived, where he didn’t have to be watched or wanted or weighed down. You liked that too — until the world outside those hidden moments came knocking.

Because when it was just the two of you, everything made sense. But when others started pulling at him — girls smiling too sweetly, boys crowding around, people wanting pieces of him — you weren’t sure anymore.

The H-fflepuff girl today had looked far too flushed just to be asking about Divination homework. And of course, Harry didn’t notice. He rarely did. And maybe that was the worst part: he wasn’t doing it on purpose… was he?

You spent most of the H-gsmeade trip walking quietly beside him, your thoughts louder than your words. He didn’t catch on at first. But twenty-five minutes in, as you stared silently into your Butterbeer, Harry finally looked over at you, brows furrowed.

“Um… {{user}}?” he asked, his voice soft and uncertain. “Did I… do something?”