第15章 章節

ng so low they nearly tear seats right out of the stands or so high Harry has trouble catching his breath—Harry anticipates his every move and follows without so much as a moment of hesitation. Half the time they et the Snitch is there until one of them sees it and shouts; then it’s a no-holds-barred aerial sprint for the goal, weaving over and under one another, elbowing each other shamelessly as they get closer and closer to the Snitch. More than once, Harry or Draco reach out and snatch the other’s wrist by ident (Draco claims it’s an ident every time, at least), and the snitch escapes them both. Neither of them notices when the sky grows dark with forbidding grey plumes of cloud.

When the rain starts, Harry puts the Snitch away and rejoins Draco in the air, and they place bets on which of them can pull off the best feints or other, increasingly dangerous and foolhardy maneuvers, like a game of chicken designed to give Madam Hooch a heart attack. Luckily, no one is around to knock some sense into their heads, so the two of them keep going until their broomsticks get too slick to hold on to. Draco, flying upside down with his hands behind his back, thighs locked around his broom to keep it in place, laughs so hard he nearly falls off when Harry slips and knocks his forehead into his broom handle while attempting to flip it over. And then Harry says, “At least I don’t look like a goddamn albino bat, you utter berk,” and Draco laughs harder, and slips, and ends up dangling from his broom with one knee hooked around it keeping him from breaking his neck until Harryes and gets him. Draco doesn’t even look scared. “Save me, Potter!” he calls in a high- pitched, girlish voice, putting the back of his hand against his forehead as if playing at a swoon while hanging upside-down more than fifty feet in the air. (Harry almost leaves him there.)

That’s about when they decide to call it quits; the rain is pouring down in sheets and Harry is pretty sure he’s soaked down to his underwear. They land on the pitch, which is essentially a pool of mud at this point, and immediately shove each other over. Harry swears Draco started it. Draco claims Harry tripped him.

(Harry might have tripped him, by ident. He was standing closer than necessary and couldn’t see his own feet.)

Harry has never seen Draco smile like this, artlessly and radiantly. He feels a little drunk. He doesn’t even mind being covered in mud; he hopes Draco will shove him again just so Harry can have Draco’s hands back on him.

“I’m sorry we didn’t get more done today,” Harry says, as they pause in the broomshed to catch their breath before making a mad dash through the rain back up to the castle. He’s only just realizing how late it’s gotten, that they wasted half a day—one of Draco’s final days —doing what basically amounted to nothing.

Draco shakes his head. “I’m not. I needed this,” he says. “I missed flying.”

A number of responsese to Harry’s mind then: I missed flying wi