Content warning
This work contains explicit depictions of sex between male characters and under-negotiated kink. It is intended for adult audiences only.
Inspired by everything you could ever want by eleadore
“You slimy bastard.”
Startled from a deep reverie, Draco almost drops his book. He looks left and right over his shoulders, but there’s no one behind him, their corner of the Slytherin common room quiet and private. He lifts his eyebrows at Pansy. “Who? Me?”
“It’s true, then? What people have been saying? You were snogging someone in the broomshed. Who is he? I demand to know, right now.” She crosses her legs, folding her hands over the latest issue of Witch Weekly on her lap—the deadly stance of a predator about to pounce.
Draco takes breath to say something—never mind that he’s got no clue what that might be—but she isn’t done yet.
“And don’t you dare lie to me, Draco Lucius Malfoy. You have the glow about you. I just realized, and I’m terribly upset. You never had the glow about you when you were dating me.”
Judging by the heat in his cheeks, she’s probably right. He has stopped reading a while ago, staring blindly at the page whilst fully immersed in reliving select passages from the forest scene. None of the lewd stuff, of course. He’s still in sufficient command of his faculties to keep himself from thinking about that in public. Just words, glances, smiles. Dappled sunlight reflected in smudgy glasses leaving bright spots in his vision. Laughter.
Apparently, he oughtn’t think about that in public either.
It’s a small comfort in the face of his rising panic that Pansy is, unsurprisingly, making it all about herself, but Draco takes it. This, at least, he can navigate. “Could it be because I’m floridly gay?”
“I’m yet to forgive you for that. And now you’re breaking my heart all over again by hiding things from me. Honestly. I’m supposed to be your best friend. You swore it.”
“At wandpoint,” he reminds her. “After you had six shots of tequila. I would’ve sworn I’m in love with Harry bloody Potter under that sort of duress.”
It’s a risk, flaunting the truth—or something sickeningly close to it—in her face, to eliminate it at once from the possibilities she’ll be considering. By a stroke of luck that really shouldn’t surprise anyone when Potter is concerned, whoever had caught them with their pants down in the broomshed did not get a good enough look, and against all hope, the school wasn’t buzzing with the news by the evening, or the next day, or a week after.
“Just tell me, Draco. You know I can keep a secret… in special circumstances.”
A part of him wants to. A shockingly large part, at once boisterous and terrified; hopeful, yet starved for reassurance. Plus, there’s the not entirely insignificant matter of nagging guilt. Because, it turns out, he’s no longer indifferent about lying to his friends. And Pansy and Blaise are his best friends now. Which stirs a nagging guilt all its own, another item in his vast, ever-growing collection.
It takes all his formidable self-control to not glance at the empty sofa next to them and the heart-shaped impressions of two very large backsides permanently branded into the cushions.
“I’ll tell you,” he says through the thrum of his heart in his throat, “when there’s something to tell.”
Pansy studies him for what feels like minutes, and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from fidgeting. “Promise?”
“Promise.”
Easy enough, when you know it’ll never happen.
At lunch, Draco watches Potter through a convenient hole between heads and shoulders, and if he positioned himself to exploit it, it’s equal parts old habit and something completely new, exciting and dangerous.
Potter laughs with his mouth full and spells his fork elastic—no wand in sight—so he can use it as a sling to launch a dripping morsel at whichever Gryffindor has incited the hilarity, more rumbustious than Draco has seen him in years. He looks better, too. His skin is less sallow, his cheeks less gaunt, his hair—no, never mind. His hair is the same mess as always. Not for the first time, Draco regrets being unable to pour his heart out to Pansy, because she could tell him—objectively—if that’s what “the glow” looks like. He thinks so. And he, Draco bloody Malfoy, has put it there.
As if on cue, Potter’s eyes alight on him and Draco’s stomach flips. He allows himself two seconds. Any more and he’ll blush for everyone to see. None of his masks seem to hold anymore, not against this, whatever it is.
He digs in his bag for a quill and a scrap of paper, but words refuse to come. Instead, he sketches the stone circle. Would Potter be able to figure it out if Draco were to indicate the time of day by drawing the shadows of the stones? No doubt Granger would, but Draco’s certain Potter hasn’t told his friends either. There’s no way Weasley could pretend to be normal about it successfully enough for Draco to notice nothing out of the ordinary, let alone actually be normal about it.
With a sigh, he draws the clock hands inside the sun. Then memory floods him out of nowhere and before he knows it, sinewy vines have sprouted from the ground he illustrated with the whole of three grass blades and two pebbles, winding around the stones in a wild green that’s got nothing to do with the colour of Draco’s ink.
He swallows and hurries to fold the note. A simple swan: his hands are too shaky from the rush of runaway magic for anything fancy. He sends it flying with a flick of his wand, praying to Morgana it won’t blossom with those ridiculous white flowers and attract unwanted attention.
It lands safely, if a bit clumsily, into Potter’s plate. Draco exhales. Potter leans back for a bit of privacy and unfolds the note with much more care than the message merits. Then he blushes.
Draco blushes too, long before Potter looks up. Potter takes his time to pocket the note, to gulp from his cup, to answer someone’s question (“Nothing,” Draco reads easily from his lips), to interlace his fingers and stare at them thoughtfully while the loud conversation continues around him.
When he does look up, the world stops and fades out and there’s just the staccato of Draco’s pulse. The longest two seconds in the history of time.
Potter nods, a motion so minuscule anyone else would miss it, but not he; not Draco.
He pulls from his deepest reserves to keep from breaking into an idiotic grin, shoulders his bag, and flees.
When he lands in the stone circle, Potter’s already there, pink in the cheeks from the chilly wind, with hair sticking out at angles. “I see you haven’t abandoned your artistic aspirations,” he says, waving the note.
Draco wiggles his brows at him, which has the interesting effect of making Potter even pinker in the cheeks. He shrinks his broomstick and stoves it inside his robes. “Come on.”
“Where to?” says Potter, following a few steps behind.
“You’ll see.”
They walk past Hagrid’s hut, the pumpkin patch, and into the woods along the same path they took several days before. Draco tries not to look but he succumbs. Their wards are still in place, though tattered, shimmering around ragged edges. The mossy boulder peeks out from between the fronds of Notice-Me-Not like a reflection in a broken mirror.
“We should’ve taken those down,” Draco murmurs.
“’s not too late.” Potter runs up the slope, deftly stepping between corded roots, wand in hand. “Finite Incantatem.”
Even twenty feet away and behind Potter’s back, Draco is awash with his magic, primordial and elemental like something ripped from the very bones of the earth. It frightens him, the raw power in it. It excites him too. He and Potter had never cast together outside class, their ill-fated duels notwithstanding; those wards were the first time. Yet neither of them was surprised with just how natural it felt, to work as a team. Easier than breathing.
“Er… looks like these are here to stay,” says Potter, pointing sheepishly at the vines in wild bloom. He’s grinning.
Draco cringes. On balance, it’s a good memory, but it would be a whole lot better if he could ignore the pervasive sense of his own inadequacy. He did well enough—on some level, he knows it—but there were so many missteps. He should’ve brought a legitimate cane, for one. Dozens of exquisite, master-crafted riding crops are gathering dust in the Manor stables; he could’ve sent Oberon to fetch some. Or he could’ve conjured one on the spot. The long, green stick he had cut from a nearby bush was too thin; too vicious. But he didn’t know—how could he?—and Potter isn’t one to complain about too much. Only about too little.
Potter waited patiently, bent over in the waist and leaning on the mossy boulder, his bottom bared and legs spread far apart, briefs and trousers pooled around one ankle. Quiet and obedient, already halfway to that trance-like state Draco will never know or understand. Draco swished the green stick through the air a few times and Potter’s head perked up, but he didn’t glance back. Every hair on his solid, handsome thighs stood on end, his balls drawn tight and his cock straight as a rod.
Draco palmed the cane in his left hand, pointing his wand with the right. “Incarcerous.”
The vines sprouted from the ground, winding around Potter’s calves and up the boulder to bind his hands where they sunk in the moss. How did his magic taste to Potter, Draco wondered, weaving the spell with the same slightly maniacal precision he had put into mending Mother’s ancient china and Father’s priceless crystal tumblers over the summer, shard after tiny shard, till his eyes burned and his wand-hand lost all feeling.
He stood back, then, and committed the sight to memory, and the emotions that rose within him. The sharp sense of presence, so far removed from the nebulous unreality of his days since his life had unravelled. The dread that coils around his gut whenever he imagines striking as hard as he could. The hot, sticky lust pooling in his crotch. But above all, the wonderful and terrible awareness of power. Potter was his to command. His to hurt, his to please, his to take, his to deny. All his life, Draco had craved that power. And now he was horrified down to the marrow of his bones of all the ways he might unintentionally abuse it.
The first strike, he aimed at the hip. A safe place, and a good thing he did, because he put too much force in it: invested, as always, in hiding his fear. Potter gasped and cold sweat broke on Draco’s hairline, but he went on. The tip of the cane made it tricky. It wound around curves, almost like a whip, reaching places it wasn’t supposed to, and the welts didn’t show as quickly as Draco would’ve liked. But soon, Potter’s hisses turned to groans, and groans turned to obscenities when Draco gathered the courage to whip his inner thighs.
“Fuck, yes,” he moaned. “There, again. Fuck, Malfoy!”
And he could, Draco thought, a bit drunk with the flow of it himself. He was a step and a thrust away and he was ready, Merlin, was he ready. Potter would’ve let him. In that state, Potter would agree to anything.
Focused on the dark cleft of Potter’s bare arse, silky curls spreading from it like black flowers, Draco caught sight of a long thread of glittering fluid, thin like spider silk, hanging between Potter’s legs almost to the trampled ivy at his feet.
“Don’t stop,” Potter panted. “God, Malfoy, please. I’m—”
SWISH. Potter hissed, arching his neck upward, his body taut like a drawn bow. Breathing hard, Draco frowned at Potter’s backside, crisscrossed with angry red lines that wouldn’t bleed, for sure they wouldn’t, they weren’t cuts and the pattern was not at all like his curse scars. He could do this.
SWISH. The stroke came so close to Potter’s balls it singed the sparse hair there. His sack drew tighter. His knees buckled but he locked them straight.
SWISH. Could he come like this? Draco had to know. Nothing else mattered. The world outside was gone.
SWISH.
“Oh, fuck, oh, ffff…”
SWISH.
Potter clenched, and moaned, and trembled, and Draco stared, transfixed, at his bobbing cock and the heavy drip of dense, white seed.
He lost it, then. The cane dropped from his sweaty palm. His hands trembled as he undid his trousers and pulled his cock out of his pants. All it took was four strokes and then he was squeezing Potter’s well-whipped arse with one hand and the swollen head of his cock with the other and he came so hard he thought he would faint.
And the vines, the fucking vines, bloomed.
He shouldn’t have done that, he thought tiredly later, while wrapping Potter in his robes and holding him through the stupor, and the shivers, and the brief, fretful sleep. He should’ve held back, given all and taken nothing. They could meet for snogging and wanking any time, any place. This was supposed to be for Potter, not for Draco.
They huddled there a while longer, casting warming charms and looking anywhere but at one another, in silence. Till Draco balled his fists and spoke.
“And?”
Potter gave him a blank look. “What?”
“How was it.”
It took Potter solid ten seconds to gather himself enough for an answer. “I think I like the belt better.” His eyes searched the air between them. “This was all sting and no… thud. You know?”
Draco blinked.
“Your Incarcerous, though,” Potter went on with a grin, “that was wild.” He looked over his shoulder at the blooming bush, picked one of the dramatic white flowers, and buried his nose in it.
Draco’s cheeks burned.
“Was it on purpose?” said Potter, twirling the flower.
Yes, absolutely, is what Draco was supposed to say, but embarrassment had made him stupid, and he shook his head.
“Thought so.” The apple of Potter’s throat went up and down. “Can I kiss you?”
Draco nodded, melting.
Potter catches up with him at an easy jog and knocks his shoulder into him. Draco leans into it, like it’s a game, never mind the churning in his belly. The backs of their hands brush and Draco can hardly believe there aren’t any actual sparks filling the air around them like fireworks at the touch. After another step, their hands are still touching. Is it intentional?
With a surge of excitement, Draco moves his fingers ever so slightly, and to his delight, Potter responds, lacing them with his own. Then they’re holding hands, and for a minute, there’s no forest, there’s no path, no wind and no sky and no bloody air. Just Potter’s hand, warm and dry and calloused at the base of his fingers from clutching his broomstick. Potter’s thumb slides over the length of Draco’s index finger, and the middle finger, and the ring finger. As he feels out Draco’s nails and cuticles, there’s a moment of white panic. Draco can’t recall when he has last trimmed his nails, and he’s too stupid from whatever this is to look at his other hand till they’re well past the great pine that marks the spot. He steers them off the path, tugging Potter along.
“Didn’t take you for an outdoorsy type,” says Potter, following easily. The ground is soft from recent rain, but the twigs and pine needles cover it thickly enough to keep the mud off their shoes.
“I dare say there are a few things you don’t know about me yet, despite the years of close surveillance.”
Potter laughs. “I swear that’s the most words I heard you say in all of eighth year.”
“I didn’t think you wanted to talk.”
“I don’t.” Potter clears his throat. “Much.”
“Go on, then. Ask me what’s my favourite colour.”
Potter snorts. “Slytherin green.”
Draco stops so abruptly that Potter’s only alerted to it when he makes another few steps and their linked arms stretch. Whatever he sees in Draco’s face makes him laugh. “Seriously? I was just taking the piss.”
It’s not what Draco would’ve said, but the truth of it is devastating. How did he never realize, in all the years of wearing his House colours with pride, that it’s the same bottle-green viridian of the eyes that have haunted his dreams since he was eleven?
“Like yours isn’t Gryffindor red.” Draco points at Potter’s maroon jumper with his chin.
“I’m more into gold, actually,” says Potter, glancing shyly upwards of eye contact. Draco manages not to touch his hair only by supreme effort. “My eye’s always drawn to it.”
“Ah. The Snitch.”
Potter’s brows shoot up. “Right!” He laughs. “The Snitch!”
They move on. Potter’s grip on Draco’s hand has grown tight and sweaty, verging on uncomfortable, but Draco doesn’t dare wriggle his fingers in fear Potter would let go. Instead, he runs his thumb over the back of Potter’s hand. It relaxes. Draco feels like he’s walking on air.
“This way.”
The ruins shimmer into view as he leads Potter by the hand through the Disillusionment curtain he set up before.
“Whoa,” says Potter, looking around. “Nice work.”
Absurd pride warms Draco’s chest like a gulp of firewhiskey. A watchtower used to be here, part of the ancient outer wall whose stones have been carried away and re-purposed in the building of more modern structures. All that’s left of the tower is a portion of the curved wall and the sunken staircase.
“We’re going—down there?”
“Yes, Potter. Do keep up.”
“Do keep up,” Potter mimes, with an effeminate gesture that would’ve had Draco frothing at the mouth a couple years ago, a lifetime ago. Now, there’s a smile in Potter’s eyes, gently mocking, almost… fond? Draco plants an elbow in Potter’s side, and when Potter pushes back, laughing, they nearly keel over. For a moment, it’s all too easy to imagine what it would’ve been like, had they been friends.
“Kiss me,” Potter whispers, hands bunched in Draco’s jumper.
“Later.” They can’t kiss now, not if he’s to go forward with his little plan. He’s all mushy from the handholding already. Kissing would melt him into a useless puddle, and he needs to be—well, not hard, although he’s halfway there, just thinking about it. Decisive. Determined. Focused. Yes.
But then Potter pouts and that’s one battle lost. Draco draws his tongue over Potter’s lower lip, never closing his eyes. “Alright?”
“Hmpf.” Potter pushes his glasses up his nose. “You’re up to something, aren’t you.”
“Of course.”
Draco takes Potter’s hand again and leads him down the stairs. It isn’t dark enough for a Lumos, but he casts it anyway, as there are a few broken steps. A short corridor too narrow for them to pass through abreast opens into a round chamber lit by a pair of ground-level grates on the ceiling.
Potter, predictably, stares at the three-post chaise lounge. Not that there’s much else to look at. A carpet, a small tea-table, a pair of unlit candelabra.
“You… brought all this here?” Potter asks, pushing his glasses up his nose again.
Draco rolls his eyes. “I conjured it.”
Potter squints at the grates next. “Impervious? It looks like it might rain.”
“Yes, obviously. What do you take me for?”
Potter crosses his arms over his chest, catches himself, and lets them hang loose by his sides. He’s nervous, that much is clear. But why? He’s never been nervous before—not that Draco could tell, at least. Perhaps he was too nervous himself to notice, in their previous encounters. Perhaps he was the one being nervous now and making things up.
But then he spies a dark blush blooming in patches over Potter’s face, and it suddenly strikes him what this must look like: the room, the chaise, the kisses postponed for later. Salazar. Even the handholding.
“It’s not what you think,” he says before he’s sure he should. And now heat’s creeping up his cheeks too.
“No?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Draco stares at him, caught off-guard. It’s too soon, he could say. Too advanced. They haven’t even got to blowjobs, for Merlin’s sake. Why not?
“I have something else in mind,” he says instead.
Potter watches him a few seconds longer, gaze flitting from Draco’s left eye to the right and back, over his lips and the crease that trembles between his brows as Draco struggles to control his expression. “Okay.”
“Will you do what I say?” Draco asks. “No restraints this time.”
Potter considers it. “Okay.”
Draco lets out a breath. He itches to wipe his sweaty palms on his trousers, to run his fingers through his hair, tousled enough to tickle his forehead. His mouth’s dry. He wants to lick his lips and swallow. None of it is on the menu.
“Take your robes off.”
Potter does as he’s told, draping his robes over the back of the chaise. Draco shrugs out of his own and pulls off his jumper too.
“No, leave it,” he says when Potter moves to mirror him. It’s chilly, underground, and Potter will need his layers. Draco, on the other hand, is already sweating. He rolls his right sleeve up to the elbow and sits. “Come closer.”
Potter takes a step forward.
“Closer, Potter.”
Potter swallows, then walks till his left knee knocks into Draco’s right.
“Lower your trousers.”
Potter’s hands shake while he fumbles with his belt and buttons. The scents of fresh laundry and chamomile soap bar tickle Draco’s nostrils as Potter’s clothes fall off. He’s wearing tight cotton briefs that hold the swell of his erection upright, though it’s mostly hidden under the wrinkled tails of his shirt.
“Your pants too.”
Some sound issues out of Potter, not quite a hum, not quite a grunt. When he bends to peel off his pants, his face hovers within easy kissing distance from Draco’s, and it’s crimson, radiating heat. Draco must dig his nails into his palm to keep from doing something hopelessly soft, like nuzzling into Potter’s ear, to reassure him.
Straightening up, Potter huffs out a breath. He folds his hands into fists, stares ahead and stands very tall: shoulders drawn back, chest puffed out, chin held high against the indignity of it. His cock rests at a right angle to his body, protruding obscenely between his shirttails, dark and stiff and wet under the whorl of foreskin at the top. Close enough to Draco’s face to feel its warmth, smell its faint musk. Why not?
“Now bend over my knees.”
Potter’s eyes grow round with understanding. Shock too. He didn’t see it coming. It’s too much, too intimate, too humiliating. Draco has overstepped and now he’ll have to endure Potter’s rejection, again, he can see it build up in Potter’s features, the spite, the still more familiar resentment. The sudden realization, of just how badly Draco has underestimated his own vulnerability, robs him of his breath and coats his face in cold sweat. Potter’s about to say no, and Draco can already hear the crack of this dream shattering around him.
Only… Potter doesn’t say no. He says nothing. The apple of his throat bobs up and down and then he… does it. He bends over Draco’s knees, reluctant and clumsy, unsure what to do with his hands and knees.
“Put your weight on me,” Draco says, dizzy with relief. “Lie down. That’s right.”
Potter finds his balance, warm and surprisingly heavy once he relaxes. His heart ticks hard and fast against Draco’s left thigh. His cock presses firmly against the right.
Draco unscrews the ring over his knuckles. “Hold this for me?”
Potter takes it, rolls it around in his hand, then slides it on his little finger. It fits snugly.
It’s time. Draco’s breaths grow fast and shallow. He lays his hand on Potter’s arse, rubs a gentle circle over the smooth, hairless skin. He trails his fingertips into the cleft, grazes the silky black curls on the way down, past where Potter’s hole draws itself in, wary of intrusion. But Draco only wants to tease, to tickle. To feel the twitch in Potter’s cock when he touches his taint, rubs the soft skin of Potter’s sack between his fingers, to see the goosebumps rise on his lower back. A little indulgence.
He licks his lips, swallows, and lifts his hand. Potter’s muscles tense in anticipation.
SLAP.
Potter gasps like a man coming out of a dive and Draco barely holds back his own hiss of surprise and pain. He felt the blow all the way up to his shoulder—the thud—and his palm smarts as if burned. It shouldn’t have startled him—it makes all the sense—but now he questions everything. Can he do this?
He takes air and strikes again, not harder but firmer in the arm, so he isn’t jostled. Potter’s fingers dig into his leg. This time, Draco doesn’t lift his hand, marvelling at the spread of feverish heat between it and Potter’s skin, till the smarting in his palm subsides. Then—
“Wait, wait,” says Potter in a shaky voice. He takes off his glasses and dangles them in the air for Draco to put away, then braces himself against Draco’s thigh again. “Alright.”
Draco inhales. SLAP. The wave ripples through Potter’s arse, making Draco’s cock strain painfully under his belt. Should’ve adjusted himself when he sat down. Too late for it now.
SLAP. Potter groans and clenches, his neck arching up. With his left hand, Draco touches Potter’s nape, and Potter lets out a deep, needy hum, relaxing.
SLAP. SLAP. SLAP.
“Fuck,” cries Potter. His trainers scrape the carpet, seeking purchase.
“Alright, Potter?”
Through his teeth: “Spectacular.”
Waiting for him to relax, Draco indulges in a brief fantasy of striking with all his might. Giving Potter everything he has. The familiar dread mixes with his arousal into something bittersweet and faintly nauseating. Would it be too much for Potter? Was anything too much for him?
He lifts his hand and Potter keens, just at the edge of hearing, before the blow falls.
“Fuckity fucking fuck,” he babbles, and Draco can’t hold back a smile. New sensations register in the pause. A patch of warm moisture where Potter’s cock rubs against his thigh. A more substantial wetness where Potter’s mouth cling to the other one in the futile motions of kissing or suckling.
SLAP. And this time, Potter’s moan sounds more like a sob. Clenching, he humps Draco’s leg and for a hot moment, Draco thinks he might come himself. He holds his breath, fanning the fingers of his left hand in Potter’s hair, sweaty at the scalp.
“Potter?”
Nothing.
“Potter.”
“Hm?” As if woken up in the middle of the night. “I’m here.”
Draco lets his fingers caress Potter’s ear, the side of his face. He softens his voice. “More?”
After a laboured breath, Potter nods. “A few. A few more.”
Draco’s relieved. He’s lost feeling in his right hand and doesn’t dare look at it. Potter’s backside is a purpling red, with a few distinctly hand-shaped blotches of a lighter shade, fingers and all.
SLAP. Another sob.
SLAP. “Draco…”
Something twists in Draco’s chest. “Can you come for me, baby?”
A bewildered nod.
SLAP!
Potter cries and seizes. His hips pump, a few frantic thrusts, and Draco feels the throb of his cock as it spurts.
He could come too, at the slightest provocation. He’s so close. A small shift forward and he could rub against Potter’s side. Or he could just put a hand to it, like in the forest—and feel wretched afterwards.
Swallowing the urge, he strokes Potter’s hair, Potter’s neck, Potter’s back. His right hand slides down Potter’s sweaty thighs, palm thick and pulsing.
Potter sucks in a few shuddery breaths, then he mumbles something into Draco’s thigh.
“Hm?”
When Potter lifts his head, Draco can feel his neck muscles trembling. His voice is broken. “Let me suck you off.”
It hits Draco like a gust of sizzling summer air. He wants it. Morgana, does he want it. His heart skips a beat, leaving him breathless. “No.”
“Please,” Potter moans.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because. You’re not yourself.”
“Like you would know!”
“Potter…”
“Shut up! Just shut up!” And then he buries his face into Draco’s leg again as his shoulders shake with sobs.
Suddenly exhausted, Draco lets himself sag, strands of hair dark with sweat dangling over his eyes. A hollow numbness, his old friend, has taken residence in the pit of his stomach, inviting all sorts of morbid thoughts. He envies Potter—what else is new—and not only for the release in his aching groin. He envies Potter for feeling. For being able to weep.
Draco hasn’t wept a single time since the Battle. At first, he was too busy surviving to mourn. Then too frightened, during his brief imprisonment in the Ministry. Then too… distant, over the summer. Like watching himself from the corner of the ceiling as he went through the motions of life.
Once, he had this dream, not long after he’d been released. In it, Vince had merely been away, and now he was back, standing at the door of the Manor with a big goofy grin. Draco fell in his arms, clinging around his beefy neck like a lost child, drowning in the astonishing warmth of his friend’s embrace. He was so happy. So, so happy to see Vince again. He had never been so happy to see Vince in life. He had never hugged Vince, in life. Never gave him thanks. Never apologized.
When he woke up, tears were trickling into his ears from the corners of his eyes and he sobbed a little, like a string of pearls, dewdrops strung on a spiderweb. He wanted, desperately, to hold on to that emotion, though it hurt, it hurt. But by morning, he couldn’t recall it anymore.
Once it’s silent enough to hear the tentative patter of rain on the invisible barriers stretched over the grates, Draco moves to scoop Potter up, but Potter shakes his head. “You do not want to see the mess I made of your trousers.”
“Nothing a cleaning charm can’t fix, I’m sure. Come up.”
Potter shakes his head.
With a sigh, Draco shifts and pulls a silken kerchief from his pocket. “Here.”
“Thanks.” The noises that issue from Potter’s nose make Draco cringe and smile at once. “Better vanish this.”
“Whatever. I have two dozen just like it in my trunk.”
The kerchief hits the carpet with a heavy, wet plop. Still, Potter doesn’t move.
“I don’t think I can sit.”
Draco reaches for his wand, but his right hand is fat and clumsy, and he can’t manage any sort of grip.
“Don’t bother,” says Potter. “I’ll be fine. Just give me a moment.”
“Roll on your right. Your other right. Come closer. Knees over my leg. There. I’ve got you.”
Draco shuffles deeper into the chaise, pulling a very limp Potter along, his wrecked arse suspended between Draco’s knees, his head in the crook of Draco’s shoulder. He doesn’t look up, and Draco doesn’t look down, except to brush aside the damp curls that got stuck to Potter’s forehead. The scar is there, a soft, raised mound under Draco’s fingertips. How long has he dreamed of touching it?
Potter snorts, startling him away. “I asked for it, didn’t I.”
“Hm?”
“Your hands.”
“Ah. Yes.”
“And the thud.” He chuckles.
“Was it too much?”
Potter doesn’t answer as promptly as Draco would’ve liked. “Almost.”
“Would you have told me if it had been?”
Another overlong silence. “I don’t know.”
“You have to tell me.”
“Okay.”
“I’m serious, Potter.”
“I said okay.”
Draco sighs. The patter of rain turns into battering, but only for a minute, then ebbs away.
“D’you reckon now’s later?” says Potter.
“Hm?”
“Do keep up, Malfoy. You promised me kisses.”
Draco looks at Potter’s upturned face. It seems rounder, somehow, without the glasses: the scruffy kid who charmed Draco at Madam Malkin’s when they were eleven still discernible in the softness of his cheekbones. There’s a bit of snot under his nose and a bit dried froth around the corners of his mouth. His eyes are larger than ever, rimmed red, with long eyelashes sticking to one another in wet clumps. Draco has never seen anything closer to perfection.
“You want them now?”
“I want them all the time.”
Warmth pours into the hollowness within, slow and sweet, like honey. Kissing Potter, Draco thinks: please, let this be real. Please, please. Let it be real.
It’s evening by the time he gets to the Dungeons. Blaise stands next to the serpent door, leaning on the wall with his arms crossed over his chest.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he says. Draco lifts his eyebrows, and Blaise lets his fall flat, the better to roll his eyes under them. “We were supposed to meet in the Library? Like three hours ago?”
“Oh.” Draco has forgotten about it. Completely and utterly, like he’d been Obliviated. “Shit.”
Blaise stares at him. “That’s all you’ve got to say?”
“I’m sorry,” Draco recites. He isn’t sorry. He’d stand up Blaise again in a heartbeat to meet with Potter.
“So where have you been?” Blaise asks again.
Draco doesn’t have an excuse ready, because he had forgotten he needed one. “Hagrid had me raking fallen leaves from the pumpkin patch,” he says randomly.
“Hagrid gave you detention?” Blaise is looking more and more incredulous by the moment. “Why?”
“No, I—I offered.” Draco clears his throat, affecting embarrassment. “To… you know. Make amends.”
At last, Blaise lets his arms slide down and sticks his hands in his pockets instead. “Pansy says you’re seeing someone.”
Of course. Of course she’d tell Blaise. Draco sighs, looking down, then up again. “Maybe?”
“Is that what you’ve really been up to?”
The cursed blush breaks out. “Maybe.”
“You could’ve just said so.”
“I’m sorry.” Now he means it. “It just slipped my mind.”
“That bad, eh?” Blaise grins, and Draco can’t keep from grinning in return. “Still don’t wanna tell?”
“I’ll tell when—”
“When there’s something to tell. Yeah, yeah. Come on, you muppet. Your Transfiguration essay awaits.”
Draco groans, closes his eyes, and lets his forehead hit the door as the last vestiges of life depart from his body. Obviously, he has forgotten all about the essay too. It was why they were to meet in the Library in the first place.
Blaise laughs, speaks the password, and laughs some more when Draco falls through.
The next morning, Potter chafes rudely against Draco’s shoulder as they queue to hand in their Transfiguration essays.
“Watch your step,” Draco barks, but then he feels Potter’s hand groping for his own under the sleeves of their robes. Bewildered, he opens his palm, and Potter presses something warm and hard into it.
Mother’s signet ring. Yet another thing Draco has completely forgotten about. What’s happening to him?
He puts the ring on, wondering if Blaise and Pansy have noticed its absence, and if they’ll notice its reappearance. If anyone would’ve noticed if Potter came to classes wearing it. A thrill passes through him at the thought.
His essay handed in—the shoddiest piece of homework he’s done since third year—Draco finds his seat next to Blaise. Across the way, Potter stands by the desk, taking inordinate amounts of time to search his bag for the parchment, the quill, the textbook. Everyone else has settled. McGonagall clears her throat from the head of the classroom. “Whenever you’re ready, Mr. Potter.”
Potter looks at her sheepishly, gulps, and then, with the expression of utmost concentration, lowers himself—very, very slowly—to the bench.
Draco stares, mesmerized. So, the fool—the beautiful, inimitable fool—has not healed himself. He said he would. He did! Or Draco would not have let him go. Yet here he is, lips pressed in a thin line and hands curled into white-knuckled fists, suffering… for Draco. There can be doubt about it, not when Potter glances up and their eyes connect like matched wands. An almost painful pang forks through Draco and his lips quiver, his jaw hanging slack. While Potter’s eyes burn. With hunger.
Blaise shoves him in the ribs and Draco jumps. For a moment there, the classroom and everyone in it ceased to exist, but now it all rushes back. The shuffle of pages, the murmurs of students, McGonagall’s quizzical expression, aimed right at him.
“I asked you a question, Mr. Malfoy.”
The blush, the treacherous blush, paints his face for everyone to see while he withers under McGonagall’s unblinking scrutiny. There’s no getting around it. “I’m sorry, Professor. I didn’t hear it.”
Hushed giggles and snickers rise and fall in a wave.
McGonagall stares him down for what feels like entire minutes before she turns to the rest of the class with a sigh. “Anyone else?”
Granger’s hand shoots up. Next to her, Potter sits watching him: Draco can feel his gaze like the beam of a searchlight, but he can’t risk looking back.
“What was that all about?” Blaise whispers, voice laced with amusement.
“Shut up,” Draco hisses.
“You’re dripping ink.”
Draco looks at his parchment. The ink blot, a purplish red as far removed from the cobalt black in his inkwell as his thoughts are from the lesson, spreads to form a blurry handprint, fingers and all.
Closing his eyes, he prays for someone to AK him, but no luck.
An origami butterfly plops in his soup at lunch. He fishes is out, heart in his throat. On the other side of the table, Blaise and Pansy lay down their utensils, staring at him with unveiled anticipation.
A single word is scribbled within. Sectumsempra.
Draco blinks. Is this Potter’s idea of subtlety?
“And?” says Pansy.
“From the mystery lover?” says Blaise.
“No,” says Draco, crumpling the note and shoving it into his pocket. “Just Potter, thinking he’s funny.”
They wilt in unison. He’d congratulate himself for thinking on his feet—he didn’t even blush, this time, and he can look at Potter to signal his assent without arousing suspicion—if not for the rotten taste the not-quite-lie leaves in his mouth.
He finds Potter leaning on the wall by the door of the haunted bathroom, but to Draco’s relief, that’s not their destination. Potter takes his hand and pulls him behind a tapestry. At once, Draco falls upon him like a beast in heat, all groping hands and biting kisses, but Potter pushes him off, laughing. “Hold your thestrals, Malfoy.”
He taps the wall with his wand, and it splits along a ragged seam to reveal a hidden passage. It leads to bare, but bright little alcove lit by a dusty window that’s looking out at the lake. A stone bench rests under it, atop a low dais.
“Sit,” Potter says. Draco sits. “Merlin, I’ve been waiting for this the whole day.” Potter straddles Draco’s lap, half-kneeling on the bench with his arse between Draco’s knees, and heaves a long sigh, resting his head on Draco’s shoulder. “What a relief.” He laughs.
“Let me heal you.”
“No. I love it.”
“You’re crazy.”
Potter sits back, linking his hands behind Draco’s neck, and looks about to say something, but then he blushes and changes his mind.
The way his eyes sparkle in filtered sunlight reminds Draco of something he hasn’t thought of in ten years or more. When he was a child, his family used to spend a few weeks in Tenerife every summer. A long beach stretched in view of the hacienda, and Draco loved to play there, searching warm shallows for treasures. The most valuable, in his expert opinion, were the smooth, transparent, green gems that stood out from afar under water and glittered hypnotically when he turned them to the sun. Once, he found a specimen almost as large as his hand. He ran with it to Father, convinced it was worth a fortune. But instead of getting praised, he got cuffed around the head.
“Shame on you,” Father hissed. “Bringing in Muggle trash.” He took Draco’s beautiful, giant gem, tossed it in the air, and shot it with a bolt from his wand, turning it to bright dust. Devastated, Draco ran to the hacienda to hide and cry. It was only years later that he understood his green gems were just pieces of broken glass bottles, worn round and smooth by the waves.
He strokes a wayward curl behind Potter’s ear, trailing the temple tips of his glasses.
“Can I kiss you?”
“You don’t have to ask, Potter.”
“No?”
“No.”
Potter grins. “You’ll regret saying that, Malfoy.”
But Draco’s all out of laughs, dizzy from staring into Potter’s smiling eyes. “Make me.”
They kiss with their eyes open and their mouths closed; dry, warm lips brushing and nipping in breathless caresses. A flurry of butterflies takes flight in Draco’s stomach, up and down and up again till they drive a moan out of him, and he rests his forehead against Potter’s, all aflutter.
“Actually, I… wanted to talk,” says Potter.
Draco waits.
“I was thinking… well, it’s something Hermione said to Ron last night while I was writing the essay and it made me think of you. I mean, pretty much everything makes me think of you, but… this made me realize I’ve been incredibly—like, literally unbelievably—selfish. With you.”
Draco looks up. Faint anxiety has clouded Potter’s features. “What did Gra—What did Hermione say?”
Potter sits back again, all serious now, and puffs out a breath, like a man about to take a leap. “I don’t know what it was about, I wasn’t listening the whole time. But the part that struck me was… something, something, people only start to heal when they feel heard.” His voice tapers out to a whisper.
Draco tries to think about it, but Potter’s nerves have infected him and his mind spins around, picking random words up and putting them down, useless. “You think I need healing?” he says at last.
“We all do.” Potter licks his lips, then laughs a little. “You’re gonna roll your eyes, but it’s really not like me at all, you know. Being selfish.”
“You earned it,” Draco whispers, barely moving his lips, and it comes out so quiet he’s not sure Potter would even hear it.
“Maybe. But all the same. I want to…” He laughs some more. “There I go again. It’s astonishing.” He clears his throat. “I’d like to… give something in return.”
Draco lifts his eyebrows, cautious. “All… right?”
“So.” Potter stabs him with his eyes. “If you were to be selfish for a change. What would you ask for?”
“For a change?” Draco coughs. “Potter, I’ve been nothing but selfish, all my life. You of all people should know that.”
But Potter’s shaking his head. “Years ago, sure. But not anymore. Not for a long time.”
Suddenly, Draco wishes Potter weren’t sitting in his lap. His hands, clasped at the small of Potter’s back, have become slick with sweat and he’s afraid they’ll come apart, and Potter will fall back, and hit his head on the stone floor, and there will be a pool of blood, and instead of being helpful, Draco will faint, and Potter will die, and then Draco will hurl himself off the top of the Astronomy Tower.
“You’re asking for a lot, Potter.”
“I’m asking you to ask for something, and that’s a lot?”
“Yes.”
“So—what? You get to know all my darkest cravings, and I don’t get to know any of yours?”
“My cravings would bore you.”
“Oh, c’mon. Just one. Give me just one.” Potter freezes, then laughs incredulously. “And again. Me, me, me.”
“It’s worked for us this far.”
“But I want more.” There’s a pause, then he shakes his head, wide-eyed with wonder. “I’m turning into a monster.”
When Draco says nothing, Potter ducks, trying to catch his eyes. “Please?”
Now properly annoyed, Draco lets him. “Anything?”
“Anything.”
“Get Greg out of Azkaban.”
He regrets it as soon as it’s out of his mouth. All cheer drains out of Potter’s countenance and the playful glint in his eyes flickers out, replaced by the painfully familiar caution. Because it’s not fair. Potter has never asked for anything more than Draco could do with his own hands and lips, and he obviously had something similar in mind when he made his offer. Not this. But Draco can’t bring himself to take back what he said. Not if there’s even the slightest chance.
Only, there isn’t. He can tell at once from the way Potter sags. “I can’t,” he says. “I tried. I spoke for him at his trial, same as yours. There was nothing else I could do.”
Draco nods slowly, torn between guilt and overwhelming disappointment. It has never even occurred to him, until just now, to ask this of Potter, and he never would have, if he’d been thinking straight. But then hope flared in him like… like Fiendfire: uncontrollable, unstoppable; and just like Fiendfire, it left nothing but scorched earth behind. He closes his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Potter says softly.
“No, I am. I don’t know what got into me. It was perfectly clear this wasn’t the sort of… service… you had in mind. Let’s just… forget about it.”
Potter’s fingers stray into Draco’s hair, sending shivers down his spine. “Something else, then.”
Draco looks up to find Potter’s brow furrowed, troubled, and he realizes two things. One, that it’s been weeks since he’d seen Potter brood; and two, that he never wants to see Potter brood again.
“Alright,” he says. His heart starts to thud. “I want to tell the Slytherins.”
“Tell them what?”
“Well. That we’re… that you’re… that I’m seeing. You. I guess.” He cringes and shakes his head. I guess? I guess? What’s next? Wearing jeans and hoodies and riding on a… what was it called. A skatebar? A skateboard? Merlin.
When he looks at Potter, he’s alarmed to see that the brooding has not ceased. “Why?”
“Because,” Draco says, and seriously considers leaving it at that. Something in him resents the need to explain. Can’t Potter just read his mind? It’s what he expects from Draco, after all. He sighs. “I hate lying to them.”
And because telling them would make this real, but of course, Draco couldn’t possibly say that. I’ll tell when there’s something to tell.
“Yeah,” Potter mutters. “I wouldn’t mind,” he goes on after a pause. “It would’ve been fine with me if whoever saw us that day let the whole school know, to be honest. But I had time to think about it since, and it’s… more complicated than that. If it gets out—it’ll end up on the front page of The Prophet, and they can be right bastards. Probably wouldn’t say anything too mean about me, but… Are you sure you’re ready for all that? I mean… does your family even know you’re…?”
“Gay? Yes. I took great pleasure in informing them I would not be producing an heir and continuing the Malfoy line. It was the highlight of my summer. I don’t care what they think, Potter. I don’t care what anyone thinks, as long as they leave me alone.”
But even as he speaks, he sees the cracks in his argument. For one, being on the front page of The Prophet is very much the antithesis of being left alone, of keeping quiet and making the smallest possible target for public outrage. And being gay, although a hugely satisfying affront to his pureblood status, isn’t quite the same as being gay for Harry bloody Potter. Father would likely disinherit him—he came close enough when Draco made his announcement—and then he would be penniless on top of becoming an outcast from the only circles where he isn’t openly despised.
Yet somehow these things don’t concern him half as much as they should. Cutting off the last strings that tie him to his old life, though frightening, seems exciting, even attractive; it’s not the first time he’s considered it. What concerns him a great deal more is the distinct lack of enthusiasm in Potter’s pinched face for the prospect of making their liaison known to the world. And it’s no wonder. Who in their right mind would want to be seen associating with a Death Eater?
“Have you told your friends?” Draco asks.
Potter shakes his head.
“I suppose that wasn’t the sort of thing you had in mind, either.”
“Ask for something else,” Potter whispers, defeated. “Just one more thing, and I’ll be out of your hair, I promise.”
He needn’t add, something I can actually do.
“I quite like you in my hair.”
That, at least, gets him a half-smile.
Draco sighs. He really would do anything for Potter, wouldn’t he? “There’s this little restaurant in Hogsmeade. Very private, off the beaten track. They have exquisite mead.” He stares at Potter’s tie, always slightly askew. “The owner… she owes my family for a service rendered long ago. No one would bother us there. Or, we could disguise ourselves. I know a charm for it. It’s not a complete transformation, like with Polyjuice, but it lasts longer. And they…” Draco clears his throat. “They also have rooms. If that’s something you’d like, of course.” At last, his nerves get the better of him, and he slowly releases the sweaty grip on Potter’s back to straighten his tie.
The silence stretches and Draco starts to think he’d have been better off telling Potter he wants nothing more than to tie him to the bed and whip him till he cries. That’s what Potter hoped to hear, after all. And it wouldn’t be a lie. But it wouldn’t be the full truth either. Draco wants… he wants it all.
When Potter speaks, he sounds out of breath. “You want to… go out on a date?”
It’s such a relief to see the dreamy grin on his face that Draco barely keeps from sliding off the bench. “Next Friday, after class.”
Potter doesn’t ask this time. He just leans in and kisses Draco till his mind’s wiped clean.
On Monday morning, Draco finds a grumpy-looking barn owl perched at the foot of his bed. It snaps at his fingers thrice before he manages to take the letter. “No treats for you, arsehole,” he mutters. The owl gives him a scathing look and leaves a dropping on his trunk.
The letter is sealed with a familiar signet. Blood drains from Draco’s limbs. It’s from Azkaban.
“Dear Mr. Draco L. Malfoy,” it says, the first word printed and the rest filled in with a practiced hand. “Your petition to visit Mr. Gregory S. Goyle has hereby been approved. You may Apparate to the enclosed coordinates or use the Floo Network with the enclosed passcode on the selected date at noon. The available dates are…”
Draco reads it again, and again, his mind racing. He had petitioned to visit Greg half a dozen times since the trials, but every one of his petitions was summarily denied. Could he have forgotten one that never received a reply? Bloody unlikely. They owled within a day, like clockwork, and he had stopped trying after he came to Hogwarts.
And besides, it would be too much of a coincidence.
Draco’s hair rises. This has Potter written all over it.
And one of the dates on offer is—today.
He dresses in record time, heart pounding like he’s in the middle of a Screaming Sevens match, walks out of the dorm at a brisk pace, then jogs his way out of the Dungeons, and finally sprints to McGonagall’s office.
Azkaban is everything he thought it would be. Austere, cold, dark and damp. But he hears no wails of the tormented and the insane echoing through the naked stone corridors, and the people who greet him, take his wand, and guide him to the visits area seem grim and tired, but not particularly embittered or cruel.
It’s a cavernous room with slim, south-facing windows and a dozen tables, only a few taken. A lonesome, Greg-shaped figure rises as Draco is ushered inside. Draco approaches as if in a dream. Greg has managed to grow even taller over the summer, and he’s only a little slimmer. He stares at Draco, slackjawed, till they’re within arm’s reach, and then his earnest, round face crumples like a wet tissue.
Draco falls into his arms and whatever has been holding back his tears shatters on impact. Huge, lung-ripping sobs burst out of his chest. And Greg weeps too, crushing Draco’s ribs and drooling in his hair, but Draco couldn’t care less. They cry for their dead friend, and the lives they lived and lost, and the innocence of youth they can never regain.
“I missed you,” Draco says when they push apart at last, holding one another at arm’s length. “I miss Vince.” And a fresh stream of tears leaks out of his eyes.
Greg nods. “I missed you too.” He wipes his nose with his sleeve. “How did you manage to get through? They won’t even let Mum visit. Did your dad—”
Draco shakes his head. “He’s in France. We don’t speak.” The travesty of it, that Greg should rot in here while both Father and Draco should walk free, hangs like a noose around his neck.
“Huh,” Greg says, then nods. “Good for you.”
They sit.
Draco asks about life in Azkaban, although he’s far from sure he wants to know. And Greg tells him, in short, terse sentences, looking anywhere but in Draco’s eyes and leaving out the worst of it, no doubt. “At least there are no dementors,” he concludes. “I should count myself lucky.”
And then he asks about Hogwarts and Draco tells him. How only a handful of Slytherins came back to finish their education, how they all tiptoe around the other students and faculty, how there’s been surprisingly little trouble. He leaves out the sporadic bullying he’s been taking quietly, almost gratefully, as penance. Blaise and Pansy aren’t Vince and Greg. They can’t protect him, and he doesn’t want them to.
Greg leans forward in his seat, palms turned up, and Draco puts his hands in them without a second thought. “What else,” Greg says. “Spit it out, Draco. Who knows when we’ll meet again.”
Draco swallows the urge to pretend there’s nothing left to say. He’s forgotten what’s it like to be around someone who knows him so well. His heart hammers as he stares down at Greg’s rough fingers, nails bitten to the stem. “I uh. Think. I’m in love. With… Harry Potter.”
There. He said it. He waits for the thunder of the earth cracking apart to swallow him, but all he gets is Greg’s laughter. And it’s so good, so incredibly good, to hear him laugh again. Draco smiles despite his nerves. “What?”
“You think. You think?” Greg shakes his head. “You’ve been in love with him since we were eleven.”
“What an utter load of hogwash,” Draco mutters, dizzy with affection. “How dare you. My father will hear about this.”
Greg laughs some more.
Pansy and Blaise are waiting for him when he comes out of McGonagall’s office, dazed and drained and a breath away from breaking into sobs again.
“Good god, Draco.” Pansy says. “You look horrible.”
Blaise elbows her in the arm.
“What? It’s true.” But her face is the softest it’s ever been. “Oh, come here.”
Draco walks up to them and lets them wrap their arms around his shoulders. For a while they just stand like that, heads bowed together, swaying gently to and fro. Then he takes a deep breath.
“I—I think—” he snorts. You think? “I’ve got something to tell you.”
He and Potter pair up for Potions, without so much as a nod, like they’ve been doing it for years.
“I told the Gryffindors,” Potter says as they sort through the ingredients.
Draco freezes. He didn’t expect that. A glance across the classroom at Granger and Weasley shows nothing out of the ordinary. Huh. It would seem he was wrong about Weasley. Which shouldn’t be surprising, given everything else he’d been wrong about.
“They insisted I see Pomfrey,” Potter goes on conversationally, “to have me checked for love potions and curse damage.” He laughs. “But they promised they won’t bother you.”
“How—” Draco’s throat is too dry to speak. He clears it. “How gracious of them.”
A large pile of knotgrass needs cutting. Potter gestures with his wand, wordlessly, and it goes limp. “I hear you went to Azkaban.”
Draco starts to crack chilled ashwinder eggs, separating the white from the yolk. “Does the whole school know?”
“McGonagall told me. How’s your friend?”
“He sends his thanks.” Draco pours the yolk from one piece of the shell to the other half a dozen times more than necessary. “He’ll have a parole hearing after Christmas. His solicitor says there’s a good chance he’ll be out by spring.”
“Good. That’s good to hear.”
A tiny shard of the eggshell ends up inside the cauldron with the yolk and Draco tuts, hunting for it with a fingernail. “Too much modesty is just as bad as too little, Potter. I know you were behind it.”
Potter shifts his shoulders uncomfortably. “All I did was throw a tantrum till Kingsley agreed to intervene. Not just for Goyle, right. For everyone who was underage when…”
“Yes.”
For a while, Potter cuts the grass, and Draco whisks the egg whites in silence.
“You have my thanks too,” he whispers at last.
Potter leans into Draco’s arm, gently, just enough to let a bit of warmth seep between them through their sleeves, and Draco turns, brushing the wild curls at the top of Potter’s head with the tip of his nose. He smells clean and welcoming. Like safety. Like hope.
They stand apart as Slughorn ambles past their desk.
“You should know,” Draco volunteers, “that I shan’t make a habit of it.”
“What, saying thanks? Hardly news, Malfoy.”
“Asking such favours of you.”
Potter scrapes the knotgrass into the cauldron. “No, I’m glad you did.”
“You are?”
“Well, I won’t be able to use the Savior card forever. Better do what I can, while I can.”
“That’s… much more sensible than I’d expect from you.” Draco touches his wand to the kindling to light it. “All the same. I don’t want you to think that your… influence… has anything to do with why I’m… interested.”
He had been too bewildered during their talk in the alcove to see it, but it became glaringly obvious when he thought about it later. What better way for Draco to insinuate himself into the new, Muggle-tolerant elite than on the arm of the Chosen One? A move so devious might go as far as to impress Father into endorsing the relationship. Why, even Draco’s bid for “telling their friends” could be read as part of it, never mind that it was the closest he’s ever been to baring his soul to another person. And Potter had caught on to it at once. They both know the Malfoy Draco was born to be would seize the opportunity without a blink.
Potter looks at him, and holds his gaze a few long, pregnant seconds. “Okay.”
Draco nods to acknowledge the gravity of the moment. Potter’s taken a gamble. It’s on Draco now to prove he’s worth it.
The next stage of the brewing is tricky, and they pour over the instructions, foreheads bent together over the recipe.
“Turn the cap… clockwise,” Potter mutters, massaging the large purple mushroom. “Won’t budge.”
“The other clockwise, Potter.”
“Oh.” The cap comes off. “Right.”
“Slice or stir?”
“Slice.”
Draco begins to stir. “I told the Slytherins,” he says after a while.
“How did that go?”
“It was the most underwhelming experience of my life. They didn’t even have the decency to act surprised.” The mixture in the cauldron has begun to stick to the bottom. “Time to fill her up. A-a-a! Water first.”
“Oops.” Potter puts down the vial of bile-green, bubbling acid and casts a well-aimed Aguamenti. As a cloud of steam rises from the cauldron, he pushes his glasses up. “Took us long enough, didn’t it.”
It’s only by the utmost effort that Draco keeps stirring while panic washes over him and through him. He can just picture it: a spark of accidental magic connecting with the flammable mixture, an explosion, his brows and eyelashes singed and his robes on fire, while Potter screams as flesh-eating acid spills over his handsome, dark hands.
But then the wave passes, and he hears himself say, “And look at us now,” matching casual with aloof. “After all those years, three more days seem unbearable.”
Potter snorts. “I’m not waiting for Friday.”
“Oh?”
He scarcely waits for the class to end. Dragging Draco by the hand, in full view of the student body, he climbs the stairs three at a time, flies through the entrance hall with robes billowing behind him like black smoke, and down the corridor that would eventually lead them to the statuary. There’s a broom-closet there. Usually in high demand at all times of day, but Potter’s luck strikes again, and they find it unoccupied. He has barely cast the silencing charm when Draco slams him face-first against the door, presses him with all his weight, and grinds against his arse, hard.
“I saved this for you, Potter,” he whispers. “Haven’t touched it since that day in the ruins.”
Potter moans.
“Do you still want it?”
“Yes, yes—”
“Get on your knees.”
Draco pulls him, turns him around, takes his place leaning on the door and Potter, boneless, sinks at his feet. He gropes at Draco’s crotch, stroking him through the trousers, grabbing everything he can till at last he dives in it, nudging with his nose, inhaling. It’s almost too intimate to bear. Why doesn’t he just…?
Then it hits him. Potter won’t touch his belt.
Something sears through Draco at the thought. His hands tremble as he undoes it himself and feeds his aching cock into Potter’s mouth.
Fuck. Draco bites back the obscenities dancing at the tip of his tongue. Fuck, yes. So fucking good. Potter’s obviously never done it before. He’s a bit awkward, a bit clumsy, unsure how to angle his head, what to do with his teeth, his tongue, but Draco doesn’t mind. Every nerve in his body tingles. He stares into Potter’s eyes, dark with desire, and feels like flying—no, like falling—like diving straight down for the Snitch.
“Good,” he mutters. “That’s good. You’re doing well, Pot—” But the pained bliss that flashes over Potter’s features at the praise winds Draco like a punch. He has done this before, and had it done to him in turn. But it never felt like this. The blush that has become a regular tenant in his cheeks burns.
He recalls his hand, lodged in Potter’s hair, and makes an experimental fist. Potter moans, and Draco moans too, teetering on the edge. A little more, he thinks; hold on a little longer. But it’s getting harder. Potter has found a rhythm: his tongue flat on Draco’s underside, his lips firm on the shaft, the roof of his mouth soft on the head, and the suction—Draco can’t—he yanks on Potter’s hair, pulling out.
A thick frond of spittle hangs between his throbbing cock and Potter’s bruised lips. Potter makes no move to close his mouth, breathing loudly through it, looking drunkenly up like Draco’s hand in his hair is all that’s keeping him up.
“Potter,” Draco mouths.
“Draco.”
Harry. But Draco can’t say it. He relaxes his grip on Potter’s hair, makes it a caress, and Potter leans into it, catlike. His glasses go askew. He rips them off and drops them unceremoniously on the dusty floor, a disaster waiting to happen. His chin is slick when he kisses Draco’s palm, his lips soft when Draco thumbs them. His eyes roll up when Draco takes him by the hair again and pulls him back.
“So good,” Draco pants as Potter’s head bobs back and forth, obscene and relentless. And to think—they might fuck, actually fuck, come Friday. The image alone is enough to finish him. His thighs are shaking. He’s no longer sure if he’s keeping Potter upright or holding onto him for dear life. The blush—his whole body is aflame with it now, his eyes. His breath is too hot in his mouth. “You’re fucking perfect.”
Potter groans, a sound not far from a sob, and then, in a flurry of desperate motion, he wraps his arms around Draco’s hips, taking him in deeper.
“Potter? Potter. I’m—ah—ah—”
His words fizzle out as Potter closes that final inch of distance. His nose sinks into the sparse hair under Draco’s navel, his throat opens—then seizes, squeezing the head of Draco’s cock as he gags. Draco seizes too. He bites on his knuckles to stifle a cry, coming so hot it hurts.
Somehow, Potter keeps his wits about him. He rides it out, despite the choking, and swallows one load after another till at last he sways backward, takes a ragged breath, and starts coughing.
Draco’s legs are too weak to hold him. He braces himself against the door with shivering arms. Potter’s making funny noises, clutching at his collarbone, and it takes Draco a moment to understand he’s laughing.
“Alright, Potter?”
“It came…” Potter sniffs, gulps, laughs some more. “It came out my bloody nose.”
That can’t have been fun.
Then again, Potter has strange ideas of fun.
Draco leans his head back, still out of it. As he closes his eyes, tears wet his eyelashes. Not enough to trickle down his face, but he covers it with his forearm anyway. His breathing doesn’t slow down even after minutes, when the solid, grounding touch of Potter’s warm hand on his thigh calls him back.
He tucks himself into his pants and fastens his trousers and belt. “Come on,” he says, offering a hand.
Potter takes it. His legs are shaky too. Leaning in, he drapes his arms around Draco’s waist and rests his forehead, feverishly hot, on Draco’s shoulder.
Though tired, Draco dutifully feels between Potter’s legs. But Potter shakes his head.
“Nah. I’m good.”
And indeed, there’s no trace of the hardon that tented under his flies the last time Draco had the presence of mind to look.
“All done,” Potter explains, a bashful smile around the edges of it.
“When?”
Silence. Hot breath on Draco’s neck. “When you pulled my hair.”
Draco remembers. He digs his fingers into the hair at the back of Potter’s head, savouring the shivers caused by his touch. A flustering array of endearments rifles through his head, each less possible than the last, but he’ll burst if he doesn’t say something.
“Potter.”
Potter laughs. “Harry, you insufferable prat.”
It’s a challenge. And they would bury him the day he steps down from a challenge issued by Potter. After all he’s been through, Draco tells himself, surely, surely, he can muster the courage for one silly little word?
He closes his eyes and lays his lips on Harry’s ear.