Through the Tears

The chill of November swept through the corridors of Hogwarts, but it was nothing compared to the icy dread that settled in Harry Potter's chest each morning. Fourth year had become a waking nightmare, and it all traced back to those cursed badges. Draco Malfoy’s sneering face had been everywhere in the first weeks of term, handing out the blinking ‘Potter Stinks’ pins with gleeful malice. The Slytherins wore them like trophies, but soon other houses joined in, not out of spite but because the badges were a novelty, a joke. To Harry, it was no joke. Each glittering mockery chipped away at something deep inside him, something he hadn’t known was so fragile.

He had faced Voldemort twice, battled a basilisk, survived the Dursleys’ cruelty, and yet a piece of enchanted metal had managed to destroy his sense of self. The words ‘Potter Stinks’ had become a mantra in his mind, twisting into darker shapes: *You’re ugly, you’re unworthy, you’re unlovable.* It didn’t matter that Hermione insisted it was nonsense, that Ron awkwardly tried to cheer him up, or that even some Gryffindors had apologised for wearing the badges without thinking. The damage was done. Harry had started avoiding mirrors. At first, it was just a quick aversion, but soon he couldn’t even glance at a reflection without a wave of nausea. His own face seemed foreign, wrong—a mess of too-sharp cheekbones, a lightning-bolt scar that marked him as freakish, and eyes that someone once said were his mother’s but now just looked hollow.

Mornings became a ritual of camouflage. Harry would wake before anyone else, slip into the bathroom, and carefully apply makeup he’d nicked from the Hogsmeade apothecary—concealer to hide the shadows, a touch of powder to smooth his skin, and sometimes a light gloss to make his lips look less chapped. He’d learned the art from watching Muggle magazines at the Dursleys’, a secret skill that now felt like survival. He told himself it made him passable, not pretty, never pretty. When Hermione complimented his appearance once, he’d flinched as if struck. “Don’t,” he’d said, his voice cracking. “I know what I look like.” She looked so heartbroken that he’d felt guilty, but he couldn’t accept kindness when his own mind screamed lies.

The Yule Ball announcement should have been exciting, but it only deepened his anxiety. Champions were expected to open the dance, and as a Triwizard Champion, Harry had to find a date. The idea nauseated him. Who would want to go with someone who stank, literally or metaphorically? He’d heard the whispers—some cruel, some curious—about the Boy Who Lived. He wasn’t the golden child of the wizarding world anymore; he was the mad boy who’d somehow cheated his way into the tournament.

Then Cedric Diggory asked him. In the middle of the sunny courtyard, with half the school watching, the Hufflepuff golden boy had walked up, all easy smiles and earnest eyes. “Harry, I know we’re competitors, but I’d be honoured if you’d come to the ball with me. As my date.” Harry’s heart had stuttered. Cedric, with his perfect hair and kind soul, was asking *him*? It felt like a prank. Behind Cedric, Cho Chang’s face fell, and a few students gasped. Harry’s cheeks burned under the concealer. He’d stuttered something unintelligible, and Cedric had gently taken his hand. “No pressure. Just think about it.” But Harry could only think about how ridiculous they’d look together—Cedric radiant as a Veela, and Harry a scrawny, scarred mess. He’d fled without answering.

That evening, Harry had tried on his dress robes. In a moment of defiant hope, he’d ordered white robes from Madam Malkin’s, specifying a cut that was more dress than robe, with delicate silver embroidery at the cuffs and hem. It had arrived in a silk-lined box, and when he’d first put it on, a traitorous part of him had thought it beautiful. The fabric draped elegantly, softening his angular frame, and the white made his dark hair and eyes stand out. But his reflection had shattered him. The makeup couldn’t hide the truth: he was still Harry, still the boy everyone laughed at. He’d torn off the dress and buried it in his trunk, vowing not to go to the ball at all.

In the dungeons, Severus Snape was not known for sentiment, but he observed. He saw Harry Potter walk through the halls like a ghost, saw the flinch when someone glanced at him, saw the heavy layer of product on his skin. It was disturbingly familiar—a child trying to erase himself. Snape had known such darkness in his own youth, though for very different reasons. Still, the boy was Lily’s son, and for all his resentment, Snape couldn’t stomach another year of torment. So he summoned Draco Malfoy to a private detention.

Malfoy swaggered in, expecting a task like scrubbing cauldrons. Instead, Snape pinned him with a cold glare. “You will sit here and listen, Draco. The badges you distributed were a stroke of petty genius. Congratulations. You have successfully convinced a boy who has faced death more times than you have faced a tail feather that he is worthless. Potter is not eating, not sleeping, and by all accounts, cannot bear his own reflection. Because of your badges.”

Draco’s smirk faltered. “It’s just a joke—”“It is not a joke when it breaks someone,” Snape cut in, his voice low and dangerous. “You will fix this. Potter is your assignment. You will find a way to undo the damage, or I will make certain your detentions last until you leave this school. Am I clear?”

Draco left the office rattled. He’d never seen Snape so intense about a student, not even when the Weasley twins blew up a classroom. The idea that Potter—actual, famous, insufferable Potter—was genuinely falling apart was surreal. But Snape didn’t lie about such things. For days, Draco watched Harry from a distance, and what he saw unsettled him. Potter moved like a shadow, shoulders hunched, eyes down. He flinched when Pansy Parkinson’s voice rang out, and once Draco saw him freeze outside the Great Hall, staring at the entrance as if it were a battlefield. The careful makeup was visible up close if you looked for it, and beneath it, exhaustion and something darker lurked.

Draco didn’t know how to fix it. He’d never cared about anyone’s feelings before, much less Potter’s. But Snape’s warning echoed in his skull, and a tiny, buried part of him—the part that remembered being a lonely boy in a vast manor—whispered that causing such hurt was beneath him. He started to hate those badges.

The day of the Yule Ball approached, and Harry’s nerves frayed further. He’d avoided Cedric, claiming he needed to focus on the tournament. But inside, he just dreaded the dance. He imagined standing alone while everyone else twirled, a beacon of failure. On the afternoon of the ball, the pressure became too much. He fled to Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, the one place he knew he wouldn’t be found. The ghost was oddly comforting, rarely judging.

But today, Myrtle was elsewhere, and Harry crumpled onto the cold tiles. He caught sight of his reflection in a puddle of water on the floor—a distorted, greyer version of himself—and the dam broke. Great, heaving sobs wracked his body, and he pressed his palms into his eyes, trying to physically stop the tears. “I hate you,” he whispered to no one, to himself. “Why can’t you just be normal? Why do you have to be so ugly, so unlovable?” The words poured out, a litany of self-hatred he’d never voiced aloud. He clawed at his cheeks, smearing the makeup, and rocked back and forth, weeping until his throat was raw.

That was how Draco found him. He’d been searching for Potter after a tip from a Gryffindor that Harry had rushed off looking distressed. The sound of anguished crying drew him to the bathroom door, and he slipped inside silently. The sight stopped him dead. Potter was on the floor, a wreck of tears and ruined cosmetics, looking smaller than Draco had ever imagined. This wasn’t the Boy Who Lived; this was a boy who’d been utterly destroyed.

Draco hesitated only a moment before his feet carried him forward. “Potter?” His voice came out softer than he’d intended.

Harry’s head snapped up. Red-rimmed eyes, smudged black lines from the tears, and sheer horror at being seen. “Go away!” he choked, scrambling backward. “Get out! Haven’t you done enough?”

Draco should have left. It would have been easier. But instead, he knelt on the damp floor, ignoring the cold seeping into his trousers. “I’m not here to fight. I’m here because… because I’m sorry.” The words tasted foreign, like a language he’d never spoken.

Harry laughed bitterly, a broken sound. “Sorry? You and your badges made me realise the truth. Congratulations, Malfoy, you win. I know I’m disgusting. You don’t have to rub it in.”

“You’re not,” Draco said, surprising himself. “You’re not disgusting.”

Harry swiped at his face, smearing more makeup. “Don’t lie. I’ve seen the way people look at me. And the badges… they said what everyone’s thinking.”

“No, they didn’t.” Draco’s voice hardened. “Those badges were a stupid, cruel prank. I made them because I was jealous and petty. I hated that you got all the attention, that everyone sees you as a hero even when you’re just a git. But I never wanted… this.” He gestured vaguely at Harry’s broken state.

Harry just shook his head, fresh tears spilling. “It doesn’t matter. Even without the badges, I know what I am.”

Draco moved closer, his heart pounding for reasons he couldn’t name. “What do you see when you look in a mirror, Potter?”

Harry flinched. “I don’t. I can’t.”

“Look at me, then,” Draco said, his tone gentler than he’d ever heard from himself. He reached out hesitantly and took Harry’s chin in his fingers, tilting his face up. “I’m going to tell you what I see, and you’re going to listen.” The touch was light, but Harry froze like a rabbit under a hawk’ stare. “You have eyes the color of emeralds, genuinely unfair. Your cheekbones could cut glass. And your skin, under all this gunk, is probably just as annoyingly good as the rest of you. You’re not ugly. You’re… well, you’re bloody striking, if you must know.”

Harry tried to pull away. “You don’t have to pretend—”“I don’t pretend, Potter. I’m a Malfoy. Pretending is for lesser beings.” He quirked a smile that didn’t reach the confusion in his eyes. “I’ve spent years calling you names, and not once did I say you were ugly. Did you ever notice that? I called you scarhead, Potter stinks, the boy who’s so lucky he can’t die—but never ugly. Because it’s not true.”

The admission hung in the air. Harry stared at him, mouth opening and closing. “Then why?” he finally whispered. “Why the badges? Why make me feel so worthless?”

Draco’s thumb traced a small circle on his jaw, unwittingly wiping away a smear of concealer to reveal pale skin beneath. “Because I’m an idiot,” he said quietly. “A jealous, spoiled idiot who didn’t know how else to get your attention. Not that I realised that at the time.” He sighed. “Snape threatened me into fixing this, but right now I’m not here because of detention. I’m here because no one deserves to feel like this.”

Harry’s shoulders shook with a fresh sob, but this time it was softer, tinged with confusion. “I don’t know how to believe you. Every time someone says I’m okay, my head screams that they’re just being nice.”

“Then I’ll prove it,” Draco said, his voice steady. “I’ll say it until you believe it, even if it takes all year. And I’ll start now: you are beautiful, Harry Potter. And I am not a nice person, so you can’t say I’m being nice.”

For some reason, that cracked something in Harry’s chest—not the compliment, but the sheer ridiculousness of Draco Malfoy, his bully, kneeling on a bathroom floor and calling him beautiful just to be obstinate. A wet chuckle escaped him. “You’re mental.”

“Maybe,” Draco allowed. He stood and offered a hand. “Now, you have a ball to get to. I saw Diggory looking for you earlier. He looked like a lost crup.”

Harry’s face crumpled again. “I can’t go. I said no. I’m not… I can’t face everyone.”

“You can and you will,” Draco said, pulling him up with surprising strength. “You’re a Gryffindor. Act like it. Besides, I’ve seen the robe—the dress thing—in your trunk earlier when I came by your dorm looking for you. Sorry, your roommate let me in. It’s stunning, and you’ll look like the star you are. Now, wash your face. Literally. All that makeup is a disaster.”

Harry blinked, mortified. “You went through my trunk?”

“Focused on the wrong thing, scarhead.” Draco steered him toward a sink. “Come on. I’ll help.”

What followed was bizarre. Draco Vanished the ruined makeup with a spell, then gently dabbed a damp cloth on Harry’s face until it was clean. Without the layers, Harry looked younger, more fragile, but also undeniably handsome in a sharp, elfin way. Draco felt his stomach flip and stamped it down. “There. That’s the face I’ve been hexing for years. It’s actually quite nice.”

Harry stared at his bare reflection in the grimy mirror. For the first time in weeks, he didn’t look away. Draco stood behind him, a pale shadow in the mirror. “I don’t see it,” Harry murmured.

“You will,” Draco promised. “Tonight, wear the white dress. No makeup. Just you.”

“Why are you being so…?” Harry turned, their faces inches apart.

“Decent?” Draco supplied. “I’m not entirely sure. Maybe because I hate seeing broken things when I know what it’s like to feel broken. Or maybe because you’re fascinating when you’re not being a hero. Either way, I’ll be at the ball, and I’ll be watching. Don’t make a fool of me by hiding.”

Harry took a shuddering breath. “You’re still a git.”

“Undoubtedly.”

They walked to the Great Hall together, a strange truce between them. Harry’s heart hammered as he approached the doors, the white dress robes flowing around him. He’d left his face bare except for a touch of lip balm, feeling naked. Cedric was waiting just inside, and when he saw Harry, his face lit up. “You came! And you look… Merlin, Harry, you’re stunning.”

Harry felt heat rise to his cheeks but didn’t dismiss the words. He glanced back, catching Draco’s pale gaze across the crowd. Draco gave an almost imperceptible nod, a faint smirk that was more encouraging than mocking. And Harry, for the first time in months, allowed himself to feel maybe, just maybe, a little bit beautiful.

The night was magical. Cedric was a perfect gentleman, dancing with Harry like it was the most natural thing in the world. Whispers followed them, but this time they weren’t cruel—more shocked admiration. Harry’s white dress caught the candlelight, and his bare face looked serene and striking. More than one person commented that he’d never looked better. When Cedric dipped him dramatically at the end of a waltz, the hall cheered. But Harry’s eyes kept searching for silver-blond hair, finding Draco watching from a shadowed pillar, drink in hand, expression inscrutable.

After the ball, things shifted. The badges disappeared, seemingly vanished overnight. Draco never explained, but Harry suspected. Words of apology came in other forms—a helping hand in Potions when Harry was struggling, a quiet defense when Pansy started up again. Slowly, the bullying stopped. In its place was an odd, charged tension. They still traded barbs, but the barbs had no poison. Sometimes Draco would catch Harry’s eye across the hall and give that same almost-smile, and Harry’s heart would do a strange flutter.

Weeks passed. The second task came and went. Harry survived, as always. And through it all, Draco was there, a silent sentinel. One day in March, Harry finally cornered him in an empty corridor. “Why do you keep doing this? The looks, the… being almost nice. What’s your game?”

Draco’s mask slipped. “No game. I told you in the bathroom—I’m an idiot. And the more I tried to stop thinking about you, the more I did. It’s infuriating.” He stepped closer, backing Harry against the cold stone wall. “You’re under my skin, Potter. And I hate it. But I’m done fighting it.”

Harry’s breath caught as Draco leaned in, their foreheads almost touching. “You’re mental,” Harry repeated, but it came out as a whisper.

“Perhaps,” Draco murmured, and then closed the distance. The kiss was hesitant at first, a soft press of lips that asked a question. Harry answered by gripping Draco’s robes and kissing back with a fervor born of months of buried longing. They parted, both breathing unevenly.

“For the record,” Harry said, voice shaky, “I didn’t believe you in the bathroom. But I’m starting to now.”

“Good,” Draco said, a genuine smile breaking through. “Because I meant every word. And I’ll keep saying it until you don’t need makeup to face the world.”

Harry smiled, a true one that reached his eyes. “Just don’t ever make another badge.”

“Never again,” Draco vowed. He kissed him again, and in that kiss, the last shards of Harry’s shattered confidence began to mend. Love wasn’t a cure-all, but with Draco’s stubborn devotion, Harry started to see a different reflection—one worth loving after all.