Harry fucking Potter, Saviour of the Wizarding World and The Chosen One, was fucking exhausted. He was tired and a mess and currently dragging his luggage down the stairs that lead to the Slytherin dorms.

Students like Harry, who were back for further education at Hogwarts, were made to stay in the Slytherin dorms because apparently their dorms had been found surprisingly empty. Ever since the end of the war, the Professors at Hogwarts were trying their best to bridge the great divide between the various houses but mostly between the Slytherins and the Gryffindors.

Hogwarts had taken up the idea of further education from the muggle system of going to university, getting a bachelor's degree and graduating in whatever topics the students might be interesting in. The school had decided to change its system after the war, wanting for all of its student to be better educated and skilled at whichever profession they wished to choose.

So here he was, Harry fucking Potter, a powerful fucking wizard, dragging his luggage down to the basement with his wand stuffed in his robes in a way that made it feel like it was lodged uncomfortably against his ribs. He felt frustrated and pouring all of that frustration out onto his battered luggage bags felt like the best way to let it happened.

Ron and Hermione were going to show up the next morning since they were out enjoying their holidays, and whilst Harry had fleetingly thought about showing up with them, he had felt that it would be best to get settled the day before. McGonagall was at The Great Hall with the younger years' students giving them a speech and taking care of the sorting ceremony. Harry had been informed that all of the students who were there for their further studies were going to be getting a similar speech the next day morning. Hence most of the student and Harry's friends were going to be arriving then, and as far as Harry was aware he seemed to be the only student who had turned in advance.

Harry came to a stop and bitterly spat out the password to enter the Slytherin lair. As he pulled his luggage bags into the common room, he froze at the scene that he saw in front of him, his heart almost stopping.

The Slytherin common room was incredibly huge and decorated with rich ornaments and expensive furniture probably to make all of the Slytherins feel at home. Whilst three sides of the room were covered with green wallpaper, the one that Harry was currently staring at with something akin to shock was all transparent glass. It revealed the underneath of The Great Lake. But that wasn't what shocked him.

The fact that there was a mermaid swimming alarmingly close to the glass surface that was meant to protect the Hogwarts students didn't shock him either. He knew of these sea creatures. He'd studied about them but never seen one in real life. Still, it wasn't the mermaid that had captured his attention or immediately grabbed his focus.

It was the figure with platinum blond hair that was facing the glass that had him really looking. Harry observed the figure from one side and could faintly make out the tapping motion that he made against the glass, his eyes fixed on the mermaid floating in front of him. It was as if, Harry mused, almost as if the figure was somehow trying to communicate with the mermaid via the tapping. Harry's jaw almost dropped when he saw the mermaid visibly tapping on the glass just a second later, as if communicating right back at him and proving Harry's point in the process. Then she went ahead and looked straight at Harry, maintaining eye contact with him for a few seconds, where Harry promptly forgot how to breathe, before concentrating back on the blond boy.

Harry let out a whoosh of breath, wide-eyed, until he heard someone clear their throat and looked in the direction of the blond boy just in time to be assaulted by the grey of his eyes. The boy was glaring at him, curiously and a little impatiently, with an irritated look on his face.

"Potter," he said, his tone cautious yet somehow still polite.

"Draco," Harry managed to rasp out after a bit of silence.

"What are you doing here? Who gave you the password to our common room? Was it Astoria again because I swear to-"

"No. No. It was Professor McGonagall." Harry answered.

Draco gaped at him, "What?!"

"She put all of us older students in the Slytherin dorms." Harry explained, his eyes sliding over to the mermaid. She seemed to be patiently listening in on their conversation although he doubted she could hear, let alone understand most of it.

"Oh for fuck's sake!" Draco groaned dramatically dropping his head and letting it hit the glass with a slight 'thump'.

"Nice to see you again too, Malfoy," Harry replied, as he started to carry his bags, but something stopped him.

He heard a snort from Malfoy and before he could even process what he was doing, he was staring again.

He stared as the mermaid tapped something onto the glass and Malfoy murmured a "shut up" to her. She seemed to look over at him and make a giggling sort of motion. This made Harry finally drop his bags completely and walk towards both the sea creature and Draco Malfoy, whilst simultaneously rolling his eyes.

"What are you doing?" Harry dared to ask, stopping beside the boy.

Malfoy only spared him a side-glance. "What does it look like I'm doing, Potter? I'm drowning in despair, of course." Draco proceeded to cover his eyes with an arm to complete the image of his 'drowning in despair'.

Harry snorted. "I meant with the mermaid. You're talking to her aren't you, with the taps," he said, giving the glass a single tap to show what he meant.

Draco finally straightened up, turning to Harry with the full intensity of those grey eyes. Harry had always been able to handle his gaze as it had always been accompanied with an overconfident smirk and some sort of a scathing remark to trigger his anger. In the last two or three instances when it hadn't, Harry had found himself unable to look into those eyes or unable to look away, feeling a thousand different emotions tearing at him. This time wasn't any different.

He couldn't make himself look away, and when he did, it was to absent-mindedly look at the way Draco's soft hair fell over his eyes and how it was just a little way away from being long enough to touch his shoulders.

Harry contemplated on if he'd like Draco having shoulder-length hair or prefer to have Draco cut it short. Somehow the thoughts of a messy, short-haired Draco greatly pleased him.

"Huh," Draco spoke up after a long moment of intense gazing at Harry, "I guess you aren't as oblivious as I had first considered you to be."

Harry was only too ready to respond to him harshly, but a tap on the glass in front of him, startled him. He looked up ahead to see the mermaid wearing a small smile on her face and waving at him. Harry almost reflexively smiled and waved back at her.

"Hey," he said, nudging Draco, "How do I say 'hi' to her?"

Draco blinked at him, "You want to know how to say hi to her? Just say hi!"

The mermaid seemed to know what Draco had said to Harry and now her attention was focused on him as she tapped something at him. Draco turned his glare on her and tapped back instantly.

"I meant how do I tap 'hi' to her?" Harry continued, ignoring the little conversation that Malfoy and the mermaid seemed to be having. "I want to learn."

Draco sighed. "Of course you do," he said and the next second, proceeded to knock on the glass two times. "That's how you say hi."

Harry copied Malfoy's taps and then looked up at the mermaid who seemed delighted. "I think she likes me," he said with a grin.

"She likes anyone that wants to talk to her," Draco said, but Harry ignored him, having found something more interesting than their years old rivalry to latch onto.

"Teach me how to tap out my name?" He asked.

Draco shifted closer and tapped once then paused and then tapped on the glass twice. Harry looked at the mermaid, pointed to himself, tapped 'Harry' and then waited for a second before pointing at her.

The mermaid gave a nod of her head then looked over at Draco as if for confirmation. Draco sent out a series of taps which resulted in the mermaid emphatically nodding her head, pointing to herself and getting closer to Harry and the glass to tap something out.

Harry looked over at Draco, who was watching him now, for guidance. "What did she say? What does that mean?"

"She says that her name is Arabelle."

"Arabelle," Harry said, keeping his eyes on the mermaid, "It's a beautiful name." He suddenly addressed Draco, "Can you tell her I said that?"

Draco groaned and seemed to be thinking up the most effective way to murder Harry as he tapped out the message on the glass. Harry felt amazed at Arabelle's reaction. He hadn't known that mermaids could blush. How would that even work underwater?

Arabelle's quick movements brought Harry back to the present and he saw her tapping out some sort of a complex pattern before rushing away.

"What was that?" Harry questioned.

Draco was still staring after Arabelle. "She said she had to go. She couldn't stay out here past curfew."

"Wait. There's a curfew for mermaids?"

"Supposedly, yes," Draco said.

"Well I guess I have a lot to learn about them then." Harry spoke more to himself.

"You do." Draco replied in a tone of finality that indicated the end of the conversation.

"Well, it was nice talking to you Draco. Thank you," Harry genuinely said. He didn't know why but he always felt like it was easier to talk to Draco without getting into a fight when they were both alone.

It probably also had something to do with the fact that he didn't feel any sort of negative emotions towards the blond anymore. Maybe that was why it was much easier to recognize the positive feelings he felt around him now.

"It was nice talking to you too, Potter." Draco said, with a nod in his direction.

As Harry picked up his bags and walked towards their dorm rooms, he thought about the fact that there would be a private dorm room for each of the students. Maybe he should've let the sorting hat put him in Slytherin in the first year because having a whole room to him sounded like a gift from god himself.

Before he could exit the common room however, he heard Draco calling out to him. "And thank you to you too… for everything." And then Draco was gone. He'd walked straight out of the common room and hadn't even let Harry utter a word.

Harry just stared after him, remembering how Draco had looked earlier, standing near the glass. A small ray of sunshine had escaped from somewhere to shine on Draco, making him look like an angel. An angel.

Angel.

Fuck. Harry was fucked.

A/N: This is my first attempt at trying to write a Harry Potter fic and a Drarry one so I sincerely hope you guys enjoy reading it.