Chapter Text
It’s Harry’s last night in London, and he’s a ghost.
It’s the Gryffindor common room, all grown up. There are Slytherins at the pub, too. Since they left school, their groups have coalesced. Blaise Zabini and Theo Nott are drinking in a corner booth with Gregory Goyle and a Slytherin one or two years younger, and as Harry watches, Eddie Carmichael, a Ravenclaw, pulls up a chair and joins them.
No hint of white-blond hair.
Not that Harry’s looking for Malfoy.
All Harry can think about is that he doesn’t feel like an adult, he feels…nonexistent. Hovering. Transparent.
Not so transparent that he can’t drink, though.
His one nod to maturity is that he’s only about half as drunk as Ron is. He has an early Portkey, and hangover potions have never agreed with him, so he’s being responsible.
“Come on, Harry, one more before you abandon us again, you slippery git!” Seamus Finnegan slams a drink down on the table in front of Harry. Lager spills out of the glass, and Harry’s smiling, a refusal ready on the tip of his tongue, when Dean Thomas, Seamus’s husband, pulls him down into a sloppy kiss.
“—about her all the time, mate. All the bloody time. Her hair…I’ve never seen anyone with more perfect hair than she has. Even when she’s just woken up.” Ron leans back in his chair, a lovestruck expression on his face. Neville Longbottom, who married Hermione in his garden three years ago, sits next to Ron, listening to him with a gentle, amused smile. “Even then. Can you imagine?”
“You’re a lucky man.”
“You have to find someone.” Ron gives him puppy dog eyes and puts a hand to his chest, like his heart is breaking at the thought of Harry not having anyone to wax poetic about. “You’ve never known love like this.”
“Isn’t that what you’re supposed to say when you have a baby?” Harry curls his hand around his pint, but doesn’t drink from it.
“A baby.” Ron’s eyes fill with tears, and he wipes at them with his sleeve, shaking his head in awe. “Merlin, mate. Now I won’t be able to quit imagining it. You’re getting me ahead of myself.”
Ron’s planning to propose to Pansy Parkinson, and he can’t stop talking about her. Harry’s happy for him. Truly. He almost wishes he could stay and watch everything unfold in real time, instead of catching up in fits and starts every few months. But that’s not how his job works. It’s not how his life works. There’s always a pressing assignment—a curse that needs breaking, a Dark Lord that needs vanquishing—and he feels like he lives in a parallel universe, his head breaking the surface into this one at random intervals.
Like he really is a ghost, watching a world he doesn’t recognize. He’s not sure when everything became so unfamiliar, so changeable.
It’s unsettling, if he thinks about it for too long.
Neville’s here, but Hermione’s not. She and Pansy and Luna Lovegood and Ginny Weasley are having a girls’ night at one of their flats. Hermione gave him a tight hug earlier this afternoon and made him promise to write to her. Harry won’t. Whenever he puts a quill to parchment while he’s away on a job, nothing comes out right.
Is that me? He thinks, reading over the letters. Is this my life?
And then, as he burns them, he makes a wish—I wish I was real.
The curses he breaks are very real, and the money he makes from breaking them is real as well, though he doesn’t need it. It’s just that he doesn’t feel real most of the time.
Maybe real isn’t the right word. He doesn’t feel…anchored. He drifts from job to job, biding his time, but he isn’t sure what he’s waiting for.
See? Ghostlike.
Anyway, he doesn’t want to be anchored. That only leads to emptiness, which is a dramatic and unreasonable thought to have in a pub.
One minute, Harry’s at the table in the thick of the conversation, and the next he’s watching through the frosted glass of the pub’s front window. His friends are blurry and unclear and the words stop making sense and he’s missing it. He’s missing everything. He only pretends to understand them because he wants some part of this to belong to him, even when it’s not the way he left it. He’s overwhelmed by the urge to take the world in his hands and hold it in place so it can’t become something else.
Harry stops being responsible and gets significantly sloshed.
Sloshed on an order of magnitude.
So sloshed that he can’t go home.
That’s not strictly true. Harry has a place, though calling it his doesn’t capture the feeling of wearing clothes that don’t fit right, of sitting below a flickering bulb, of being in a house, not a home.
“Walk,” he says to Ron’s retreating back. “Gonna walk.”
He’s not walking home, that’s for sure. Harry’s not sure where Grimmauld is, come to think of it.
The clouds that have hovered over the city all day shiver, and it begins to rain.
Of all the types of rain, Harry hates a drizzle the most. He forgets he can cast Impervius for several blocks before he remembers that he’s a wizard. Then his lenses stay clear and dry, but the drizzle wets his hair half-heartedly. If it’s going to rain, then it should bloody rain. Not this ridiculous spitting.
He finds himself walking to the light.
Not the light. Not the light of King’s Cross, or wherever he’d gone the night of the Battle. Not the light of the next world.
Just a light near a door, burning into the dark around it.
What’s next? Harry’s throat goes dry. What happens after he reaches that light? He’s walking back into the dark, that’s what. He’s back in the shadows. A wandering ghost. A man who will disappear in the morning, and a little less of him will return next time.
“You’re a prat,” he calls to himself, out loud, his voice echoing off the buildings. He’s nearly to the light. His toes have reached the dull spill of warmth on shiny pavement. Harry holds his breath, tiptoeing in like the cobblestones might disappear at any second. He moves farther into it. Farther, and farther, having a lot of dramatic thoughts about light and darkness and the space between shadows. Penumbras.
“Get ahold of yourself, Harry,” he bellows at the top of his lungs. Which is of course the moment his heel skids on a cobblestone and his legs fly out from underneath him like he’s in a shitty Muggle cartoon and he fully, completely clocks the back of his head on the street.
“Wasn’t what I meant,” he says slosh-ily to the sky. Half of it’s the soothing yellow glow of whatever light he landed near. Fancy that! Harry Potter can’t figure out how to walk on the cobblestones, so naturally he falls in the best possible lighting.
It feels impossible to get to his feet. He’s better off lying still and using his magic to burn off the alcohol. He can’t stand if he keeps being this sloshed, anyway.
He stares at the clouds hanging in the night sky above him and attempts to concentrate.
Doesn’t work.
He tries again.
If he’s as unreal and ghostly as he felt in the pub, why isn’t it easier to think the alcohol out of his veins? It should be easier. Harry barely exists, therefore the alcohol can’t really exist, therefore he can’t actually be so sloshed.
And yet he is.
A great mystery of the universe.
He scowls at the iron-grey clouds, trying to work out how being the Boy Who Lived, a great mystery of the universe in itself, has led him to being the Man Who Fell in the Street.
Harry’s still scowling when an angel leans into view, a blue hood pulled up over blond hair, the light surrounding his head in a misty halo.
“Potter.” Apparently Draco Malfoy is an angel now. Another great mystery of the universe. “What are you doing down there?”
Harry shrugs, his coat sticking to the cobblestones. “I fell over.”
“What in Merlin’s name did you do that for?”
“I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“Why are you still down there?”
“Drunk.”
“Are you injured?”
His head does hurt. “I dunno. M’sure I’ll be okay soon. Just have to get un-sloshed.”
“Oh, for Circe’s sake. Come on. Up.” Malfoy bends over Harry and peels him off the cobblestones, then lifts him neatly to his feet. An arm goes around Harry’s waist, and he finds his left wrist captured in Malfoy’s hand and tugged over his shoulders. They’re broader than Harry remembered. If, you know, he’d thought about Malfoy’s shoulders in the intervening years since school, and he hasn’t. Harry’s former nemesis walks him to the pavement, toward the row of shops.
“I can sit here.”
“No, you can’t.” Malfoy reaches one of the shop doors—dark green, lovely—and shoulders it open.
“Where are we going?”
“I’ve taken an oath.”
“Er…” They’ve entered a small anteroom with a few chairs and a countertop. Malfoy takes them through and into a hallway with two doors on either side. “What oath?”
Malfoy nudges one of the doors open with his foot and escorts Harry inside, then deposits him in a chair snugged up to the wall. Harry’s head spins. The man who used to be his mortal enemy moves about the room. He brings the lights up to a low, comforting brightness with a flick of his wand and pulls a length of parchment from a compartment in the wall.
“The Healer’s Oath,” he says absently, then points his wand out the open door and summons a quill. Malfoy’s hood is halfway off, and he still has a halo, though a more defined one than he did outside. Harry couldn’t take his eyes off him if he tried. Malfoy writes something on the parchment. “I’m quite certain leaving you out in the street would be doing harm.”
“S’right. You’re a Healer.”
Malfoy flicks his eyes to Harry, one eyebrow raised. “Indeed.”
“I knew that.”
Of course he did. The blue Healer’s robes were an excellent reminder along with the cosy medical office Malfoy’s just brought Harry into. He’s seen Malfoy since school, obviously. Just…at a distance. Out of reach. Hasn’t thought much about him. Hasn’t wondered about him or dreamed about him or missed him.
“Do you consent to be examined, or should I call in another Healer?”
“Merlin, don’t bother anybody else.” Harry hiccups. “Go right ahead and—” He waves his finger in the air, scrunching his face in an impression of a Healer casting a Diagnostic Charm. “Check me out.”
“Wonderful,” Malfoy murmurs under his breath, his quill scritching and scratching in a way that Harry finds absurdly soothing. “How much have you had to drink tonight, Potter?”
“Got sloshed.” Harry thinks about it. “Fairly monumentally, if I had to guess. Which I don’t. Because I was at the pub, so I know I drank a lot. It’s my last night.”
“Last night?”
“Gone for three months in the morning.” His throat goes tight.
“Mmm. And are you in any pain?”
Harry’s head throbs, and he squeezes his eyes shut against it. Very possible he’s hallucinating this. Malfoy, a Healer? Malfoy, asking him questions in a calm, reassuring voice? Malfoy, looking ridiculously beautiful in those blue robes?
“Head.” Harry points at the back of his head. “And my clothes feel bloody awful.”
“Did you hit it when you fell?”
“Yeah. My clothes definitely smacked.”
“Your head,” Malfoy says gently. “Did you hit your head?”
“Yes.” Harry winces at another wave of pain. “Big smack.”
“All right.” Malfoy sets the parchment aside and summons a round stool with wheels. It appears from nowhere, and he pulls it up to Harry’s chair and sits.
“Shouldn’t I be on a bed?”
“You would roll off the bed and hit your head again.” Malfoy raises his wand, and Harry gets the shock of his life when his body doesn’t bother to respond to the threat. Because…there is no threat, is there? He slumps a little farther into the chair as Malfoy casts a Diagnostic that hovers in a gold cloud between them. It’s beautiful. Breathtaking. But not nearly as breathtaking as Malfoy through that gold, his eyes as grey as ever. He studies Harry’s face, concentrating, expression neutral, glancing once or twice at the charm. “Nothing to indicate a concussion,” he says, mostly to himself, then stands and leans over Harry. The gold of the charm disappears. “There is, however, a cut on your head. May I heal it?”
“Yeah.”
A gentle hand turns his face to the side, then Malfoy casts a quick series of spells. The pain in his skull dissipates. So does a stinging sensation Harry doesn’t notice until it’s gone. Malfoy’s voice is cool, almost melodic, and it reminds Harry of the weight of a Galleon in his palm. Something physical. Something real.
Something a ghost couldn’t hold.
Malfoy releases him, and Harry turns his head toward Malfoy’s hand, searching for his touch. He realises what he’s doing a beat too late to stop it.
Lucky for him, Malfoy steps away and opens a cabinet in the corner. Light glints off the potion bottles inside. He returns to Harry with one of them held in his fingers. “Sober-Up?”
“Yes. Yep. Responsible.”
Malfoy takes his place on his wheeled stool without even a derisive scoff. He uncorks the bottle and passes it to Harry, then takes Harry’s other hand in his. It’s a firm, professional hold, and Harry can’t bring himself to jerk away. It feels…
Right?
It feels right.
“This is a Healer-grade potion, Potter. Squeeze my hand, and I’ll count to ten. Ready, go.”
Harry tips the potion back and squeezes Malfoy’s hand.
He has just enough time to think what the hell am I doing? before the potion swims into his bloodstream, and the concentrated effect of everything he drank hits him at once. He’s instantly light-headed, dizzy, stomach in knots, clutching Malfoy’s hand for dear, sweet life. Bloody fuck, he hates these potions.
“One,” Malfoy says. “Two. Three.”
It’s bad by five, worse by seven, and getting better by nine. All Harry can think about is holding Malfoy’s cool, steady hand. How good it is. How perfect. Is the potion even working? He must still be sloshed.
“Ten.” Malfoy gives his hand a gentle squeeze, and Harry opens his eyes, a shudder shaking through him.
“Merlin’s bollocks, that was terrible.”
Malfoy lets go of his hand, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I find the advantages quite outweigh the disadvantages.”
“What advantages?”
“Are you still drunk?”
Harry blinks. His heart is beating a bit fast, and his face feels hot, but his mind is clear and his stomach feels fine and he’s not dizzy in the least.
“No.”
“Then I should hope you’ll be able to see yourself home without cracking your skull on additional cobblestones.” Malfoy reaches for the parchment, then presents it to Harry with the quill. “Your signature, if you feel you’ve received appropriate care.”
Harry signs, not taking in any of the words. He only takes in Malfoy’s neat writing. The way the letters seem to be at home on the page. He hands the quill back and stands at the same time Malfoy does, his heart sinking. And why? There’s no reason for it. He’s fine. Better than he was when he walked in.
“This way.” Malfoy ushers him out to the anteroom and opens the door. “Try your best to stay on your feet.”
“I will. Thanks, Malfoy.”
Harry’s going to walk out the door. He’s going to leave the light behind. Find another stretch of rain-slick cobblestones to occupy his time until his Portkey. Of course he is.
His feet stop him at the threshold, his heart pounding. Now that he’s sober, the sensation of being a ghost, of watching his life pass him by like a train bound for elsewhere, has turned to pure, sharp fear.
The raindrops could go right through him.
Harry only notices Malfoy’s speaking when a hand meets his elbow.
“Potter.”
“Yeah? Yeah!”
Concern creases Malfoy's forehead. “Are you all right?”
“I’m not going home.” What is he saying? He can’t stop. “I dunno if you need that for your form, but I can’t stay there tonight.”
“I don’t,” Malfoy says carefully, his hand still on Harry’s elbow. “Do you have somewhere safe to—”
“Don’t worry about it.” Harry shakes his head, trying to free himself of this thing he’s just blurted to Malfoy. “I’ll be fine. I have a Portkey for my next job in the morning. I’ll find a pub that’s still open.”
“Leaving the country again?”
“Always. This time, it’s the Netherlands.” Harry lets out a laugh that sounds sad. Why does it sound so sad? He doesn’t think about Malfoy’s question, which suggests that Malfoy has been paying attention to where Harry’s been travelling. “I’m never here, and when I am, I feel like I’m fading.”
Malfoy’s expression softens. “I understand.”
“But you’re here.” Harry gestures around the little waiting room. “You’re real.”
A snort. “You’re more real than I am, Potter. I’m a set of blue robes.”
“You heal people. You have the answers.” And the gentle hands, and the gentle voice, and the gentle eyes. How did that happen? Harry turned his back, and everyone changed. “I bet you spend all day giving people just what they need.”
Malfoy exhales, his fingers flexing on Harry’s elbow. For the first time since he leaned over Harry with that halo, he looks tired. He looks like being an angel is bloody difficult.
“I try,” he says, after a minute, his touch heating Harry’s skin through his wet jacket. His heart stutters. It’s late at night, in that strange, liminal time between midnight and dawn, and he sees Malfoy. Not just the blue robes. He sees him so clearly it hurts. He’s helpless in the face of this truth. He can’t stay silent. It’s never been his strong suit.
“And sometimes you wish someone else had the answers.”
Malfoy’s eyes snap to Harry’s, and Harry sucks in a breath at the unguarded longing there in the watercolour grey.
“Sometimes.”
Harry doesn’t have answers for himself. He could get them for someone else. He could be them for someone else. He wants, more than anything, to have the answers for Malfoy. His throat goes abruptly dry.
“What about tonight?”
Malfoy glances down, his eyelashes dark against pale skin. When he looks up again, the answer is there on his face. He clears his throat regardless.
“I wish someone had the answers tonight, yes.”
Harry finds Malfoy’s wrist and wraps his fingers around it. So light. So easy. Hardly a grip at all. Enough to feel the shiver that goes through Malfoy.
“I’m not going home. I could come to yours.”
“Yes,” Malfoy says faintly.
“Where do you live?”
Malfoy flicks his eyes toward the ceiling. “My flat is on the first floor.”
“Do you want me to—” Harry doesn’t have time to finish the sentence before Malfoy switches their hold. His hand slides easily over Harry’s wrist, there’s the pinch and tug of Apparition, and they’re in another entryway.
Harry crowds Malfoy against the wall, feeling distinctly un-ghostlike, feeling real. Because Malfoy feels real. His pulse beating under Harry’s fingertips. The slip of his hair through Harry’s fingers. His hips, hard under his robes. His hands in Harry’s shirt. Harry has been nothing, he’s been misty rain and alcohol and I’m never here, but now he’s pure heat. His magic gathers with his pulse and Malfoy inhales like he missed it. He takes Harry’s glasses off and reaches. A quiet snick—his frames meeting a table.
“One night. Then I’m gone.” Harry’s mouth is an inch from Malfoy’s lips. The light above Malfoy’s practise shines dimly through the window. “Do you want me?”
“One night,” Malfoy agrees. “Yes.”
“I want you. I want—” Harry wraps a hand around Malfoy’s nape, his lungs on fire with how much he wants to kiss him, how much he wants to touch him, how much he wants to take him apart. He doesn’t want to think. He wants to have. “Merlin, I want—”
“You want to let go.” Malfoy’s fists clench in Harry’s shirt. He tilts his head, his breath warm on the tender side of Harry’s neck. “You want to let loose on someone. You’ve been waiting so long to have something in your hands.”
He hears the echo underneath—I’ve been waiting so long to be in your hands.
“Fuck.” Harry braces Malfoy’s chin with his hand, keeping that inch between them. “I have been waiting. So long. Is that what you need? To be in my hands?”
A more pronounced shiver. “I want it.”
“Not good enough.” He’s beginning to feel drunk again, but it’s nothing to do with alcohol. “Have to need it, Malfoy.”
“Draco,” Malfoy whispers into his ear, and Harry just manages to arrest a moan before it flies out of his mouth. Blood thrums through his veins. The air in his lungs is pure and fresh and familiar, scented sharp and light with Draco’s cologne and his skin, which reminds Harry of marzipan and a clear mountain spring. He’s alive. One word out of Draco’s mouth, and he’s alive again.
Too alive? Too much?
He tips Draco’s head to the side and grazes his teeth over the long arch of his neck. “Do you need it, Draco?”
“Yes. Yes. Please.”
Harry groans, his hand wrapped around Draco’s chin. It’s not nearly so pointy as it was in school, and it strikes him as delicate and strong. He turns Draco’s face to his and nips at his bottom lip. Thank Merlin for that awful Sober-Up potion.
“Give me a word. One you wouldn’t say normally, if—”
“Fiendfyre.” Draco answers with zero hesitation.
For a split second, all Harry sees is that fire. All he feels is Draco’s arms around his waist. He’ll burn alive if he doesn’t kiss Draco in the next ten seconds. Still, they have to have this conversation first.
“D’you want me to check with you before I—”
Then Draco’s hands are on his face, his grey eyes on Harry’s. “Touch me,” he orders. “Now.”
Their mouths collide with such force that Draco’s head almost knocks against the wall. Harry gets his hand behind it just in time. The kiss is searching and feral, sweet and sharp. Every second that ticks by is full to brimming with Draco’s teeth and tongue and the soft, relieved noises he makes while Harry kisses him into the wall and Draco pulls at him, keeping him close, then closer.
Harry breaks the kiss, panting, and puts a hand to Draco’s chest. He hasn’t felt this in his body for months. Years. It’s overwhelming and wonderful. Draco’s hands on his face steady him. That’s not how it’s supposed to go. He’s the one who has the answers tonight.
But he has one question first. He knows it doesn’t make much sense. He knows, but he has to ask. Because this—because Draco—
“Where have you been?”
“I’ve been here,” Draco answers. “I’ll be here.”
It’s just one night, just the one, but the promise in Draco’s voice sets him free again. He Banishes Draco’s robes without thinking. Without speaking. The tidy shirt and waistcoat and trousers Draco wears underneath disappear next. Harry drags his hand down over Draco’s torso, kissing him hard and touching his fine scars very, very softly.
Harry doesn’t hesitate when he reaches Draco’s cock. He wraps his fist around his hard length and curses into Draco’s mouth.
“Fuck, your skin—you’re so—fuck.” He punctuates this with a firm stroke and Draco bucks his hips into Harry’s hand, weak-kneed, his arms locked around Harry’s neck. “I have to suck you.”
Draco’s hands slide to Harry’s hair as he drops to his knees, his vision dim with how much he wants this. Harry pins Draco’s hips hard to the wall and curls his tongue around Draco’s tip. The taste of salt and Draco makes his own cock twitch in his pants.
Harry takes his mouth away and looks up into Draco’s eyes. “Don’t come until I say.”
Draco’s head falls against the wall. “All right. All right.”
He swirls his tongue around Draco’s slit, recognition stirring in his chest. “You’ll be good for me, won’t you?”
The sound that comes out of Draco is half-whine, half-moan. “Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I’ll be good.” His accent is so bloody posh, and he sounds so much like himself, and not like the Draco he used to know at all. It’s driving Harry mad. “I’ll be so good. I promise.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise, Harry, please—”
Harry takes him deep on the strength of that promise and Draco moans, low and desperate. The weight of him on Harry’s tongue is unbearably good. Harry sucks him like the rest of the world doesn’t exist, throwing himself into it, revelling in the taste of Draco and the way he pushes his hips into Harry’s palms like he knows Harry won’t let him get away. Harry groans around Draco’s cock in spite of himself and Draco sobs, wordless.
He pulls off and kisses his way up to Draco’s neck. Bites him. Sinks his teeth into sweet flesh, his body doing the work of keeping Draco still. He moves underneath Harry and it reminds him of sparks. Of shooting stars. This is what it would be like to catch one in his hands. It’s so bright, with so much hot energy, that he has to work to hold it in place.
Hold him in place.
Harry captures Draco’s mouth again. Draco kisses him back just as hard, just as fierce, like they’re fighting, and Harry knows at his core that Draco wants him to win.
Tonight, he wants Harry to win.
So he kisses and nips and bites, gaining the upper hand again and again and again until finally Draco parts his lips and subsides, just a little.
That’s when Harry turns him to face the wall and kisses him, stilling for a few moments to let Draco trace his tongue over Harry’s bottom lip.
“I’m going to fuck you,” he says into that kiss. “Just how you want.”
Draco makes a breathless, urgent noise.
“Hands up.” Harry traces a slow circle over Draco’s lower back. Draco’s quick to get his arms over his head, and Harry arranges them, one wrist over the other, so he can hold them there with one hand. “Spread your legs.”
Draco does, and Harry puts his palm flat on Draco’s back and thinks the spells through both of them.
“Yes,” Draco babbles, his voice just above a whisper. “Yes, yes—”
He slips his fingers into Draco’s crease, staying close so he can breathe him in. Fuck. How did they end up here? How was it so easy? How does he feel alive again, when he was a ghost an hour ago?
He brushes his fingertips over Draco’s opening, and he tilts his hips to get more contact.
“Oh, you’re so good.” Harry licks into Draco’s mouth and focuses for long enough to slick up his fingers. He circles them over Draco’s secret skin. “Fuck, Draco. I need this too. Just as much as you. I think you knew that, didn’t you?”
Draco makes a sound that’s all want and Harry pushes a fingertip inside him.
“You knew. You knew I wanted to—Circe, what did you say? Let loose, and that’s—fuck. That’s the thing. I can’t stop. I can’t hold back.” He fucks Draco with one finger, Draco circling his hips into it. Harry adds another one and Draco catches his bottom lip between his teeth, trembling into the bite. “That’s right. You’re perfect. Don’t think anymore. Just take it.”
He’s folded against Draco now, but Draco manages to get closer as Harry fucks him with two fingers.
He didn’t lie. The longer this goes on, the less Harry can think. He won’t hurt Draco—he wouldn’t do that, and he’d stop the second he said Fiendfyre, but Harry’s falling into it himself.
Harry lines three fingers up. “Fuck yourself open on my fingers.”
“God,” Draco breathes, and then he presses back, his wrists pinned to the wall by Harry’s hand, his eyes closed, his cheeks so deeply flushed that Harry can see the pink shade even in this low light.
“You’re so bloody good.” Draco takes his fingers fast, his hips frantic. “Yes. You’re so tight. Look at how good you are. I can feel you opening up for me. You’re working so hard. Good—good.”
Draco sobs again when Harry takes his fingers away, and Harry can tell he’s gone, disappeared into sensation. Harry Banishes all his clothing in a matter of thudding heartbeats, each one hotter than the last. Draco trusts him. He trusts him. Then he steps behind Draco, still holding him to the wall, and kisses his nape. Another silent spell slicks his palm and he runs it over his cock.
“I have to fuck you,” he says to Draco’s nape. “Can’t wait. Lean into it.” Harry uses his free hand to line himself up. Bloody fuck, he’s going to come right now, from this one touch. He grits his teeth and puts a palm to Draco’s hip, tugging him back as he makes the first push. Draco turns his head and moans into the crook of his elbow, hips rocking hard. He’s taking Harry fast, rolling into him, and that’s it.
That’s as long as Harry can hold out.
He separates Draco’s wrists, takes one in each of his hands, and pins them to the wall.
Then he’s lost. Gone. Fucking Draco so hard his vision blacks out from how tight and hot and soft Draco is, from how good it feels. How real.
“Merlin. Fuck. Yes. You feel so good. You are so good. Taking me so well. Fuck. You’re going to come like this, aren’t you? Without me even touching you. That’s how much you want it. Come, Draco. I want to feel it. I want—oh, fuck, fuck—”
Draco makes a low sound that rises and gets rougher until it’s a cry. His orgasm shudders through him from his middle down to his toes. Harry’s so close he feels every jerk of Draco’s hips. He leans into him, following Draco when he lifts his heels to ride it out, his body a taut line. Harry still hasn’t touched him. He comes so hard his body turns into a vise around Harry. The pleasure is unspeakable.
“Good,” Harry says, language deserting him as his own pleasure peaks, throwing him bodily into Draco. “So good. So. Good.”
He empties himself into Draco, the wall rattling, and finally Harry drops his forehead onto Draco’s shoulder and breathes until he has enough oxygen to think.
A hand moves softly across his nape. Draco’s hand. He’s reached up to stroke the back of Harry’s neck like Harry’s the one who just got fucked into a wall.
Harry takes a deep, shaky breath. He should pull out of Draco and give him his space back. There are many questions he should ask.
None of those questions make it out of his mouth.
Instead, he darts his tongue out to taste Draco, faintly salty, so bloody sweet.
“Do you want more?”
Draco shivers, his muscles clenching around Harry, and Harry traces the path of that shiver down his spine with the pad of his thumb.
“Please. Yes.” Draco’s voice is tight, wanting, and the kernel of fear Harry felt about being too much turns transparent and disappears, like a ghost. “Stay all night. Please.”
Much, much later, as the misting rain ramps up into something stronger, Harry lies on his side in Draco’s bed, tracing his spine with his fingertips, chasing each satisfied shiver.
“This is all I’m going to do.” It’s a promise Harry can’t keep, but he’s compelled. He wishes. “Make you shiver like this.”
Draco turns, his eyes silver and beautiful in faint moonlight. “Why don’t you want to go home?”
“Don’t like it there,” Harry admits.
The rain picks up, drumming its fingers on the bedroom window until all the drops blur together into a rushing cascade. Distant thunder echoes off the outer wall of Draco’s flat. It can’t touch them here.
He wishes Draco would ask him to stay.
It would break his heart if Draco asked him to stay.
Because he can’t. Even if he did drop the curse-breaking assignment, Harry doesn’t fit. Most days, he feels as much a part of the wizarding world as he did when he was a kid—which is to say, not at all. Harry saved as much of it as he could. That doesn’t mean it belongs to him. And he doesn’t belong anywhere. His friends have moved on, found new people to love and a new purpose in life. How is Harry supposed to do that when he knows how it ends?
“Tell me something you like,” he says, pushing his foolish want as deep as he can.
He’s half-dreaming when Draco answers.
“I like the storm.”
Harry leaves Draco asleep in his flat three hours later. Dawn creeps through the gaps in the clouds. The storm that raged all night is gone.