I watch them as they skirt around each other, two opposing forces, trying their best not to pass too close. Not to touch. I see the mutual hatred they project, cocooning them, protecting them; the taunts and jibes warning, keep away.

I hear it in my godson's voice, as he holds forth to me about this and that, the irritations of school life, and especially Malfoy, always Malfoy. It returns to him every time; far too often for it to be coincidence, or for me to believe that there is nothing behind it but hatred.

I feel it crackling in the air. I doubt Harry's noticed it yet, consciously at least, and I would lay money that Draco hasn't either. Not very perceptive, those boys. Not to mention terrified of what it might mean.

Imagine. Going back on everything you've been taught. Ignoring your friends, betraying your family, your house, for something as small and trivial and earth-shattering as... Not exactly easy. And yet, if it's meant to happen, it's the easiest thing in the world, when the time comes. Suddenly everything else feels wrong, and to embrace it is the only thing that's right. It might take a long time to arrive, but when that moment comes, it's like lightning. I know. I've been there.

When they can hold up their facades no longer, when the opposing forces switch and become inexorably attracting, like magnetism, there's no more resisting. You can't fight a force of nature. Although knowing those two, they'll try. They'll fight and struggle, give themselves sleepless nights and endless angst; they are teenagers, after all, and stubborn ones at that. Silly boys. It'll get them in the end.

Love always does.