Chapter Text
“What’s up with the Christmas trees?”
Draco looks up from his bed and glances around, expecting to see Weasley slumping in after Potter, but he’s alone as he closes the door and tosses his robes onto the foot of his bed like a complete barbarian. Talking to himself, then; it’s as likely as anything, as Potter quickly learned at the beginning of term that Draco’s responses would be short and clipped. It’s easier, that way, to reign in the urge to irritate the hell out of him. The urge to do other things.
But no, Potter props himself on the edge of his bed, eyeing Draco furtively as he toes his trainers off to leave in the middle of the floor as a tripping hazard. Draco bites back a scowl and points his wand at Potter’s shoes — and the smelly socks that quickly join them — to send them flying into Potter’s open wardrobe, ignoring the quirked smile he gets for his effort.
“Are you not going to tell me about them?” Potter asks after a moment.
“Tell you what,” Draco says flatly, closing his book around his thumb to keep his place.
“Christmas trees?”
“Well,” Draco says, “ancient Egyptian wizards used palm rushes in their early Healing potions experiments, and so began the tradition to decorate their homes with them to ward off death and celebrate the gods who brought them light and gave them magic. Romans,” he continues after a beat, warming to the subject when Potter stares at him with disbelief — a reaction much easier to cope with than the stupidly friendly reaction Draco got from him at the start of term, “decorated their homes and temples with evergreen boughs as a way to mark winter solstice and the feast of Saturnalia, which honoured Saturn, who they believed had blessed them with Earth magic, giving them power over agriculture and growth. But the Druids—”
“Malfoy,” Potter says, shaking his head in irritation. Draco tries not to look too cheered by it. “I meant those.” He looks significantly at the two small Christmas trees now sitting in opposite corners of their room.
“Norway spruce,” Draco says smoothly.
“And?”
“And they’re very useful to support wildlife, including deer, grouse and woodcock. Their needles can even be used to make Crup-nip. Although these are charmed to stay immature, they usually grow at a rate of—”
“Malfoy!” Potter barks with satisfying ire.
“What?” Draco blinks at him innocently.
“Why do you have two Christmas trees in our room?” Potter asks through gritted teeth. “It’s not even November.”
“It’s my room too,” Draco says flatly. He re-opens his book.
“You’re using my side of it,” Potter points out after a second, voice mild again.
Draco huffs. “Get rid of it if you want. Merlin knows you don’t need my permission for anything, do you?” He resolutely doesn’t look at the tree on Potter’s side of the room, not wanting to see Potter Vanish it; it looks strangely vulnerable, having not entirely grown into the denseness the trees are known for. Pulling it out of his trunk had been a whim, anyway, and if he’d known Potter would speak to him over it, he wouldn’t have bothered.
“It’s looks… lonely,” Potter says after a second.
“It’s a tree,” Draco says, flushing. He keeps his eyes on the page, but is suddenly unable to absorb anything. When he doesn’t hear the telltale whoosh that accompanies the Vanishing of larger objects, Draco glances up to find Potter staring at him curiously. “What.”
Potter gives another dubious look to the tree in his corner, then turns back to Draco. “I, er, wanted to talk to you.”
“Let’s not ruin a perfectly decent track record this year, shall we?” Draco says. Potter doesn’t respond; he stares down at his knees, watching himself rub nervous hands over his thighs and oh, shit. This must be the “coming to terms with what happened” speech that Granger’s already tried to force on Draco twice. He considers blurting out a blanket apology to get through the whole thing fast, but he barely got through giving one the first time — and then only because it was done in letter form, before term began. “I already apologised for, for...” he says instead, stilted.
Potter looks up, carding a hand through his hair, surprise flashing over his face “No, I just…”
Relaxing, Draco sets his book aside. “Then we don’t need to.” He swallows, flicking a glance to Potter’s lower lip, caught between his teeth. “It’s fine.”
“But I—”
“Fancied a chat? With me?” Draco snorts, then stands. He doesn’t know what crisis of conscience Potter’s having this time; he could be feeling guilty for the hex Draco took to the back on his way to Transfiguration, for all Draco knows. As long as they don’t have to revisit… anything. He slips his shoes on neatly, points his wand at them so the laces tie, and heads to the door as Potter opens and closes his mouth, his face going oddly pink. “I’ll finish my studying in the library,” he adds, grabbing his cloak from the hook near the door. “Give you some time to get over the inclination.”
“I have some trouble sleeping,” Potter blurts. Nonplussed, Draco freezes in the act of yanking open the door.
“What?”
“I have… It’s just…” Potter sighs. “Trouble sleeping. Sometimes. And I think I might again soon, and so you should know.”
“Oh.” Draco stares at him, but Potter — brave, Gryffindor hero of the world that he is — refuses to meet his eyes. Which, for some reason is every bit as awkward as the first time they saw each other in pyjamas; not that Draco would ever admit to looking. “Should I put up a Silencing charm?” he finally asks, as though he doesn’t put one up every night to muffle his own nightmares.
“No. Just thought you should know,” Potter mutters. “Just in case.”
Just in case of what? Draco’s tempted to ask, but Potter’s face has reverted to the mulish expression Draco’s hasn’t seen since term began, but is frighteningly familiar after the last several years.
“Fine,” Draco says, and makes his escape.
***
“Harry talked to you, then?”
Draco looks up from his book — again, blast it; he’s got thirteen inches of magical theory due in the morning — and deliberately sighs, squinting at the godawful hue of Weasley’s hair.
“Did you two decide to take turns?” he asks, irritated. Weasley frowns for a second, then sits. Draco frowns back. “I came to the library to work.”
“Did he talk to you?”
“Why would he bother? We’ve finally gotten good at ignoring one another,” Draco says, disregarding the whisper in his mind that reminds him that's his own damn fault.
“About sleep,” Weasley says under his breath, glaring.
“You either need to practice your nonverbal hexes or increase your fibre intake, Weasel,” Draco drawls, refusing to be intimidated. Much. “Something’s obviously not working, and that expression doesn’t look comfortable.”
“Malfoy,” Weasley says. There’s just enough warning in his tone to make Draco’s smirk slide off his face.
“Yes, he has trouble sleeping; he said,” Draco snaps, unsettled — more that Weasley’s continuing to talk to him civilly, than anything else. It’ll be just his luck if Granger decides to approach him, too. “Go away.”
Weasley darts a nervous look behind him, wetting his lips quickly.
“Worried about your reputation?” Draco asks, raising a brow, and Weasley snorts, facing him again.
“I don’t care if people see me talking to you—”
“That makes one of us.”
“—and I wouldn’t if it wasn’t important.”
Refusing to be intrigued, Draco waves a bored hand. “Well, then?”
“Harry’s sleep thing.”
“He told me; he has nightmares.”
Weasley pauses, brow knitting. “He told you he has nightmares?”
“Ye—” Draco stops, thinks. Abashed, he slowly shakes his head. “What is it then? Bed-wetting?” Oh, please let it be bed-wetting.
With a quick eyeroll, Weasley shakes his head. “Look, d’you think I want to be talking to you? But ‘Mione said he’d be too stubborn and I don’t really feature half the castle blowing up because you don’t know.”
Draco’s obstinate lack of curiosity edges toward alarm. He gestures with his hand again, a sharp get on with it.
“He sleep walks.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Draco says automatically. Weasley gives him an odd look and Draco’s ears grow blisteringly hot; it’s normal, goddamn it, after waking up from a dream, to listen to the breath of someone else in the room. At least, Draco assumes it is. ...It sounds like something normal, anyway. “I just mean, I would have noticed. He would have woken me.”
“He’s been on potions,” Weasley explains, “since the—”
Draco stares at him.
“Right, well.” With another furtive look around, Weasley leans in and lowers his voice further. “It’s not a big deal, alright? Everything is fine. But... his magic gets a little unstable when he’s asleep. So you can’t wake him if it happens.”
“You’re joking.” It doesn’t come out a squawk; Draco is almost sure. “Why didn’t McGonagall warn me when we got these ridiculous room assignments?”
“She doesn’t know. Almost no one does.” Weasley’s mouth draws into a flat line. “And no one will,” he says pointedly. “It might not even happen; things have gotten a lot more settled in the last few months, which is good because he’s building a tolerance to the potions. But... There’s a chance.”
“What do they do? The potions?” Draco asks, dropping all pretence of not caring. Not if Potter is going to bloody murder him while he sleeps. Goddamn it, and he’s only just now stopped sleeping with his wand in his grip. “Block his magic? Put him in an Immobulus while he sleeps?”
Weasley scratches his jaw, looking at Draco consideringly. He tugs his ear, then finally says, “Neither. They just… help him sleep.”
“But he’s dangerous? I mean, of course he’s dangerous, but—”
“He’s not dangerous. Just… don’t wake him up. If it happens.”
“What am I supposed to do, let him blow up the castle?”
Abruptly exasperated, Weasley spreads his hands. “He won’t. That’s why you don’t wake him up. Just go along with whatever he says and it’ll be fine. I shared with him all summer; it can get weird, but—”
Draco’s shoulders start to lower, then spike up around his ears again. “How weird?” he asks suspiciously.
“Just… He got pretty fond of sleep chess. He has his own rules for it,” Weasley mumbles, looking as though every word he speaks is being forcibly wrenched from his throat with Veritaserum. “And he’ll probably want to talk for a while. Or wander around practicing wandless.”
“He practices wandless magic while he’s not awake?” Draco hisses.
“Shhh! I swear, Malfoy, if this gets out…” Weasley trails off threateningly, significantly, and Draco… Well, he fucking knew it, didn’t he? There was no way he was getting by with only couple of stinging hexes to the back, this year.
He scowls. “I won’t tell anyone.” Of course, that doesn’t mean he can’t leave Potter’s shoes in the middle of the floor, next time. Watching him fall on his face in his sleep might be worth the trouble that comes with rooming with him.
“You’d better not.” Weasley pauses. “And if anything happens to him because you’re being a wanker, I’ll know that too.”
Damn it.
Draco stands, fed up, and to his consternation Weasley rises too. He’s an inch or so taller than Draco now, Draco notices resentfully, not for the first time. Trust Weasley to be as annoying as he can, in every way possible. “Are you following me to the loo now?” he asks with a grimace. “That’s more Potter’s thing, isn’t it?”
“God, how Harry stands it, I’ll never know.” Weasley stares at him for a second longer, then shakes his head. “Remember what I said, Malfoy. I don’t think you want to see what will happen to you if—”
“Spare me,” Draco says, holding up a hand. Weasley gives a curt nod of the head and trips off, probably to find Granger and have a boring, heterosexual snog. Since Draco hadn’t really needed to piss anyway, he sits down again and applies himself to his assignment for the rest of the evening, finally making a good enough argument on spells vs. potions to feel comfortable turning in his essay. He packs up his things and heads back to his room, stomach fluttering with tension.
A sleepwalking Potter. Who might want to talk, or play chess with him. Draco doesn’t know if the idea of that makes him want to laugh or seek out Myrtle for some sympathy; apparently he’s going to have to suffer through something that — seven years ago — he used to fantasise about. But it’ll be fine, he tells himself. He’s gotten good at controlling his tongue, post-war. If necessary, he’ll simply listen to Potter’s blathering and nod in the right places.
When he arrives at their room, he opens the door cautiously — and stops. And stares.
The Christmas tree he’d — in a moment of stupid, uncharacteristic impulsivity — set up on Potter’s side of the room has been decorated. Not with holly berries and charmed candles, not with ribbons and ornaments that snow or shimmer when touched, but with… strange, shiny silver threading, and red and gold hanging orbs, and… lights, wound around it that twinkle in different colours. It’s disconcertingly unkempt but merry and bright, and for some reason seems exactly how he would have pictured Potter decorating his tree — if Draco’d ever known that trees could be decorated that way.
He takes a deep breath, unable to draw his eyes away for a long moment, and with more than half a mind to Vanish the whole thing, which is so garish, it’ll inevitably prove to be distracting for the rest of the term. But Potter’s already asleep, bed curtains drawn loosely, and as much as Draco enjoys pissing him off, the idea of getting rid of the tree he worked on seems unnecessarily rude.
Draco eyes him through the break in the bed hangings; Potter sleeps burrowed tight under his covers, hunched against his pillow, with only the sliver of shoulder peeking out. Trying to escape the cold, perhaps, though the eighth year dorms are warmer than Slytherin’s ever were. Draco changes swiftly and slides into bed, palming his wand, because fuck if he’s going to take Weasley’s word for it that Potter won’t slaughter him in his sleep.
He lays tensely for a long time before finally drifting off, jerking awake at the slightest sound, but Potter doesn’t rouse to play chess, or talk, or murder him. Not that night. Or for several after.
Then one night, he does.
***
“Hey Draco.”
“Hmm, wha—” Draco blinks, eyes grainy, coming back from a rare dream of flying — Quidditch kit on and the crowd in the stands roaring — that probably wouldn’t have caused him to wake covered in a cold sweat. He hears a rustle and fumbles for his wand, pulling it from beneath his pillow.
“Hi.”
“Potter?” Sitting up and rubbing sleep from his eyes with his free hand, Draco peers into the darkness of their room, lit only by the faint glow of Potter’s tree in the corner — fairy lights, Potter had offered when he saw Draco looking at them, as though Draco enquired. He somehow mimicked muggle electricity to get them to shine, and Draco had wanted to ask how the fairies worked into it, but decided there was no point in encouraging conversation if he didn’t have to.
“Hi,” Potter says again. He looks at Draco, tilting his head curiously to the side, and Draco wakes a little more fully, the cobwebs clearing from his mind as he studies Potter in return.
“Hi,” Draco says warily. Potter smiles cheerfully, arms loose at his sides, and he looks wholly relaxed, even happy standing next to Draco’s bed in nothing but his flannel bottoms, but there’s something...off, as well.
“What are you doing?”
An astonished, hiccupy little laugh escapes Draco’s throat before he can catch it. He peers closer at Potter. “Giving birth; you?”
“Oh. I thought Ron was kidding about that. I didn’t even know you were pregnant,” Potter says and Draco snorts.
“It’s my genes; Malfoy men carry our pregnancies well. You should go back to bed — this is bound to get loud and messy,” he says, then stifles a gasp when Potter promptly climbs onto his bed — climbs over him — and sits down.
“I can help!”
Draco’s body goes taut. Potter sits with his legs criss-crossed, and the toes of one foot brush Draco’s thigh through his blankets. “N-no, thank you.”
“Okay,” Potter says, agreeable as anything. Draco suddenly understands Weasley’s anxiety, his threats, in a real way; this Potter is completely...unguarded.
Not something the public — or Potter’s enemies — should know about the Saviour of the wizarding world.
Draco swallows, stomach churning. “Potter,” he says carefully, “wouldn’t you be more comfortable going back to bed? It’s cold.”
“A little, I guess,” Potter says. Then, to Draco’s horror, says “Thanks.”
And climbs under the covers.
Gaping, Draco clutches his wand tighter, until he fears the slender wood might crack. “I meant your own bed,” he says, struggling for a modicum of control when his heart is apparently trying to rattle out of his chest.
“This is my bed,” Potter says. He blinks, obviously confused over Draco’s stupidity and Draco watches the way his lashes flutter and tangle — dark, surprisingly long — without his glasses in place to obscure the gesture. He’s almost bland like this, if Potter could ever be called such a thing, and Draco searches his eyes to see if perhaps Potter and Weasley have just been taking the piss, only to see a strange wobble to Potter’s eyes. Green as ever, even in the dim glow from the fairy lights, they stare at Draco’s face as if looking into the distance and, every few seconds, tremble of their own accord. REM sleep, Draco thinks with a sharp inhale.
“Right,” he says after a moment. “Should I move, then?”
“I like your hair,” Potter says. “Do you want to play chess?”
“I— what?” Draco automatically reaches up to comb his fingers through his hair, still processing as Potter suddenly reaches out a hand, only for his trunk to pop open. A wooden box flies out and into Potter’s waiting catch.
“Chess. It’s a game with knights and queens and prawns.”
“Pawns,” Draco corrects, unwillingly amused and not a little fascinated with Potter’s thoughtless use of wandless magic.
“Okay.” Potter quickly sets up the board between them, scooting back on the mattress to allow for more space, and explains the finer points of the game, which basically consists of Potter explaining the backgrounds of the pieces and making up a story about them: the queens are the smartest so the bishops are in love with them, the prawns always sacrifice themselves for those they love, and the tiny castles are where the knights live, so each knight gets one because it’s important to have a home. When Draco asks about the kings, Potter looks at him like he’s daft. “They’re married.”
“Oh.”
Another several minutes pass and Draco listens to Potter’s surprisingly involved story, mind wandering. When Potter runs down, he packs up the board calmly, not a single piece moved — and it’s a good thing the board is Muggle, or he’d have to deal with a revolt from the pieces, for having been woken without even getting to battle — and sends it flying back into his trunk, which slams shut.
“That’s chess? Who won?”
“I’ve gotten better at it than Ron,” Potter says smugly, and Draco’s mouth twitches.
“I’d dare say you’re better at a lot of things than, uhm, Ron.”
“Well, he’s a fair flyer, but I’m probably better at that,” Potter says.
“And that’s all? Nothing else about you stands out?” Draco prods, curious. Potter can’t really believe that—
“My cock might be bigger,” Potter says thoughtfully. “But when we measured, I didn’t look, and he gave a number that couldn’t possibly be right.”
Draco hears the words slowly, as if his mind needs time to savour them. “Y-you measured.”
“Well, yeah. Haven’t you ever measured?”
Sure, like Draco is going to fall for admitting to that — whether Potter is asleep or not.
“Of course I haven’t,” he says with great dignity.
“Also I know how to cook, but Ron’s a better baker ‘cause I was never allowed to do that part,” Potter continues blithely.
“And… these are your only strengths,” Draco checks. “Cooking, and flying, and,” he coughs a little, “chess playing and a giant cock.”
“It’s not giant. Probably just a bit larger than average,” Potter says. Draco’s gaze slides downward of its own accord, then immediately flies back up to Potter’s disconcertingly shifting eyes. “I’m also good at defence stuff.”
“Quite,” Draco agrees drily. Forehead. Potter’s forehead is a safe place to look. Except for the scar, which is… kind of cooler than Draco has ever allowed himself to admit, now that he’s able to look at it without getting caught, Potter’s normally unruly hair raked back as it is. Draco narrows his eyes, but Potter simply sits there, waiting, and it can’t… it’s not like he’ll… remember or anything, so Draco blurts, “Can I touch it?”
“My cock? S—”
“No!” Draco yelps, feeling momentarily faint. He realises that Potter hadn’t processed where Draco had been looking. “Your scar.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s okay too.”
And though Draco is certain that nothing he ever does in his life will be as bad an idea as taking the Dark Mark had been, a knot of don’t even think about it forms in his chest even as he finds himself reaching out with two fingers to lightly trace the zig-zag of Potter’s scar. Potter makes a low, approving sound and Draco’s breath starts to come light and fast as he explores the shape and texture — slightly ropy, but lying flat against his skin — of the scar he’s stared at for years.
“That feels nice,” Potter says, voice low and a little hazy. “Usually I don’t let people touch it.”
Guiltily, Draco pulls his hand away. He clears his throat. “Well, thanks,” he says awkwardly. His fingertips still tingle from the contact.
“Sure. Can I touch your Mark?”
Draco blanches; he voice comes out in an appalled whisper. “What?”
“Your Dark Mark,” Potter says simply, as though the question isn’t likely to slice Draco open. But he can still feel the weave of Potter’s lightning bolt against his fingers, so he nods wordlessly — fair is fair — and holds out his left arm. Potter takes it, gripping lightly under Draco’s wrist, and skims the material of his sleeve up, bunching it toward the crook of Draco’s elbow. He traces the dark lines gently, a worried little wrinkle forming just above the bridge of his nose. “Do you still think of Muggles like—”
“No!” Draco says, too loudly. His arm jerks in Potter’s grasp, his heart racing. There’s no possible way to explain, he thinks, not in a way someone like Potter could understand, but— “No. I… I saw too much, last year. The year before.”
“Like what?” Potter asks, sounding barely interested, fingers petting the inside of Draco’s forearm.
Draco licks his lips. His voice comes out husky. “Like. Like people dying. I’d not been told that they would die,” he says, the same way he has to himself for the two years. But aloud, it sounds different — it sounds like a lie — and so he blurts, “I mean, I knew, I think. I knew that some would.”
“‘Course you did.” Still petting.
“Yeah. I just didn’t know that… That it would be…” Draco searches for the right words, the ones that might excuse things, but what comes out is so awful he feels sick for how true they feel. “That it would be people fighting us. Who didn’t care how things were supposed to be. That the rest would be cast out, their magic t-taken; not children and random Muggles and, and…”
“People I loved died fighting Voldemort’s side,” Potter says in that same distant tone, fingers still gentle.
Shivering, Draco forces himself not to pull away — what would be the point? And it… doesn’t hurt, the way he’d feared, not like the thoughts swirling in Draco’s mind. In fact, Potter’s touch is almost soothing, his thumb pressed into the middle of the death’s head.
“I know. I’m so sorry,” Draco whispers, the grief and guilt swelling up in his throat. And it’s not enough — not enough to cover all of those lives taken with indifferent green flashes, their bodies desecrated as snake food; not enough to hide his own cowardice, which he’d come to learn smelt of copper and sounded like the insane laughter of his aunt and Hermione Granger’s screams; not enough to blanket the images of Fred Weasley, and Remus Lupin, and Colin Creevy, and so many others that Draco could name in his sleep and sometimes does. But, he acknowledges painfully, there’s not much else he can say, except, “I would take it back if I could. I would take all of it back.”
Potter looks up at him, eyes centred on Draco’s forehead. They wobble, pupils large in the dark of the room, and then Potter says, “I know you would,” so simply that Draco feels split in two from it, Potter’s declaration announcing him as a before-and-after Draco, somehow making it seem true.
After a minute, Potter drops Draco’s arm; Draco shakes his sleeve down. It takes him a few seconds, perhaps longer, to level out his expression and compartmentalise the way he’s learned, but when he finally does, he looks up at Potter warily, wanting this to be over.
Potter smiles. “Thanks. What are you going to do?”
“To fix things?” Draco asks, throat tight. What can he say? That he does what he can in little ways? How would that matter at all?
“No, just. What are you going to do?”
Mystified, Draco considers. “Tomorrow?”
“For a living,” Potter says, placid and patient.
“Oh.” Relieved, Draco adjusts his pillow against the headboard and sits back against it, wondering why Potter wants to know. Then again, part of his chess story involved one of the married kings having been a prawn who died in the woods — the other, Draco remembers with a wince, is the one who made all the wrong choices, and “his promotion to king is really strange” — so it’s probably not very practical to assume any of this is supposed to make sense. “I think I’d like Curse Breaking,” he says at last, surprised at his own honesty. But again, it’s not as if Potter will remember. “You?”
He hopes.
“I have to be an Auror,” Potter says, which is no great shock. Draco starts to roll his eyes, then stops.
“You have to be?”
“Uh huh.” Potter smiles, faintly ironic, which is disconcerting as the rest of his face is sort of slack. “I killed Voldemort. Everyone expects it.”
“I…” Draco licks his lips, not remotely comfortable with how personal this conversation has gotten. “What would you like to do? Professional Quidditch?”
“No, I’m already too famous,” he says bluntly. “Curse Breaking sounds kind of neat; you get to travel and stuff—”
“Yes, you do,” Draco says, startled. It’s one of the main reasons he’s drawn to such a career — that, and that he likes puzzles.
“—But my Arithmancy marks wouldn’t be up to snuff, and anyway I should probably avoid curses for awhile,” he says, touching his scar. Draco winces and nods. “I think I’d like to be a journalist.”
“What?” Draco asks, blinking.
“I like writing,” Potter says with a tiny uptick in tone indicating the sleep version of enthusiasm. “And I feel like a lot of people get away with a lot of things.”
“You want to work for the Prophet?” Draco clarifies, shocked. He realises his jaw is dangling, and closes his mouth with a click of teeth.
Potter chuckles, idly scratching the dark furring of hair below his belly button. Draco tries not to stare at it, or at the way it disappears beneath his ratty flannels, or the way Potter’s lightly tanned stomach tightens, or at the way—
“No,” Potter says, and Draco jerks his eyes up, flushing. “Maybe I’d start my own paper or something. Or work for the Quibbler.”
“Have you ever written anything before?” Draco asks derisively, coming back to himself.
“Yeah, I’ve been writing all summer.” Potter lashes out a hand and a large, leatherbound book flies into it. He passes it over, and Draco looks down, opening it to stare at Potter’s messy scrawl, then glances back up to his face. “Plus, I get hunches about people. I got pretty good at following you a couple of years ago.”
Suddenly chilled again, Draco pushes the book back to Potter. “You shouldn’t just show this to people,” he says quietly.
“I don’t mind. It’s just my diary,” Potter says. “I’ve some ideas in it for articles. There’s still a lot of corruption in the Ministry. It takes time to weed it out.”
“I can’t read this,” Draco insists, throat dry.
“I’m a good writer,” Potter counters, frowning.
Nervous, Draco calculates how offended a sleeping person has to be to frown. “I know,” he says. “I read it. It’s really good.”
“Thanks!” Potter levitates the book back to his desk, where it drops with a thud. “I’m tired.”
“Me too,” Draco says, relieved.
“Do you wank before you sleep?”
Abruptly less relieved than on the verge of a heart attack, Draco stares at him. His voice cracks. “What?”
“Wank. I like a wank before I sleep.” The hand resting on Potter’s stomach slides lower and no this cannot be happening; Draco deserves a lot of punishment, perhaps — he already suffered through the baring of his soul — but this cannot be one of them.
“Um.”
“Go ahead,” Potter says, nodding as though he’s telling Draco to finish his supper.
“No, thank you,” Draco says, pressing a panicked hand over his twitching cock. Potter’s hand slides under his waistband.
And begins moving.
“No, no, no, you can’t do that here,” Draco says, words tumbling over one another. “You have to go back to your own bed!”
“This is my bed,” Potter says again and Draco decides he must be asleep… Or in hell, because Potter’s voice is breathless and his hand is moving. The muscles in his forearm twist and bunch, and if Draco looks, he can see the shape of—
“I’ll wake you!” he says — menacingly, he hopes. He fumbles for his wand and brandishes it. Potter looks distantly amused and a little confused.
“Just wank with me, uhhnnnn, Draco,” he says.
“I’m a pureblood,” Draco says, then blinks. Potter does too, obviously just as confused to what that means as Draco is.
“I’m a halfblood.” Potter’s hand continues it’s smooth slide, jostling in his bottoms.
“I’m, I’m… We take things slowly,” Draco says, desperate. Potter’s hand on his cock is making sounds now, a soft, moist slapping that makes Draco want to hex his ears shut. He doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about — rubbish his great-grandfather’s portrait spouted once upon a time — but Potter seems to accept the excuse.
“You can watch, then,” Potter tells him with short, friendly grunts. And Draco wants to — fuck, he wants to, but...
He looks down again, at the rise and fall of Potter’s hand under his flannels, the roundness of the head of his cock plainly visible through the thin material. There’s a tiny, damp spot in the red fabric, and Draco wonders if he should brandish his wand at himself, instead; just Stun himself until this whole thing is over, perhaps. He presses harder against his cock, which has risen further against his bottoms, and emits a small whine at how…good it feels.
“I’m going to go to sleep,” he says, his voice coming out raspy. He can’t wake Potter. The castle will explode. Or something.
Potter grunts again, sounding cheerful through his panting when he says, “Okay. G’night.”
With one last horrified glance down, Draco scoots further under the blankets and rolls to face away. He resolutely takes his hand off his groin and his prick throbs mournfully as the slap, slap of Potter’s wanking grows louder in the sudden quiet of the room. Draco folds his pillow around his ears, the insidious thought that Potter would never know drifting through his mind. He contemplates that for a long moment, the rustle and shift of the bed behind him driving him to the brink of madness. Because Potter wouldn’t know. And it’s not as if Draco’d... orchestrated it, in any way. Which means that it’d be Potter’s own damn fault if he rolled back over and shoved his bottoms down. It would barely take anything, he knows; his cock is slick at the slit, trying to poke out above the waistband of his pyjamas. Hell, he could probably roll onto his stomach and come just from rutting against the mattress once or twice.
And he’s never been one to cling to his morals in the face of something he wanted, anyway.
Not that he wants Potter.
Still...
He’s still debating when he hears a low, sharp cry filter in through the block of the pillow. The mattress jerks several times in a row; Draco whimpers, screwing his eyes shut against the burn of temptation, the painful need of his own body.
Silence falls, ringing loud over the thundering in Draco’s ears for several protracted minutes, or years, or... lifetimes. Finally, he loosens his grip on the pillow around his head and looks around, warily. Potter sits on his knees, gazing distantly at his lit-up tree. The damp patch of fabric has spread, darkening the material to burgundy. Draco swallows, his throat scratchy, his prick still begging for release.
“Potter?”
Potter twitches. He yawns and waves a hand over his crotch, eliminating the wet spot — Potter’s come, Draco’s mind whispers, earning another warning jerk from his cock. Potter just came. In my bed. — and looks at Draco’s forehead.
“G’night, Draco.”
“Uh, Goodnight,” Draco returns, his voice worryingly thready.
Potter, face sated, climbs out of Draco’s bed on the opposite side. He stands for a moment, then starts for the door only to stop, bewildered, and turn around. He seems to spot his own bed, then mumbles, “Oh, there it is,” before heading over and sprawling out on top of his mattress. His eyes immediately fall shut, and a bare moment later, he’s breathing shallowly, mouth open, the dark fans of his lashes fluttering softly against his cheek. He looks relaxed and calm, all of that fascinating fire inside him sated for the moment and doing nothing to detract from his… beauty, Draco thinks miserably.
He immediately shoves the word into the recesses of his mind, not quite sure how he let it escape again.
Draco stares at him for a long minute, sheepishly letting his hand wander down to his prick again, which still feels too heavy, too full. He reaches inside his pyjamas, eyes on Potter’s chest as it rises and falls, and curls a tight hand around his prick, feeling the slick of his precome as he drags his foreskin back in a tentative stroke. He looks at the crotch of Potter’s flannels, at the shape of his softened prick resting against his thigh through the material, and pulls at his erection slowly, trying to keep his breath low and quiet even as his climax rises in him, sharp and fast. His balls tighten up, tingling close against his body, and he moves his hand faster, groaning as low as he can manage when his cock jerks in his hand, hot and thick, and pulses out the first shot of semen. He works his hand faster, wanking with the same abandon Potter seemed to have as he milks his orgasm, rolling his hand down over the head of his cock and slipping his thumb firmly against the glans on every stroke as he shudders in near silence, half ashamed and half more turned on than he’s ever been in his life.
When it’s over, he grabs for his wand and casts a quick cleaning charm over himself; then, as an afterthought, spells Potter’s rumpled covers over him and closes his bed hangings. His body still thrums with tiny, delicious aftershocks, but he forces himself to lay back down, forces his eyes closed, forces himself to think about nothing more than the ins and outs of his own breath. Slowly, his heart steadies, and Draco thinks about what Weasley said: Potter liked a bit of chess and some talking. Weasley surely would have told him if there’d been wanking involved.
Which makes this an aberration, nothing to be concerned about. Anyway, it’s not like he did anything wrong, he thinks. He’s wanked over thoughts of… people… before. Usually never staring at them, after they’d wanked in his bed, but still.
He can manage this. He is a Slytherin, after all.
***
Two weeks later, and Draco is losing his goddamned mind.
For not only has Potter’s sleepwalking continued, his sleep wanking has as well, and he’s started… touching Draco, with his free hand. Just a light hand coasting exploratively over Draco’s waist and rib cage as Draco lies frozen, unable to move or respond until Potter inevitably fucks off to his own bed and falls asleep, allowing Draco to seek a temporary end to his torment.
Until each next night.
But what’s possibly worse — if anything could be — is that Potter has begun speaking to him in the mornings, almost as if the intimacy that’s forged in that hour or so they talk before Potter starts touching himself has sunk into his unconscious mind. The first morning after, it was a simple, furrowed look before his face cleared. Then an easy, “Morning, Malfoy. You going to the Quidditch game later?”
Unable to look at him directly, Draco shook his head. “Why would I?” he asked, as snottily as he could manage.
“For fun?” Potter asked, sounding on the verge of a laugh.
“I have fun playing Quidditch, not watching others play,” Draco lied. His face was hot.
Potter stayed silent for a moment, then said, “Maybe we could play sometime,” rather ironically, Draco thought, for someone who had played an awful lot with himself the night before.
“I’m busy,” Draco mumbled, before escaping to the loo.
The following morning, it was a query about what classes Draco had that day, and the next day an interest in what hair potion Draco used. And everything preceded each night by Potter in his bed, talking to him. And wanking.
God, the wanking.
Draco sits with his head in his hands as the rest of the students in Advanced Arithmancy collect their things in a flurry of movement and file out. He takes his time, because one student is always disgustingly predictable in wanting to check something with the professor after class, and there’s never another time to find her alone.
As if on cue, Granger stands from her desk and heads over to Professor Vector, her soft timbre curious, her hands gesturing expansively. Professor Vector nods and says a couple of things, pointing to a place on the scroll that’s spread out over her desk, and Granger smiles and nods, then heads back to her desk to grab her bag. Draco glances at the professor, then heads over to Granger’s side.
“Malfoy,” she says evenly, utterly unsurprised. Annoying bint.
“I need to talk to you,” he says.
“I figured; you’re usually out of here like a shot,” she says lightly, raising her eyebrows.
“It’s harder to aim at a moving target,” he says, satisfied when her lips tighten.
“Who? Who’s doing that?” she snaps. Granger and her causes.
Draco waves a hand, dismissing it. “I’m not here for protection.”
“It’s not okay,” she insists, hugging her bag to her chest, brown eyes lit with self-righteous anger. “That’s not what we went through everything for.”
He sighs, regretting the joke. The sort of joke. Whatever. “Nevermind, honestly. It’s about Potter.”
Her lower lip disappears between her teeth; she looks as if she’s debating letting Draco get away with the change of subject until his statement hits. “What about Harry?”
“It’s about…” He clears his throat and lowers his voice darting another glance at the professor. “About the sleepwalking.”
“Yes?”
“He’s started again. And...and kept going,” Draco says grimly. His cock swells slightly, and he sits down on a stool at her desk. Granger lowers herself onto the other stool and looks at him expectantly.
“What do you mean?” she asks when Draco doesn’t elaborate.
“He— He—” Draco swallows hard. “He keeps me awake.”
A tiny peal of laughter escapes and she gives him an incredulous glance. “That’s all?”
“It’s enough,” he snaps. “I’ve got classes.”
Granger jerks her chin up, eyes hardening. “And Harry saved your life. If you’re really that petty, still, to not allow for him to work out his problem for a few hours every night, then I don’t even know what to say. Ron said you were fine with it.”
“A few hours?” Draco asks. He feels off-centre at the reminder of his debt to Potter; it’s the first time any of them have brought it up.
“Well, yes. It used to be almost all night; Ron was having to nap during the day until Harry found the right combination of potions,” Granger says, surprised. “How long is it for you?”
“An hour or so,” Draco says, irritated that he feels soundly chastened. He waits for a second, then takes a breath. “He tells me things.”
Granger’s silence is loaded. “What kind of things?”
Clearing his throat, Draco shakes his head; he doesn’t want to relive Potter’s bland, unaffected chatter about walking through the Forbidden Forest to his death, surrounded only by his dead loved ones. “Just...things. That he’d most likely not want me to know,” Draco admits.
Studying him narrowly, Granger shakes her head. “You’ve changed.”
“I have not!” Draco says, glaring at her.
A slow, smug smile creeps across her face, and Draco wants to repay her for the slap in third year. “If you hadn’t, the whole school would know by now. And Harry trusts you enough not to tell anyone what you learn.”
“Potter doesn’t know I’m learning anything I shouldn’t; he doesn’t even know he’s sleepwalking, or that I know about that! Weasley told me about it,” Draco says, still glaring. “I think you should tell him to find another potion to repress it.”
“Harry does so know,” she informs him primly, causing him to sit upright. He rubs at the sudden headache forming at his temples. “And anyway, it’s not as simple as another potion.”
“What do you mean, he knows?” Draco demands, loudly enough that Professor Vector looks up from her scrolls. She hooks a dark eyebrow at them, as if only now realising that they’re still in the room, then shrugs and looks back to her paperwork. Draco’s heart flutters hard; he lowers his voice. “And why not?”
“Well, Ron told him that he told you,” Granger says, amused. “We’d told him we would, if he didn’t. He accidentally blew out the windows of the Burrow when Ron’s mum woke him up because he was sleep cooking. Anyway, he said if you were… you-ish about it, he’d make sure you didn’t talk, but he didn’t think you would anyway.”
“He didn’t think I would,” Draco echoes flatly. “Maybe that’s just because he doesn’t think anything he’s telling me could be used… against him,” he forces himself to add. “Maybe he doesn’t even know he’s doing it; Weasley said he might not.”
“No, he definitely knows,” she says, then bites her lip as though she wishes she hadn’t revealed that much. A tinge of pink melts over her cheeks, and she sighs. “He feels funny in the mornings after it happens. And hasn’t he been trying to talk to you? He said as much.”
“I suppose,” Draco says grudgingly, thinking Potter’s strange overtures in the last two weeks. Because honestly, who randomly asks what someone’s favourite colour is as a conversational ice-breaker? It’s not Draco’s fault that he can’t take it seriously.
Then again, he’d thought Potter still didn’t realise he was sleepwalking.
“Alright, then.” Granger stands up, some of her bushy curls falling over her face as she lifts the strap of her back over her head. She graces him with an impersonal smile. “I don’t think I need to reiterate what would happen if Harry suddenly couldn’t trust you. And forget what he or Ron would do; I have my own methods,” she adds, flipping her hair. Draco flinches and she gives him a small wave, then walks out of the classroom at a fast clip.
He stares after her exasperatedly, only remembering after Professor Vector clears her throat — pointedly indicating that he should leave — that Granger never answered his question about the potions.
***
“Hi,” Potter says, looking up with a curious smile when Draco walks in.
“Hi,” Draco says back. It comes out brisk, unfriendly, but he’s not exactly used to responding when he’s awake, so it’ll have to do. Potter’s mouth draws down at the address, a confused little gesture that’s not remotely charming at all, even if it does cause crinkles to appear around his mouth, the same as a smile does. Taking a deep breath, Draco nods to the book open on Potter’s desk. “Studying?”
“Er, no.” Potter swiftly closes the book, and Draco winces, recognising it as the diary Potter keeps offering to let him read. Potter tucks it away in his desk drawer, and swivels in his chair. “You’re early,” he says. When Draco slants him a look, his throat turns blotchy. “I just mean, you… Well, I guess I meant that. You usually study at the library until I’m in bed.”
“I’m taking six Newts,” Draco says after a moment.
“Oh, right, Curse Breaking,” Potter says, then looks at him, bewildered.
Draco pauses, then resumes removing his robes, hanging them neatly and levitating them back to his wardrobe. He loosens his tie and slips off his shoes, then sits on the edge of his bed to face Potter.
“Did you tell me that?” Potter asks, still baffled.
Draco shakes his head. “I’ve mentioned it to some of the professors,” he says, holding his breath. Potter gives a slow nod. “What about you?’
“Aurors,” Potter says, smiling a little. “Obviously.”
“Why obviously?” Draco asks, swallowing.
And really, “stumped,” should not be as good a look on anyone as it is on Potter. He tucks his chin into his chest, his lower lip disappearing between his teeth, brows drawing in at the centre. He looks around, as if searching for an answer, and his eyes land on his little tree, dressed up for hols way too soon.
“I… You know.” He gives a soft laugh, gesturing. “Funny, Malfoy.”
“I’m serious. Just because you defeated the D— him?” Draco shrugs blandly. “I’d think you’d want to get away from doing shit like that, is all.”
Potter’s eyes find him; he looks at Draco consideringly, then nods. “I might have thought about it.”
“Think about it more,” Draco says, throat dry. He stands up and sends his shoes to his wardrobe, then heads around the bed, pointing his wand to the bed hangings to bring them down. They don't shield him greatly from Potter’s gaze, but Potter clears his throat and turns away as Draco disrobes, the way they have each time one of them has had to change. Draco gets into his pyjamas and spells his uniform into one of the laundry bags for the elves to take overnight. When he’s done, he reopens the slate curtains that surround his bed and climbs in with the newest Hitwizard thriller, cracking the spine with satisfaction. He sees Potter slide another look at him and glances up.
“Green,” Draco says.
“What?” Potter looks at Draco’s novel, then back up to his face.
“You asked, this morning. My favourite colour. It’s green,” Draco says, feeling his face heat when Potter’s eyes widen. The tree is at his back and he wears an emerald t-shirt, and Potter's eyes are still the greenest thing in the room. Hastily, lest Potter get the wrong idea, Draco adds, “Slytherin green. You know.”
“Right,” Potter says, doing that surprised/inept/befuddled thing that works so well for him. He rakes a hand through his hair. “Good book?”
“Merlin, Potter, I’m trying to read,” Draco mumbles unfairly, dropping his eyes to the first page.
He hears a soft snort for his efforts, and then Potter says, “What’s it about?”
“Hitwizards,” Draco says with an annoyed huff. Potter looks at him patiently, and Draco thinks of sitting at the dinner table with his parents; he thinks of his mother’s warm eyes as she listened to his father recount the plot of a book he had had just finished. He remembers dropping a fork before he was old enough to have learned to let the house-elves bring him a new one, and ducking under the table to see that their ankles were hooked around one anothers — a discreet link of physical contact. He clears his throat, eyes still on the book. “H.W. Evans is trained especially to take down those who’ve gone into deep cover, and while researching his newest mark he discovers a plot to assassinate the Minister by him, but can’t reveal it without first uncovering who the mark is, or be forced to give up his own identity, as well. There’s a whole series of the Hitwizard team.”
“Could I read it when you finish?”
Draco looks up, nibbling on his lip. Potter’s smile is soft and curious and engaged, as though he might really want to borrow the book. Draco glances at the diary Potter has pulled back out of his desk and says, “Fine. If you’ll shut up long enough that I can get past the first page.”
Obedient silence falls, and when Draco pulls his eyes back up minutes later, Potter is nibbling on the nub of his quill and not looking at him. But he’s smiling, and those damned crinkles are there.
***
“Hey, Draco.”
Draco heaves himself up, yawning. Before he thinks what repercussions it could have, he spells on the lamp in the corner, his eyes having started to hurt by the time Potter goes back to his head every night. Fortunately, Potter doesn’t seem fazed by the extra light, dim though it is. Draco yawns.
“Hey, Potter.”
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, you know.” Draco’s jaw pops as his yawn grows. “I’m training this breed of Hippogriffs right here.”
Enthused, Potter climbs into his bed — over him, every single time, goddammit — and crosses his legs in front of him. “I didn’t know you liked Hippogriffs! You made that big fuss.”
“Yes, well.” Draco rubs at his eyes, tone dry. “I still feel like that was more his fault than mine. Although I… Maybe... overreacted afterward.”
“Hmmhmm. Witherwings still doesn’t like blonds,” Potter says, nodding sagely. “Won’t let Fleur come near him without glaring.”
“Who’s Witherwings?”
“Oh, Buckbeak,” Potter says blithely. Draco shivers at the name because, in the wrong or not, he still has the occasional flashback of that giant bird screaming and swiping at him. “We renamed him Witherwings when we got him out.”
“I see.” Draco snickers and Potter joins in; one of the things that Draco doesn’t mind about Potter’s bizarre nightly visits is that he tends to laugh at anything, completely comfortable with joining in on the joke even if he doesn’t know what it is. “Hell, you three got away with everything. More than I thought, even.”
“Pretty much,” Potter says, looking blandly rueful. “But I almost got killed a lot, too, so…”
“Yeah,” Draco says, throat tightening. His voice drops, and he rubs his palms against the elaborately raised threading on the duvet over his thighs. He sighs. “I suppose that’s true.”
“Plus, Dumbledore and Sirius helped!” Potter says brightly.
“With Witherwings?”
“Uh huh. Want to play chess?”
Draco reaches out and touches Potter’s wrist lightly when he starts to extend it, then pulls away as if scalded. In truth, the description feels apt; Potter’s skin is covered in a light dusting of hair and is hot under Draco’s fingers, almost feverishly so. He rubs his fingers and thumb together to get rid of the sensation.
“No,” he says, thinking of Granger and her Harry knows business. “Not tonight.”
“But I like winning,” Potter says with a testy moue of disapproval.
“And you’re very good at it,” Draco says. “But I thought we could talk.” Maybe if he breaks Potter out of his pattern, he’ll be less inclined to… Well.
“Okay.” Potter drops his hand and looks as near to Draco’s eyes as he ever does, unsteady gaze wobbling. He’s way too fucking agreeable, this Potter, but Draco finds himself fascinated all the same. “I used to see you through Voldemort’s eyes, you know.”
“I—” Draco’s hands fist in his duvet; he stares at Potter, aghast. He tries to think of what he would have said, once upon a time. A venomous redirect, perhaps, but none come to mind. Weakly, he says, “You did.”
“Mmhm.” Potter nods sagely at him. “He’d make you use the Cruciatus curse on people.”
Light trembles skitter up Draco’s arms and down his spine; the back of his neck prickles. “I had to.”
“I know,” Potter says. “I saw. There was a time he—”
“Something else,” Draco cuts in desperately. It’s half-one in the sodding morning and he’s not going to be reduced again to near-tears by — in front of — Potter again, asleep though he is. “I meant talk about something else.”
“What?”
Draco swallows, unprepared; he’d thought he’d gotten better at listening to Potter’s darker ramblings, but this is the first time they’ve extended to Draco’s part in the war. “Dinner,” he says inanely.
“I like dinner,” Potter says, nodding.
Relieved, Draco nods in return. “I’ve noticed; you’ll eat just about anything.”
“You’re too picky,” Potter says. Draco can’t help the tiny grin that curves his mouth; Potter notices him, too. But the warmth pooling in his chest immediately turns into a hard, cold knot when Potter continues, “It’s probably because you’ve never been starved.”
“I— No,” Draco admits. He was rather hoping for a break from the topic, but better this than being reminded of… Of... “I remember Granger’s interview about how you had to scavenge in the Forest of Dean.”
“You read that?” Potter asks, pleased. He reaches out and ruffles Draco’s hair.
“Don’t do that.” Draco bats at his hand, annoyed with Potter when the gesture becomes a slow, curious pet — and even more with himself for thinking it feels nice. He tries not to think of his father’s head in his mother’s lap. Their soft, warm laughter would mingle as she stroked through his hair after a long day, both of them almost forgetting that Draco was still there, reading his book, as the intimacy had wound around them -- an impenetrable bubble of something breathtakingly sweet.
“It’s soft.”
“Of course it is.” Lowering his hand when his objection has no effect, he allows Potter to sift his fingers through his hair, soft, happy sounds issuing from his throat. The pad of one fingertip grazes Draco’s ear and Draco sucks in a long breath, looking at him. “And of course I did.”
“I thought you wouldn’t care.”
Stung, Draco dips his head and moves it out of Potter’s reach. “That I wouldn’t care how you accomplished everything?”
“Well, you haven’t shown much of an interest.” Potter sighs, looking as bothered as he gets when he’s like this.“You don’t even talk to me.”
“I did tonight,” Draco points out, mind wandering over the last several weeks of term. When they’d been roomed together, he thought Potter would prefer the silence — that, if forced to be around Draco, he’d rather not be reminded of his presence — and was ill-equipped to cope with Potter’s sudden change in attitude toward him, or the sudden influx of smiles and small talk. He’s not exactly proud of his reserve, particularly when he’s been trying so hard to right his wrongs from the previous years, but it felt so much safer. At least then.
At least with Potter.
“You did!” Potter nods rapidly, and Draco gives him a slight smile. “I liked that.”
“Uhm.” Simultaneously pleased and unnerved by Potter’s enthusiasm, Draco searches for a safe subject. His eyes land on the jaunty little tree in the corner of the room. “Why did you decorate your tree that way?”
“Is it mine?” Potter asks, eyes lighting up. “I thought it was yours; thanks!”
Draco flushes, biting his lip. “It’s just a tree.”
“I didn’t know it was a gift. It’s not even Christmas, yet.”
“It’s— it’s not. I mean, it is,” Draco says, flustered. “I just didn’t… know it was.” He clears his throat. “But, why is it decorated that way?”
“With tinsel and lights?”
“And the orbs,” Draco says, glancing at them. “They don’t do anything. They’re Muggle, right?”
“What are they supposed to do?” Potter asks, not bothering to answer his question.
Draco sighs and slides out of bed. He pads over to his trunk and finds his tiny holiday bag fit with an invisible extension charm, then opens it and draws out two of his favorite ornaments, carefully only touching the ribbons. He heads back and climbs into bed, then displays it, dangling from his forefinger.
“These,” he says, wondering how the Weasleys decorate their trees, “are Wizarding ornaments. Be careful,” he cautions, when Potter reaches to touch the first. “It’s an antique.”
“It’s pretty,” Potter mumbles, staring at it vaguely. He’s right, too, Draco thinks, turning his eyes to gaze at it. The sphere’s delicately faceted crystal glows dully in the dim light of the room, giving off the faintest pulse of misty blue beyond the immersive black inside. Potter’s fingers hover respectfully, touching only the air around it.
Smiling, Draco says, “Just touch it lightly. Watch.”
Potter closes the small distance between his fingers and the ornament and gasps, a slightly strangled sound falling from his lips when it lights up — first with the yellow burst of sunlight illuminating the centre, then with the planets that appear and begin to rotate around it. The solar system grows smaller as the charm pulls back, revealing the galaxy and then another and another until the ornament is filled with hundreds of tiny, spiral galaxies, all breathtaking colours in the darkness of space. Potter pulls his hand away, making a small, mournful noise when the charm fades.
“You have to keep touching it?”
“No, you can spell it to stay like that, but this is older magic; it shouldn’t be wasted.” Draco shrugs, more pleased than he wants to examine at how obviously Potter likes it. “It glows on its own, anyway.”
“What about the other?”
Draco hesitates, feeling oddly shy even though he’d been the one to bring out the thing in the first place. He holds it out, and Potter touches it carefully, breathing out, “Oh,” into the quiet as he spies the flickering memory appearing of Draco as a newborn, cradled in his mother’s arms. It’s silent, but Draco’s strangely-pointed baby face is red with fury as he cries, and his mother casts a helpless look of amused adoration up at his father, who then lowers onto the bed next to her. They look at Draco together, overwhelming fascination and pride etched over their faces, as well as a tenderness he’s rarely seen them direct at anyone but each other.
“I like this one even better,” Potter says. “Except for your father. You could get rid of that part.”
Snorting, Draco shakes his head, but he smiles to gentle it. “It’s just a memory drawn into stasis,” he says. “One of the Healers at my mother’s beside, I think. We have others; their wedding and such, but they’re far more personal than most.”
“We should put them on our tree,” Potter says.
“It’s your tree, and no,” Draco says, tucking them back into his bag. “They would clash with your garish Muggle decorations.”
“Okay,” Potter says, not looking even a little hurt. Draco rolls his eyes, but grins. “Will you put them on yours?”
“Perhaps,” Draco says, hedging, because the only real reason for his hesitation is not knowing how to share certain parts of himself with Potter. He carefully levitates the bag back to his trunk and closes the lid gently, then turns back to Potter. “Is tinsel the messy silver— Fuck.”
Potter smiles at him vacantly, his hand already having disappeared beneath his bottoms. Draco stares, saliva flooding his mouth as he watches the smooth, jerking motions of Potter’s hand working his own cock.
“I thought—” Draco’s voice comes out husky; he can’t, for some reason unable to pull his eyes away tonight. Potter feels funny in the mornings he reminds himself; Granger said. Maybe that’s because he… knows. On some level. He must. Draco would, he’s sure, be aware of having wanked in the middle of the night. How could someone not be?
Heavy justifications aside, he can’t shake the conflicted feeling when Potter gives a soft, warm moan, sweet as treacle. Draco inhales and looks up; Potter’s eyes are on him — flickering how they do, but on him — and the heat in his sleepy gaze is worse than the burn on the soles of his feet as he and Potter had flown above the Fiendfyre.
“What did you think?” Potter asks and if not for the breathlessness in his tone he’d sound merely curious. “About your ornament?”
“I thought you wouldn’t do— that,” Draco blurts. “Tonight.”
“I like wanking,” Potter says innocently. Draco blinks at him, an untempered laugh of disbelief bursting out. “It, mmm, feels really good. You should try it.”
“I have,” Draco says, and Salazar if he’s not gone just as breathless as Potter. His prick rises heavily against his bottoms, begging to be touched. Potter reaches out and grips his shoulder, eyes closing for a moment, fingers biting into Draco’s muscle as Draco goes tense with uncertainty. “You keep touching me.”
“I like, ah, touching you.” The hand cupping his shoulder gives a little squeeze as if to make a point.
“I’m a wizard,” Draco says softly, letting his eyes wander again to where Potter’s strokes are getting longer and — if the quickening of his breath can be trusted — harder, too. Because he’s asked himself a dozen times a day since this started, and because Potter’s already doing what he is, Draco gulps and adds, “Not a witch.”
“I like wizards too,” Potter says. “Don’t you?”
Draco closes his eyes briefly, head swimming. “Just wizards,” he whispers, sneaking a hand to press over his prick through his bottoms.
“Yeah,” Potter says on a grunt. “Hey, I’m gonna come.”
“Okay,” Draco says faintly.
He should lay down and roll over, shouldn’t even contemplate looking; he should put the pillow ‘round his head like he has for a sodding fortnight and let Potter finish his business and go to bed. But Potter’s hand is still tight on his shoulder, his not-entirely-focused eyes still hot on Draco’s face. He cries out softly, the bed bouncing a little as his hips thrust, and then his neck arches, head falling back. He releases Draco’s shoulder and reaches down to — oh shit, oh fuck — yank his waistband lower as he comes. Draco’s face burns, eyes unblinking as he takes in Potter’s cock, already spurting ribbons of come over his rapidly moving fist. Potter’s prick is long, red, and curves up toward his belly. It looks thick enough for a heavy mouthful, Draco thinks, and the burn in his cheeks instantly becomes a blaze that spreads down his throat and over his chest. He’s never done that before, but watching Potter as he finishes, stroking out the last dribbles of fluid, makes him desperate to try.
They’re both breathing heavily when Potter is done, and Potter lifts up his waistband as casually as he does the blankets when he climbs into Draco’s bed every night. He wipes the mess on his hand over his groin with a happy little sigh, then turns his dazed eyes to Draco.
“You should go back to your bed now,” Draco says hoarsely. He can barely move for fear that he’ll come untouched in his pyjamas. He tries to gentle his voice into something more concerned and less please let me stare at that thing for a few more seconds and says, “You’ve had your wank, so it’s time to sleep.”
Potter waves a sleepy hand over his crotch and Vanishes the mess, blinking at him hazily. “But you’re still hard.”
“I am not.” Draco licks his lips, pretty sure he’s never been harder. A rather new phenomenon he’s experienced every single night recently, but… “I carry a shrunken broom in my pocket.”
“No,” Potter insists, blast him; for some reason he doesn’t seem as inclined to believe Draco’s lies after he wanks. Before Draco can stop him, he reaches out to give Draco’s erection a poke with one finger. Draco bleats out a shocked sound, managing not to come by the barest thread of control, and catches Potter’s wrist. Potter frowns. “You’re hard.” He tilts his head. “D’you not know how?” he asks.
“I just… I just like privacy to do...that,” Draco says with some effort.
“Oh. But you could touch me this way,” Potter says. The wrist in Draco’s hand flips, Potter’s fingers catching and encircling Draco’s. He tugs Draco’s hand forward and presses it to his cock through his flannels. The motion of leaning forward pops Draco’s prick tight between his stomach and the low-riding waistband of his silky bottoms, pinching the head in just the right way; he moans and feels the pulse of his orgasm start, fingers closing automatically over the shape of Potter’s prick just for something to cling to.
“Fuck,” he says on a low moan, giving up. He feels the warmth spread as he shoots all over his stomach and shirt, cock jerking, his hand stroking over Potter’s length. Potter keeps his hand firm over Draco’s, watching him as Draco gasps and — fuck it — brings his free hand to rub over his own cock to wring out the rest of his climax, finally sagging when the pleasure starts to ebb. “Fuck.”
“Didn’t that feel good?” Potter asks practically, finally releasing his hand. Draco leaves it for a moment — he’s too weak to move, is the thing — and strokes over Potter’s semi-flaccid prick appreciatively a few more times before shakily drawing away.
“Yeah,” Draco says, unable to look at him. He reaches for his wand, but feels the thoughtless tease of magic over his groin and stomach, drying him, and looks up to see Potter blinking and yawning and flapping his hand in Draco’s direction.
“Okay, g’night!” Potter says, climbing off the bed. He looks around, lost, then smiles at Draco before staggering to his own bed and falling on it, unresponsive within seconds.
“Goodnight,” Draco echoes into the quiet of the room, wondering what the fuck just happened. He feels not a little lost too, only the heavy, pleasant throb of his prick reminding him that he’s not dreaming.
Imagining his hand on another boy’s cock is not so different from the reality, apparently, but for the emptiness of the transaction. There was no snogging, no warm breath on his neck, no lean, flat chest against his own; all of his need had been reduced to a piece of elastic and a sleeping Potter’s insistence on being the most inappropriate person alive, and while he certainly doesn’t count it as his first… time, or anything, he can’t help but feel a bloom of disappointment over the experience.
He slowly lays back down and spells the lights off, determined to talk to Potter about this mess in the morning.
***
“Jesus, Malfoy, could you get any creepier?”
Draco starts, about to object about how entirely unfair that is, given the circumstances, before realising that he’s been staring at Potter’s sleeping form, slack-jawed, for who knows how many minutes now.
He’d had only meant to glance at Potter upon his return from the showers, to assess whether it was worth waking him, really. But there was something about the way Potter’s head rested against his pillow that caught his eye, something he needed to figure out. A softness in his relaxed, faintly darkened jaw, maybe, the edge of childhood being worn away by the years, turning it harder and squarer, even in his sleep. Draco’s never had a soft jaw; he’s always liked his angles — A very patrician bone structure you have, my love, his mother used to tell him indulgently — but he can see that Potter will soon be entirely angular in his own right. The natural affability of youth on his face is fading, and it makes Draco uncomfortable for reasons he can’t fathom, not the least of which is that he can’t help but wonder if the softness that Potter’s face has always held — even at his thinnest, his most stark — will fade completely with it, too.
Then there was the fact that Potter had kicked off his covers, his bottoms riding down below his hips, baring the rangy line of his back and a couple of centimetres of the crevice of his arse, the shadow of which was oddly tantalising. He had...dimples, right above the plump curve of muscle, near the small of his back, and if Draco had gotten distracted for a few moments— well, at least it was less creepy than sleep wanking.
But not, apparently, to Potter, who stares at him blearily for a few beats before yawning. He reaches for his glasses on his nightstand and shoves them on, and Draco finally feels his limbs unlock.
“Christmas tree,” he says with a vague gesture, then promptly winces. There are reasons Slytherins are taught to think before speaking, and avoiding looking foolish is not the least of them.
“What?” Potter sits up, rubbing a palm against the bristle on his chin. He looks at each Christmas tree in turn, then back at Draco questioningly.
“I, oh. I thought your fairies were flickering,” Draco mutters, thinking fast. Which isn’t easy when his brain feels just a tiny bit scrambled, having Potter watch him so intently while he’s awake. “That usually means they’re unhealthy. So I thought I would check.”
“Uh, okay.” Potter tilts a smile at him. “Only…”
“What?” Draco draws himself up to his full height, the better to haughtily look down his nose at Potter, who seems frustratingly amused. “I assure you I’m fully capable of looking after a simple fairy or two.”
“No, I just.” Potter laughs a little; he gets up, hiking up his pyjamas thoughtlessly — useless things that they are, they slide right back down to expose the sharp cut of his hipbones — and walks over to his tree, one finger lifting a fairy light. “First, it’s just a term. No fairies are being harmed in the lighting of this tree,” he says, and based on Potter’s joking tone, Draco probably shouldn’t be so relieved. “Second, the tree is here. I sleep… There.” He points to the direction Draco is still half facing, and suddenly Draco’s face is so hot he wouldn’t be surprised if a thousand fairy eggs were hatching on the planes of his cheeks. He gives Potter his best withering look and stalks over to his side of the room.
“You made a noise,” he says defensively, jerking his clothing out of his wardrobe. “I turned to look.”
“Oh.” The humorous expression on Potter’s face fades, turning sour. “Sorry.”
Draco sighs, pausing in the act of decimating his careful organization of shirts. He pinches his brow and looks at Potter with what he hopes reads as apology; while he’s always liked the angles of his face, they do tend to give the wrong idea to people who don’t know him. But Potter seems to relax a bit, shrugging uncomfortably and fiddling with a reflective red orb hanging from his tree.
“You have nightmares,” Draco says. It’s as good an opportunity to bring up Potter’s sleep habits as any.
“You do too,” Potter says, hunching a little. It puts Draco on his back foot, this feeling that Potter’s weaknesses are just as prevalent as his own; even more, that Potter is aware of that.
“Yeah.” Draco stills and copies his shrug when Potter darts his eyes over. He stops rifling uselessly through his wardrobe and sits on his bed, making sure his robe is closed decently before he takes a deep breath and says, “Sleep hasn’t been...easy.”
A flicker of something — irritation, perhaps, or embarrassment — flashes over Potter’s face. He gives a heavy sigh. “I guess it wouldn’t be for you, either,” he says grudgingly.
Here, Draco flounders, wondering how exactly he can segue from this topic to sleepwanking. But he’s gotten this far — bringing it up has been no easy feat — so he takes another long gulp of air and blurts, “Some sleep problems are more unusual than nightmares.”
Potter gives him a sharp glance, mouth flattening into a thin line, and Draco finds himself leaning back a little, even though Potter stands halfway across the room from him. He looks and, with relief, sees the hilt of Potter’s wand peeking out from under his pillow... just before Potter’s sleeping use of wandless magic flashes through his mind again. He grimaces and opens his mouth, only to be interrupted.
“I’d rather not.”
“Not what?” Draco asks, flustered.
“Talk about it,” Potter says flatly. He looks away, jaw tight. Then, “What Ron told you. If I’m… If there’s… If…”
Draco observes him for a moment, his uncomfortably tense stance, his hands fisted at his sides. Carefully, he says, “What if there’s something you need to know?”
“I know enough.”
“I don’t think you do,” Draco says, controlling the urge to smirk.
“Look,” Potter tells him, abruptly out of patience, “you could, I don’t know, ward me into my bed if I’m such a bother. But I feel better, okay?” he snaps defensively. “I feel better in the mornings, about...things. And unless I’m using you for hex practice, I don’t want to know.”
That’s not the kind of practice you’re using me for, Draco thinks, suddenly weary. “Potter.”
“No.”
“But—”
“I will Silence you,” Potter says, glaring at him. Draco sighs and rubs a hand over his face, because only Potter would ever, ever rather not know that he’s routinely doing something that he’d want to kill Draco for allowing. “Want to go to Hogsmeade?”
“I— what?”
Though a scowl lingers on Potter’s face, his voice is low and hesitant as he repeats himself. Draco sneaks a hand to his thigh and subtly pinches it.
“What’s in Hogsmeade?” he asks suspiciously, when the pinch hurts.
Potter’s face loses its tension, and he looks at Draco like he’s daft. “Shops? Places to eat? A chance to not spend the whole day studying?”
“Please,” Draco says with a bored eyeroll. Mostly because he’s having trouble coming up with a response. It sounds like a… Well, like Potter wants to… He shakes his head, snorting.
“Is that a no?” Potter asks, and Draco has the absurd thought that Potter must have built a complete immunity toward the Malfoy eyeroll the way he has with Imperius. Not that Draco watches Potter in Defence lately, or anything.
“I do more than study,” Draco says instead of answering, then tries to remember if that’s true. When was the last time he did something more than study? Other than his nocturnal activities with Potter, and writing twice a week to his mother and Pansy, he can’t quite remember.
“Show me, then,” Potter says with a gleam to his eye that makes Draco want to bring up his sleep habits again, in an entirely different way.
“Fine,” he says instead, huffing a little, face warm with something like pleasure — even though Potter’s only inviting him along to change the subject. But if he goes along with Potter’s bizarre invitation, he’ll have more time to pester him for answers. He stands and starts searching through his wardrobe again for his pale blue cashmere jumper. “But you’re paying for lunch.”
“Well, o’course,” Potter mumbles. He scratches at a small oval scar beneath the blade of his collarbone; his chest and neck darken with a blotchy pink. “I asked you out, I’ll pay.”
Shooting him a narrow look, Draco lowers his bed hangings and slips out of his dressing robe as he tries to figure out how to take that. Potter’s body is still angled toward him — odd — but Draco can’t see his face, can’t tell if that was meant maliciously or what, though the tentative tone in Potter’s voice speaks to the latter. “I do have more than enough gold, still,” Draco finally says, wondering if Potter is pitying the reparations taken from his family’s coffers. “It’s merely the principle of the thing.”
Potter snorts. His voice is strangely breathy, and Draco cocks his head as he pulls on his underpants and shakes out the sharp pleat of the grey trousers he’s picked. “Right, like I said. I invited you, I pay. Especially since you don’t even want to go.”
Draco peeks out from behind the curtain of silk for a second. The flush on Potter’s neck has climbed to saturate his face; his eyes are wide and bright behind the roundness of his frames. Draco frowns. “I never said that.”
“Then.” Potter coughs into his hand, meeting Draco’s eyes. “Then finish getting dressed. I’m going to go take a shower; I’ll be back in a few. We’ll… go out.”
“Okay,” Draco says with a skitter of uncertainty. He bends to step into his trousers, hopping a little when they catch on his foot. Fastening them and grabbing his shirt and jumper, he steps back out and startles, pulling his garments up to his chest, when he realises Potter hasn’t moved from his spot.
Making a small noise at Draco’s reappearance, Potter whirls on the ball of his bare foot and grabs his towel and terry robe from his shelf, then a bottle of hair potion. He throws the robe on and stalks out of the room, closing the door too hard behind him. Draco swallows hard in the vacuum left behind, the suck of air in Potter’s absence.
When he gathers himself after a few moments, he walks over to where Potter had been standing and, lightheaded, turns to look. From this angle, he can see the gathered drape of material over the foot of the bed… As well as a break in them, open enough and high enough to expose someone up to their shoulders.
***
Draco jerks to consciousness, alerted to Potter’s presence by the soft tread of his bare feet on the floor, perhaps, or just because he’s come to expect it. He’s tired enough that he considers doing what Potter asked of him days ago — immobilising him in his bed, curtains drawn and warded — but pushes himself up and rubs his eyes. “Hey, Potter.”
“Hi.” He looks at Draco in confusion; Draco rolls his eyes and twitches his blankets down.
“Come on then,” he says, closing his eyes in barely-concealed irritation when Potter folds to a sit on the floor next to Draco’s bedside, eyes distant as he stares down at his knees. Draco yawns and Summons a blanket to toss him. “Well? What’s it to be tonight? Wizarding politics or what we’ll name our respective children?”
“What will you name them?” Potter asks interestedly.
“I don’t know.” Draco lays his head back on his pillow. “My father calls my mother his flower; his star. Something like that, perhaps. Leo, without the unpleasant lion associations. Castor is nice; it means ‘to shine.’ You?”
“You want to name them so their spouse can have pet names for them?” Potter asks.
“Well, it’s nice, isn’t it?” Draco says, too relaxed to get defensive; it’s a topic better than a lot of nights. “I used to watch them; the way they were with each other. Having those names that only the other could refer to them as, it made it… Nice. I used to think about finding someone who’d call me their dragon,” he says with a small snort. Then, softer, “Now, Draco feels like a familiar title.”
Potter’s quiet for a moment. “Malfoy should, too,” he finally offers. “Potter does. And Harry.”
“Okay, Potter, Harry.” Draco smiles and sees Potter’s mouth twitch in the dark, eyes still trained on his knees.
“I like James.”
“Of course you do.”
“Or Sirius,” Potter says, and Draco blinks.
“A star name.”
“Uh huh.”
Draco clears his throat. “It means ‘to glow,’ or ‘scorching.’”
“Sirius did both,” Potter says, and there’s something in his voice that Draco can’t quite believe he hears.
“D-did you… Did he—?” He stutters out, sure he doesn’t really want to know. Except that he does, rather fervently.
“He was my godfather,” Potter says in a tone of flat practicality. He pauses. “I thought he was beautiful, but he would never have looked at me that way. I was too young. He loved Remus too much.”
“I don’t know,” Draco says, after he’s gotten over his surprise. “You can look at someone, can want them, and know you can never have them. That you’re not good for them,” he says. Then, though it’s the most bizarre way he can think of to comfort Potter out of his strange melancholy, he says, “It doesn’t mean he didn’t think of you that way. Look at you.”
“You do, though,” Potter says, voice low. “Look at me; I like it more than a bit.”
“I know.” Draco grimaces. “Shut up.”
“I loved him, though,” Potter continues after a single moment of blessed obedience. “It wasn’t just like that; I was still a kid, and he was like… The moon and stars.”
Draco smiles faintly. “Well, one of those.” He shrugs his free shoulder. “He was beautiful, though. I’ve seen pictures.”
“Yeah. He was your mum’s cousin.”
“Right.”
“How is she?” Potter asks sleepily, finally tilting his head up toward Draco in the dark and blinking at him; Draco barks out an unfunny laugh.
“Heartsick,” he says blithely, far more casual than he’d ever be able to be if Potter really asked. “But what do you care?”
“She saved my life.”
“And you saved hers, and mine, and…” He shakes his head. “That’s not enough, sometimes.” At Potter’s continued silence, Draco sighs and says, “My father’s not approved for visitation for three years. As much as I’d hoped to lo— to have something like they do, someday, it’s...hard on her, okay? And hard to watch.”
“Okay.”
Draco rolls his eyes. “You’re so understanding,” he bites out. “What a hero.”
“Don’t call me that,” Potter says sharply.
“No, sorry,” Draco says instantly, gobsmacked at his own error, checking the windows for rattling. He sits up again, feeling utterly foolish for being lulled into such personal conversation with a sleeping Potter, when they’re not in the act of wanking. That it’s not been about war and death made it easier to forget to tread lightly. “I don’t want to talk about my parents; I should have just said that.”
“You should have just said that,” Potter echoes.
Draco waits for a minute and relaxes when nothing indicates oncoming destruction. “Did you want to… To play chess?” he asks at length; Potter’s continued silence is unnerving.
“No, thanks.” Potter sighs deeply and stands. He looks at Draco with a lopsided smile and Draco meets his gaze to see Potter’s eyes on his, steady and clear...with no telltale wobble that indicates REM sleep. He lifts his hand, letting it hover for a moment, and Draco is still too stunned to flinch away when Potter presumably decides to touch him; he grips Draco’s shoulder, palm warm through the material of Draco’s top, and gives a little squeeze. His pinky grazes the side of Draco’s neck. “G’night. Sorry I woke you.”
“It’s fine,” Draco says roughly, scanning the last several minutes in his mind. Potter nods and looks at him a moment more before moving back to his bed and climbing in, and Draco lays back down stiffly, listening as Potter’s shifts several times to find a comfortable position, his breath slowly evening out until it indicates sleep.
All exhaustion fled, Draco isn’t so lucky.
***
As November slides into December, Draco realises that it’s been weeks since he took a Stinging hex to the back on his way to class, or a furtive Jelly-Leg hex while walking through the Great Hall. Though he’s loathe to give Potter and his cronies much credit, even Draco can’t deny that this probably has a lot to do with their weird, persistent presence around him these days. Not that he minds not having to wash his hair with Veela oil fifteen times and spell it back to its original colour after some arsehole’s gone and “accidentally” spilled Dragon’s tar on it in Potions. But it’s strange, not constantly having to be on guard all the time, to be able to walk down to Hogsmeade with Potter or go flying with him over the Quidditch pitch — which they do with fair frequency — without constantly having to renew his protective charms.
Really, he almost wishes he could bring himself to thank Granger for whatever secretive campaign she must have going to remind people that the so-called Golden Trio won’t stand for vengeful behaviour. If he were a nicer person, he just might come out and say it. But then he’d probably have to formally refuse her help and, well, he’s still Slytherin enough to be pragmatic. If that means spending time with Potter and occasionally her and Weasley, so be it.
Besides, Weasley plays a much better game of chess than Potter does, on the rare night they manage not to threaten each other with drawn wands. He is now, in fact, and Draco glowers as he notes the moment Weasley sees he’s seven moves from checkmate.
“So how’s Harry doing?” he asks after directing his Knight to take Draco’s Bishop, who crawls off the board resentfully, grimacing in pain.
“He’s your friend,” Draco says, eyeing the board. He can probably drag this out longer if he… Hm. “Ask him.”
“No, I mean.” Weasley glances over to Granger and Potter on the overstuffed Chesterfield in front of the common room fireplace. “The sleep thing.”
Draco stiffens. He orders his remaining pawn closer to Weasley’s murderous Knight, ready to make the sacrifice so he can shift his Queen; she looks up at him in gratitude. “Again, ask him.”
Weasley clicks his tongue, studying the board in silence as if waiting for Draco to elaborate. But what is he going to say? ”Oh, yes, Weasley. He’s sleeping much better. In fact, there are the occasional nights when he doesn’t wank at all, merely chats about life and returns to his own bed. More often, though, he yanks out his cock and starts stroking himself off while sitting next to me — and hey, I can’t quite help doing it too. Is that what you wanted to know?”
As if that wouldn’t result in an immediate Avada Kedavra.
Because, though the frequency of Potter’s sleep wanks has diminished slightly, they’ve somehow increased in both interaction and intent. Potter is never satisfied with Draco trying — feebly, maybe, but trying — to roll away so he isn’t watching anymore, nor with Draco not participating. Usually Draco has to bring himself off because he has the strong suspicion that if he doesn’t, Potter will do it for him, and as turned on as he gets — skin covered in a fine layer of sweat, his cock painfully hard and balls drawn snug against his body — he can’t shake the feeling that he shouldn’t be doing any of it. That it’s not quite fair.
Especially since he and Potter are friends, now. Sort of.
Ever since the first night he’d accidentally awoken Draco and found him willing to talk, Potter no longer hesitates before plying Draco with questions and offering most of his own secrets up for consumption, claiming it helps him get back to sleep, knowing someone is with him. Though Draco knows that Weasley wouldn’t bat a ginger eyelash at having Potter show up at his door at two a.m., Potter chooses to stay with Draco, instead.
They talk about things while they’re awake now, topics that are impossible to bring up in the blinding light of winters’ day. Cosy shadows and fairy lights accompany the confessions that tumble from them at night, softening the edges of certain subjects enough that they can revisit them occasionally after the sun has come up: Draco’s mother, wintering with Andromeda and Teddy in France because she can’t bear to stay in England and be away from Lucius for the first time in over twenty years; Potter’s writing — which Draco still refuses to read — and how it makes him look more closely at what’s going on around him, how it helps him focus on more than his own thoughts. They share tentative talk of nightmares — once Potter confesses that he sometimes has the urge to go find the Resurrection Stone again, and he doesn’t seem at all fazed when Draco admits to hearing Vince’s death scream on a loop when he gets too close to fire. He sits on the edge of Draco’s bed now, and when Draco said that, he took his hand and held it for a long time, his silence infinitely more comforting than a thousand platitudes would have been.
Sometimes, Draco really wonders if…
“He may be my friend,” Weasley says, snapping Draco’s attention back to the game — where Weasley’s Knight has, indeed, decimated Draco’s pawn, “but he’s your... y’know.”
“Roommate?” Draco raises his eyebrows, folding his arms over his chest and leaning back. “That means I’m supposed to exchange confidences I learn from him while he sleeps,” he says pointedly, “with you?”
Weasley huffs a little, ducking his head. “Not asking for stuff like that. Just wanted to make sure he’s doing alright. He doesn’t like to talk about it.”
Draco glances at Potter; Granger has apparently said something funny, because he’s got his head thrown back on a laugh, Adam’s apple working, mouth creased in wide, easy smile. His eyes are twinkling when he looks over to find Draco watching him, and something happens to his mouth: his smile lessens, but… doesn’t. Draco’s heart stutters like a broken wand trying to force a charm through, and he looks back down to avoid the comparison in his mind of the way his father — so cold and distant to the world — can smile at his mother, using only the warmth in his eyes.
“I know,” he finally says, under his breath. Their gradual descent into friendship is in direct relation to the amount of times he’s tried to bring up Potter’s sleep habits, as it always turns into an outing or an argument about Quidditch, or an extra trip down to the kitchens for some buttered rum. He looks to Weasley, whose face eases. “He’s sleeping better. Doesn’t stay up as long, every night.”
“Good,” Weasley says, nodding. “No weird stuff?”
Coughing a laugh before he can help himself, Draco still manages to shake his head. “Depends on how you define that,” he says wryly, and Weasley’s lips give a rueful twitch of acknowledgement.
“Fair enough. You know, Malfoy, you’re not…” Weasley trails off thoughtfully, and Draco braces himself, only to hear, “the worst, I guess.”
“I’d be relieved to know you don’t think me ‘the worst,’” Draco snaps, voice strangely hoarse, face turning hot, “if I cared at all what you thought.”
Weasley flicks him another glance, as if to evaluate him. Draco keeps his scowl firmly in place, and Weasley, damn him, smiles.
***
“Want to fuck you,” Potter pants, one hand fanned out over Draco’s hipbone as they lay side by side on Draco’s bed.
“No,” Draco manages with a low, soft whine, his hand dragging his foreskin back. His cock is so thick in his palm, feels so heavy and swollen, he tries to keep his touch light so he won’t come before Potter does. He brushes his middle finger against the vein that pulses steadily underneath the shaft, his nerve endings going hot as he imagines doing that — letting Potter push into his arse with the cock he’s currently tugging in slow, clumsy strokes. Draco shifts, arsehole clenching at the image. He shoves the waistbands of his pyjama bottoms and boxers further down, tucking them under his balls and oh, fuck, that feels better.
“Want to suck you,” Potter tries, and it’s as if Draco’s whine was contagious, because Potter has the sharp edge of desperation in his tone now, too. Draco curls his toes into the mattress, jerking when Potter reaches out with his free hand to touch Draco’s nipple inquisitively, and Draco moans, trying to arch away but only managing to press closer to that fizzle of sensation streaking through him at the thoughtless tweak. Potter does it again, and Draco remembers the question.
“N-no,” he stammers. He moves his hand more swiftly, thumb swiping over the precome dribbling from the slit. Potter’s mouth on him, dear holy fuck. How someone can want to cry from the thrill of something while mourning the lack of it, Draco doesn’t know, but finds that it’s true as he says, “We can’t. No.”
Potter makes a disgruntled sound; he suddenly shifts, rolling onto his side so he’s facing Draco. His cock brushes the outside of Draco’s hip and his hand slides down from Draco’s chest to his stomach, then lower, fingertips brushing the curls at Draco’s groin. Draco catches Potter’s wrist and holds it steady as he fucks his own fist with tight, fast strokes, feeling the tide rise inside him.
“Want to come on you,” Potter says in that determined, vague voice of his. The words are almost too much to hear. Draco turns his head to the side to look at Potter, eyes glazed and narrow, lips parted slightly as he breathes, and he wants to say no to that too, knows he should, but he’s so goddamned close, and the idea of having Potter’s spunk touch him is—
“Sure,” he says, head swimming. Potter grunts in reply and shifts his hips closer and fuck touches the bare skin on Draco’s hip with his cock, streaking it with a gleaming trail of warm moisture as his fist moves over it faster. That wasn’t what Draco meant but he’s too far gone to care.
He’s almost there when Potter’s free hand tugs out of his lax grip and lowers to cover Draco’s, clenching over his wanking fist. Draco comes with a loud, plaintive moan, distantly thinking that he shouldn’t for some reason, but Potter’s hand feels good — so fucking good — wrapped tight around Draco’s frantically moving grip, spunk spilling over both their knuckles. His hips twist and he feels warmth splash across his stomach, his cock, as Potter grunts again and starts coming too. Draco looks down in time to see it, the pearlescent streaks hitting his skin and landing in messy stripes over his pubic hair and cock, already covered in his own release that doesn’t want to stop. He squeezes his hand tighter over the glans on the final downstroke, milking the last weak spurt of come from his erection.
Heart racing and muscles going noodle-y, Draco blinks over to see Potter twisting his wrist lazily, hand now loose on his spent cock. He’s just...looking at his hand on Draco’s, a dreamlike gleam in his eye. The smell of sweat and spunk hangs heavily in the air, layered with the woodsy notes of Potter’s cologne. That scent permeates the pillow Potter rests on now, and if Draco has taken to sleeping on it after Potter returns to his own bed, well, that’s his own business.
The thought slides him out of his post-orgasmic haze. He shakes off Potter’s hand, now pliant and relaxed as he slips back into his sleepwalking daze, and gently puts it on the mattress between them. Even thinking about Potter touching him, touching Draco’s hand as he used it to get off, is such a turn on that his cock gives a feeble jerk, but the guilt licks at the edges of the memory like a flame. He waits, gazing at Potter’s distant face as Potter blinks a few times and waves a hand to clean them. The fairy lights flicker in the corner.
“I like touching you,” Potter says in an eerily distant voice. “I used to think about it sometimes.”
This is not the way it’s supposed to go; Potter’s supposed to get up and wander back to his own bed now.
Breath catching, Draco scoots away, creating more distance between them, and carefully pulls up his pants and bottoms to cover himself. But Potter’s face is still incredibly close, illuminated by the glow of Potter’s tree. His lips are bite-swollen and slick and open, his breath warm and sweet like sugar dust on Draco’s face. Draco could kiss him, if he had a mind to.
You always have a mind to, comes the insidious thought.
“You should go to bed,” he says quietly, looking away.
“Did you ever think about touching me?” Potter wonders aloud, sounding entirely too young.
The knot in Draco’s stomach tightens; he slips his feet under the covers and tugs them up, turning on his side to face Potter fully and running a hand through his hair. He can’t figure out why his throat aches when he admits, “For years, really.”
“When you wanked?”
“...Yeah.” He hesitates. “You know that, though.”
“Not that, exactly. I hated you then,” Potter says, which feels like a hex from a third year: something he can see coming, but that hurts all the same. But then he adds, “I don’t, anymore,” and sighs, a tiny smile on his face. He leans forward to bump Draco’s forehead with his forehead with an almost affectionate gesture — like a Thestral with her foal — then climbs out of Draco’s bed and walks back to his own. His flannels still hang down, baring his soft prick, and his gait is uncoordinated and loose; he looks completely ridiculous, and Draco wants him to come back.
He’s two steps from his bed; ten seconds from sleep. They’re sort-of friends, and they do… this, and he still needs to hear it again. While he still has the chance, Draco blurts, “You don’t?”
“Nuh uh.” Potter falls over his mattress, stuffing one bare foot under his sheet. “Do you…”
“No,” Draco says, even though Potter’s breath has already turned into a soft snuffle. Merlin to Christ. “I don’t, either.”
He lays tensely, listening to the tick, pause of his antique desk clock, reminding him that with every second, his fortune could be running out.
***
“You’re decorating it?”
Draco doesn’t turn around, but his hands still in the act of carefully fitting a golden candle deep inside the pines of his tree, hiding his surprise; Potter’d said he’d be studying after supper. When he doesn’t say anything else, Draco shrugs and whispers a gentle sticking charm at the candle. “It’s three weeks until Christmas.”
“That’s what you’ve been waiting for?” Potter asks, amused and incredulous. “You put them up over two months early!”
“I…” Draco reaches for another candle, looking for a good spot. He hears movement, and then Potter is beside him, inquisitive gaze set on Draco’s profile so that Draco can’t help but feel it like the drift of fingers. He fits the candle in with precise, economical movements, and doesn’t turn his head when he says, “I like Christmas trees, okay?”
“I got that,” Potter says. His eyes are soft as clover, warm, and Draco feels trapped by them. “Why?”
“I…” Draco inhales slowly; he can smell Potter’s aftershave. “My mother and— and father,” he says hesitantly, pausing to give Potter time to interrupt if he wants, “love Christmas. We have an enormous, formally decorated tree in our foyer; smaller ones in the dining room and parlour. I liked them so much when I was young that my parents gave me two for my room. They used to help me decorate — it’s how I got the magical creatures collection of ornaments,” he says, waving a hand when Potter tilts his head quizzically. “They... spoiled me,” he admits, the words that once felt so sweet, now like tar on his tongue. But Potter simply nods patiently. “And they would come to my room and read to me in bed, one on each side, and…”
“And?”
“And they would hold hands behind me. Or dance with each other when I asked. Father would wear house slippers and mother would leave her hair down, and though holidays became more formal as I grew, it never… It was always the time when we… When everything was…good,” Draco fumbles out, colouring. He firms his voice, taking on a defensive tone. “So I like Christmas, and I like trees, and, and that’s why.”
Potter looks at him a moment more, then skates his fingers over the line of Draco’s cheekbone before letting his hand fall back to his side. This time, Draco doesn’t turn because he can’t, his whole body seizing up with lust and longing and confusion as he wonders if Potter knows what they’ve been doing at night, if it’s possible he always has.
“I like Christmas trees too,” Potter says wistfully. “But I never got to help decorate at the Dursleys’. I’d just watch them do it through the slots in the cupboard door. It was never how I wanted it to look, but I liked having the extra light from the fairy lights a night.” He casts a fond glance at his own tree, the branches heavy with their bright baubles. It’s the first time he’s brought up his Muggle family, and Draco takes a second to think up a good response.
“I don’t suppose it matters much how it looks as long as you’ve got a gift you like underneath,” Draco says hoarsely, too aware of their positioning, like the previous few nights: Potter close to his side, his breath on Draco’s jaw.
“My Christmas mornings were never very good, but at least they usually left more on their plates for supper — I’d help Petunia make enough to feed Hogwarts — so I almost always got a decent enough amount to eat. More, if I could smuggle some food into my pockets,” Potter says. Draco has a sudden vision of the skinny waif he’d first met in Madam Malkin’s, clothing overlarge and smudged with dirt, green eyes huge in his face.
“They starved you,” he breathes, as Potter’s occasional reference to being hungry clicks in his head.
“Well, sometimes,” Potter says blithely, like it doesn’t really matter anymore. His hand is warm when it touches Draco’s wrist. “Can I help?”
“Yeah, of course,” Draco says, before he can think better of it. He gives a short, jerky nod. “I’m just doing the candles tonight. Ribbons tomorrow.”
“Why?” Potter asks, picking up a candle. “These are pretty. Do they light up?”
“Yeah. Yes.” Draco licks his lips, tension leaking from his muscles when Potter takes a step back and easily finds a good spot to set his candle, near the top. He copies the sticking charm Draco used, and Draco doesn’t know what to think, that he was paying such close attention. “There’s a charm for the flame to protect the tree.” He pauses, knuckles brushing Potter’s as they both reach for a new candle at the same time. “And it’s tradition.”
“Like a pureblood thing?”
Draco shrugs. “I suppose. It’s the way my family has always done it, at least.” When Potter makes another interested sound — a little hmm? noise in the back of his throat — Draco explains, “Candles first, then ribbons, then ornaments, a few more every night in ascending order of how special or rare they are. Christmas Eve, you put up the last, and then your parents pretend it’s Father Christmas fitting the tiny presents onto the branches while you’re asleep.”
Potter chuckles, low and warm, and his chest presses against Draco’s shoulder as he reaches up and in to set another candle. His words feel hot and damp against the shell of Draco’s ear when he pulls away. “There’s good?” Draco nods stiffly, eyes on the lopsided candle. He reaches up woodenly to fix it, and Potter says, “It’s funny, Ron hadn’t heard of Santa at all.”
“Who’s Santa?” Draco asks, taking a step back to survey the tree.
“Father Christmas.”
“Muggles call him Santa?” Draco ticks a look at him; Potter’s eyes are overbright behind his stupid round lenses — one of which has a fingerprint smudge near the bottom — and his smile is crooked. He finds another empty spot near the top to put another candle. “Maybe they’re not the same person, because Father Christmas isn’t a myth.”
“No, same, but there’s no way he could be real,” Potter says. “Basically, Santa visits all the houses of good children in the world and brings toys and candy.” Draco snorts, eyebrows raised, and Potter’s amused expression quickly turns bewildered. “Lives in the North Pole with his wife and has flying reindeer? Has loads of elves who help him make his… oh.”
Laughing aloud at Potter’s slackened jaw as he processes it, Draco gives him a teasing poke in the shoulder; his face heats, though he’s not sure why — Potter seems excessively fond of tactile interactions with his friends, Draco’s learned — and he pulls away quickly. “Yes, oh. You should stop questioning what could be real or not. Bad Muggle habit, that.”
“But—”
“And they’re not reindeer; they’re Thestrals. Obviously,” Draco informs him smugly, rather enjoying the bloom of excitement on Potter’s face.
“How does he get to all the kids to celebrate Christmas in one night, then?” Potter asks, a little ah ha! in his tone.
“Time Turner.” Draco smirks. “And Apparition. And a few other charms, I’d expect, though the Ministry doesn’t reveal what. You really haven’t ever paid attention in History of Magic, have you? The Orphan Wishes in the middle ages, when witches and wizards — along with Muggles, being mistaken for them — were being hunted for their magic? He would bring smoked cod and roasted venison or pork to the children left behind, veritable banquets with stew and mead even for the commoners. And he would include swatches of fabric for the children, too — mainly bolts of wool, though the rumour is that he Transfigured them on occasion to cloth of gold or silver, so the family could sell it later on.”
“Is he a thousand years old?” Potter asks blankly.
Smiling, Draco shakes his head. “Of course not; the title is passed down from parent to son or daughter. There’ve been several Mother Christmases too; they just don’t generally seek as much fame for their generosity.” He jerks his head in the direction of the door. “Ask your Weasel about Father Christmas, then, and see what he says. He probably didn’t make the connection because you were eleven when you met; Father Christmas has to cease visiting children around the age of five, or he’d never get any sleep. That’s when the parents take over.”
Draco half-expects Potter to bolt from the room to go find Weasley to confirm, but after a moment’s silence, Potter returns to task and plies Draco with questions about Father Christmas and wizarding hols — apparently, the Weasley family is so informal, they don’t even bother with ribbons on their tree — and they spend the next three quarters of the hour joking and talking as they position and reposition the candles until Draco’s satisfied that their placement won’t get in the way of the rest of the decorations to come.
“Can I help again?” Potter asks, when they’re nearly done. “Tomorrow night?”
“Pureblood tradition dictates that decorating formal trees are a way for families to bond,” Draco says slowly. Potter’s face doesn’t exactly fall, but the muscles of it seem to go flat, as does his chest, and it takes a moment for Draco to realise that Potter’s holding his breath. “Or friends,” he allows. His throat tightens around the actual words that want to spring free from his lips like a promise: those loved; those Bonded; mates. “Friends can help, too.”
For some reason, though he starts breathing again, Potter’s expression doesn’t change. He looks at Draco intently, as though trying to figure something out. “Is that what we are?” he murmurs.
“We’re probably a lot of things,” Draco says after a short pause, chills skittering up his arms. His Mark aches, inexplicably, the way it does sometimes when his heart beats too fast — as if reminding him that it’s easier not to feel anything at all. “But, yes. I suppose friends is one of them.” Unsteadily, when Potter doesn’t respond, Draco says, “...Right?”
“Right,” he says, so emphatically, Draco has the absurd urge to laugh. He hides it, though he knows he has no hope of hiding the accompanying warmth in his cheeks. As though practicing Legilimency, Potter touches his cheek again, drifting closer; his pupils are blown wide, ringed with the barest threading of vibrant green, and for a second they shift from Draco’s gaze to drop to his mouth.
Breath catching, Draco watches them come back up, heavy lidded now, and this can’t be possible, really; Potter’s awake, and leaning closer, and looking at him like—
Three loud, businesslike raps on the door cause the spell between them to shimmer, but not quite to break. They stand looking at each other, and fuck if Potter seems to know what to do anymore than Draco does; he seems conflicted as to whether he should answer the door or do… Whatever he was about to, not that Draco is stupid enough to get his hopes entirely up before it happens. Then Granger’s voice, impatient and muffled, says, “Harry? Are you in there?”
“Shit.”
“Potter,” Draco says, voice gone low and quiet in a way it never has before.
Potter hesitates; his thumb is still warm on Draco’s jaw, fingers fanning out over the side of Draco’s neck. He glances at the door; shakes his head. Draco can’t contain the smile that breaks free when Potter starts to pull him closer; it’s mirrored on Potter’s face — as bright and happy as the tree on Potter’s side of the room — as he tilts his chin up to Draco’s.
“Harry! It’s important!” The knock comes again, harder; more like the slap of a palm against the heavy wood.
Draco wobbles shakily as Potter releases him to stalk over to the door; he yanks it open with a soft snarl. “What, Hermione? We’re busy!”
“You’re—” Granger’s lashes flutter rapidly, the round apples of her cheeks turning pink as she spots Draco and seems to realise she’d interrupted— Well, whatever was about to happen. Draco can’t be sure now, goddamnit. He glares at her impotently and she looks back to Potter, eyes round with apology. “I’m so sorry, Harry.” She drops her voice a touch, glancing behind her. “I know you’ve been—”
“Hermione!” Potter snaps; he shoots Draco a strange look, then turns back to Granger. His voice softens. “Sorry, but— D’you mind? Can you come back… Later?”
The patch of pink on her cheeks spreads and she shakes her head. “Sorry, I can’t. Pomfrey and Wilkins need to see you straightaway.”
Caught by the name, Draco’s mind snaps from wondering what he and Potter can get up to between Now and Later. “The Mind Healer on staff?”
Potter looks at him again, brow furrowed; he nods. “I’ve been seeing her off and on. For—” He waves a hand, a pretty fucking generalised way of saying, dying during the war and becoming a living icon, Draco thinks. He snorts a little, hitching up a shoulder to show he understands. Regretfully, Potter stares at him, then says, “I should go.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be back.”
Draco swallows. “I’ll be… here,” he says lamely.
Potter’s mouth tightens; he seems to be caught between going in one direction or the other. Finally, Granger’s fingers on his wrist compel him out the door, with one last look over his shoulder.
As soon as the door bangs shut behind them, Draco stumbles over to his bed and sits down on it heavily. When that doesn’t seem to do much for the way the room is spinning around him, he folds in half and sticks his head between his knees, trying to slow his galloping heart, trying to level out the unhealthy amounts of oxygen he’s sucking in.
He thinks — is fairly certain, at least; fucking Granger — that Potter had been about to kiss him. Which means… Draco doesn’t know what. It means he needs answers. But the primary source of information he wants them from has just fucked off with all of them, and Draco stares at his tree for several minutes, unsure what to do. He can’t — shouldn’t — get involved with Potter… that way, until at least explaining that he’s been…
Draco raises his head, breath slowing; he grabs his wand and spells the candles to light, their little bubble of protective fireproof enchantments popping into place around the wicks as the flames begin flickering and dancing. He lets out a breath, toeing off his shoes and then laying down, fully-clothed, atop his duvet as he watches the glimmer of the trees, his eyes moving from his to Potter’s, and back. The muscles in his shoulders loosen.
With the exception of the previous year, Christmas has always been — for him — a time of uncomplicated happiness: having a sip of his father’s Port while they talked in the study late; his mother curled up in their parlour, outfitted informally in her silk dressing gown as her quiet voice relayed the comforting story of Father Christmas, determined to bring joy to the orphans whose parents flesh had been burnt at the stake. Candles and holly berries and silver stars and home... He’d rather hoped to recreate at least a little of that, here.
But if he tells Potter… When he tells Potter…
He sighs, blinking heavily as the flames of the candles on his tree begins to blur. That, at least, feels like something he knows.
***
“You always wake me up from the best dreams,” Draco mumbles resentfully, hips undulating into Potter’s enterprising hand. He’s gotten Draco’s trousers open, pulled his prick out, and Draco exhales softly, the spider-silk fine strands of his dream clearing as he opens his eyes. He realises with a jolt that Potter’s hand is actually moving over his cock, thumb pressing against the underside of the head when he pulls on it, and a low moan — whine; whatever — slips out of his throat. “Potter… We have to talk.”
“You didn’t want to play chess,” Potter says. Draco’s vision snaps into focus at the indistinct tone in his voice; he sees Potter standing at his bedside, pyjama bottoms down around his thighs, his cock a thick and fierce red, angled out from his groin. He grunts quietly as he jerks his other fist over it, glazed eyes on Draco’s face.
Fuck. Draco shifts, trying not to buck into the warmth of Potter’s hand; with every shred of composure he still has -- well, with the one -- he puts his hand on Potter’s wrist and forces it away, his cock rising for a moment as if begging to be touched again before thumping heavily against the fastened waistband of Draco’s trousers. “No,” he says firmly. “Go back to bed.”
“Okay,” Potter says, smiling a little, and fucking hell, Draco’s sick of that word. He scowls, fully intending to roll over and not watch this time, to not justify this mess by wanking again, too, but then Potter releases his own prick, shimmying just enough so that his pyjamas fall off completely and gets up onto Draco’s bed, climbing over him and— and stopping there.
Draco gawks, frozen; Potter straddles his chest, one knee pinning Draco’s left arm to his side, the other wedged into Draco’s right armpit. His jutting cock bobs inches from Draco’s chin; it looks purplish at the swollen tip, the foreskin stretched tight around it to reveal almost nothing but the slit, which shines dully in the light of the candles and Potter’s fairy lights.
“What are you doing?” Draco asks, voice thready. He licks his lips to wet them; his whole body suddenly feels dry and hollow — with the exception of his prick, which spurts a small dribble of precome just as Draco peruses the length of Potter’s erection in his face, eyes catching every shade of red. Potter’s balls are warm and oddly soft, resting on the top of Draco’s sternum.
“Wanking,” Potter says simply. “I want to come on your face. I think you’d look nice like that.”
“I see,” Draco says faintly. He wiggles a bit, desperately looking for a way out from under Potter, but all he manages to find is his own cock in his hand, with the arm trapped against his ribcage. Really, Potter shouldn’t have left his lower arm free like that, if Draco was meant to show any moral resistance to it. “I look nice in everything.”
Since his hand is already there, Draco grips his cock tight, just as Potter reaches down to begin stroking himself again. Draco’s eyes fasten to the top of Potter’s prick; he’s pretty sure that if he lifted his head, he could catch the tip of of it in his mouth. He presses his head deeper into his pillow, breath hard-won over the weight of Potter’s bare arse on his chest.
Potter smiles again; he nods. “You’re good-looking. I like to look at you when I wank.”
“I know,” Draco says, working his hand more swiftly. Potter’s hips bounce lightly, his buttocks tensing as he fucks into his fist.
“I was worried about it at first,” Potter offers between tiny, happy groans.
“About what?” Draco asks breathlessly. His balls tingle achingly and his cock is so hard in his hand, shooting little shocks of pleasure up the shaft that he can feel all the way to his spine. His heels dig into the sheets as he pumps into his own rapidly moving grip, neglecting every bit of the self-teasing he usually engages in for sheer speed as he hurtles toward the edge. He wants to touch the cock in his face, wants to lick it, wants to—
“How good you looked this year,” Potter says. “When you wouldn’t even look at me.”
“I always look at you,” Draco chokes out. He comes, eyes flicking up to Potter’s unsteady green gaze, to the tongue poking out of the side of his mouth. He trembles, thighs going tight as he splatters spunk all over his hand, a soft groan tearing from his mouth, sensation zinging through him in sharp, cresting waves.
“Oh,” Potter says softly. Draco brings up his free hand unthinkingly; he cups Potter’s arse, fingers massaging the muscle covered in soft skin and a light dusting of hair. He feels wrung out and dazed but pleased, even though he shouldn’t. Potter’s cock is very dark in is face, long and thick; he’s pulled the foreskin back again and fuck, if Potter were awake, Draco would—
“I’m coming,” Potter whispers, the moment before he does. The first warm stripe hits Draco’s chin and drips down his throat; the second streaks over his mouth. And then it’s everywhere, it seems: on his cheeks, his lips, even a bit on his nose. Potter’s eyes are wide and faraway, the bridge of his nose crinkled into an almost-grimace. Draco exhales shakily, darting his tongue out tentatively to taste the fluid on his lips; it’s blandly bitter, but mostly alright. He sweeps his tongue around to catch the rest of it as Potter sinks back down onto his chest heavily.
“I need to breathe,” Draco says after a moment, bringing up his free arm to catch away a sticky streak over his cheekbone. He thinks to wipe it on his covers, but that’s disgusting; he sucks it off his fingers, instead.
“Okay,” Potter says, levering easily off him, to the side. He curls up there, resting his head on Draco’s pillow and blinking at him. “That was good. I think about things.”
Draco rolls his eyes, yawning, suddenly aware that he’s still in his shirt and trousers and socks. He starts to reach for his wand — none of his limbs seem to be cooperating — then feels the cool wisp of Potter’s magic over his skin, clearing away the mess. He nods in thanks, tucking his cock away, and turns to face Potter.
“What things?” he ventures, when Potter doesn’t immediately wander off to his own bed.
“You,” Potter says, unaware of how Draco’s insides are split open by the simple sentiment.
“Okay,” he says finally — that stupid word really is useful for a lot of things. His eyes droop, his orgasm and weeks of not sleeping through the night pressing heavy on him. “You need to go to bed.”
“This is my…” Draco thinks he hears, just before his eyes slip shut.