Content warning
This story includes explicit depictions of sex between two male characters. It is intended for adult audiences only.
Written for H/D Erised 2024, as a gift for shiftylinguini
Draco hesitates in front of Potter’s door. Everyone else has gone out for breakfast, and it’s really none of his business if Potter has decided to sleep in and skip it. Potter has more than a few legitimate friends far better suited to worry about that sort of thing than Draco. But none of them have noticed Potter’s absence from the common room this morning. Draco has. How could he not? It’s like being out of air.
He chews on his lip, hands folded into fists at his sides. He and Potter aren’t friends. Someone on the outside might think so, but Draco knows better. So what if Potter turned up in Draco’s room with sandwiches that time Draco had missed both lunch and dinner, cramming for the Arithmancy test? So what if Potter stayed behind while everyone else was out for a day in Hogsmeade, to keep Draco company through the embarrassing aftereffects of a Full-Body Bind some wannabe sixth-year vigilante had sniped him with, and not even Madam Pomfrey had been able to spell away? It didn’t mean anything. Like Potter’s testimony in Draco’s defense, and the offer to return his wand. These were all just… Potter things. Not Draco things. Potter would’ve done it for anyone.
But then, there was last Friday night, when they got drunk with the rest of the eighth-years down by the lake and Potter hung around Draco’s neck, hiccupping, laughing, possibly crying, and slurring things like, “If you weren’t such a little shit on that train, I’d be a Slytherin too, d’you know that?” and “You can’t get away from me, Malfoy, I’d pursue you to the end of the world,” and “Wow, you’re glowing,” at which point Draco panicked, thinking Potter might kiss him, but instead he went green in the face and Draco held his forehead while he vomited into the bushes.
Draco has tried not to think too much of it. He has, truly. Here and there, an entire hour passes without him dwelling on the question of what exactly he and Potter are now. Though those are mostly the hours spent quietly in Potter’s oddly restful company: studying, flying over the Forbidden Forest, smoking in the courtyard and gazing at the night sky.
The memories make him smile. Emboldened, he draws a deep breath, knocks decisively, and enters. “Hey, Potter, are you—”
—coming down for breakfast evaporates from his mouth.
Propped against the headboard of his four-poster, Potter is half-lying, half-sitting, naked waist-down.
Wanking.
“Oh,” Draco exhales, unable to avert his eyes. “Dreadfully sorry.”
Which is when Potter is supposed to hurriedly pull the blanket over his lap, or mutter some excuse, or yell at Draco to get the hell out, or hex him, or something. He most certainly isn’t supposed to go on stroking himself, barely breaking pace. There isn’t even a gasp of surprise, just the soundless parting of his lips as he rolls his head to calmly gaze at the intruder. Almost as if he expected—almost as if he wanted—
They look at one another in sepulchral silence for fully fifteen minutes, Draco could swear, before Potter swallows, finds the decency to blush, and finally speaks.
“Coming in or going out?”
Draco’s heart thrums in his ears. Is Potter—no, Draco couldn’t possibly—what is he—
“Malfoy. Come in and close the fucking door.”
“Yes, yes, I’ll—” He not only closes the door, but after a second’s deliberation, locks it too. Which is already one of the top ten bravest things he’s done in his whole life. Turning around to face the shock of Potter’s nudity once more slots easily into the top three.
Potter stares at him brazenly. And although Draco’s knees have turned to jelly, he lifts his chin and stares right back. It comes as no surprise whatsoever that Potter is very well hung. Nine inches, straight, uncut. Springing from a full bush of black, curly hair, it tapers at the top, head a dusky purple when it pops into view on the down stroke. It must be oiled, to glide and glisten so wetly. Draco swallows.
“Sit,” Potter says, tapping the side of his bed with a socked foot. The sock makes no sense. He’s wearing a crumpled, white t-shirt. Did he start to dress for breakfast, then abruptly change his mind, strip his pants, and hurry back to bed for a tug?
The foot taps again when Draco makes no move. He glances at the only chair in the room: buried under Potter’s school bag and a pile of clothes. Sure, he could clear the mess with a flick of his wand, but is that really in his best interest? What is his best interest? To follow the heat that’s pooling in his groin? Is that what Potter wants? Is that why he… invited Draco? To… what? Watch?
Potter’s hand finally pauses, descending to pull lazily on his hairy sack. “You’re gonna make this weird, aren’t you,” he says.
The gall! How can Draco make it weird? When it’s Potter who’s shamelessly—
But now’s not the time. Draco shakes his head, mutters, “No,” and walks toward the bed with the careful steps of one approaching a slumbering basilisk.
“Good,” Potter breathes and resumes his stroking.
Now that he’s close enough, Draco can hear the obscene, slick smacking. His pulse throbs between his legs. He only realises just how hard he is when he sits on the edge of Potter’s bed and the head of his cock presses painfully into his belt. Keeping his eyes on Potter—if he looks away, he may never find the courage to look again—he tries to make himself more comfortable by sliding his right knee onto the bed, ankle hanging from the side, and leaning his back on the post.
Potter’s gaze slips from Draco’s eyes to his lips and throat, down the column of buttons on Draco’s white shirt, to his crotch, and Draco feels it like fingertips blazing over his skin. With his legs spread wide to ease his discomfort, his erection strains vulgarly against his dark gray trousers. Potter licks his lips and speeds up.
“Aren’t you gonna join in?” he says.
“Join in?”
Potter snorts. “Don’t tell me you’ve never done this.”
“Of course I’ve done it.” Draco blushes all the way to his ears, then some more as uncertainty creeps up on him. “W-Well, it depends. What do you mean?”
“Wanking with your mates.” Potter’s blushing too. Not in angry, pink blotches, like Draco does, but with an attractive, even glazing of bright red over his caramel cheeks and temples. He has slowed down, tugging at his cock languidly, almost thoughtfully. It’s exceedingly distracting.
“I—well—no. Obviously I have done it on my own. Plenty!” Draco cringes. On some level, he understands the risks of divulging anything remotely personal while most of his focus is invested exclusively in not blinking. But apparently, he can neither look away, nor stop talking. “And—well—I’m aware that it is done. It has been done in my dorm more than a few times, but—without me.”
Potter seems to find this amusing. “So, what, you sat out the Slytherin circlejerks hiding behind your curtains and listening?”
Draco glares at him, while fighting the urge to cross his arms over his chest. Why’s he being defensive? Who cares whether he joined “the Slytherin circlejerks” or not? It’s not a competition, and if it were, it would be a bloody stupid one. “I didn’t listen, and I didn’t look. I—I did hide. Behind a Dissociatus Charm.”
Potter stops altogether, merriment fading from his face. He’s going to tell Draco to bugger off, now. Because Draco’s no fun and can’t keep his big mouth shut.
“Why?” is what Potter says instead.
A gentle curiosity has taken the place of the mercurial glint in his eyes, otherwise Draco could never answer earnestly. “Because,” he says, then pauses to cross his arms over his chest after all. “Because I couldn’t show weakness.”
There was so much more to it. To join would’ve been to “stoop to their level”. To be one of them, when he was supposed to be above them. To be seen losing control would’ve been losing control: of the situation, of the room, of the Slytherins under his “command”. Losing control over his own faculties, losing himself even for that single instant of oblivion, no matter how delightful or intense, has never been an appetising notion; but during the war it became frightening enough to completely put him off masturbation.
He has been making a conscious effort to… relax, in that sense, since his return to Hogwarts. To be more… normal about it. And, well, daily doses of Potter’s proximity have definitely helped. Draco wanked thrice the day before yesterday, after catching a glimpse of Potter’s tanned, toned stomach when his shirt rode up during his armchair antics in the common room. And twice yesterday, after they sat for two hours in the library with their arms and thighs pressed together and not a soul near them to provide the excuse for such efficient use of space.
Obviously, he can’t say any of that. He already regrets the little he did say. Which is why it’s both a surprise and a massive relief to see something sombre, almost solemn—dare he hope it’s understanding?—settle in Potter’s features.
Potter swallows. “Show it to me?”
What—his cock? Or—wait—what was the last thing Draco said? A pit opens in his stomach at the implication. Potter’s eyes are on him, intense and vulnerable and they’re killing Draco with their sincerity. He lets his arms fall open. His hands land on his lap. And before he can think himself out of it, he presses the heel of his palm into the rigid curve of his cock.
Ah, gods, he’s sensitive. Aching. And trembling. His heart hammers so hard he can see it shake his chest as he slowly unbuckles his belt and undoes his flies. A madman’s mantra loops inside his skull like a broken record: is this real? Is this happening? Is this really happening? He chances a glance up at Potter, sees him bite into his plump lower lip while he stares at the outline of Draco’s cock, and Draco’s cock eagerly twitches in response.
If only the rest of Draco shared the confidence. Tremors of anxiety run through his abs as he palms himself through his silk underwear. There’s a bubbling wet stain on it. He thumbs it and hears Potter huff a hard breath through his nose.
“Take it out,” he breathes. His own hand has stilled, wrapped tight at the base as he focuses all his attention on Draco and it’s like standing in the beam of a full blast Lumos on a moonless night.
Draco takes it out. Seven and a half inches, bent, uncut. It’s a bit thinner and a lot paler than Potter’s, with a bulging, pink head and precome sparkling at the slit. Draco pushes the front side of his pants under his balls, tight and ticklish. They ride up the shaft.
“Ngh,” Potter groans, and he’s moving again, albeit slowly. A bolt of desire forks through Draco when their eyes meet. Then they’re both looking down at one another’s laps again.
Draco tugs upward, pulling the foreskin over the head to oil it and giving it a good squeeze. He’s so turned on it’s ridiculous. Half a minute of equal strokes would do him in. He puffs out a little laugh.
“What?” Potter’s voice has gone down by an octave.
Draco shakes his head. “I can’t believe we’re—I’m doing this.”
The smirk Potter gives him is as dark as his tone. “Need some lube?”
“Not really.” Draco licks his lips. “But I’ll take it, if you’re offering.”
He expects Potter to reach inside a drawer for a vial of oil or something, but instead he leaves his cock bobbing up and down on its own while he feels between the sheets for—his wand. The one that killed Voldemort. Draco flinches when Potter points it at him.
“I’m not gonna hex you, you dolt.”
“No—yes—I know.” A new wave of embarrassment burns its way up Draco’s chest and neck. He realises he has pressed his cock to his stomach, hiding it and the way it throbs at the dizzying prospect of being touched, even if only by proxy of magic. He bunches up the shirttails and the hem of his vest and lifts them above his navel. “Go ahead.”
Potter makes a lazy gesture, murmurs, “Liguamenti,” and Draco hisses as the spell hits his crotch in a gush of liquid heat. It feels like he’s pissed himself.
“Too cold?” Potter asks.
“No, it’s—”
“Too hot?”
Draco laughs breathlessly. “It’s fine, Potter.” It’s more than fine. The oil is warm and lightly scented, like lemon and vanilla, and despite the initial sensation, the spell has landed with admirable precision, coating only his hand, his cock, and his balls. Though some is licking its way down his taint and into his crack. Begging to be spread around and pressed into his hole. Merlin. “Just right.”
That comes out husky, on a delicious, slick down stroke that leaves the head stripped and the foreskin stretched under it. Across the way, Potter gives his somewhat softened cock a few impatient jerks. “Could you. Er.” He wets his lips. “Could you take your shirt off?”
Draco takes a moment to savour the sliver of insecurity gleaming through the thick fabric of Potter’s confidence and pretends to think about it while wanking himself lightly, wetly, within a few strokes from the edge. Then, just as uncertainty begins to sharpen Potter’s features, Draco unbuttons his cuffs and the first three buttons at the neck and pulls both his shirt and his vest up over his head.
“Oh,” comes a shuddery sigh from the other side of the bed. “No, leave it,” Potter hurries to say when Draco moves to smooth his hair back into place. “It’s just. It’s. Good. Like that.”
Draco smirks, though he dares not look down at himself and the expanse of the flush burning hot stamps into his flesh. Tracking the movement of Potter’s eyes, he runs a greasy finger over the thickest of his scars. It’s not the first time Potter has seen them, but now he’s staring, unabashed. He’s fully hard again. Long and straight and smooth and gods, Draco could beg for a taste.
“You like them, don’t you?” he teases. “Pervert.”
Potter tosses his head back, jostling the mass of his curly fringe from his forehead. “I bet you were into scars long before you had any of your own, Malfoy.”
Yes, Draco wants to say. I want to lick yours. What he says instead is, “Fuck you.”
“Fuck you,” Potter echoes, putting the same pregnant emphasis on the F.
Draco bites his lower lip, wrestling down the rise of euphoria. “Your turn,” he says. “Take that off.”
Not that he needs extra stimulation. Between the dreamlike unreality of the situation, Potter’s straining cock within smelling distance, and the lubrication he’s unused to, Draco’s courting the edge with each glide of his hand. But he wants to see Potter naked. Who knows if he’ll ever have the chance again?
Potter starts to pull off his tee, remembers his glasses, takes them off, then puts them on again as soon as he’s tossed the wrinkled garment away. And here it is, his firm, lean waist. His lightly muscled chest strewn with black hair. The dark skin of his shoulders rippling with every movement. A moan of appreciation tears out of Draco’s chest, quiet, but not enough to escape notice. Potter looks at him, and for a moment, neither of them moves or makes a sound.
Then Draco feels the nudging of Potter’s socked foot on his inner thigh. He needn’t be told. Bracing his back on the bed post, he lifts his hips and pushes his pants and trousers down to his knees. This is crazy. He hurriedly pulls at his shoelaces. What the hell am I doing?
Getting naked, apparently. His discarded clothes lie in a small heap on the floor. He leaves his socks on. Wouldn’t want to be at a disadvantage.
Potter’s grinning at him. Cautiously, Draco smiles back. “Is this…” They’re back to wanking, slowly, keeping pace. “Is this how you do it with your fellow Gryffindors?”
Potter laughs, the veneer of self-assurance giving in to nervous hilarity. “Fuck, no. Haven’t done that since, I don’t know.” He shakes his head, thinking back. “Fourth-year? Fifth? And it’d be, like, a few of us, dressed and all, and racing. You know, like, who’s gonna finish first. Nothing like.” He gestures vaguely between them. “This. No.”
Draco’s heart is pounding. Boldly, he stretches his right leg on the bed, landing his socked toes on Potter’s hip and rubbing a hopefully casual circle there. “Do you ever…” But no. He can’t. He laughs and covers his face with his left hand.
“What,” says Potter. “C’mon. Can’t leave me hanging now.”
Draco lets the hand slide down. Then he lets his whole body slide down, bending his right leg for support, and slips his fingers into his crack from behind with a long, shaky sigh.
“Oh,” says Potter, wide-eyed. “Fuck, that’s hot.”
“Give me a pillow.”
“Right.” His heated stare lingers on Draco while he blindly plucks a pillow from the untidy pile behind him.
Draco folds it in two behind his neck and practically lies on the bed, legs spread wide for Potter’s inspection. Arousal has made him bold. Shameless. “Give me a bit more oil,” he whispers.
“Right.” Potter fumbles with his wand but his casting is just as precise as before.
“So, you’ve never…?” Draco’s middle finger squelches slickly as he pushes it in to the first knuckle.
“No, I have,” Potter says faintly. “Kind of.” He pushes his glasses up. “I’ve never gone much past. That.” He points. “Usually, it’s er. I do it when I’m close and then I just. Come.” A little laugh flutters out of him. “Like. As soon as I put it in.”
“Hot,” Draco agrees, picturing it.
“Not as much as seeing it.” Potter’s abs flex enticingly. “Seeing you. Do that.”
Draco freezes while the committee is in session on whether he should let that sink in or slide past. The pause and the inflection indicated premeditation. But Potter’s wanking. Is anything one says while wanking admissible? Merlin knows what nonsense Draco would be spewing if it were Potter in his place, splayed out like a slut and fingering himself for Draco’s entertainment.
Potter’s eyes tear away from Draco’s crotch to search his face for clues as to the sudden cessation of said entertainment and Draco lets out a breath that’s overstayed its welcome.
“Are you close?” Potter asks. Judging by his own movement, speeding up and slowing down in waves, he’s in no danger yet himself.
“Close, as in, I could be done in a minute, or close, as in, hanging by my fingernails?” Not that it’s a particularly significant distinction, but Draco has never heard so many words come out of Potter in a single conversation, and he wants to see how many more he can coax.
Potter shakes his head, but there’s a smile dancing around the corners of his mouth. “Any. Both.” He speaks softly. So softly. “Tell me how close you are.”
“So you can beat me to it, Potter?”
That earns him a laugh, and Draco laughs a bit himself, but swallows it quickly as fizzling excitement threatens to pitch his voice into pre-teen heights. In the way of distraction, he pushes his finger one knuckle deeper, and resumes pumping his cock loosely. The truth is, he’s so turned on, he could come on demand: in a minute, in twenty, on a single word in that deep, velveteen tone.
“Is it true that…” Potter pushes his glasses up again, though they’ve hardly had the time or the inclination to slide down. “That there’s a—” He squirms, then laughs, and apparently, gives up.
Draco lets him stew a bit before taking mercy. “Has anyone ever told you you’re adorable when you’re nervous?”
It’s Potter’s turn to freeze, and Draco can almost see the wheels turning behind his round, perplexed eyes, as the same difficult calculation is presented to the same ponderous committee.
“Er…” Potter huffs a laugh. “I—no. Think that’s a first.”
“What were you about to ask?”
“Well. I heard there’s a… spot. Inside. That, like. Drives you mad.”
“And the question—”
“Is it true?”
Draco doesn’t want to laugh. Truly, he doesn’t, but not even biting his lip helps. “What makes you think I know?”
“Well, you, er. You don’t?”
“There is a spot. In fact—” Draco straightens his finger and tries a few angles, plunging it deeper, till—“Right… there.”
Potter gasps, then stops his stroking and wraps his thumb and forefinger in a tight ring around the base of his cock. A couple seconds pass in motionless silence as Draco too holds his breath in sympathy.
“That was close,” Potter exhales.
“That’s my line, Potter. I perfected it over the years of losing to you on the pitch.”
The self-deprecating humor is hit-and-miss. Potter’s friends—the legitimate ones—mostly seem to approve, but sometimes such jokes make Potter himself look a bit queasy. Not that Draco can help it, loath though he may be to admit that. The consummate guilt simmering day and night under his skin doesn’t have many other outlets, but when it boils over, it always catches him by surprise.
And sure enough, when Potter laughs, there’s an edge of unease to it; a ballast that stubbornly clings to their history and might never be released.
“It doesn’t drive me mad, by the way,” Draco volunteers after a few quiet moments. “The prostate. Just sort of… burns, and feels like I need to piss.”
“Maybe you’re doing it wrong.”
“And you think you’d be so much better at it?” It’s a reflex, the challenge, and what he just said only registers when Potter’s eyes grow even rounder and more perplexed than before. Another heat wave washes over Draco. He blurts, “Who told you about that, anyway?”
It’s an unexpectedly successful redirection. Potter starts as if sprayed with cold water, blinks, and stammers. “I—no one. I just—” But then he deflates as suddenly as he sprang into the defensive. “Ginny. It was Ginny. She, er. Wanted me to try it. Well, she. Wanted to try it herself, really. On me.”
Draco’s biting his lip again to no avail.
“Oh, shut up,” Potter concludes.
“I’m not laughing at you. It’s just that… oh.” The girly giggle that was about to bubble out of him gets swallowed as his exploratory rubbing around the prostate produces, for the first time, a pleasurable sensation. “Oh.”
“What?”
“Maybe I was doing it wrong.”
As Potter leans forward to have a better look, his leg shifts over Draco’s foot. Which, inexplicably, makes the pleasurable sensation spike. Draco squeezes his cock, driving out a bead of precome. “Fuck.”
“Ginny says you can come like that. Like, just from that, hands-free. And that you can come several times in a row, like girls can. Or at least, she says they can. Never happened when we—er.”
It’s public knowledge that Potter and the Weasley girl broke up over the summer. So public, in fact, that Draco had the dubious pleasure of reading about it in the newspaper. She rarely joins Potter’s friend group, but when she does, they don’t seem bitter or awkward around one another. Draco has never heard him talk about her before. He searches his soul for signs of his old, burning jealousy, but finds only tattered remains. He’s no longer jealous of Weasley and Granger either. How could he be, when most days, he spends more time with Potter than they do?
“I’ve never had sex,” Draco confesses.
“With Pansy?”
“With anyone. I’m uh…” It’s getting difficult to talk, what with the tantalising build-up of pressure at the base of his spine. “Not interested in girls, Potter.”
Potter smiles, blushing anew, and lords, he’s lovely. “Yeah, I. Figured that one out all on my own. And, er. Same. At least, for now. I think I might like both? But now it’s.”
“I see,” Draco says. He figured that one out all on his own too, but if Potter is as new to this self-discovery as he sounds, he probably doesn’t need to hear it. “Theo and I traded blowjobs here and there,” he babbles instead. “In fifth- and sixth-year. But… he never saw me… you know. So I… I don’t think that… counts.” He closes his eyes, indulging in an impromptu daydream of Potter leaning closer, and closer, till his wet, well-chewed lip drags over the head of Draco’s cock. When he opens them, he finds the lip hanging, limp and trembling with Potter’s movements, which have grown forceful and jerky.
“Does this—” Potter starts, but then pointedly pauses his stroking again and waits. No laughs, this time. He looks into Draco’s eyes as he exhales. “Does this? Count?”
Draco pauses too, relaxing his finger and loosening his grip against the mad rush of exhilaration. “If you want,” he breathes, and doesn’t give a damn that it sounds like a plea.
Chewing on his lip, Potter shifts closer till the arch of his foot presses into Draco’s left thigh. Quite high up, and inching higher. His voice shakes. “Okay, Malfoy?”
“If we’re—” Draco gasps, nearly sobs, as a gentle socked toe brushes his balls. “If this counts… the least you can do is call me by my bloody name.”
The toe is caressing him. He sighs and closes his eyes against the dread, the hope, the crushing vulnerability. Please, he thinks, gripping harder, stroking faster. He almost says it aloud. Please, Harry. Say my name.
“Okay. Draco.”
For how long he’s been poised on the precipice, the urgent, unstoppable swelling of the orgasm still takes him by surprise. It balloons so large in him he feels he’ll burst at the seams. Stray thoughts—what if he makes a ridiculous face? What if he makes a ridiculous sound?—scatter like a startled flock of birds and he moans, loud and free. “Ah—Harry—ah—”
His thighs jerk, his arse clenches, and fireworks burst in the dark of his closed eyes.
There’s a shift, a grunt, and Draco opens them just in time to witness Potter stripping his gorgeous, slick cock at top speed. The whole bed’s vibrating with it. Abruptly, he stills, shudders, and spills so violently a few drops land on Draco’s stomach. “Fuck,” Potter groans, his face pained, squeezing the head for one last drop of dense, white seed.
The silence breathes heavily with them, then stills into coiled anticipation. Draco’s wristwatch, barely audible even at the dead of night, counts the tenths of seconds with a rude insistence, as if someone has put a Sonorous to it. It’s morning, Draco recalls, with the mild astonishment of one who lost all account of time. A Wednesday. He came here to make sure Potter wouldn’t miss breakfast. He’s wearing nothing but socks.
“God,” Potter says. “That was.” He huffs out a long breath, sucks in a new one, lets out a flustered laugh. When he finally cracks open his eyes, he looks down first. At his cock, not really spent at all. At his wet hand. He wipes it on his thigh, then follows the trail of mess over the sheets and onto Draco’s body. “Shit. I didn’t—did I?”
For a second, Draco considers pretending to be mad or disgusted, but he’s overcome by a burst of giggles. He rolls on his side and presses his overheated cheek to the cool linen, basking in the golden afterglow. It happened. Whatever it was. It really happened. The pools of seed on his chest and belly start their slow downward slide, leaving trails of chilly moisture as proof.
He pats down the sheets in search of Potter’s wand. It clatters down to the floor and rolls several inches before it catches on a pile of clothes. Potter’s clothes. A pair of black cotton boxers tangled up with his baggy jeans. Stripped in a hurry. One of his muddy trainers peeks out from under the overturned maroon jumper half a foot away. And next to it, an empty potion vial.
Stretching over the side of the bed, Draco snatches it and brings it to his nose. Murtlap, Occamy, a hint of thyme. “Potter,” he says. “Is this what I think it is?”
Potter shrugs sheepishly. “Just a little liquid luck.”
Having long reached his daily quota of bewilderment, Draco nods. At least the socks make sense now. Potter didn’t quite know, didn’t quite expect all this, but it wasn’t pure coincidence either.
“You didn’t brew this yourself, did you?”
“Oh. No. It’s the last of what Slughorn gave me back in sixth-year.”
A few golden drops remain at the bottom of the vial and Draco shakes them out into his mouth. He’s never had Felix Felicis before. It tastes like… like he imagines Potter’s lips would taste. Like peace. Like grace.
“What now?” Potter asks.
Draco reaches for the hawthorn wand. It feels strange in his grip and looks almost comically short now that he’s grown used to his new, twelve and three quarters inch willow wand. But it will still serve him. He just knows it. “Tergeo,” he murmurs, aiming at Potter, then tosses the wand in his direction.
Potter makes no attempt to catch it. “I don’t know,” he says, eyes sparkling with mischief. “I rather like you,” he waves his hand, “like that.”
Draco’s stomach swoops. “What, filthy?”
“Debased? No, that’s not it. Er.”
“Debauched?”
“Yes!” Potter launches into goofy laughter. This is how he looked when he was drunk by the lake: boyish, playful, awkward. Draco loves it.
“It means the same,” he says, unable to stop smiling.
“Yeah, well, debauched sounds better.” Potter even manages a decent imitation of Draco’s accent.
“My hands, at least,” Draco says, turning his sticky palms up in a pantomime of supplication. “Please, good sir. I beg thee.”
Potter rolls his eyes at that, but when he casts, the spell is so gentle that goosebumps break all over Draco’s nude limbs.
Another silence descends, sprinkled with shy smiles and furtive glances. At last, Draco taps the bed next to him.
Kicking off as if that was what he’d been waiting for the entire time, Potter abandons his throne of pillows to lie by Draco’s side, facing him. Not touching, but close enough for Draco to feel the inviting warmth of his body.
“Potter,” he says.
“Harry.”
“Are we friends now, Harry?”
Potter grows serious. “I, er.” He pushes his glasses up. “I mean. Yeah? We definitely could be? If that’s what—is that what you want?”
On some level, it is. It’s what Draco has always wanted. He would settle for it. Gladly! He has scarcely dared to even dream about anything… more. But now…
“What do you want?” he whispers, heart drumming against his ribs.
Potter gives him one of those intolerable searching looks. His eyes are dark, hungry, frightened. Draco’s frightened too, but it’s a good, clean sort of fear, like a vertical plummet on a broomstick, much less dread than wild delight.
“I want…” Potter’s eyes fall on Draco’s lips. A moment later, the tips of his first two fingers follow. Warm and dry, they smell faintly of lemon and vanilla and move with a reverence that makes Draco lightheaded. “I want.”
Draco manages a small, hopeful nod. The next thing he knows, Potter’s arm is coiled around his waist, Potter’s knee is pushing between his thighs, skin pressed to hot skin and Merlin, he’s hard again. They both are. One of Draco’s hands has found a way to the nape of Potter’s neck, dangerously close to the nest of curls atop his head, while the other mindlessly clutches the silky hair on Potter’s chest. His heart is pounding—or is it Draco’s? This close, it’s hard to tell. It’s hard to think. The air has gone damp and dense with their rapid, shallow breaths.
As their noses touch, a quiet moan escapes Draco’s throat and Potter’s eyes spark, triumphant.
“Scared, Malfoy?”
“Draco. And you wish, Po—”
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