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The first time Harry crossed paths with Draco Malfoy after the Death Eater trials, he was dressed in an elaborate set of ice-blue dress robes trimmed with silver and embroidered with a heavily detailed pattern that was visually overwhelming and looked straight out of the eighteenth century. They were traditional in style, although Malfoy had omitted the overabundance of lace and ruffles that Harry had come to expect in more outdated styles.
No, there was nothing outdated about those robes. The cut was sweeping and elegant, showing off the long, lithe form of Malfoy’s body. His hair was loose, brushing his shoulders in a silvery waterfall. He must have charmed it to shine under the soft lights of the Ministry’s great hall.
And there was no reason for Harry to care about any of this.
Still, he found himself watching Malfoy as the evening progressed. Hovering by the bar and armed with a firewhiskey and a good excuse, Harry put on his best do not approach face and observed Malfoy as he worked his way through the crowds. Many of the guests at the Gala for Public Servants were giving him a wide berth, if not outright sneering in his direction, but Malfoy paid them no attention. He set eyes on the older witches and wizards, the ones who would appreciate the attention to his outfit and the carefully selected heirloom jewellery – and he charmed them.
Sweet Merlin, that man could charm.
Harry watched with a sort of disturbed admiration as Malfoy put on the charm for witch after witch, wizard after wizard. He had a witch of about fifty so enthralled that she looked ready to ditch her husband and run away with him. Harry often had the same effect on people, but that was purely due to his fame. Once those people had had to spend excruciating hours in his company at these events, while he tried to make conversation that sounded like he knew what the bloody hell he was talking about, the sparkly-eyed awe dimmed significantly.
Malfoy wasn’t having that problem. Malfoy looked like a man who knew exactly what he was saying, as well as the effect he was having on those who fell into his claws. Because let’s not forget, Harry thought, Malfoy isn’t genuinely charming. He had the charisma and the wit, and he had a certain draw about him that made you unable to focus on anyone else – he may have had those things, but he was a manipulative bastard. Harry didn’t know why he was at this Gala, but there had to be an agenda there, something that Malfoy was hoping to achieve with all this schmoozing.
Was Malfoy even a public servant? Harry had never seen him at the Ministry, and he knew for a fact that Malfoy wasn’t in Healer training with Cho. Malfoy’s career options were likely limited following the war, even if he’d served his probation and, by all visible signs, made a respectful return to society.
No, it was highly likely that Malfoy was simply here to connect, to charm and please and flirt with the other guests. He was the son of former socialites, after all; even with Lucius dead and Narcissa off in France somewhere – if the gossip columns were to be believed – the presence of a Malfoy at a social event seemed to remind people of the power the family had once had. To many, this was cause for great mutterings, but others were too taken in by Malfoy’s allure to care.
Allure. Harry snorted into his whiskey; there was nothing alluring about Malfoy. He was a pointy, sneaky git in poncy robes at an event he most likely wasn’t invited to.
And he was definitely up to something.
A few hours later, when the lights had dimmed and the drinks were getting stronger, Harry stumbled into Malfoy as the other man walked into the bathroom. Malfoy froze when he saw him, but his social facade was back up so fast that it almost gave Harry whiplash. He strode towards the sinks.
“Potter,” he said with a nod, looking at Harry behind him in the mirror.
Harry hadn’t moved; he narrowed his eyes at Malfoy. Malfoy frowned slightly and turned off the sink, his wet hands hovering over the basin. “Is there something on my back?”
“What?” Harry blinked.
“You’re staring, Potter.”
“Are you even a public servant?” Harry blurted and then internally cursed himself for his complete social ineptitude. He shouldn’t be allowed to go to adult events unsupervised.
Malfoy turned around and leaned against the sink, his arms crossed. He looked at Harry as if he were a particularly dim troll. “Well, I am at an event for public servants. What do you think?”
Harry scowled. “I think that you’re a sneaky bastard who would have no trouble talking his way in the door even though he wasn’t invited.”
Malfoy’s smirk had a sharp, mean edge that set Harry’s heart beating a little faster. He always got like this in Malfoy’s presence. That fiery, impulsive urge to fight, to spit and hiss and scratch like they were animals fighting over territory – that hadn’t faded since school.
“Not that it’s your business, Potter, but I am a public servant.” He checked his reflection in the mirror and then walked towards the door. He turned and shot Harry a smile that transformed his face in a way Harry had never seen.
“But you’re right, it was no trouble at all.”
His robes fluttered behind him as he strode from the bathroom. In the wake of Malfoy’s departure, Harry was left feeling like he’d come out on the bottom of a challenge he hadn’t even been aware they had initiated.
* * *
It was pouring rain, and Harry was utterly sloshed the next time he saw Malfoy.
He’d left pub night under the promise to Hermione that he would not, under any circumstances, try to Apparate back to Grimmauld Place. She’d been balancing a wobbly Ron by holding him under the armpits – Harry suspected she’d only let him leave on his own because she’d been preoccupied with keeping control of her boyfriend. Ron had passed his giggling drunk phase and entered what Harry liked to refer to as the point of no return. Even in his own intoxicated state, Harry felt sympathy for his best mate and the rough morning that awaited him. It was a weekday, for Merlin’s sake. Ron was probably sleeping on the sofa tonight.
Harry felt a twinge of loneliness as he aimlessly wandered the streets of Muggle London (they usually went to Muggle places to avoid the unwanted attention that the Golden Trio could never escape). Ron and Hermione had only moved out of Grimmauld three months ago, and Harry had yet to stop feeling that dark, sad loneliness that washed over the house without them. It was too big a property for one man and one elf, and the groaning pipes and creaking floorboards only seemed to make the house feel more silent in the absence of human noise.
His best friends had moved in with him after the war; it had felt right to stay together after everything they’d been through. If they were all honest, which they’d become very big on since the end of the war, it was also a comfort to know that other humans were only a few rooms away. They’d never expressly mentioned it, but Ron left his and Hermione’s door open each night so that Harry could hear his snoring, and Harry had charmed the landing lamp to remain on throughout the night. It was these small gestures, these acknowledgements that they weren’t alone, that he found it so difficult to get used to doing without now.
Harry stumbled on the curb, cursed loudly, and then let out a sigh. He was happy for Ron and Hermione – he was, really. He’d had over three years of them in his house, and it was probably about time they got a place of their own. Their flat was lovely, a quaint little place in a wizarding suburb of London. Part of Harry hoped that they hadn’t stayed in London for him, but another part of him was overwhelmingly grateful. He didn’t deserve how they looked out for him – especially when he did stupid shit like get royally pissed on a weekday and stagger around London at one in the morning.
He had Hermione’s voice in his head as he finally collapsed onto the pavement, his arse freezing on the cold stone. It was good – it was grounding. He’d managed to wander down a residential street, away from most of the nighttime crowds. He thought about trying to call a Muggle taxi, but his magic had an unfortunate tendency to misbehave when he tried to travel drunk; something about the combination of motion and low inhibitions had some interesting effects on his wandless magic. He’d only made the mistake of making it snow inside a taxi once, and he’d managed to convince the driver that he must simply be exhausted after a long night of ferrying around drunken passengers.
The memory of this incident fresh in his mind, Harry staggered to his feet, resting his hands on his slightly bent knees to steady himself. He’d only done this a couple of times in his life and not on his own since that night when he was thirteen. The memory was at once fond and mournful, and he thought of Sirius as he stuck out his wand arm into the street.
At once, the violently purple Knight Bus came hurtling into view. It screeched to a halt mere feet from Harry’s face, and he swayed backwards. He was so focused on keeping his alcohol inside his body that it took him a second to notice the head of white-blond hair popping into view.
“Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transpo—oh, bloody hell.”
Harry peered up at the startlingly familiar voice, and his mouth fell open. “Malfoy?”
“No, Cornelius Fudge.” Malfoy narrowed his eyes at Harry. “Are you drunk, Potter?”
“Very,” Harry confirmed, swaying sideways a little and stumbling on his feet.
Malfoy let out a long-suffering sigh. “If you hurl on my bus, I’m kicking you off and giving you a permanent ban.”
Staggering onto the bus, Harry said, “This is your public service?”
“No, I just like to dress up in the uniform and pretend.”
“S’ very weird, Malfoy,” Harry mumbled as he eyed one of the comfortable-looking beds. There was only one other passenger on the lower floor, and he was fast asleep.
Harry took a closer look at Malfoy’s uniform. He wore a royal purple waistcoat and matching trousers with a crisp white shirt underneath. His shoes were almost threateningly shiny – Harry wasn’t sure how shoes could shine threateningly, but these were. Malfoy’s hair was pulled into a short ponytail at the back of his head, but strands were falling loose around his face. It was the only aspect of his appearance that was messy.
Malfoy rolled his eyes at Harry and turned towards the driver’s compartment of the bus. “Blaise! Are you going to come out here and deal with this, or do I get the shit job as usual?”
“That one’s all yours, old chap!” A voice called from the driver’s seat. Through his drunken haze, Harry recognised the voice of Blaise Zabini. He’d actually met Zabini a few times since the end of the war. They’d sat their N.E.W.T.S at the same time and shared an hour of not-excruciating conversation.
Zabini was laughing, and Malfoy was scowling. Zabini’s voice rang out from the front of the bus. “I hope you’re not a handsy drunk, Potter. If you are, be sure not to get touchy with Draco, no matter how tempting. He’ll throw you off the bus and leave you to spend the night freezing your balls off and banging on the door.”
“You make me sound cruel, Blaise. I left you outside the apartment because you can’t seem to figure out when to keep your hands to yourself and off of my arse.”
“Well, I’d had half that bottle of fancy wine.”
“In front of my mother.”
“You didn’t tell me she was visiting. I swear, she’s so quiet, she blends in with the furniture.”
Malfoy rubbed a hand over his face. “Yes, well. It’ll be a while before her next visit, I can tell you that.”
Zabini laughed. “Where are we taking our guest, then?”
Malfoy’s silver gaze turned to Harry. “Where to, Potter?” he said in a business-like manner.
Harry wasn’t at all sure he wanted to give his address to Malfoy or Zabini, but he was far too pissed to have any hope of making it back in one piece on his own.
“Toll House Square,” Harry said after a moment. There, they could drop him off outside his house, and he didn’t need to give his exact address and break the house’s protective enchantments.
He looked around the bus, his vision swimming a little. It looked almost identical to how he remembered – excluding the one very noticeable difference of Malfoy in his form-fitting purple suit, that white shirt that hugged his shoulders …
“The bus’s slower than I remember,” Harry said, bracing his hand against a bedpost as they took a corner and he swayed alarmingly.
“Blaise and I thought that people were probably tired of whiplash,” Malfoy drawled.
“And we were sick of cleaning up vomit,” Zabini called out to add.
“Don’t…” Harry squeezed his eyes shut. “No—I‘ll be sick…”
“I swear to Merlin you’d better not,” Malfoy warned, stepping forward and pushing Harry’s shoulder so that he fell into a seated position on one of the beds.
“S’nice, to drive slower,” Harry mumbled.
Malfoy’s voice was crisp as he replied, “The other shifts agreed when they saw the significant increase in general customer satisfaction.”
“Why do I never take the bus?” Now that he’d sat down, Harry was having a hard time keeping his eyes open and focused. The bed really was comfy. “I hate the Floo. I sh’ take the bus more.”
“Please don’t,” Malfoy said. A little bell chimed, and his face lit up with relief; it was quite a nice face, objectively speaking. Bit pointy, bit pale, but with that aristocratic elegance that people born into money just seemed to have. Even in a bus conductor’s uniform, with his hair scraped back, there was no mistaking Malfoy’s roots.
“We’re here, Potter.” Malfoy peered out of the bus windows. Harry blinked; he hadn’t even realised they’d stopped moving. “Circe, you live in the old Black house? That place is remarkably depressing.”
Harry’s brow furrowed, and he frowned. “How’d y’know ‘bout my house?”
“It belonged to my mother’s family, you twit. I recognise the square.” Malfoy’s lips twitched into a smirk. “Is my great aunt Walburga still stuck to the wall?”
“Yes,” Harry grumbled. He and Hermione had found a better charm to keep the curtain around her firmly closed, but just knowing she was there was often unsettling.
Malfoy laughed, his eyes twinkling with amusement. It made him look less tired, and Harry found himself staring at Malfoy’s long neck as he tilted his head back.
“She’s actually far more pleasant in portrait form, if I remember.”
“If I ever figure out how to get her portrait down, you can have her,” Harry said as he stood, his legs wobbling. He felt both less and more drunk as he staggered towards the bus exit. The sitting hadn’t done him any favours, but Malfoy’s presence was lighting something up in him, sharpening his awareness just enough that he could string together coherent sentences.
“If you post that old cow to me, I’ll burn her.” Malfoy opened the bus door and gestured for Harry to exit. Harry was caught up with Malfoy’s face; had his cheekbones always been that high?
“Sweet Merlin, you’re even more hopeless when you’re drunk.” Malfoy sighed and closed his eyes, as if trying to summon some inner strength. “Will there be a story in the morning’s Prophet about the Golden Boy freezing to death on the pavement, or do you need me to walk you to your door?”
“Piss off, Malfoy,” Harry grumbled. He hated all of those stupid names the papers gave him; he wasn’t even a boy anymore, was he? He was bloody twenty-two, thanks very much, and twenty-three this year, so it was about time that the media retired those outdated titles.
“Night, Potter, it was good to see you!” Zabini poked his head out and grinned at Harry. Bloody hell, that grin was pure sex – Harry had forgotten just how attractive Zabini was. If the man wasn’t such a massive twat, Harry might – well, that probably wasn’t a thought he should be entertaining while as sloshed as he was.
“Night—or mornin’, maybe. I dunno.” Harry scratched the back of his neck and peered at the midnight black sky as if that would tell the time for him.
“Please get off, Potter.” To Harry’s surprise, Malfoy took him by the arm and basically manhandled him off the bus and onto the pavement. Harry’s arm was left tingling when he pulled away, but that was probably just the cold. Harry was only wearing a T-shirt, after all. He’d taken his leather jacket – one that had belonged to Sirius – off at the pub, and Hermione had been thoughtful enough to shove it into her extendable beaded bag in case he accidentally left it behind. He’d get it from Ron in the morning when they got to work.
“This has been pleasant, Potter. Please don’t call us again.”
“Great customer service, Malfoy,” Harry said. He heard Zabini’s snort from inside the bus.
Malfoy gave him a tight-lipped smile and said, with very forced politeness, “We do hope you enjoyed your journey on the Knight Bus. If you ever find yourself in need of our services again, do not hesitate to summon us. We’re never far away.”
“Summons from Inverness, Draco!” Zabini called.
Harry and Malfoy looked at each other from across the pavement; like the last time he’d seen Malfoy, Harry had an unexplainable sense that he’d lost something again. It was as if after the trials – when Harry had testified and both Draco and Narcissa had been spared an Azkaban sentence – Malfoy consistently came out on top of every interaction they shared, and Harry was left feeling like a bit of a tit.
At least tonight, Harry was spared the brunt of embarrassment thanks to the alcohol coursing through his veins. He’d regret mixing that rum with the cheap whiskey later (actually, part of him was already regretting it), but right now, he felt remarkably cheerful as he watched Malfoy roll his eyes at him and turn away. Malfoy hopped up onto the bus, turning around just once to raise his eyebrows. Then, the bus gave a mighty rumble and disappeared down the street.
Harry blinked at the place where the purple vehicle had been moments before. He thought he heard a screech of wheels in the far distance.
With a bemused smile, Harry staggered across the square towards number twelve. The square had cleaned up somewhat since the Order had used the property, but it still wasn’t particularly inviting. Neither was the inside of the house, although Harry, Ron, and Hermione had gone to great lengths to renovate the place into something less miserable and more comfortable. Harry had put it off and put it off until Hermione had finally snapped and said that living in a dark, gloomy house of ghosts was driving them all insane.
It had turned out to be surprisingly therapeutic – brightening up the house, shoving the worst of the furniture into the attic to forget about, and salvaging what they could – that is to say, the pieces that weren’t completely abhorrent. The snake doorknobs had been replaced, but Harry actually quite liked the carved stone fireplace with the coiled serpents etched into the stone, their pointed tongues licking towards the flames of the fire. It was one of the oldest parts of the house, Hermione had guessed – and her guesses were usually pretty reliable.
Harry thought of Flooing to work via that fireplace in the morning and felt less pleasantly towards it. It was all his fault for drinking himself stupid on a weekday, of course, but he allowed himself a moment of pity once the front door had closed behind him. He kicked off his shoes, stumbling into the wall once or twice. He thought Kreacher was probably asleep or in the kitchen, and he didn’t want to wake the elf. Kreacher had become strangely protective of Harry over the past few years and never failed to chastise him when he staggered inside in the early hours, reeking of alcohol and irresponsible decisions.
It had become somewhat of a routine during the early period of Auror training; Harry and Ron would spend the weekend loosening up and relaxing from the intensity of the week, and then stumble through the Floo giggling and shushing each other. It was only once Kreacher had started disconnecting the Floo past midnight with the reprimand, “You are not to be waking Miss Hermione! If you are not home at a reasonable hour, you can find somewhere else to sleep!” Kreacher had come a long way since the war, especially with his attitude towards muggle-borns and blood traitors. He’d come to be just as fond of Hermione as he was of Harry, and Ron wasn’t far below on the list.
Harry wished Ron and Hermione still lived with him. As he lumbered his way up the stairs and towards his bedroom, he mourned the silence of the house, the emptiness. He often got melancholy when he was this pissed. He’d have thought it would teach him not to drink so much, but it never did.
Yanking off his jeans and T-shirt, he collapsed face down on his bed. The old bed frame creaked under his sudden weight.
Maybe at work tomorrow, he’d pop over to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and have lunch with Hermione and Luna (Luna didn’t work for the Ministry, but she wrote articles on the latest magical creature news and stories or informational pieces that, nowadays, were always at least eighty percent provable fact).
Hermione, of course, was a woman on a mission for reform and positive change, and was doing brilliantly – she was almost intimidatingly efficient. She’d just managed to secure funding for a new charity she was setting up to supply magical beings, such as werewolves or vampires, with the potions or aid they required but were unable to afford. And while supporting these magical beings, also fighting for their rights and liberation from outdated laws and prejudices – hence, the fitting name of the Faithful Union for Magical Being Liberation and Equality (F.U.M.B.L.E). Harry expected Luna’s article on it to be in the papers by the end of the week, if all went well.
That was why they’d been out celebrating tonight and also why, despite the anticipation of the killer hangover awaiting him, Harry couldn’t regret it. He was so fucking proud of his friends and how far they’d all come. Snuggling further into his pillows with a sigh, he smiled sleepily.
If he had another reason to be glad he went out, then, well. Nobody needed to know about it.
* * *
The third time Harry saw Malfoy, he was having a really bad day. It was only nine-thirty, but predictably, the morning had been a rough one. He’d been shaken awake by Kreacher, downed the last of his hangover potion, dressed in his Auror robes, flung himself into the Floo, and only been ten minutes late for work. He’d gotten a few knowing, sympathetic looks in the lift as he squinted under the bright lights.
He encountered Millicent on his way to the Auror department. She wasn’t running late, as he was; she was carrying a large stack of files that suggested she’d been sent to fetch them. That was the downside of being a rookie Auror: you always got stuck doing the rubbish jobs that nobody wanted to do.
“Merlin, Potter. You look even more frightful than usual,” she exclaimed when she saw him. He ran a hand through his hair self-consciously.
“Cheers, Bullstrode. You’re always so nice to me.”
“Nice doesn’t get the job done, does it?” Millicent said. “But I am nice to you. I talk to you every day.”
“You talk to me every day because you want to keep tabs on Hermione—who is still not single, not into women, and not interested.”
“Spoilsport.” Millicent pouted. She and Harry walked down the corridor together. “I don’t dislike talking to you for other reasons,” she added casually. “You’re an alright sort.”
“That might be the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.” Harry held open the door for her, given that her arms were laden with files. Millicent beamed at him.
“Such a gentleman, Potter.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Harry grumbled. “Can we reschedule our training sesh for tomorrow? I’m…” He gestured up and down his body with a grimace, and Millicent snorted at him.
“That’s fine. I won’t go easy on you, though.”
“You never do,” Harry muttered as she walked off towards Head Auror Robards’ office with her files. Harry wondered how she managed to carry them all, but then, Millicent was a fucking unit; honestly, Harry was pretty strong himself, with broad shoulders and hard muscles to prove it, but Millicent was something else entirely. A combination of genetics and hardcore physical training had left her the most physically strong rookie Auror by far. Harry didn’t know why he even still trained with her – he got clobbered every time. Ron refused to spar with her ever since they’d all gone out for drinks as trainees – the whole group of them – and Millicent had hauled a hammered Ron over her shoulder without as much as a grunt of effort. Hermione had been torn between exasperation and hysterical laughter when they had tumbled through the Floo at Grimmauld, Ron dangling over Millicent’s shoulder and singing Weasley Is Our King.
See, that was why Harry never quite knew if Millicent was serious or joking when she spoke to him. She frequently made fun of him, but then she did shit like that, making sure Harry and his mate got home safe. Harry didn’t think she was only doing it to buy favour with Hermione, whatever she might pretend.
Harry found Ron in their shared cubicle, cradling a cup of tea in his hands and resting his forehead against a stack of paperwork. He didn’t move at the sound of Harry’s arrival.
“Morning, mate.”
Ron groaned in response; it was muffled by the papers.
“Out of hangover potion, were you?” Harry said sympathetically.
Ron lifted his head weakly. “Hermione said if I’m going to keep getting pissed on weekdays, then I can buy my own potion.” He sat up properly; it looked painful. “Merlin, I wish I didn’t love her, Harry. She’s far too responsible.”
“Yeah?” Harry asked, sitting down at his desk and shifting an enormous stack of paperwork to the side so he could rest his elbow.
“She knows I’ll forget to buy the potion, and that’ll discourage me from drinking too much in case I don’t have any hangover potion and I have to come to work feeling like I took a nosedive to the ground on my Nimbus.”
“Sometimes I think I could do with a bit of Hermione-ing,” Harry said with a sigh, rubbing his sore head. “Kreacher does a decent job, but it’s far more unnerving when it’s him wiping the sweat from your forehead as you’re emptying your guts into the toilet.”
Ron snorted a laugh and then winced like he immediately regretted it. His face shifted into that dreamy smile he always got when he thought about his girlfriend. “‘Mione’s been so good to us over the years, hasn’t she? Putting up with all our bollocks right after everything when we were falling apart, and then once we got ourselves together a bit. All the while, she had her own N.E.W.T.S and career and stuff to worry about.”
“She’s amazing,” Harry agreed, a warm bubble of affection for Hermione blooming in his chest. “If you ever cock that up, mate, I’ll murder you and cover it up. I’m an Auror.”
“I’ll expel my own entrails before I cock that up,” Ron said, taking a serious sip of his tea. “And don’t think you’re the first to make that threat. I’ve heard it from Mum a dozen times.”
“I’d have more faith in her getting away with it,” Harry said, turning to the messy array of paperwork on his desk with a loud sigh. Ron hummed in dark agreement.
“Mum still asks me when you and Charlie are going to settle down,” he said exasperatedly. “Honestly, you’d think you were both old bachelors, the way she goes on about it. When is Charlie finally going to find someone to get serious with? When is Harry going to find himself a partner to share that big house with?” Ron imitated Mrs Weasley’s voice.
Harry grimaced, and Ron snorted at him. “I think part of her is hoping that the two of you will just date each other and solve both of her worries.”
“You know me and Charlie just have fun. And we haven’t for ages, anyway. I think he’s got his eye on someone he works with at the dragon reserve.”
Ron went slightly green, and Harry considered summoning a waste paper bin or something. “That’s all I need to know, thanks. It’s quite enough to know that my best mate has shagged two of my siblings.”
“Tell Molly I’m fine, won’t you?” Harry said with a grin as Ron took a cautious sip of tea, one hand on his churning stomach. He thought of Mrs Weasley and sobered up a little. “I’m fine in my huge, silent house by myself. I—you know, I’m not lonely or anything. I’m totally fine, completely…yeah, good.”
Ron was absolutely not convinced. “Sure, mate,” he said with raised eyebrows. “But maybe it would be nice if you found something more…serious, you know? You don’t have to get married next week, but it can’t hurt to try, right?”
Harry was saved from coming up with a response by Meri Eskola, Robards’ secretary, poking her head into the cubicle.
“Potter, Robards asked me to find you. There’s a noise complaint from one of the flats down Lantern Way—you know where that is? Good, Robards wants you to go and deal with it.”
Harry groaned. “Why me?”
Meri smiled a little. “The elderly witch who called in the complaint is notorious for being a—well, a bit of a miserable sod, to be honest.” Ron laughed, and Meri’s lips twitched. “Robards thought a bit of Golden Boy treatment might pacify her. We can’t keep having her call in about the pigeons flapping their wings too loudly on Sunday mornings.”
Harry considered getting Ron dragged into it as well – he was a war hero himself, after all, and it would make the job a little less painful – but he really did want Ron to talk to his mother about Harry’s (lack of) dating life. George had recently gotten engaged to Angelina Johnson, and Molly was already making hints about Harry bringing someone to the wedding as his plus one.
It wasn’t that Harry wasn’t interested in something more long-term, more serious. People loved to say that being bisexual meant double the options, but that wasn’t Harry’s experience at all. With sex? Sure. But he just couldn’t seem to find anyone he clicked with. Nobody that he wanted to bring home and wake up next to and cuddle on the sofa, doing fuck all but enjoying each other’s presence.
“What’s the address?” Harry grumbled, reaching for his badge and wand holster with a resigned huff.
“You’re a gem, Harry,” Meri beamed, scribbling down the address on a blank memo and handing it to him. Maybe Harry should date her. She was pretty and kind, and once she got going, her sense of humour was absolutely lethal.
Taking the pink memo, Harry glanced at the address and slipped the note into his pocket. “What does Robards want me to do? Go and tell the noisy apartment to knock it off and then visit Mrs Miserable Sod and flash her my dazzling smile?”
“You didn’t win Witch Weekly’s Most Charming Smile Award last year for nothing, mate,” Ron said. He looked far too happy about the whole thing. Considering how hungover he was, the sheer level of amusement was actually insulting.
Meri giggled. “Sounds about right. I’ll let Robards know you’re off, yeah? When you see Mrs M, please let her know that she can’t keep bothering the Aurors when she’s feeling annoyed.”
“Tell her to try yoga,” Ron suggested, slurping his tea.
Harry flipped him the finger and followed Meri out of the cubicle. Ron hadn’t even made him a cup, the ginger tosser.
* * *
Lantern Street was a modest street in a magical area of London. It wasn’t one of the posh streets with large, imposing buildings studded with bright windows. Harry was grateful if he was honest; those kinds of areas always reminded him of Little Whinging, with the neat gardens and insufferable residents. He almost preferred when he had to visit streets like Knockturn Alley, for he knew the problem would be something actually worth going out for rather than another middle-aged wizard complaining that his neighbour’s fanged geraniums were overgrowing into his back garden.
Peering around at the warm ochre brick buildings, the wrought iron fences, and listening to the faint hum of the city, Harry couldn’t decide whether he liked Lantern Street. It was both dull and peaceful; unremarkable, yet oddly charming. There was just enough mess, just enough overgrown bushes and broken fences and dirty brick around that Harry wasn’t reminded of Privet Drive. Even so, it was still a street that screamed boring. It felt like a noise complaint was probably the most exciting thing that ever happened here – although Harry supposed that was how the residents liked it.
Harry didn’t wander very far before he spotted Bramblewick Court, the flats that he was here to visit. Mrs Miserable was in number two, and the noisy offenders were in the flat above, number four. Harry approached the building wearing his best don’t shout at me I don’t want to be here either face, and pressed the magical button for flat number four. There was a faint magical chime but no answer. Harry tried not to let his irritation show as he waited, tapping his fingers against his thigh and pushing his hair out of his face; it was even more unruly than usual.
After five minutes of waiting, Harry thought fuck it and retrieved his Auror-issued skeleton key from his inner pocket. These keys didn’t work on every door, but for something simple like a residential building, it would let him in. Of course, the D.M.L.E. were very strict about ensuring that all keys remained at the Ministry when the worker was not on shift, and they were carefully monitored so that nobody could take advantage.
The door opened easily, and Harry stepped inside. Immediately, he was bombarded with the sound of furious shouting. It caught him so off guard that he instinctively whipped his wand out. His first thought was that he needed to apologise to Mrs M; he could see the door to flat two shimmering with what looked like an industrial-strength silencing charm. Those couldn’t hold forever, though, not unless they were built into the wards. Harry had also never attempted one on the ceiling.
The shouting sounded like multiple voices, all layered over each other, so that making out any specific words was hopeless. As Harry hurried up the somewhat shabby stairs, he could make out a strange squawking alongside the human shouts. He wanted to cover his ears once he emerged into the hallway; there was a door on either side, and Harry assumed that the tenants in number three must be out for the morning because there was no way they wouldn’t have made a complaint themselves.
Harry cast a Tempus and sighed – half nine was too early in the day to be doing this shit. He’d hoped they’d get an update on that burglary case today; he and Ron had been two of the rookie Aurors sent out when the owner of the new ice cream parlour in Diagon had reported a break-in. They hadn’t done much more than take her statement and question a few nearby shop owners, but it had felt important. Like they were actually making a difference and being helpful.
This felt like a bloody waste of time. If you needed to have a good shout, throw up a strong Muffliato and go for it, it wasn’t fucking rocket science. Harry could be catching up on his mountain of paperwork, or … no, he really needed to do that paperwork.
He exhaled wearily and knocked sharply on the door of flat four. He thought it would be a miracle if the occupants heard his knocking above the racket they were making. He knocked again, louder this time, and distinctly heard someone shout, “I’m coming, sweet fucking Merlin—shut the fuck up, you two, fucking Circe, you’re driving me mental.”
Harry didn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t the flushed, frustrated face of Blaise Zabini. They stared at each other for a second until a particularly shrill shriek broke them out of their disbelief.
“Potter?” Zabini blinked, and then yelled over his shoulder, “Shut up, or so help me I will hex your mouth shut!”
Harry cleared his throat. “Er, I’m here because one of your neighbours called in a noise complaint.”
“Big fucking surprise,” Zabini said. He looked Harry up and down, taking in his Auror uniform, the sleek fit over his broad shoulders and chest; his dark eyes glinted with appreciation. Harry remembered the comment about the groping last night on the Knight Bus and felt his cheeks heat.
“Isn’t it a pleasure to see you again,” Zabini drawled, his lip curling into a seductive smile. He opened the door wider, and that’s when Harry noticed that he was wearing a pair of very ill-fitting silk pyjamas. The sleeves and legs were too long, but more distractingly, the shirt and trousers were so tight that they left barely a crumb to the imagination. Harry could see everything. He wanted to avert his eyes, but somehow he couldn’t.
“I know—sometimes modest is hottest.” Zabini rolled his eyes, glancing down at his body. It was surprising that the fabric hadn’t torn altogether, but Harry supposed they must have some sort of charm on them to strengthen the fabric.
“I, er—” Maybe Harry really didn’t want to know. “Look, can you just, er, keep it down?” As he said this, the higher-pitched voice rose again and shouted, “Stop trying to take it off, you’ll make it worse!” A different voice replied, “Oh, sure, I’ll just wear this to my shift, shall I?”
Harry gaped. “Is that…?”
With a world-weary sigh, Zabini said, “I’ve been trying to calm them down for half an hour. It’s mental in here—maybe you should come in…”
With not a small amount of apprehension, Harry followed Zabini through the door and into the entrance. He tried not to look at Zabini’s arse in the indecent silk trousers as they walked down a short corridor and turned left into an open-plan kitchen/dining room. The table was set up for breakfast for three; in the centre of the table was a ribbon-wrapped box emitting the awful squawking. It sounded like a cage full of angry parrots.
Standing behind the table, facing each other like they were in a standoff, were exactly who Harry had suspected. Both Slytherins were flushed and furious, shouting at each other and gesturing wildly between the box on the table and themselves. They didn’t even seem to notice Harry and Zabini.
“Oi, you two!” Zabini bellowed. “Someone called the fucking Aurors!”
Malfoy and Parkinson looked over and stopped dead, their eyes widening at the sight of Harry. As Harry stared at them, a few things clicked into place, although none of it made any more sense.
Parkinson was dressed in a richly-coloured, geometric-patterned shirt that swamped her torso and slid off one shoulder. Beneath it, Harry could make out a pair of tailored linen trousers that, going by the bunching around the hips, were heavily belted at the waist to stop them falling down. The hem had been rolled up at least four times. She looked a bit like Harry imagined he had looked wearing Hagrid’s coat at eleven years old in a windy shack out at sea.
The absurdity of it, however, was nothing compared to what Malfoy was wearing. Harry’s eyes travelled up his body in slow motion, starting at his feet, which were clad in a pair of black velvet heels. His legs – they were so long – were white and bare, and Harry choked as he realised Malfoy was in a skirt. It wasn’t the kind of skirt that Hermione might wear, though – it was leather, for a start. Harry swallowed nervously, something warm flaring inside him as he looked at Malfoy’s slim thighs, his sharp hips encased in form-fitting black leather. The skirt was so short that it only just covered his arse cheeks. On his top half, he wore a sheer, expensive-looking blouse in rose pink, with a matching strappy vest underneath. Harry could see the sharpness of Malfoy’s collarbones and the flat plane of his chest. With a jolt, he also realised he could see the Dark Mark, harsh and deep grey against the pale softness of the blouse and Malfoy’s skin.
Malfoy noticed him looking and turned his forearm inwards so the mark was hidden from view. “Oh, excellent, they’ve sent an Auror.” Malfoy drawled the word. “I’m surprised you went into work today, Potter.”
Harry scowled and tried to take his eyes off Malfoy’s exposed legs, but his eyeballs weren’t cooperating with his brain.
“Can you shut that thing up?” Harry said instead, pointing to the squawking box on the table.
“What do you think we’ve been trying to do?” Parkinson retorted. “Circe, they really let anyone into the Aurors these days.”
Harry prickled with anger, but his priority was getting the box to shut up. His second priority was concealing his semi-hard prick, although thankfully, his heavy Auror robes were doing a satisfactory job at present. If Malfoy kept pacing like he was, though, with the skirt hem inching higher with every step, Harry might have a problem.
He needed Ron here to slap some sense into him. This was Malfoy, for fuck’s sake. Skirt or not, he was a monumental git. Okay, he might charm old ladies and conduct the Knight Bus while wearing a weirdly sexy uniform and laugh at a drunk Harry in a way that made him feel hot all over, even though Malfoy was making fun of him …
Those things aside, he and Malfoy didn’t like each other. Curiosity – that’s all this feeling was. Why was Malfoy living with two past Slytherin housemates in a mundane flat in magical London? Why was he working on the Knight Bus? Why was he currently dressed in his female friend’s clothes?
It was the idea that he was attracted to Malfoy in Pansy Parkinson’s clothing that managed to snap Harry out of his daze. It was far too weird for nine-thirty in the morning. These were post-midnight kinds of thoughts.
“What is that thing?” Harry asked over the noise.
“Pansy should be able to tell you,” Malfoy sniped, his face twisting in frustration. “Since it was addressed to her.”
“I don’t know who sent it, okay? You’re making me doubt that both of your ears are functional because I’ve already said I don’t know what it is!” Parkinson was back to shouting.
“Why in Salazar’s name would you open an unsigned package?” Oh lovely, Malfoy was giving as good as he got.
“Who in their right mind would expect to be sent a cursed box that makes them swap clothes with their roommates? I assumed it was for my shoot today! Which I’m probably going to miss now, which is really fucking annoying because it was going to be the breakthrough of my career!”
“Go and meet the photographer for Charmed Couture in that, they’ll say it’s the latest fashion statement against gender stereotypes. I’m meant to be at a meeting right now.”
“And we’ve got work later, old chap,” Zabini added. “Between us, if we go out like this, we’ll get arrested for public indecency.”
“I can’t miss work, Blaise, they barely took me on in the first place.”
It was the desperation in Malfoy’s tone that spurred Harry into action. He pulled out his wand and cast a few diagnostic spells on the open box, but it showed nothing useful other than that the enchantment contained inside it had gone off and was no longer loaded and ready to fire, which was a relief. It meant Harry wasn’t risking his own clothing (and dignity) by approaching the box.
“We’ve tried closing the lid, but it zaps you if you touch it,” Zabini explained.
Harry’s head was starting to pound; that hangover potion really hadn’t been sufficient. “I assume you’ve tried closing it with magic?”
“Obviously,” Malfoy sneered. Harry scowled at him but racked his brain for a solution. Stopping the noise was the most pressing issue. That was what he’d been called out about.
With an idea in mind, he said, “Do any of you have any Grade One protective gloves? There’s a spell I can try that might let me touch the box.”
“I do,” Malfoy said. He turned on his heel – heels, Harry should say, chunky four-inch velvet heels – and disappeared further into the flat. Harry let out a choking noise as he got an eyeful of Malfoy’s firm, round arse, enveloped in leather like a rose in silken petals. His cheeks were nearly peeking out from beneath the skirt’s hem, and Harry’s brain betrayed him by suddenly wondering if underwear had been swapped, too. The thought should have been a little gross, but all Harry could think about was the possibility that Malfoy had on women’s knickers.
Pansy Parkinson’s knickers, he reminded himself with a mental slap. Since becoming an Auror, his self-discipline had improved, but he was only human.
Parkinson was still seething mad, but Zabini was eyeing him with a far too knowing gleam in his eye. Harry flushed and cleared his throat uncomfortably, and Zabini smiled. He looked like he’d just won fifty points for Slytherin.
“You’re a great designer, Pans,” he praised. He gestured down at his own shirt on Parkinson’s body, and she preened a bit, her posture straightening smugly. “It’s only a matter of time before all the magazines start noticing your name. That outfit you wore today was stunning.”
Parkinson’s face fell. “Because of some stupid anonymous cursed box, I won’t get to wear it for Charmed Couture.” She fell silent, and a scheming look came over her face. She side-eyed Zabini through dark eyelashes and said, “Maybe I can’t wear it, but it doesn’t have to be me in the photos. We can glamour his face—I already know the clothes fit.” Her voice was quick with excitement. “As much as it kills me to say, he’s got a body to die for. Those legs, darling—so pale against the black velvet shoes—”
“Keep dreaming, darling.” Malfoy re-entered the kitchen, a pair of gloves in his hand. Harry discreetly adjusted his robe. What was it about Malfoy’s voice that did it for him? Maybe his posh accent, or his crisp pronunciation – or maybe the way he drawled his phrases and the way it made everything he said sound suggestive. It was mad; standing in his kitchen in heels and a mini-skirt, Malfoy was the epitome of a seductive fantasy. Even in his dress robes at that Ministry gala a few months ago, he’d exuded a kind of untouchable aura that made Harry feel like a bull to Malfoy’s unicorn. He was clumsy and heavy-handed; Malfoy was elegant and polished, with a sly edge that made Harry buzz with tension. And, if he was honest, excitement.
Maybe it was because Harry had been three sheets to the wind, but Malfoy had been different last night on the bus. Still witty, still mocking and sarcastic, but he’d also felt within reach, like his public mask had fallen away in Harry’s presence and left the unfeigned, unassuming version of Draco Malfoy.
Harry wasn’t getting any of that now. This Malfoy was all untouchable, arrogant mystery, and if Harry was honest, it made him really fucking hard. He thought maybe when he got home tonight, he should have a think about what that might say about him – that he got aroused when Malfoy was a bit of a tosser.
Harry took the thick gloves from Malfoy and peered at them, examining the scaly hide. It caught the light and gleamed like chrome metal. Harry’s eyebrows flew up. “Is this Icelandic Silvercrest hide? It’s illegal to own anything made from the hide of those dragons. They’re endangered.”
Malfoy raised an eyebrow. “Going to arrest me, Auror Potter?” He held out his wrists, a smirk playing on his lips. And oh god, Harry did not want Malfoy to know what that did to him. He had a vision of himself stretched out along the length of Malfoy’s pale, lithe body with Malfoy’s wrists in magical handcuffs above his head, writhing in pleasure as Harry ran his tongue over his pink nipples …
“No need to look so intense, Potter. They’re antique; you’re allowed to own items made with Icelandic Silvercrest hide if it was crafted at least one hundred years ago.”
“Can you prove that these are?” Harry said, not entirely sure why.
To his great surprise, Malfoy smiled at him – not a sneer, but a genuinely amused smile. “I’m sure I can find the portrait of my great-grandfather, Septimus. He’s wearing them in it.”
“Can you get on with closing that box, please?” Zabini interrupted, his arms crossed. “Not that we’re not thrilled to have you here, Auror Potter.”
“Uh—yeah, right. Okay.” Harry slipped the gloves on. The hide was cool against his skin and felt silky rather than rough or scaly, as one might expect. Harry pressed his palms together and whispered the incantation he’d been taught as a trainee Auror. It was a charm used on protective gear to make it resistant to corrosive or harmful substances, such as bubotuber pus or manticore venom. Harry didn’t know if he would be able to touch the box now, but he might as well try.
“Has it been this loud since you opened it?”
Zabini grimaced. “It gets louder each time we try to take our clothes off.”
That made sense, Harry thought. He approached the box; it was a dull, rather plain thing, really. It was rattling slightly from the force of the noise, but it didn’t feel malevolent in any way. In fact, it actually reminded Harry of something Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes might create.
“That’s why we had our little argument, isn’t that right, darling?” Parkinson turned a sickly sweet smile on Malfoy. She looked a bit like a venomous snake. “Draco wouldn’t listen when we told him to stop trying to take the heels off.”
“My ankles are fucking killing me,” Malfoy hissed, the sound almost drowned out by the box.
Harry stretched out his hand and gingerly brushed his fingers against the lid of the box. When he felt no immediate pain or shock, he increased the pressure. In one swift snap, he slammed the lid down; at once, the squawking was silenced. The ringing silence only lasted a few seconds before the box whirred and shuddered a couple of times. Sensing something was about to happen, Harry cast a hasty shield charm around the table just before the box exploded in a whirlwind of multicoloured feathers.
They all watched as the rainbow feathers cascaded down the sides of Harry’s shield charm, covering the table and the plates of breakfast. Once the dust – well, feathers – had settled, Harry let his shield fall and held out a hand to the others, telling them not to approach. He moved closer to the box; as far as he could see, it was nothing but an ordinary box now. A couple of spells confirmed this, and he let out a sigh of relief, rubbing his hand across his face. “Thank fuck for that.”
“There are feathers in my coffee,” Parkinson whined. “That’s the good shit from France, too. What a waste.”
“I’m sure Mummy will send you out some more if you ask nicely,” Malfoy drawled. He immediately tried to kick his feet free from the heels, but they wouldn’t come off. “Blaise, be a dear and help me out, won’t you?”
Zabini snorted. “If I bend over in this silk, I’ll burst right through it.”
“At least you’d be out of it,” Harry said practically. Zabini shot him a suggestive smirk that made Harry realise how that had sounded.
Malfoy pointed a threatening finger at Zabini. “You’d better not. Those are my favourites.”
“Nothing’s coming off!” Parkinson was yanking at the buttons on her shirt, but they wouldn’t budge. Malfoy paled and attempted to pull his – well, Parkinson’s – blouse over his head, but it was as if he forgot how to use his limbs as soon as he touched the fabric. He became totally unable to do the necessary manoeuvres needed to lift the blouse over his head. Likewise, Parkinson’s fingers were clumsy and uncooperative in her attempts, as if they’d been Confunded.
“Oh, for Circe’s sake,” Zabini muttered. “Maybe it’s time to try severing charms.” He spread his arms out at his sides a little and turned to face Harry. “If you wouldn’t mind, Potter? I’m afraid if I do it myself, I may end up severing my cock off or something.”
Harry laughed a little nervously. He felt a bit like he was in a lion’s den, even though he was the Gryffindor. Maybe a bird in a pit of vipers was more accurate. “Uh, yeah. Sure. We wouldn’t want that.”
“We really wouldn’t. It would be a terrible shame,” Zabini said.
“Oh please, a mild disappointment at most,” Malfoy scoffed. “And you’re not shredding my pyjamas.”
“I’ll buy you a bloody new pair, Merlin. And I’ll remind you that you never had any complaints.”
“Oh, I complained. Not to your face, maybe.”
“It’s true, darling,” Parkinson said, a sympathetic look on her face. “Draco used to complain to me in the mornings that the kitchen chairs were too hard.”
Zabini smirked. He leaned back against the table, his arms crossed loosely in front of his chest. “Now that feels like a compliment more than anything else.”
“It would, you egotistical prick,” Malfoy said. “This is why we dropped the benefits portion of our friendship. You’re a fucking animal.”
Harry choked a little on his inhale. In a weak voice, he said, “Are you all done?”
Malfoy’s face coloured prettily, and he flounced off across the kitchen towards the kettle, which he filled with water, probably to make more fancy French coffee. Parkinson looked highly amused, and Zabini was still smirking. Harry’s head was reeling, the mixture of his lingering hangover and the absurdity of his morning not helping with the confusion swirling through him. The lack of blood flowing through his brain (due to it being directed somewhere a little more south) was making him feel a little dazed as he tried to wrap his head around how he’d ended up here.
Zabini’s lips twitched into a grin. “Won’t you help undress me, Auror Potter?”
“Not my fucking pyjamas!” Malfoy spun around, the kettle clattering against the countertop. He ran a hand through his hair, scowling. “Do Pansy, Potter, and then hopefully she can help us undress from there. Assuming that the removal of the clothes will break whatever spell is on us.”
“Nobody is removing my clothing!” Parkinson snapped. “Unless you’d forgotten, Blaise doesn’t wear undergarments.”
“For the love of Merlin himself—” Malfoy huffed and pushed himself away from the counter “—we’ve seen you starkers more times than I can count, Pans. You bloody exhibitionist.”
Harry had had quite enough of this madness. He wanted to be back in his Auror cubicle, drinking shit tea with Ron and seeing who could build the tallest tower with their incompleted paperwork before it all toppled over. “I’m too fucking hungover for this shit,” Harry announced, suddenly not caring about his professionalism. “Malfoy, turn the fuck around so I can sever your top off.”
“Do not touch my fucking blouse!” Parkinson nearly shrieked. Harry winced.
Malfoy rolled his eyes. “You’ve got the pattern, haven’t you? Just make another one. I’ll even pay for it out of the goodness of my heart.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“It’s this or your pyjamas, Draco. What else are you going to do for me?”
Harry buried his face into his elbow, his forearm pressed against his forehead. He let out a tired groan.
“Fine! I’ll model your spring collection, you absolute cow.”
“That wasn’t hard, was it, darling?” Parkinson’s smile was sickly sweet. “Now, if you’ll call me through when you’re all sorted. I’ve got to place an owl order for more rose silk chiffon.”
It was really quite impressive how she managed to sweep from the room wearing overlarge trousers and a shirt that would have fit at least two of her inside it. With one less person to distract him, Harry got his head back into Auror mode and cast a stasis shield bubble around the box just in case. He’d want to have the forensics team come out to look at it and hopefully discover if it was a curse – and if it was, pass it on to the relevant department. If it was just a prank item, they’d still want to check it for a magical signature.
“Right,” Harry said in his firm, authoritative tone. “Malfoy, get the fuck over here.”
Raising an eyebrow, Malfoy replied, “Who are you to order me about, Scarhead?”
Harry narrowed his eyes. Holy mother of Merlin, but Malfoy in that outfit was still doing things to certain parts of Harry’s anatomy. It was a struggle to keep his eyes on Malfoy’s face.
Annoyed with himself, Harry clenched his jaw and growled, “Come the fuck here. Now. I’m not fucking about. I will come to you, but then I won’t be so careful about where I aim the severing charm.”
Something shifted in Malfoy’s eyes, blooming dark and intense as he stared at Harry. His tongue darted out to lick his lips as he slowly moved towards Harry. He moved like a big cat – all confidence and strong grace. Had he walked like that at school? Harry didn’t think so – he would have noticed Malfoy prowling around the Hogwarts corridors. No, Malfoy used to slither around like the boa constrictor Harry had met at the zoo when he was ten.
“How do you want me?” Malfoy practically purred. Harry was clenching his jaw so tightly that he feared he would crack a tooth. Malfoy in a mini skirt and heels was testing a part of himself that had never been tested in this capacity before, and never on the job. His current position in the D.M.L.E. had him interacting mostly with elderly people with complaints, low-level thieves, and the occasional bar fight. His professionalism hadn’t had time to mature yet, not like the most seasoned of the Aurors who could narrowly survive a curse bomb on a Friday afternoon and still make it to the Leaky for drinks at eight. He couldn’t be unfazed by this stuff.
Not that Malfoy in a tight skirt, heels, and elegant blouse was equivalent to a cursed bomb. But it kind of was a bit, though.
“Just turn around.”
“Yes, Sir.” Malfoy turned and rested his hands against the back of a kitchen chair. He even arched his back a little.
“Right,” Zabini announced, reminding Harry that he was not, in fact, alone with Malfoy in the kitchen. “I’m going to go and organise my cufflinks or something.” He was halfway towards the door when he turned back around and pointed a finger at Malfoy. “Don’t get fucking arrested. I’m not bailing you out.”
“I’ll be on my best behaviour,” Malfoy drawled, leaning further over the chair. Harry wasn’t sure whether he wanted Zabini to leave or desperately needed him to stay. He watched with a very confused desperation as Zabini left the room, and then it was just him and Malfoy in the silence of the kitchen.
Malfoy relaxed his stance a little, easing up from his arched position and running a hand through his platinum hair. “Blaise is such a twat.”
“He seems alright.”
“You don’t live with him.”
Harry hummed noncommittally as he traced his wand along Malfoy’s spine. The pink sheer fabric made his skin look nearly pearlescent, even in the shitty kitchen lighting. The blouse split along the line Harry traced, parting like clouds and revealing the pale glittering moon beneath. Malfoy shuddered as the tip of Harry’s wand caressed the base of his spine before withdrawing.
Curious, Harry said, “Why would I arrest you?”
Malfoy let out a huff of breath. “I don’t know, Potter. The Ministry’s been frothing at the mouth to catch me out doing something I shouldn’t be. Get creative with it.”
“Have you done anything illegal?”
Malfoy tilted his head over his shoulder to throw Harry a smirk that went straight to his cock. “How recently?”
Harry ground his teeth together. “Since the end of your probation.” The silky fabric slipped away from Malfoy’s shoulders, leaving his torso bare. His back was smooth, his spine slightly more pronounced than was probably healthy, but then Malfoy had always been slim. Working on the Knight Bus probably didn’t require the kind of intense labour that would build bulging muscles. His hipbones were sharp, the lines of his body hard and a little pointy, like his face, but there was a softness, too. Harry could appreciate the visual appeal of someone like Zabini, broad and thick and toned, but it wasn’t what he found most attractive. He hated how fit he found Malfoy, how he liked that the Slytherin was a little taller, slimmer and likely more flexible …
“You’ll be disappointed to know that I’ve been a model citizen,” Malfoy said.
Harry snorted without humour. “Oh really?”
“You were the one pissed as a grindylow on public transport, Potter.”
“I never claimed to be a model citizen, did I?”
“I assumed that came with the role of Golden Boy.”
“I suspect the Ministry did, too.”
Malfoy turned around; his face was much closer than Harry expected, and he stepped back automatically. Malfoy raised an eyebrow, his arms crossing over his chest. “Ah, so you’re also disappointing those who had high expectations for you.” It wasn’t a question.
Harry wasn’t really listening. His attention had been caught by a silvery line trailing from Malfoy’s collarbone, cutting down where it was hidden by his crossed arms. Harry could make out at least three different crisscrossing scars, the longest spanning the collarbone nearly to the hip. His breath felt lodged in his throat, the room much less open than it had felt before.
It took Malfoy a second to realise what Harry was so transfixed by. His confident front – for Harry was sure it was largely a public image he had created for himself – slipped as his arms tightened against his chest. For the first time, he looked uncomfortable in the scant clothing he wore. “Don’t have a moral crisis, Potter. For fuck’s sake.”
Harry blinked, his eyes snapping up to Malfoy’s flushed face. “What?”
“I said—oh, fucking hell. Look—the past is the past, I got you equally as good and was as much of a shit to you as you were to me, so we’re even. I’m bettering my life and serving the community and all that bollocks, and you’re doing whatever the fuck saviours do after they’ve done all the saving.”
“Still saving.” Harry gestured down at his uniform, feeling a little taken aback by Malfoy’s outburst.
“Well, good for you.”
“I’m sorry,” Harry blurted, surprised by his own action. He faltered a little at the astonishment on Malfoy’s face but swallowed and forced himself to continue. His throat felt tight. “I didn’t—it’s no excuse, I know, but I didn’t know what that spell did. It was really fucking stupid of me.”
Malfoy’s expression was unreadable. “Yes, well. Water under the bridge, as they say.”
Their history didn’t really feel like water under the bridge to Harry. He was baffled that Malfoy could say that – the bloke was a notorious grudge-holder. He’d held a grudge against Harry for the whole of their school years over a handshake. “Since when have you been a laid-back person?”
“Will you do something useful and unbuckle these bloody shoes?”
Harry rolled his eyes but lowered to his knees, tucking his wand into his holster. The position made his stomach flutter, something hungry clawing up his throat at the sound of Malfoy’s breath hitching. His breath came quicker as his fingers fumbled with the delicate buckles on the heels.
“And I am not laid-back,” Malfoy continued. His voice was slightly lower. “But I refuse to feel resentful or guilty over things that have already happened when I could do something productive instead. It turns out that’s way more rewarding.”
“Huh.” Harry finally managed to get one of the stupidly complicated clasps undone and slid the velvet shoe from Malfoy’s foot. His skin looked soft and smooth, like he slathered himself in fancy imported French moisturiser twice a day. He probably did, the tosser.
“Huh what? I’m not fifteen anymore, you know.”
“Funnily enough, I actually did know that.”
“Well, forgive me if that’s something I’m not bloody used to. I was supposed to be meeting with my mother this morning—I swear parents are incapable of seeing their children as fully functioning adults.” Malfoy’s face suddenly shifted into an uncomfortable expression as he realised what he’d just said to an orphan. He glanced off to the side and said, “I’m sure the Weasley matriarch is the same with you. She seems the overbearing type—about the only thing she has in common with my mother, I’m sure.”
Malfoy wasn’t wrong there. “Sometimes that can be nice,” Harry said, not really sure why he was having this conversation. “Not always, obviously. But it’s all out of love, right?”
“For you, maybe. My mother has travelled to London to negotiate my engagement to Astoria Greengrass.” Malfoy pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s actually really fucking inconvenient that I’ve missed my meeting, because I was going to remind my mother that there’s no reality where I willingly marry Astoria, so she’ll need to tie me down and Imperius me at the ceremony if she won’t give up.”
Harry stopped his wrestle with the second shoe buckle to stare at Malfoy, who had a wry smile on his face. It was an expression he wasn’t used to seeing, but he found that he liked it.
“Does the D.M.L.E. do official letters? Like a Healer’s note for taking time off work, but a note that informs my mother that even though I missed our appointment for tea, I’m still not getting married?”
“Yeah, no one is gonna write that. It’s not the D.M.L.E.’s problem that you got sent a crazy fucking cursed box.”
“Just yours.” Malfoy smirked. The buckle on his shoe finally came loose, and he pulled up his leg to tug it off before Harry could, rubbing his heel with a low groan. “One would think that my choice of occupation, raging homosexuality, and the fact that Septimus Malfoy’s heirloom wedding goblets are at the bottom of the Seine river would have been enough of a hint for dear Mummy.”
“One would think,” Harry agreed faintly; Malfoy’s movement had shown Harry a lot more than he’d previously been able to see, and that was already pretty much everything. To his intense relief (and definitely not disappointment), Malfoy was wearing red shorts, the kind of underwear women wore because they were comfortable.
Malfoy didn’t seem aware of Harry’s internal panic-slash-conflicted arousal. He let out a snort. “Unfortunately, my mother is so deep in denial that she’s practically fossilised in it. It’ll take an archaeologist to dig her back out, and I doubt they’d take the job.”
A surprised huff of laughter escaped Harry’s mouth as he stood back up. “When did you become funny?”
“I’ve always been funny, Potter.” Malfoy’s trademark smirk was back in place. “You were the only one who never thought so.”
“You weren’t funny; you were a snobbish, bullying prick.”
A shadow of something that might have been shame passed over Malfoy’s face before it was covered with a mischievous expression, like a fresh poster pasted over an old one. “Those ‘Potter Stinks’ badges were hilarious.”
“Hysterical,” Harry said, deadpan. He withdrew his wand and poked Malfoy in the ribs. He yelped.
“The fuck, Potter?”
“I need to see if the curse has broken. Try and take the skirt off.”
“Eager, are we?”
Very against protocol and likely to get him in a decent amount of trouble if Malfoy filed a complaint, Harry hit him with a tongue-tying jinx and sat down heavily in one of the kitchen chairs.
With a choking sound, Malfoy shot Harry his most venomous glare. In return, Harry gave him his most agreeable friendly-Auror face, the one that Hermione said showed off his dimples and Ron said made him swoon.
Malfoy rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t hide his blush as his fingers moved to the lacing at the back of the skirt. The wizarding world hadn’t caught on to zips yet.
As his forearms contorted to reach behind him, Harry got a clear view of the Dark Mark. It was grey now, rather than stark black, and a little blurred around the edges. Maybe it would eventually fade completely, or maybe it would scar. Harry wondered why Malfoy hadn’t tried to cover it up – if he were Malfoy, he wouldn’t want the visible reminder of such a dark period in his life. It was depressing, coming home feeling light after a great day, only to undress and have your good mood instantly squashed by the sight of an old, violent scar. And unless Malfoy wore long sleeves all year round, it was something he’d be forced to look at constantly.
Harry thought the sight of the Dark Mark would bother him more – should have bothered him more. But with Voldemort dead and buried (cremated, actually – they weren’t taking any chances), the Mark didn’t have any power behind it. All Harry saw was a blurred, fading scar – not unlike many of his own.
This mark hadn’t turned Malfoy into a Voldemort supporter – a Death Eater, yes, but Harry had come to separate the two since having time to sit with it all after the war. He’d found himself in Regulus’ bedroom on a number of occasions, sitting on the dusty floor against the wardrobe.
He’d thought a lot about the younger Black brother. Over time, he’d thought of Snape, too. Two men who had died as marked Death Eaters but no longer supporters of the man who’d marked them. Who had died while opposing everything their Lord stood for.
“What in Salazar’s name did Pansy fasten these ribbons with, a permanent sticking charm?” The tongue-tying jinx had worn off. Malfoy’s movements were becoming more frustrated as he tugged fruitlessly at the skirt lacing.
“It’s probably the curse,” Harry sighed. “I’ll try.”
“It’s not,” Malfoy said. His arm jerked as he yanked at the velvet lace, only succeeding in tightening the closure. “It feels like I can take it off—well, I can’t, but that’s not because I’m not able to.”
“That made perfect sense, thanks.”
Malfoy gave him a flat look. However, his blush betrayed his reluctance as he turned around, his hands still on the lace, and said, “Go on, then. I can see how much you want to.”
Harry really hoped that wasn’t the case. The chair scraped against the floor as he stood; he made sure to leave a respectable gap between himself and Malfoy as he worked the criss-cross lacing looser. Malfoy had been so violent with it that Harry struggled to get his fingers underneath the ribbon to loosen it.
“You’re loving this, aren’t you?” Malfoy muttered.
“You’ve no idea,” Harry replied. He really, really didn’t.
Harry’s fingertips brushed the soft skin of Malfoy’s lower back a couple of times, each time making his heart beat a little quicker. He couldn’t see Malfoy’s face, but the man stood unnaturally stiff. Once the lace was loosened enough, Harry said, “There. Try now.”
With his hands on his hips, Malfoy hooked his thumbs inside the skirt’s waistband and shimmied it down. He gave a slight wiggle of his hips as he eased the tight fabric over the swell of his arse. He gave an audible sigh of relief when he realised the curse was now broken – for him, at least – and he could finally undress himself. He paused, the skirt unlaced around his waist, and turned to face Harry. “I think I can manage this last bit on my own.”
“You sure?” Harry said, and then bit his tongue at how that sounded. Malfoy had picked up on it, too, for a smirk spread across his lips. He wore it like a secret he wouldn’t share.
“Quite sure. I suppose I ought to help Pansy and Blaise as well, not that they deserve it.”
“Er—why don’t they?”
“Because they are utterly intolerable people. Not to mention that this is all Pansy’s fault in the first place.”
“But—you—why do you live with them then?”
Malfoy gave him the look you’d give someone who’d just asked if they could use Alohomora on a Gringotts vault. “Because I love them, Potter. Obviously. What a stupid bloody question.”
“Right…” Harry rubbed the back of his neck. He was reaching the end of his sanity – this whole bloody morning had felt surreal.
Clinging to his professionalism like it was the spine of a great flying dragon, he tried to explain how it would be best to proceed regarding the mysterious cursed box. “So it looks—er—the curse or hex or whatever is disabled now, so it won’t go off again. But I think there could be a corrosive substance on the box, like a powder or something, that causes the pain when you touch it. I’m going to call the F.U.M.E.S team out—that’s the Field Unit for—”
“I know the F.U.M.E.S team. They’ve been here once or twice.”
“Oh?” Harry was intrigued and mildly suspicious.
“Two-thirds of my bedroom is a potions lab. Have you ever used Lureluxe dust, Potter?”
“Er—in Potions class, maybe, when we studied Amortentia.”
“Have you ever been covered head-to-toe in it?”
“…Ah.”
“Indeed. The F.U.M.E.S team were not impressed. Well, no—they were entirely too impressed.”
Harry could imagine all too clearly a Malfoy covered in glittering golden powder, shining like Felix Felicis and smelling like a blend of the scents most irresistible to the sniffer. The image was almost more distracting than Malfoy in a mini skirt and nothing else. “Well, you’ll be familiar with them, then. F.U.M.E.S will want to check for residue and ensure that your flat is clean. They’ll test anything they find, which might help identify who sent the box. I’ll wait till they get here, and then I’ll need to get statements from you, Parkinson, and Zabini.”
“Fine.” Something shifted on Malfoy’s face. “I’m going to go and get dressed now.”
“Er, yeah. Good idea.” Harry really hoped his cheeks weren’t as red as they felt. He stared at Malfoy’s arse shamelessly – actually, no, he felt a fair amount of shame about it – as the other man left the room.
Finding himself alone in the kitchen of three old Slytherin schoolmates, the full absurdity of his morning hit him with such force that he took a seat at the table. Ron was going to die laughing when he heard the story; although, considering how he’d acted this morning, Harry wasn’t sure he deserved to enjoy himself that much. If there was a cup of tea waiting for him when he finally got back to his desk, he might reconsider.
Harry sent off a Patronus, requesting that the Field Unit for Magical Emissions & Substances team come to the scene for cleanup. As he waited for them, he removed his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. Fuck, but this had really gotten his day off to a weird start. Last night had been weird, too, what with seeing Malfoy on the Knight Bus. What were the chances that they’d run into each other two days running, after not seeing each other at all since the Ministry gala?
Pretty small ones, his brain supplied. Every interaction with Malfoy felt like a full-moon night, significant in some way, memorable. He used them as markers of time – don’t you remember, that was two days after the full moon. Yeah, that was a week after Malfoy made me vomit glitter in Defence Against the Dark Arts. Harry almost felt like marking each one on his calendar alongside the moon cycles.
When the F.U.M.E.S team arrived, Harry let them in the front door. He heard the pops of Apparition from outside, so there was only one knock before he opened the door to be met with the serious faces of four of the people who worked on the team, all of them dressed in their protective robes and gloves.
“Er, that was quick.”
“We don’t mess around,” one of the wizards said – a tall, middle-aged man with a shaved head and permanently narrowed eyes. Harry thought his name might have been Tyrese, or Tyrell.
“Where is the emission or substance?” A younger witch asked, her tone no-nonsense. Diana, Harry’s brain supplied; he always remembered her because of her uncanny resemblance to Princess Diana, only without the princess’s kind, gentle nature. Diana from F.U.M.E.S was one of the few people whom Harry felt genuine fear about getting on her bad side. Another was Hermione.
“Morning, Diana,” Harry said. Her thin-lipped, narrow-eyed look had him suppressing a grimace as he opened the door wider to let them in. She obviously hadn’t forgotten the gloomstone incident. But really, how was Harry supposed to know that the powder he’d spilt on his robes was extremely toxic? He’d been pursuing a thief through Vertik Alley, after Mrs Hootingham had spotted him and Ron on patrol across the street from her shop and started screaming that someone was currently stealing her long-toed salamanders, and would they put their youthful energy to good use and chase the bastard who’d just taken off down the street.
He and Ron had done a no-nonsense rock-paper-scissors, and Harry had lost – hence the chasing and subsequent faceful of gloomstone powder when his sticking jinx (intended to stick the suspect’s feet to the ground and thwart his escape) went a little wide and hit a large sack outside the front of a fancy specialist potions shop. He’d coughed out an apology to the shop owner as he ran past. In the end, the thief was caught, the salamanders returned to a hysterical Mrs Hootingham, and the owner of Mist & Mortar compensated for his loss of product – the product that Harry had tracked throughout most of the Auror department before he realised that something was very wrong because he was seeing the world in greyscale.
The subsequent evacuation and decontamination had not put Harry in the best favour of the department and its related connections. Diana, when she and a couple more of the F.U.M.E.S team had been called down, had not been impressed when she’d instructed him not to re-enter his cubicle until the shield glowing around it had turned green, and Harry had asked if that would be a light or dark grey.
Inside Malfoy’s flat, Harry showed the F.U.M.E.S people – Fumers, as they were colloquially known – into the kitchen and pointed out the box. He explained the effect when it was touched, and showed them the gloves he’d charmed and worn to close it.
Tyreon – Harry thought it was Tyreon, actually, not Tyrell – pulled a swabbing kit from his satchel and set it on the end of the table. He snapped his protective gloves against his hands, clearly meaning business, and started commanding the others on which spells to cast and which swabs to put in which bags.
Luckily, that was the moment the three Slytherins reappeared, so Harry wasn’t hovering awkwardly like an oversized fly as the team worked. Harry cleared his throat and said, “This is the F.U.M.E.S team. I called them in to analyse any potential substances on the box. Once they’ve said that everything’s all good and stuff, then they’ll be out of here.”
Malfoy, Zabini, and Parkinson gave a synchronised set of polite nods that made Harry want to laugh. Nobody on the F.U.M.E.S team so much as cracked a smile; their faces stayed serious and stony, although the bloke with the silky black ponytail and angular face turned a rather curious shade of pink. Malfoy’s expression shifted into a small smirk.
“Junming,” the fourth Fumer snapped. The man with the ponytail started and quickly pulled his goggles over his eyes, loose bits of hair getting caught beneath them. He was decently attractive; tall and well-built, his features sharp and symmetrical, his hair glossy. Harry had a bit of a thing for long hair, to be honest, especially on a bloke. It was unfortunate that all Fumers were joyless, serious creatures. Harry imagined hooking up with one would be like sleeping with a mix between a centaur and Professor Binns.
The image that inspired made him physically nauseous, and he had to squeeze his eyes shut and breathe deeply. Not that centaurs weren’t attractive with their handsome faces and muscular bodies – but, you know, horse. And Professor Binns wasn’t even corporeal, so – Merlin, Harry needed to stop thinking about this.
Harry took a deep breath before opening his eyes and turning to the three re-dressed Slytherins. He was somewhat troubled to find that Draco Malfoy in grey wool trousers and a simple white shirt, the top button undone, was no less attractive than the silky blouse and heels. If anything, it was more potent – without the shock factor of Parkinson’s wardrobe, his appeal was purely … him. The realisation knocked Harry off balance like a strong gust of wind, and he stumbled slightly over his words when he spoke. “I, uh—I need to get your statements, if—is there somewhere we could—”
“The sitting room,” Zabini cut in. He looked much less indecent in his own clothes; the patterned shirt looked far too good on him. Maybe Parkinson was actually onto something with whatever fashion stuff she apparently did. She was now wearing a short, semi-sheer open robe over a form-fitting dress with a scooping neckline. Harry knew fuck all about fashion, but he supposed it did look quite nice.
“My eyes are up here, Potter.”
Harry jerked and stared at Parkinson. “Sorry—no, I was—I mean, I was just thinking…fashion, yeah?” He gestured at her outfit. “It looks good. I think.”
“Merlin’s bollocks,” Parkinson muttered. “Your opinion carries no weight when it comes to fashion, Potter. You wouldn’t know fashion if it dropped to its knees and offered to su—”
“Sitting room?” Malfoy interrupted loudly. He strode away, and Parkinson rolled her eyes but followed after him. Zabini shot an amused smile in Harry’s direction and gestured for Harry to follow.
* * *
It was silly, but the sight of them sitting together on the modest sofa reminded Harry of himself, Ron, and Hermione at Grimmauld Place. Of course, their respective trios were completely different, and yet Harry was hit with an illogical pang of jealousy that these three had each other all the time – they shared a space, a schedule. Harry was happy that Ron and Hermione had their own place – he was – but he missed them when he was alone at Grimmauld. He … he missed when his schedule was their schedule, when his plans were their plans, and the weekends were a shared affair. He wasn’t dependent on them or anything – he could function fine on his own, thank you – but he liked the feeling of sharing his life with someone. Waking up and knowing there was someone to share a morning cup of tea with, someone to laugh with over the paper’s latest speculations about Harry’s life. Having someone to come home to and talk to about his day, in whatever state it had left him.
Merlin, he was pathetic. He ought to just get a roommate, but most of his close friends were either coupled up (Neville and Hannah, Dean and Seamus) or would be a nightmare to live with (Ginny). The exceptions weren’t options for other reasons; Luna was happy living at home with her dad, and Cho had told him that, under no circumstances, would she ever live with one of her exes. Harry had tried to argue that they’d only kissed a few times, and been out once – had they even really dated, really.
It had not been successful. Cho did not agree to be his roommate. Which was maybe for the best, as much as Harry wanted to deny it. Although he and Cho were good friends now, she had developed the unfortunate role of his wingman and was overly enthusiastic about it. So far, she’d set him up on no fewer than a dozen dates, all of which ended in some variation of you’re great, I just don’t think we’re quite the right match.
Her one successful matchmaking attempt had been a year after the war. It was during Harry’s post-war traumatised, bisexual-crisis era, where he’d spent a few lonely months in Muggle clubs, in Muggle toilet stalls and Muggle alleyways and once, memorably, over the side of a not-so-Muggle motorbike.
Harry was not a clubbing kind of guy. He was a domestic creature at heart, and occasionally a pub man if he was with his friends. He liked a cosy fireplace and uncomplicated drinks and warm laughter – he didn’t thrive under fluorescent lights and booming music and sweaty crowds. That was why Sue Li had been a nice surprise on their first date (organised by Cho as her fellow Ravenclaw and healer trainee).
Sue had been kind and gentle, and very interested in mind healing, healthy outlets, and mental wellbeing. They had dated for a year before mutually agreeing it just wasn’t right anymore. Harry had admitted that he felt unable to put in the effort that Sue deserved, and he wasn’t ready for all the treatments and therapies that she wanted him to do. Sue had admitted that she had started to see Harry like a patient, more than a boyfriend. That had made Harry feel pretty shit, honestly.
In the end, they’d parted on friendly terms. They still checked in with each other occasionally; Sue recently moved in with her boyfriend and had adopted a kneazle.
Other than Sue, Ginny had been his only other serious relationship, and that had been a fleeting, naive thing. Following the war and his Great Bisexual Awakening, they’d not tried to revive their relationship, instead agreeing to be friends. In fact, they’d gone together to many of the Muggle clubs, usually losing each other halfway through the night as they found themselves in a stranger’s arms. During that period of clubs and hookups, they’d both worn charmed bracelets – inspired by the old DA coins – so that they could contact each other when they inevitably got separated.
On one memorable occasion (during the motorbike incident, in fact), Harry had had to pause his activities, give a hasty apologetic kiss to the bloke bent over his motorbike, and rush off to the ladies’ toilets inside the club. He’d found Gin sitting on the floor in one of the stalls, hugging her knees and sobbing into her arms.
“Hey, hey. What’s up?” Harry had asked, dropping to his knees and hesitating, not sure whether to reach out and touch her or not.
Ginny had given a wet laugh that was half a sob and said, “We’re so fucked up, Harry.”
Settling on his arse, leaning against the opposite wall of the tiny stall, he’d said, “Yeah, we are. Literally. We’re shagging strangers in alleyways.”
Ginny had laughed properly at that. “You might be. At least I have some decorum. I’ll find a nice, private loo stall before dropping my knickers.”
Harry sighed. “We’re so classy.” He moved to sit beside Ginny and wrapped his arm around her, pulling her into a side hug and resting his chin on her head. That had been the last time they’d gone clubbing.
It was something they’d done together because they’d both needed it, and neither wanted Ron or Hermione to worry about what they were getting up to. They wouldn’t have understood, not like Ginny and Harry understood each other. Ron and Hermione had found distraction and comfort in each other, and Harry and Ginny had found it in hookups with Muggles. It probably wasn’t the healthiest of coping methods (Sue would have been the first to affirm that, likely with an excerpt from one of her textbooks), but it had worked for a while.
And then, when it hadn’t, Harry and Ginny still had each other to work their way through it. Gin had thrown herself into Quidditch, and Harry had begun renovating Grimmauld Place, and things had generally been on an upwards trajectory from there.
Charlie Weasley fit into the picture somewhere after that, as did a number of other casual flings that never went to the introduce to your mates stage – well, Ron had been unwillingly introduced to Diya, that night he’d come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack. He’d also been reintroduced to his brother, in a way – he’d never seen Charlie in that particular position before, although he’d made a point of shouting that that was not the case with Harry. He still refused to sit on that sofa whenever he came over to Grimmauld.
Perhaps Harry had traumatised Ron out of Grimmauld. He hadn’t exactly been the best housemate when it came to discretion, but he’d stuck enough charmed notes to Ron and Hermione’s bedroom door – detailing step-by-step how to cast a silencing charm – that he figured they were just as bad as he was.
The flings had slowed down recently, and stopped completely since his best friends had moved out. Which made no sense, really, because now Harry didn’t have to worry about trying (he honestly did try) to be discreet about bringing people home with him.
He was just a bit tired of the casual, meaningless sex. As he was constantly reminded, he hadn’t been in any serious relationships for ages, and he’d reached that unfortunate point in his life where he wanted something more meaningful, but was having absolutely no luck and was apprehensive to put too much effort into it in case it turned out that he was destined to die pathetic and alone in his oversized house.
So yeah, maybe he was a bit lonely. And maybe the sight of three best friends sharing a home reminded him of times past – times he was really struggling to accept were now over.
Let it be noted that I am jealous of Draco Malfoy, Harry thought.
“So much for my Charmed Couture photoshoot,” Parkinson said with a dramatic sigh, leaning back on the sofa and crossing a leg over her knee. “It was going to be my breakthrough as a designer.”
“As you keep saying, Pans,” Zabini said wearily. His posture had become more and more slouched throughout Harry’s time at the flat.
“I’m sorry for being upset that the thing I’ve been working for for years has been ruined because of some cursed post,” Parkinson snapped.
“There will be other chances, Pansy. Circe, you’re such a drama queen—you’re almost as bad as Draco.”
“Now excuse me—”
“Guys,” Harry cut in. “Can we get on with the statements?”
“Do mine first,” Zabini said before the others could reply. “I’ve just about got time to still make it to my meeting.”
“When do you have to leave?” Harry asked.
Zabini checked his watch. “Twenty minutes. Although I’m sure my acquaintance will wait if needed.”
As Zabini had been the most reasonable out of the three, Harry agreed to take his statement first. Once he was done, Zabini shook Harry’s hand and hurried off to whatever meeting he had arranged.
Malfoy and Parkinson’s statements were basically identical to Zabini’s; they had been eating breakfast when an unrecognised owl had tapped at their window, unrelenting until Parkinson had finally gotten up to let it in. There had been no letter, and the package had not been signed, but Parkinson hadn’t thought she had any reason to be suspicious.
When Parkinson repeated this for Harry to write down, Malfoy scoffed and rolled his eyes so hard that they looked like they’d get stuck. “Ah, yes, why would you have cause to be suspicious, Pans? It’s perfectly reasonable to assume that anything sent to us anonymously would be something pleasant.”
“I would have assumed that people have moved on!” Parkinson snapped back. “I’m not going around my life in a state of hyper-paranoia.”
“People act like they’ve moved on until something upsets them, and then we’re right back where we started. So tell me, Pans—who did you upset?”
“Why don’t you get me a roll of parchment and a quill. It’s a long list.”
“How long?” Harry interrupted, again, in an attempt to draw them out of the fresh shouting match he could see brewing.
Parkinson narrowed her eyes and huffed. “I don’t know, Potter. People get upset over the smallest things. It’s not my fault if they get their knickers in a twist over something I’ve said or done.”
Harry ground his teeth together and tried to take one of those calming breaths that Hermione was always suggesting. In a forced tone of ease, he said, “Give me the most prominent ones of the past month, then.”
It turned out that that list contained no less than thirty-seven people. Without counting repeats.
Included in that list was Parkinson’s mother (“Mummy wouldn’t have sent the box, though, she would just threaten me with disinheritance”), around two-thirds of her extended family, the head of the Goblin Liaison Office, the witch working the Ministry’s welcome desk on Mondays and Wednesdays, the owner of Twilfitt and Tattings, all of the Greengrasses, excluding Daphne Greengrass, Narcissa Malfoy, Ernie Macmillan, three of the security guards at the Portkey terminal and the head of the Portkey office, and, bizarrely, Percy Weasley.
“For Merlin’s sake, Pans, what did you do to Ernie?”
“Oh, I’m sorry—did you not want me to defend your honour?”
“Just let it go—I have.”
“Darling. You wouldn’t have.” There was a gleam in Parkinson’s eye that made Harry a little nervous. “I ran into him in that new restaurant at the posh end of Diagon, and I just had to let his date know that the only Hufflepuff loyalty that flobberworm had was toward his cock.”
Malfoy threw his head back against the sofa and closed his eyes. “You didn’t.”
“Well, okay, no. I said that I hoped their date ended well, and since stills of the Pensieve memories would be circulating around the Portkey office by Monday, I wondered if Ernie would like to borrow my camera to make the process easier.”
Malfoy’s eyes snapped open. “You didn’t.”
Parkinson’s smile was like venom: lethal, dangerous. “It turns out his date also works in the Portkey office. He had no idea that Ernie was the slimy bubotuber passing the photos between his mates. I checked in last week, and as I hear it, Ernie is in quite a lot of trouble over the whole matter.”
“You’re a crazy bitch,” Malfoy said after a moment. There was no heat in his words; on the contrary, he looked almost … touched. Touched and horrified.
“Er…okay.” Harry cleared his throat and addressed Parkinson. “So, Ernie Macmillian is at the top of the list, is that safe to say?”
“I’d put him below the witch at the welcome desk.”
By the time Harry had concluded recording the statements, the F.U.M.E.S team had finished their part and declared the flat safe for occupation. Harry thanked them and saw them off with a smile that was not returned.
He assured Parkinson that they would trace the magical signature on the box, and hopefully, it would yield a match.
“I’ll be in contact to update you. If I don’t get in touch, please don’t come and shout at the receptionist in my department.”
“How long will it take?” Parkinson said, her arms crossed. “The next cursed box could be far more dangerous. It could make us swap bodies.”
“That is unlikely, but maybe, er—invest in some anti-owl wards or something? So that you can’t get unapproved post-owls delivering here.”
“I’m glad we’ve got you here, Potter,” Malfoy said sarcastically. “We’d never have thought of that.”
Harry forced himself to ignore the comment. He ran his hand through his hair, messing it up even more than it usually was. He made sure he had all the notes he’d just spent ages writing, and cleared his throat. “Well. This has been a hell of a morning. Er, nice to…see you both.”
Parkinson raised a thin, arched eyebrow. “Was it?”
“I’ve had worse mornings.” Harry looked at Malfoy, who was leaning against the doorframe, looking as untouchable and put-together as he had at the gala. Even in his untucked shirt and loosely tied-back hair. Even with bare feet.
Merlin, if Harry had thought that Malfoy was painfully attractive in dress robes (which he was now admitting was definitely true), then he had been unprepared for the sight of Malfoy a little rumpled, a little messy. It made Harry want to mess him up further, to see how mussed his silky hair could get, how that shirt would look hanging off his pale shoulder.
“A glowing endorsement,” Malfoy drawled. His eyes flickered over Harry, and Harry was really hoping that his robes were sufficient in concealing one of the more inconveniently-timed semis of his life.
“…Right,” Harry said, a little distracted. He really wanted to get back to the Ministry now, before he had a chance to embarrass himself. “Erm. I’ll be in touch.”
He Apparated as soon as he exited the building. Five minutes later, he was Apparating back to Lantern Street and knocking on the door of number two Bramblewick Court, as he’d forgotten to speak to Mrs Miserable.
She was just as exhausting as Harry had suspected. An older witch with suspicious, narrow eyes and a collection of vintage hats that would have made Augusta Longbottom jealous, Mrs M was someone who was not impressed with things as trivial as war heroes. She took one look at Harry, and the strained, painful hero-smile he had pasted on his face, and began a long rant about the politics of fame and reputation within the Ministry. Her rant continued as she ushered him inside her flat and began making two cups of tea. It appeared her distaste at having Harry in her home didn’t overrule that particular English custom.
Mrs Miserable’s name was actually Miriam Mandelbaum, which Harry found quite amusing as nobody could get into trouble by calling her Mrs M. She scolded Harry for not removing his shoes, and cast a pointed Scourgify on her carpets.
Once they were seated on two floral-patterned armchairs in her sitting room, Mrs M launched into her complaints about the ‘rowdy, good-for-nothing dunderbrains’ in the flat above. She was several minutes into the tirade when she stopped and asked Harry why he hadn’t taken out his notebook.
Harry reached into his pocket for his self-inking quill and sighed. This was quite possibly turning out to be the longest morning of his life.
* * *
“I’m going to start charging extra for my Golden Boy services” was the first thing Harry declared upon his return to his cubicle in the Auror Department. He shrugged off his robes and dumped them onto his chair, which he realised was occupied when he heard the muffled laugh.
Meri shoved the red robes away from her, where they pooled on the floor in a heap. “You’re not a freelancer, Potter. You can’t set your own rates.”
“Then I want overtime.” He thought about collapsing into his chair, current occupant be damned, but he didn’t want to crush Meri. For one, Robards would not be likely to give him overtime pay if Harry incapacitated his secretary. He chose to sit on Ron instead, who squawked and tried to wriggle out from underneath him – a foolish move, really. There was nowhere to go.
After a minute of struggling, Ron successfully tipped Harry out of his lap; Harry slid to the floor and stayed there, sprawled on his back. To really complete the mood, he groaned.
“That bad, huh?” Ron asked.
“Turns out Mrs M does not have the time of day for Golden Boys.”
“Not even Chosen Ones?”
“Nope. Though I was definitely Undesirable Number One when I knocked on her door.”
“Unlucky,” Ron said, patting Harry on the shoulder with his foot.
Harry brushed the dust from his shirt and sat up. He fixed Meri with a sharp look. “Did you know that Miriam Mandelbaum is a Harry Potter heretic?”
Meri’s eyes widened. “Well, that makes a first.”
“Not a first,” Ron pointed out. “Don’t you remember Mr Grimblethorn? He thought Harry was a—what was it? A ‘puffed-up clodpole with all the charm of a wet sock in a ballroom slipper.’”
“I’m glad you memorised that,” Harry sighed. “I quite liked Mr Grimblethorn.”
“That’s fortunate,” Meri said, standing up from the desk chair and sliding her shoes back on (she’d taken her bloody shoes off), “because you two need to go and follow up with him by the end of the week, check to see if he’s got those licence forms filled out. Robards didn’t realise Mr G had an extension on the deadline.”
“Ah, a licence renewal to sell flatulence-relief potion,” Ron sighed. “Isn’t this just the kind of excitement we thought we’d be having when we were fifteen with Auror dreams, Harry?”
“There was also a license for a wandrot remedy,” Harry said, running a hand through his hair and knocking his glasses crooked.
“Nasty.” Meri sounded far too enthusiastic. “My ex caught wandrot—that’s how I found out he was cheating on me with Keira from the welcome desk.”
“No.” Ron sounded scandalised. “Percy mentioned a rumour about her last Sunday at lunch. Said he heard it from some witch gossiping in his department. Though, of course, the whole thing is far too trivial for the Head of the Department of Magical Transportation.”
“Of course,” Harry said with a snort.
Ron gave what looked to be a mix of a grimace and a smirk. “Mmm. Sounded like he had to give the gossiper a stern talking to about disrupting vital departments of the Ministry.”
“How stern are we talking?” Meri leaned forward from where she was perched on the edge of Harry’s desk. Her bum was about an inch away from toppling over his tower of pitifully incomplete paperwork.
Harry snorted. “The kind of stern that includes a locking charm on the door and an air-freshener.”
“Harry, you wag.” Meri mimed clutching at an imaginary pearl necklace. “I thought Mr Percy Weasley was all business.”
“Oh, I’m sure he kept his tie on.”
“Right!” Ron leapt up from his chair; he was a delicate shade of green. “One of you needs to leave, because this—” he waved his hand between them “—is making me feel genuinely unwell.”
“You brought it up, mate.” Harry pointed out.
Meri chuckled to herself and slid off the desk. “I should be going, anyway. I have actual secretary work to be getting on with.” She looked down at Harry, who was still sitting on the floor. “I’m assuming everything at Bramblewick Court was sorted. I’ll let Robards know—just don’t forget to do the report, please. No matter how pointless the call was, you do still have to do it.”
“Oh, fuck.” Harry sat bolt upright, his eyes widening. “I forgot—I need to check in with F.U.M.E.S. Turns out the noise Mrs M reported was from a cursed, squawking box. Someone sent it in the post.”
“Nice,” Meri snorted. “Though not terribly original.”
“This one was,” Harry said firmly. His knees clicked as he stood. “Ugh. I’d better get the box to Forensics.”
Meri left first with a jaunty wave over her shoulder. Harry picked up his robe, then decided to forego putting it back on for the walk down to Forensics and draped it over his chair.
“Don’t faff around too long, mate,” Ron said, taking a large gulp of what had to be his second cup of tea that morning (and he still hadn’t made Harry one). “I could use some effort from you on this paperwork.”
Harry was a master of distraction. “Oi, you’ll never guess who lives in the flat that received the cursed box.”
“Who?”
Harry grinned. “I’ll tell you when I get back.”
He waved to Millicent on his way to the Auror break room. He would go and hand off the box to forensics and wait around to see if they could identify the magical signature of whoever sent it. Assuming he got a match, he could let Robards know, and someone (probably him and Ron) could go and bring in the tosser. Depending on how that went, he could then let Parkinson know who had it out for her and what her options would be regarding pressing charges. As the curse wasn’t technically harmful (as in causing bodily harm), the D.M.L.E. would likely just send the culprit off with a warning or a slap on the wrist unless Parkinson demanded further action.
Before any of that, though, Harry needed a cup of tea.
* * *
The Ministry cafeteria hummed with the sound of clinking cutlery, overlapping conversations, and the occasional operatic wail of a badger-sized bullfrog. The creature in question sat in a padded pull-along trolley beside a wizard whose long, curling moustache was askew, his robe unbuttoned, and his undershirt untucked on one side. He was repeatedly running his hand through his hair and muttering to himself as he scribbled into a large folder of papers. He barely seemed to notice each time the frog opened its mouth, but Harry had been fixated on the creature for ten minutes now. It sang in a bright tenor what Harry was pretty sure was a disjointed version of Nessun dorma. He kind of wanted to hear it sing the climax.
“So anyway, I asked Ron if he’d be up for a little experimentation with Viktor Krum—while I watched, of course—and he was very enthusiastic about the idea.”
“Cool…that’s—I’m sorry, what? I—what?”
Hermione let out a long-suffering sigh and set down her coffee. “You’ve been distracted since we sat down, Harry. What’s up?”
“…Ron’s cock for Krum, apparently.”
Hermione scoffed at the look on Harry’s face. “Oh, please, like that’s news. But I was just trying to see if you were paying attention.”
“Er, sorry. I’m a bit…It’s been a long morning.”
“Oh?” Hermione tucked a frizzy curl behind her ear and shuffled in her chair, making herself comfortable. “Well, I’ve got the rest of my lunch break—my next meeting isn’t for an hour. Tell me about it.”
Harry wasn’t entirely sure how much he wanted to share, but in the end, his mouth decided for him. The bullfrog hit the B4 as Harry blurted out, “Did you know that Malfoy works on the Knight Bus?”
Hermione was visibly taken aback, but bless her, she schooled her face into an expression of mild interest and said, “Really?”
“Erm. Yeah. I sort of found out last night when I was heading home—I didn’t Apparate, see!” He felt a bit like a child telling his parent that he’d been a good boy. “Anyway, I responded to a noise complaint at his flat today. Kind of a weird…coincidence, I guess.”
“Hmm.” Hermione sipped her coffee thoughtfully. “I’ve heard his name mentioned in a few circles—potions, mainly. Of course, what with the charity and everything, I’m fairly involved in those circles. It’s hard to find reliable brewers with the necessary licences, especially with the trickier potions like Wolfsbane—”
“Does he brew professionally, then?”
“I don’t know, Harry.” Hermione’s smile was a little shrewd. “I’ve just heard his name mentioned. I’ve never seen him in the Ministry, though—or anywhere, really. I bumped into him maybe six months ago in Flourish and Blotts, and we shared a very stilted conversation while we were browsing in the same section.”
“What did he buy?”
“Harry.” Hermione’s smile had turned amused and not a small part exasperated. “Is this the start of another obsessed with Malfoy phase?”
“What? No.” Harry scoffed and rolled his eyes – a little too forcefully, for they actually ached a bit after. “I’ve never been obsessed with Malfoy. It was more…a healthy rivalry. Suspicion, really.”
“Okay, Harry.” Hermione sounded too much like a gentle relative agreeing with the nonsensical ramblings of a grandparent with dementia for Harry’s liking, but he felt it best not to argue and seem too defensive.
“Anyway, I just—I saw him today at his flat, and I saw Parkinson and Zabini, too, and it was so…normal. Like, it—I dunno, it kind of reminded me of us. You, me, and Ron. When we lived together.”
He had to glance down at the soggy ham and cheese toastie on his plate; he didn’t like the way Hermione’s face softened in gentle understanding.
“You know, Harry,” Hermione began, and Harry hated the softness of her tone, as if she were speaking to Teddy after one of his meltdowns. He got very emotional around the full moon. “You are welcome to come over to mine and Ron’s place whenever you like. We have a spare bedroom, you could even stay the night. You wouldn’t be imposing, I promise. We love you.”
“I don’t need—I mean, I’m fine. I’m fine, Hermione. I’m not alone, or anything. I’ve got Kreacher.”
“He’s not really company, Harry. Not like we are, or your other friends.” Hermione nibbled at her lip. “Forgive me, but Ron and I have noticed you seem a bit lonely—”
“I’m not bloody lonely, ‘Mione.” Saying it for the second time that morning didn’t really make it feel any more true. Given the expression on Hermione’s face, she wasn’t convinced either.
Harry watched with somewhat fucked up amusement as Hermione battled her internal desire to keep pushing the subject, to argue with Harry until he crumpled to the ground and confessed the agonising depth of his loneliness. She had an extremely expressive face, and watching her cycle through emotions was like watching a 2x speed Quidditch match on some omnioculars.
“…Okay,” she said eventually. She busied herself for a few moments by tipping the pot of balsamic dressing over her salad and mixing it up. She’d already eaten her turkey and bacon sandwich. After crunching and swallowing her first bite of lettuce, she said, “Well, you can come over whenever—any time, day or night, I mean that. Ron means it, too. We want to see you.”
Harry picked at the bread of his toastie. “I want to see you guys, too.”
“Then why don’t you come over more? Come over tonight, Ron’s making fish pie.”
“It’s not really that I feel like I don’t see you guys enough,” Harry found himself saying, his sandwich abandoned. He stared at the lumps of bread he’d torn off, littered on the table. “It’s—It’s just like—your place is yours. At Grimmauld, there’s nothing there that I can’t get anywhere else.” It was true – he’d slept at the Ministry before, on nights where he was overloaded with paperwork, or too wired by the day to face going home to silence. With the right charms, his desk chair became quite a comfortable recliner.
“Maybe you should consider if moving out of Grimmauld might be something you want,” Hermione said.
Harry didn’t know how to tell her that it wasn’t the house, so much as what wasn’t in it, without sounding hugely pathetic. He felt a bit like he ought to have a rain cloud pouring down above him, or an orchestra of violins wailing nearby. He settled for a noncommittal hum and a half-arsed shrug, indicating to Hermione that he was done talking about it. Thankfully, she got the message.
“On the topic of Viktor and Slytherins,” Hermione began, putting down her fork and wiping her lips with her napkin, “Viktor wrote me to say he’s in England for a few weeks. He’d like to see us before Victoire’s birthday party.”
“Yeah, cool. Why’s he in England?”
“The Delacour sisters. Fleur invited him to Victoire’s party, and Gabrielle’s desperate to catch him while they’re both in the country so she can interview him for her magazine.”
Harry frowned. “Isn’t it a fashion magazine?”
Hermione smirked into her lettuce. “From what Parvati told me when I asked her about it, she and Gabrielle have planned some sort of themed photoshoot. Think brooms, leather, and muscles.” She quickly added, “Nothing too revealing, obviously. Not with Gabrielle involved—honestly, it’s impressive that a magazine co-run by a fifteen-year-old turned out so successful.”
“I bet Viktor’s relieved,” Harry snorted.
“Who knows why he even agreed to it. Anyway, I brought it up because Viktor told me that he’s got a few interviews lined up while he’s here. One of them is about the politics in the Quidditch world, and he said the journalist was in our year at Hogwarts. Viktor couldn’t remember, but he said the name was something fiery.” At the blank look on Harry’s face, Hermione huffed and said, “He meant Blaise, as in Blaise Zabini? Not the same kind of blaze, but—anyway. Remember, he did that piece on ‘Misogyny within Professional Quidditch’ that the Harpies featured in a couple of weeks ago?”
Harry didn’t think he’d read it, though he’d kept meaning to, for Ginny. “Er, right. I wonder why Zabini works for the Knight Bus, then, if he already has a job?”
Hermione shrugged. “Maybe journalism doesn’t pay the bills. Although he’s doing quite well, as far as I can tell. His articles are rather good.”
“He had to rush off to a meeting when I saw him this morning,” Harry said. “I wonder if that was Viktor’s interview?”
“Maybe,” Hermione said. Her mouth curved into a sly smile. “Look at us, gossiping about Slytherins like a pair of old ladies. Go on then, indulge me—what were they like? Was it weird?”
“Er…well. Malfoy was in a leather miniskirt.”
“Sorry?”
Harry spared a quick glance at the large clock on the wall. They still had twenty minutes of lunch remaining.
* * *
Lorenzo Marinelli was a London-based aspiring fashion designer; he was handsome, in an expensive, put-together kind of way. He was the kind of man whose every gesture was a touch too grand, his words a touch – well, a punch – too dramatic. Rumour clung to him like cologne, and he revelled in it.
He also, after ten minutes in Auror custody, confessed that he was the one who sent the cursed box.
“Yes, it was I! I do not hide it—I’ll tell you plainly, it was I who sent that box to Snarkinson.”
Millicent cleared her throat. “And just to confirm, ‘Snarkinson’ is Pansy Parkinson, correct?”
“Pansy.” Marinelli scoffed and took a casual sip of water from the paper cup he’d been given. “Of all the flower names…they’ll never be in fashion. Not like roses, or violets. I can tell you what’s in style, and it’s never pansies.”
“…Right.” Millicent turned and gave Harry a look that said this man is a nutter. Since Marinelli had been brought in, Harry had let her take the lead – she had a certain no-nonsense vibe about her that usually got people talking pretty quickly. Marinelli didn’t need encouragement to speak, however. The man didn’t bloody stop.
“That last collection of winter hats was clearly inspired by my collection from last November. I mean, honestly, who releases a hat collection in January? That is a notoriously unfashionable month, especially for fur—of the faux kind, I add.”
“Mr Marinelli,” Millicent interrupted, “We are not interested in whatever…rivalry you and Miss Parkinson—”
“It is no simple rivalry! We have a feud—a feud, you hear me?”
“Be that as it may,” Millicent continued, the patience in her voice clinging on by a toenail, “You cannot send cursed items through the post. And doing so with the intention of causing harm to a target is—”
“Harm? What harm was caused by my box?” Marinelli crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “It was a simple joke, that’s all.”
“Miss Parkinson missed an important meeting because of your joke,” Harry said, speaking up for the first time.
Marinelli looked like the cat who’d got the cream. “My joke didn’t incapacitate her, did it? She was perfectly able to leave her home.”
Swallowing his annoyance, Harry changed the focus and asked, “And what, exactly, was the purpose in cursing her roommates as well?”
“You say curse—it makes it sound so mean. Lorenzo Marinelli is not a mean person.”
“Oh, great,” Millicent muttered next to Harry’s ear. “He’s speaking in third person.”
Harry pushed his glasses up and rubbed his eyes. He yanked his smudged glasses off altogether and ran his hand through his hair, wincing when his fingers caught on a tangle. He blew out a breath, replacing his glasses before pushing his chair back and standing. “Let’s take five. I’m gonna get a cup of tea—do you want one, Bullstrode?”
“I would love one, if you’re offering,” Marinelli said, swinging one leg over the other and placing his hands on his knee.
* * *
“Marismelly?! I should have known it was that little chizpurfle.”
Rubbing the back of his neck, Harry grimaced. Parkinson was clutching her mug of tea with such intensity that it looked in danger of cracking. She looked furious. “Er…yeah. He said something about a fur collection? Oh, wait—no, it was hats, or something—”
“I did not steal his designs!” Parkinson rose from the sofa, her mug slamming onto the coffee table and spilling the contents. “If I just happened to execute some similar ideas in a far more stylish way—”
“You’d better not be ranting about Marinelli again.” Malfoy entered the sitting room of his flat. He rolled his eyes at Parkinson as he sat down on the sofa beside her. His hair looked damp, as if he’d recently gotten out of the shower.
Harry cleared his throat. “We brought Mr Marinelli in for questioning earlier today. His magical signature was found on the box, and he confessed when we told him we knew he’d sent it.”
“That pathetic little man.” Parkinson rolled her eyes, flopping back against the sofa dramatically. “Has he got nothing better to do with his days than accuse me of thievery?”
“I suppose not,” Harry said awkwardly. He cleared his throat. He couldn’t say that he liked Parkinson, but he disliked Lorenzo Marinelli far more than he’d ever disliked her – and that was saying something, given that she’d wanted to hand him over to Voldemort. Besides, if he truly disliked her, he wouldn’t have gone to the effort to do what he’d spent a portion of the afternoon doing. “While I’ve got you here, I thought I’d mention that, er—well, I know your plans were somewhat disrupted following the events of this morning—”
“Spit it out, Potter,” Parkinson said.
Harry gritted his teeth. He didn’t even know why he tried to do nice things for people. He continued, “I know the women who run Charmed Couture—I think that’s the name, right? Well, anyway, it was easy for me to get in contact with them, and they’ve agreed to reschedule your photoshoot, if you’re still interested. Parvati said that they were really eager to have your stuff in the next edition.”
“Circe’s tits!” Parkinson exclaimed, leaping up from the sofa once again. “Seriously?”
“Er.” Harry rubbed the back of his neck, a little taken aback. “Yeah?”
“Darling, maybe you’re not a totally useless, self-righteous, slovenly disaster of a washed-up hero after all.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, Pans,” Malfoy said. “Will that be all, Auror Potter?”
Very few people would be able to make those last two words sound both mocking and wildly arousing. Harry clenched his fists; he needed to get a fucking grip. Evidently, something was seriously disturbed in his brain if he was having these thoughts over Malfoy.
He needed to go and have a shag. Yes, that’s what he’d do. He couldn’t really stomach the meaningless club hookups anymore, but there were a couple of people he knew were usually up for a bit of fun when he asked. Charlie had been one for a bit, though not anymore. Harry and Ginny had sometimes fallen into bed together (post-relationship) for a bit of a laugh, but mostly when they were either very drunk or very sad. Usually both. Those times didn’t exactly stir up great feelings, on the whole – probably the reason why they didn’t do it anymore.
Realising he’d so far only considered Weasleys, Harry shook his head and rolled his eyes at himself. Merlin, but he needed to get out and meet some new people. He didn’t want to, but he probably needed to. That’s what Hermione would tell him, anyway.
Speaking of Hermione … she’d been trying to set him up with that witch in her book club for ages. Maybe he ought to … hmm. Well, he’d think about it. That was surely a positive step in the right direction.
“That’s, er…yes, I just came by to let you all know that we’d found the culprit. And I’ve done that now, so…” Harry scratched his cheek awkwardly.
“You continue to be a hero to the people, Potter.” Parkinson flashed him a red-lipped smile that was baffling and mildly intimidating – not that Harry would admit that. It would be like feeding a lion one of your amputated fingers and then parading around your tasty, fleshy hand like Look! I’ve got four more fingers that I could possibly lose; let’s hope that doesn’t happen.
“Anyway,” Parkinson continued, “I have an owl to send, and a fuck ton of Vietnamese silk to order. Draco can see you out.”
A cloud of floral perfume lingered as Parkinson swept from the room. The smell reminded Harry of Ginny’s shampoo, and he had to fight down a confusing desire to smile. Parkinson intimidated him, but he actually kind of … liked her, if he was honest. Maybe he liked her because she had the balls to speak to him like that – another thing she had in common with Ginny.
Harry became aware, quite abruptly, that he was alone with Malfoy.
But this was totally fine. He could make his civil, professional goodbyes and leave before anything … well, nothing was going to happen. Because Harry was an adult, and much (well, a little) better at controlling himself. His job gave him the outlet he needed in the form of confrontation and an occasional good, old-fashioned bit of fisticuffs. For the most part, he no longer felt that burning urge to wrestle with Draco Malfoy – well, it seemed his body wanted to engage in a different kind of wrestling. One with less rage, less violence, and less clothing.
Well, maybe a little bit of violence. Harry wasn’t one to shy away from a bit of fight in the bedroom. Consensual, of course. He wasn’t some sort of deviant.
Although his current Malfoy-related train of thought was crossing several boundaries into sexual harassment territory. Imagining your ex-arch-rival spread out, nude and panting, on their living-room sofa as you licked trails down their pale, pale stomach had to be inappropriate, right? Surely it was morally wrong, or something, to picture such things when the subject of said fantasies was frowning at you.
“Are you…having a stroke, Potter?” Malfoy asked, his lips curled in a frown.
Harry tried to shake sweaty-writhing-Malfoy from his mind. “Er—yeah, yeah. I mean, no, I’m not. I’m just…hungover,” Harry finished lamely. That was definitely part of it. He really hoped that was part of it.
Malfoy rolled his eyes. “Didn’t you take a hangover potion?”
Harry fought down some very real irritation – he wasn’t stupid. “Obviously, I did. But those hangover cures don’t really get rid of the brain fuzziness. I’m still a bit…foggy.”
“Nothing unusual, then.”
“Whatever.” Harry couldn’t come up with a better comeback – he reckoned he really was feeling the lingering effects of his hangover. And of his semi-hard prick, but that was nobody’s business. He was trying not to let it be his business, either, but his options for distractions were limited. The slight smirk on Malfoy’s lips – the curl of the corner of his mouth, the flash of teeth – was not helping.
Harry closed his eyes. Old reliable erection queller: Filch in a pink, frilly mini skirt and nipple tassels, whip in hand. Only the mini-skirt image made Harry think about Malfoy in a skirt, which made him think about Malfoy not in a skirt, which was somehow more arousing. And then he was thinking about Malfoy on the sofa again, sans clothing.
“Oh, for Salazar’s sake. How are you of any use in upholding the law like this?”
“I’m not drunk, Malfoy. I just was drunk—outside of work hours. Are you always so dramatic?”
“Are you always so totally incapable of basic self-care?” Malfoy scoffed and rose to his feet. “Honestly, Potter. You’re swimming in generational wealth, yet you buy the cheap hangover potions?”
“I—” Harry didn’t quite know where this conversation was going. “I just buy the stuff on the shelf.”
“The stuff on the shelf is shit,” Malfoy said, walking towards the door. Confused, Harry heaved himself up from his chair and followed. Malfoy moved with purpose, walking past the kitchen and towards a slightly open door that Harry could see was a bathroom.
“Wait here,” Malfoy said. “My hangover cure recipe actually cures a hangover.”
Harry laughed. “Will it also make me sprout antlers, or break out in fur?”
He should have arrested Malfoy on that smirk alone. “I only give those potions to people I like,” he said. “Maybe I’ll give you the version that makes your burps sparkle, though. Who knew there was a market for that?”
Malfoy headed for the bathroom, and Harry leaned against the wall in the hall, his head resting against it. Malfoy was obviously doing this to gain an upper hand, or mess with Harry’s head, or something. Maybe so that he didn’t feel he owed Harry for the favour he’d pulled for Parkinson, though Harry had done that because he wanted to, nothing more. Or, Malfoy simply wanted to show off that he was still an expert potioneer, and mock Harry’s abysmal potions knowledge. That was probably most likely.
A loud smash, followed by a short gasp and curse, jerked Harry out of his thoughts. His instincts acted for him, drawing his wand and striding over to the bathroom door. He pushed it open and hit a solid form, which he realised was Malfoy as he squeezed his way in through the gap.
The first thing he noticed was the shattered glass and gloopy, purple liquid coating the porcelain sink. The second thing he noticed was the blood.
“Fucking Pansy,” Malfoy cursed, his palm pressed against the stomach of his white shirt. “How many hair potions can one woman possibly use?” The fabric of his shirt was bleeding scarlet, the stain spreading like ink blooming in water. With his other hand, he picked up his wand from the counter, presumably to vanish the glass. Harry noticed that his hand was shaking.
“Let me,” he said, vanishing the glass and spilt potion with a wave of his wand. Malfoy didn’t say anything; his face was pale, trembly. He leaned back against the sink, staring at his injured hand.
Harry tried to take Malfoy’s hand, but he jerked away. “Let me see,” Harry said firmly, grabbing the bony wrist and yanking the bloody hand towards himself. He could feel Malfoy shivering in his grip, and it made him feel … odd. Confused. Like he wanted to fix it, right now.
He used a spell to clean away the blood as gently as he could. Another cleared the glass from the skin. Malfoy winced, but stayed silent as Harry cleaned his wound. He had a large laceration across his palm, cutting into his pinky finger. Harry’s thumb brushed soothingly against Malfoy’s wrist, a gesture he didn’t plan but felt natural in the moment. He raised his wand over Malfoy’s palm.
“You’ll cock it up,” Malfoy muttered, trying to pull his hand away, but Harry held tight.
“I’m a qualified Auror, you tosser. I’ve been trained in basic healing.”
Malfoy had no retort, but his body was tense as Harry ran his wand along the slice on his palm. The skin slowly knitted itself back together, the magic weaving the wound closed until all that remained was a raw, pink line. Casting the necessary antiseptic spell to prevent infection, and a mild numbing for good measure, Harry let out his breath. Malfoy was still stiff, his eyes averted to the side. Harry cast a Scourgify on the sink and the surrounding area where droplets of blood had fallen; he would have done Malfoy’s shirt, but in his experience, even an industrial-strength Scourgify couldn’t fully get blood out of white fabric.
“Your shirt’s probably fucked,” he said. “Hope it isn’t posh linen, or something.”
“Of course it is,” Malfoy said stiffly. His jaw was tight as he glanced down at his blood-soaked stomach. His eyes shifted up a little, and Harry realised he was still holding Malfoy’s hand. He was weirdly reluctant to let go.
“Can I have my hand back, Potter?” Malfoy’s other hand toyed with the top button of his shirt.
Something hot and completely inappropriately timed flared inside Harry. He forced it down and dropped Malfoy’s hand, reaching for the delicate buttons. “I’ll do it,” he said. He was slightly alarmed by the tone of his voice: fierce, authoritative, with an unmistakable heat that had him fighting a mortifying blush.
Malfoy didn’t miss it – of course he didn’t. Harry absolutely refused to meet Malfoy’s eye, but he knew anyway what the man’s expression was as he said, “Oh, will you?”
“Might as well. I’ve already undressed you once today.” Harry’s hand was clumsy as he undid the first few buttons, slowly revealing that smooth, pale chest. Malfoy’s smell was invasive in the small room – citrus, fresh sweat, blood. It was raw and masculine, primal. He smelled like a fight, and it was filling Harry with adrenaline, making his breath come faster and more ragged.
“Do you often undress people while on the job, Potter?” Harry’s desire flared at the fact that Malfoy sounded affected, too. His voice was low and quiet.
“No,” Harry replied. “Just you.” He pushed the open shirt off Malfoy’s shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. His hands brushed warm skin, lingering on the protruding collarbones. Malfoy’s audible inhale was shaky.
“Terribly unprofessional of you,” he murmured. Harry looked up to meet his eye; Malfoy stared back, his eyes stormy and a little wide, but unmistakably challenging. They maintained eye contact, close enough to feel the other’s breath fluttering against their skin.
Slowly, Harry stepped back, and something on Malfoy’s face shifted. His eyes never left Malfoy’s as he moved until his back hit the door, gently pushing it shut. With a twitch of his wrist, Harry locked the door, the click sharp in the silence.
For a moment, nobody moved. Malfoy’s eyes widened, but the heat in them was unmistakable. It was suffocating, intoxicating. Harry’s gaze dropped to his lips, and he heard Malfoy’s intake of breath. It felt like time had thickened, the moments stretching out between them, on the verge of snapping.
Malfoy was the first to move, pushing away from the sink with deliberate slowness. Something flared, red hot and fiery inside Harry, and suddenly he was on Malfoy, pushing him back against the cold porcelain. Malfoy gasped as he pressed their bodies together; he did it with such force that Malfoy’s spine was arched, bent backwards over the sink. He swallowed Malfoy’s gasp by crushing their lips together.
The response was immediate and enthusiastic. Malfoy bit roughly at Harry’s lips, his mouth wet and feverishly hot. Harry kissed him with fervid intensity, licking hotly into Malfoy’s mouth, tasting the sweetness there. He’d expected Malfoy to taste spicy, maybe, but his lips were sweet. Harry sighed, his hands pressing into the small of Malfoy’s back, pulling him closer.
He was crushing Malfoy between himself and the hard sink, but he didn’t care. He wanted to ravish this man – to take and take, to steal each gasp and whimper. He felt greedy for it.
He groaned into Malfoy’s mouth. The kiss was a wet slide of tongues and a furious bite of teeth. Harry drew Malfoy’s lower lip into his mouth and bit down, drawing a moan from the other man. His cock was pressed, rock hard and throbbing, against Malfoy’s thigh, and he felt an answering hardness against his hip. He adjusted his hold on Malfoy, shifting them until their cocks were lined up and pressing against each other. Harry broke the kiss with a gasp as a wave of pleasure rolled through him. He ground his hips harder against Malfoy, and they both let out breathless moans that echoed through the bathroom.
Harry rolled their hips together, setting up a steady rhythm as he recaptured Malfoy’s lips. They managed to get Harry’s robe off and both of their trousers open without breaking the kiss. It was a flurry of hands, tongues, and gasps. Harry’s hangover was forgotten – his focus was sharp, his senses alert. The blood pumping through him felt electric; each caress of Malfoy’s skin left his fingertips fizzling.
“What do you want?” Harry whispered against Malfoy’s ear. His teeth grazed a pale earlobe, his lips sliding down to press a gentle kiss just below it.
Malfoy’s breathing was ragged; when Harry pulled back to meet his eyes, they were dark and intense, like steel tempered in fire, alive with a heat beneath that made Harry feel like he was burning up. Slowly, deliberately, Malfoy turned in Harry’s hold, pressing himself against the sink and leaning forward on his forearms.
Harry’s breath caught in his throat. He bit his lip to stifle a moan as his groin pressed against Malfoy’s arse. How was this actually happening? Had he walked into an alternate reality where Draco Malfoy actually wanted Harry to fuck him? Harry would say that was likely, but then, when he thought about it, they’d sort of spent a while doing a fair amount of eye-fucking. As Hermione and Ron loved to remind him, it wasn’t really normal to stare at someone the way Harry always stared at Malfoy when they saw each other.
“Are you going to do anything, or are you all talk and no action?”
One hand clutching at Malfoy’s hip, Harry forcefully pulled him against his body, grinding his erection against him. He sank his teeth into Malfoy’s shoulder, drawing a gasping moan from the other man.
“You should know,” Harry said in a low voice as he yanked on Malfoy’s trousers, pulling them down, “that I’m all action.”
Malfoy’s breath hitched. Although his voice was breathy when he spoke, he still managed to make it sound like a challenge. “Prove it.”
Harry intended to do just that. He wasted no time; he palmed Malfoy’s straining cock through his underwear, shoving down his own trousers as he did so. He squeezed, feeling a smirk tug at his lips when a breathy whimper slipped past Malfoy’s lips. Harry wished he could see his face – he was sure the other man was clenching his jaw, furious at the sound. Harry wanted to see how many more like it he could draw out.
He didn’t feel so smug when Malfoy arched his back, pushing his arse out even further so that he ground himself against Harry’s groin. Harry let out an embarrassing sound of his own, realising right then that he was either in for an infuriating or wild ride. Probably both.
“If you’re going to be this slow about things, maybe I ought to just do it myself,” Malfoy drawled, peering over his shoulder.
Harry’s mouth tightened. In one harsh move, he tugged Malfoy’s pants over his narrow hips. He pressed him against the sink with a hand to the centre of his back, between his shoulder blades. Malfoy was still peering at him, looking entirely too smug, and Harry felt that familiar irritation that had always felt so electric between them. They were like two live fuses – opposite ends of a magnet, still drawn by that spark, no matter how much time passed. Although it spoke to how much time had passed – how much had changed – that hurting each other was no longer their desire.
Wrapping his fist around Malfoy’s prick, Harry gave it a few rough tugs. Malfoy bucked his hips into Harry’s fist, his forearm slipping on the sink. That made Harry flare with heat, so he did it again, his other hand caressing Malfoy’s left buttock. He ran a teasing palm along the soft, pale skin, although he didn’t have the patience for too much teasing, much as the idea appealed. He’d have loved to tease Malfoy until he was whining and writhing beneath him, sweaty and flushed.
God, but Malfoy’s body was incredible. Not unnaturally, or anything; he was very lean, but with a softness around his stomach and thighs, not hard muscle like Harry. He had faded, silvery stretch marks where he’d grown too tall too fast, and tiny scars across his upper back from old, teenage acne. Harry couldn’t get enough – he never got to notice these details in loo stalls in dark clubs, or back alleys. His hand ran feverishly across Malfoy’s skin, his other hand still working his cock.
When his fingers reached the crease of Malfoy’s arse and dipped inside, he was confused and a little taken aback to find it already slightly slick. He ran his middle finger lower, and – yep, the furrowed skin was loose, puffy beneath his touch. He made a sound, and he swore he could hear Malfoy smirking.
“I was in the shower when you got here.”
“Fuck,” Harry breathed, not even caring how rough he sounded. He removed his hand from Malfoy’s erection to press against his own, willing it to calm down before he properly embarrassed himself.
Whispering a wandless charm, he coated his fingers in shiny, slick lube and brought them back to rub against Malfoy’s arsehole. He spread his free hand on one buttock and used his thumb to pull them apart, so he had a good view of his fingers as they traced circles around the pink, puckered skin. Malfoy’s hair was pale everywhere.
Malfoy exhaled shakily. His breath sounded a little ragged as he pressed his arse back against Harry’s fingers. He hummed as Harry rubbed over the spot, using light pressure, getting the skin slicker and softer. He lifted one arm, sweeping his blond hair off his neck so it hung over one shoulder.
“Should I fetch a book while I wait, or—” he cut off with a choked moan as Harry slid one finger in, down to the knuckle. He twisted his finger on the retreat and pumped it back in. Malfoy’s walls were already relaxed around the intrusion, hot as they sucked him in. Harry’s free hand stroked along Malfoy’s spine, making the other man shiver under his touch, his soft moans hitching.
Harry gradually worked him open, determined to have Malfoy properly prepared, despite the other man’s impatient growls and insistence in pressing back against Harry. He liked a little roughness as much as the next bloke, but he didn’t want to genuinely hurt Malfoy – he was done with that. He’d had an experience with inadequate prep and insufficient lube in the past, and let’s just say it rather put him off bottoming.
It was clear that Malfoy loved bottoming. The sounds he was making, the way he panted into his arms, bent over the sink with his legs planted apart – it was a vision. When Harry worked in a second, and then a third finger, he began thrusting his hips, fucking himself back onto Harry’s fingers. Harry was almost tempted to stop moving and let Malfoy do the work himself, but he liked the way the other man gasped with each unexpected twist of Harry’s fingers, every extra-forceful thrust that shoved Malfoy into the sink and made him press his face harder into his crossed arms. He must know how gorgeous he looked, bent over and displayed like this; surely, it was on purpose, because he knew the effect he had on any bloke with working eyeballs and at least a sprinkling of homosexuality. If he were anyone else, Harry may have thought him cocky, or arrogant – and he was, he always had been, only it was … different, now. It wasn’t the same smugness of his youth.
Harry stroked his leaking cock, his pants pushed down, as he twisted three fingers inside Malfoy. The bathroom echoed with the sounds of their mingled breath, Harry’s low groans and Malfoy’s moaning gasps, and the obscene squelching of the lube. With a final, hard thrust, Harry pulled his fingers free from the hot vice of Malfoy’s body. He stroked his slippery fingers over his cock, just enough to coat it, but keeping his touch light lest he come before he even made it inside Malfoy’s arse. The other man’s breath was ragged; he sounded absolutely wrecked, and Harry mourned that he couldn’t see his face.
“Get your cock the fuck in me,” Malfoy hissed.
“I’m not going to fuck you until you beg me for it,” Harry said, not sure where that came from, but his desperation had eased during his thourough preparation, and suddenly he didn’t mind holding off for a moment longer. Malfoy always argued back at every turn, met him in a fight with equal passion, and Harry realised he really wanted to see the moment the man gave in and lost himself to the pleasure.
Malfoy let out a breathless laugh. “Fuck off, I’m not begging you for shit.”
“You sure?” Harry thrust gently against Malfoy’s arse, sliding his cock along Malfoy’s crease. He did it again, and the head caught against Malfoy’s rim, which made their breath hitch. The anticipation of sinking into that heat, the squeezing pressure against his throbbing cock … Harry felt a little mad with it. But he was determined not to give in first.
Malfoy evidently felt the same way. “Are you sure, Potter?” he said, the smirk clear as day in his voice. In a dirty, underhanded move, he pushed himself back hard enough that the head of Harry’s cock, which was pressed against Malfoy’s hole, suddenly breached the tight, wet heat. Harry bucked forward, sliding in another half-inch with a broken moan as Malfoy gasped. Sweat prickled the back of Harry’s neck, dampening his curls; he squeezed his eyes shut, trembling as he waited for the sharp edge of pleasure to dull to a manageable level.
Malfoy was panting again. Harry felt him shift, and he opened his eyes. Malfoy had pushed himself up from his arms; his hands wrapped around the edge of the sink, giving him more leverage to push back against Harry, who realised this too late as, in one smooth move, Malfoy impaled himself onto his cock.
“Fucking Christ,” Harry grit out, his eyes shut against the overwhelming heat and pressure. His hands gripped Malfoy’s hips so tightly that he was sure to leave finger-shaped bruises. Serve the bastard right.
“It’s impolite to say another man’s name when your cock is buried in someone else,” Malfoy panted, probably not intending for it to come out so breathless.
Harry shut him up with a twitch of his hips, a minute thrust that had Malfoy moaning anyway. He rolled his hips a few more times, letting Malfoy get used to the stretch before he went too hard. Harry thought it was rather considerate after Malfoy’s actions. Maybe he should utilise his magical handcuffs.
Using his hold on Malfoy’s hips to pull him back, Harry began to thrust into him properly, long, deep strokes that had Malfoy groaning. The pleasure was unbelievable, Malfoy’s arse clutching him like a vice, silky hot and perfect. His balls pressed against Malfoy’s arse with each thrust.
“Fuck, I’m going to feel this later,” Malfoy groaned, shifting his grip on the sink, his head hanging down.
“You should get some softer kitchen chairs,” Harry said, breathless as he leaned forward to bury his nose against Malfoy’s neck. His thrusts were shorter, but deeper, as he sucked at the skin beneath his lips.
“Fuck—me,” Malfoy gasped as he tilted his head to give Harry better access. It sounded like he started to say fuck you, and changed halfway as Harry hit a spot inside him that made him jerk forward.
Stifling a chuckle against Malfoy’s skin, Harry sucked a final kiss into the curve of his neck and began to thrust harder. His balls slapped against Malfoy’s arse, the noise crude but nothing compared to the sound of their moans, or the whimpers falling from Malfoy’s lips as he was shoved repeatedly against the sink. Harry’s hands slipped from Malfoy’s hips around to his stomach, his hands acting as a cushion against the hard surface. Still, Malfoy was jolted by the force of his thrusts. The sounds leaving his mouth were sharp and choked, knocked from him and leaving him unable to catch his breath.
“You okay?” Harry asked with a smirk, as Malfoy gave a raw, choked moan that almost sounded painful. He was gasping for breath, and Harry suddenly worried if he’d gone too far, been too rough. He reached out and stroked Malfoy’s sweat-dampened hair, gently turning his head so he could see the man’s face; he’d slowed his thrusts but kept them deep. Harry’s first glance of Malfoy’s face showed him looking wrecked; his face flushed and sweaty, his lip red and bitten, and his mouth still open and panting. The sight made Harry feel breathless himself.
Malfoy met Harry’s eye, and after a second to catch his breath, he said, “Faster.” His voice was rough, still with a breathless quality, but his eyes were alight. Daring, fierce, and challenging, like a taunting cloud of thunder. “If you can.”
Well, that fucking did it. If Harry was motivated to be rough before, now he was determined. Each of his thrusts was punishingly hard, his rhythm purposeful and steady. Following Malfoy’s command, he increased his pace until he was panting himself, his thighs burning. He had to keep reeling his control back like a fishing line, because the pleasure was building in his stomach, his balls aching, and he didn’t want to lose it before Malfoy did.
Honestly, though, it was becoming quite the challenge. See, Harry’s control had never exactly had the best reputation, especially where Malfoy was concerned. And Harry was even more affected by this Malfoy – this near-naked, sweat-slick one. Harry was pretending that he was the one on top, the one in control, running the show – but that was a load of bullshit. Malfoy didn’t take Harry’s cock – he didn’t receive it. He took it, like a man who’d captured what he wanted and was determined to claim everything he desired. To take his pleasure as he pleased. It felt like Harry was the one being fucked.
Malfoy cried out, falling forward as Harry hit his prostate, and Harry spared a brief moment to think that he should have put up a silencing charm. This moment of reflection was extremely brief, for in the midst of possibly the best shag he’d ever experienced, with a gorgeous man sprawled before him as he pounded into him and sucked bruises into his skin, Harry couldn’t have given a flying fuck about being overheard. He wanted to be heard – you hear that, neighbours? Let everyone know what he sounds like while Draco Malfoy is clenching around his cock; let them know what Malfoy sounds like while being fingered. Let Harry’s boss know that he fucks witnesses of a crime, in their house, while on duty. Let Molly Weasley and the rest of Harry’s friends know that he’ll never date any of the people they set him up with, because those dates will never know him, not like Malfoy knew him – the real, whole him, all of his ugliest, darkest parts. Let the Prophet know that having sex with Malfoy has him feeling more fulfilled than he has in months, and he hasn’t even come yet.
“Fuck—gonna come,” Malfoy gasped, appropriately timed. His shoulder was moving, his fist jerking his own cock as he threw his head back. Harry slid his palms up and rubbed his thumbs roughly across Malfoy’s nipples, lightly pinching, and then harder when Malfoy let out a long whine.
“God,” Harry groaned, his rhythm becoming a little unsteady as his pleasure rose to a peak. He clung to Malfoy like a drowning man to a broken raft, his face pressed into his shoulder, inhaling his sweaty, masculine scent. He couldn’t get close enough – he needed to touch everywhere, to see everything, Malfoy’s face more than anything. “Fuck, I—Draco—”
A string of profanities slipped from Malfoy’s mouth as his hand came back to clutch the back of Harry’s thigh, his fingers digging into the muscle, holding them close. “Yes.” His nails scratched at Harry’s thigh.
That’s what did it for Harry; Malfoy pulling him closer, moaning as Harry’s hands frantically touched everywhere they could reach, holding the leaner man tight enough to risk bruising his ribs. His thrusts turned jerky as he came, shockwaves of pleasure shooting down his spine as his cock throbbed, his release spurting deep inside Malfoy. His thrusting became a grind as he rode it out, trying to get closer even though it was hardly possible to be any closer than they already were. Harry’s lips sucked at Malfoy’s neck, his breathing harsh. He felt the vibration as Malfoy moaned loudly. The pressure around his cock became unendurable as Malfoy toppled into orgasm, back arching as he cried out, arse clamping vice-like around Harry. Harry gasped as his oversensitive prick was squeezed from all sides, massaged by Malfoy’s arse as the other man shuddered and moaned in his arms. His back straightened a little, his head falling back to rest against Harry’s shoulder as he spurted his release all over his stomach.
Panting roughly, they quivered against each other for several long seconds. Harry could feel Malfoy’s chest heaving; his skin was flushed and sweaty, his hair dishevelled. Harry’s cock, sticky and sensitive, slipped out of him, and he whimpered. Harry held him tighter, his eyes closed, his heart still thrumming restlessly.
He was acutely aware of Malfoy’s hand, resting against his thigh. The back of one finger caressed a barely-there touch, but it made Harry shiver anyway. His insides felt liquified, and his limbs felt heavy and overused.
He expected the gravity of what he’d just done – sex with Draco fucking Malfoy – to hit him. He expected to feel that panic, that oh, fuck moment when you start going over every possible way things could play out from here. But it never came.
The crash of disbelief and regret never came. Well, there was a bit of disbelief, but it was the almost giddy kind. The kind that made him feel like a kid again, having just narrowly evaded being caught out of bed by Filch, or having snuck up to the top of a school tower to set a baby Norwegian Ridgeback free.
After what felt like a while, Harry felt an elbow nudging at his stomach, gently pushing him away. He unstuck himself from Malfoy’s back, suddenly feeling his cheeks heat, like he’d been called out on doing something weird or inappropriate.
“Sorry,” he blurted, and then felt even more stupid when Malfoy half-turned and peered over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. His pale neck was littered with bruises, and he had faint, purplish imprints on his hips. Harry felt, on the whole, rather mortified.
Malfoy didn’t even appear phased. Well, he looked thoroughly fucked – utterly dishevelled, wholly ravished – but not annoyed, or uncomfortable. He rolled his eyes and said, “What the fuck are you sorry for? Merlin, you’re such a Gryffindor.”
Harry didn’t know how to respond, but in the end, he didn’t get to. A sudden, bellowing female voice echoed beyond the locked door, making them both jump.
“Draco Malfoy, why is your bedroom swamped in purple fog? And why is it making me horny?”
“Fuck,” Malfoy hissed, his eyes wide. He bent to yank his pants and trousers back up, and Harry noticed him wince as he did so. He cursed as he snatched up his bloodied shirt and tossed it into the corner. “Bollocks.”
“Er…you okay?” Harry asked tentatively, pulling up his own underwear and trousers.
“This is why I need a proper brewing lab,” Malfoy ranted, running a hand through his hair in an attempt to restore it to some order. He glanced at Harry, and something in his face softened before a smirk curled at his lips. “They say not to mix work and leisure—or I should say pleasure. A smart idea, probably.”
“I don’t know…” Harry said with a half-shrug. “It’s gone pretty well for me, so far.”
“Draco fucking Malfoy, I am about an inch away from humping your pillow! If you don’t get your arse out here right now, I’ll hump you! It’s spreading.”
Harry grimaced as Malfoy’s eyes grew even wider. He snatched up his wand, unlocked the door, and immediately recoiled as a faint violet fog drifted in.
“I’ll, er, send F.U.M.E.S over, shall I?” Harry said.
“That would be appreciated,” Malfoy replied, somewhat faintly.
They shared a final, undeterminable look, and then Malfoy was gone, hurrying down the hallway and shouting threats at Parkinson as he did so. Harry was left standing, alone and bewildered, and far, far more intrigued by Draco Malfoy than he had been that morning.
* * *
“You heading off already, mate? ‘Mione dropped by while you were gone, said she’d invited you over for dinner.”
“Er…honestly, I’m pretty knackered. Thought I might just have a quiet evening by myself, maybe get an early night.”
Ron put his folder of paperwork on his desk and spun his chair around to face Harry. He crossed his arms and said accusingly, “You are not going home at four o’clock to sit in your pants and eat takeaway treacle tart from the box with one of those cursed spoons that Kreacher always puts away with the regular cutlery.”
Harry shifted in his chair. “Well, I planned to use a regular spoon.”
“Mate, why not just throw the cursed ones away?”
“I have,” Harry insisted, “but then I always feel bad and get them out of the bin again.”
“Mate.”
“They giggle, Ron. You try to throw away an animate object! They might actually be sentient.”
Ron’s expression was deeply sympathetic, but Harry didn’t think it was in regard to the spoons. “…I say this with love, Harry. You need to go out.”
“I went out yesterday!”
“Yeah, and you looked better than you have in months! Well, until we started on the whisky.”
Harry pressed his forehead to his desk, crumpling an abandoned sheet of parchment. “Don’t remind me.”
Ron leaned forward, kicking Harry’s leg with the end of his foot and making Harry jump. “You should ask Meri out,” he said. “You two get along great.”
Harry groaned, feeling the flush creeping up his collar. “Merlin, you sound like Cho. And Ginny. And your mother.”
Grinning, Ron affected the tone he used to impersonate his mother (never in front of Hermione, because she was liable to snitch – something about girlcode). “Well, it is about time you find a nice young lady—or man, of course, I’d love whoever you brought home to meet us, Harry dear—”
“Merlin, stop,” Harry cut in with another groan. He stood up from his chair and grabbed his robe, throwing it on and trying to ignore that his cheeks were nearing the same shade as his uniform. Shooting a half-hearted glare at Ron, he said, “I’m going to go and shag another of your siblings. I reckon George might be up for one last experimentation before he ties the knot.”
“Yuck.” Ron gagged and threw a paperweight at Harry, which felt a bit personal, to be honest, as it was heavy and liable to do some actual damage. “Why would you make me picture that?”
Incidentally, there actually was a picture, taken by Ginny and currently in her possession, of Harry and George engaged in a heated snog from the previous New Year’s Eve. Extraordinarily drunk on Charlie’s brutally strong home-brewed booze, Harry remembered very little, but apparently he’d been looking for Ginny (believable, given their drunk habits), and George had been after his fiancée. According to the others, Harry had mistaken George for Ginny, and George had mistaken Harry for Angelina. They hadn’t even realised until Angelina herself had seen them and laughed so hard that she had to sit down.
Pointedly sending the paperweight back to its spot on the desk, Harry said, “Maybe you’ll stop nagging me about dating. You know, you’re actually worse than your mother.”
Ron’s affronted spluttering followed Harry out the door.
* * *
Harry couldn’t stop thinking about Draco Malfoy. It wasn’t an entirely unfamiliar feeling, although the Malfoy currently occupying his every thought was wearing decidedly less clothing than he had in the past. It wasn’t only that, though – Harry couldn’t get the way Malfoy had been out of his mind. The way he’d insisted on giving Harry his hangover cure; the way he’d shaken as he bled, his face pale; the way his hand had felt in Harry’s as he healed his wound; the way he’d clung to Harry as Harry came inside him.
So yes, okay, it did come back to the sex, because the sex was fantastic, but that wasn’t all. That in itself was enough to keep Harry’s thoughts pretty occupied throughout the evening and the following days, but it was the other things that he thought about outside of the shower or his bedroom. It was those things he thought about as he duelled with Millicent in the training room and got distracted enough that she disarmed him embarrassingly easily. Those things that had him so distracted over dinner with Ron and Hermione one evening that Hermione asked if he’d been hexed at work.
“He’s mooning over someone,” Ron said, through a huge mouthful of the risotto he’d cooked for them. “He’s wearing the same face he used to wear over Ginny at school.”
“I’m—” Harry crossed his arms. “I’m not wearing that face!”
“You are so wearing that face, mate. I’ve seen that face—I know that face, and you’re wearing it.”
“I am not!”
“You are.”
“M’not!”
“Are—”
“Children!” Hermione interrupted. “No squabbling at the dinner table, please.”
“There’s no face,” Harry muttered, taking a sulky stab at his risotto with his fork.
“Is,” Ron whispered, when Hermione got up to refill her glass.
Harry kicked his shin under the table, and that shut him up. When Hermione returned – armed with a fresh glass of elderflower cordial and, almost like an afterthought, a bottle of Ogdens – the topic had been dropped.
Well, almost. After they’d made a dent in the Ogdens, the subject came up again, and when Harry remained firmly tight-lipped about the whole thing, the alcohol started disappearing at a faster pace.
The three of them passed out on the sofa, curled against each other, Hermione’s arm around Harry’s shoulder and Ron’s head in his lap. It was so comforting, so achingly familiar and right, that Harry fought the drooping tiredness in his eyes, wanting to stay in the moment. Eventually, though, the Ogdens won, and he drifted off to sleep.
* * *
Harry, Ron, and Hermione used to tell each other everything. They’d formed the kind of bond in a friendship where it felt wrong not to share everything.
There were exceptions, of course. None of them wanted to know details on each other’s sex lives – they already got far too many of those, thank you very much. Plus, it would be unfair – Ron and Hermione already knew each others, obviously. Other than that, nothing was off limits.
The obvious things – events at work, the latest update on the witches having the affair in the Ministry archive department, minor catastrophes and mental crises – were rarely held back. When you lived with people, you just became privy to certain things. After hearing your best friend screaming through a nightmare, and bumping into them at the kitchen table, sipping at a cup of tea at three in the morning, still pale and dripping sweat, it just became natural to share everything else, too. That way, you were voluntarily sharing your vulnerabilities, rather than having them discovered.
Where Draco Malfoy was concerned, it was a vulnerability that Harry felt less casual about disclosing. Part of him did want to confess, for he could certainly use his friends help in trying to untangle his complicated feelings surrounding the whole affair. Hermione would likely have some poignant and infuriatingly accurate insights on the matter, and Ron would insist that Harry’s obsession had finally climaxed (literally) and now he’d shagged Malfoy out of his system, he’d be able to move on in peace.
The rest of Harry knew that telling his friends would be a stupid idea. An equally likely possibility to those above was that Hermione and Ron would think he’d finally suffered a mental break, and was actually on a path to upending his life. They’d think he was having a genuine crisis, and probably stage an intervention.
And that was the thing. If it was just sex, Harry knew he’d be able to explain it to his friends, to laugh it off as a moment of horny madness, or a culmination of all the tension of his and Malfoy’s past years. They’d be able to put the whole thing aside as one of Harry’s madder moments – one of his more impulsively stupid actions.
But the fact of the matter was that it hadn’t been just sex. And Harry had no idea what that meant, or what the fuck to do with it.
* * *
The next time Harry saw Draco Malfoy, everything was different.
And yet … not much had really changed at all. Except, of course, that Harry knew Malfoy had twin dimples at the base of his spine. And exactly how long it took him to catch his breath after particularly vigorous exercise.
The past week at work had been desperately dull. Harry had solved one break-in (the elderly wizard had forgotten to lock his front door before he went to bed – that was the 'break in'), arrested two witches for drunken disorderly conduct in Diagon Alley, and gone to the scene of one emergency call where the woman explained that she’d just wanted to see whether Harry would show up, and asked if he would sign her cleavage.
Overall, he was really fucking over this week already, but he still had to survive tonight’s event. According to Hermione, it was really important that he attend because all the charities and their representatives and organisers and whatnot would get a huge publicity boost if Harry was at the event. And how could Harry say no to war orphans, or the Organisation for Werewolf Overall Wellbeing (W.O.W)? Not that he lost sleep over the state of Werewolf rights, or anything, but it was a good thing that efforts were being made to show them more empathy and render more aid – not to mention that his own godson faced struggles with his part-lycanthropy.
There were many charities at tonight’s Ministry event, most of which Harry had already forgotten the names of, despite having spoken to at least half a dozen various representatives and journalists. Harry had come as Hermione’s 'date' (how Ron had managed to get out of this one, he had no idea, and was feeling very salty about it), which meant a lot of forced social interactions – or as Hermione called it, networking.
In between engaging various guests at the event in conversations about her newly established charity, and shoving Harry towards people she wanted him to charm, Hermione was also busy gathering information on several other charities that she was planning to help out with, and catching up with friends and acquaintances, and posing for several flattering photographs. As usual, Harry was utterly speechless at her efficiency, and it would have been a wildly attractive trait if he weren’t so terrified by her. As it was, he felt admiration and a significant dose of disbelief as he observed her engaged in two separate conversations, all while posing for the photographer for the Daily Scroll.
It was as he averted his eyes from this display that he spotted the head of bright blond ducking past a small group, heading for the doors to the outdoor terrace. Harry’s heart jumped in his chest; he’d successfully not thought about Malfoy for – he slid up his robe sleeve and checked his watch – forty minutes, and now here he was again. Malfoy on the brain.
Moving away from the corner where Hermione had parked him while she spoke to the photographer, Harry found his feet carrying him across the Ministry hall, towards the grand double doors leading to the terrace. He’d not seen Malfoy since – well, since. He found that his heart was beating faster than usual, fluttering like moths in a jar.
He was halfway towards his destination when he bumped, quite literally, into someone he was not expecting to see, accompanied by someone he was definitely not expecting to see. Together, they completely threw him off, enough to distract him from his target.
“Gin? What are you doing here?”
Ginny’s eyes were wide – she’d clearly not anticipated running into him, either. “Er—hi, Harry! Funny seeing you here.” Her smile was slightly sheepish, and Harry was immediately suspicious. “The Harpies are doing a charity thingy at St Mungo’s—for the kids ward, you know. So basically, I’m here for the press. They wanted my pretty face.”
“Indeed,” Blaise Zabini said, turning back from the conversation he’d been engaged in. He placed a subtle hand on Ginny’s lower back. “Hello, Potter.” He turned to Ginny. “I’m going to get another drink. You want one?”
Ginny handed him her near-empty glass, and he disappeared towards the bar. Harry stared at Ginny, who seemed terribly interested in a snagged thread on her dress.
“Ginevra Weasley.”
“Hmm?” Ginny glanced up, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
Harry’s eyebrows were climbing skyward. “Seriously?” He couldn’t help being a tiny bit impressed.
The corner of Ginny’s mouth curled up; she glanced over at the bar, and when she turned back to Harry, her smile had shifted into a smirk. “Blaise was very complimentary towards the Harpies in the article we were featured in.”
“Oh, it’s Blaise, is it?”
“It would be weird to call him Zabini after the second date.”
Harry raised his brows even higher, genuinely surprised for a moment. And, if he was honest, a teeny bit disappointed that Ginny hadn’t told him. Of all Harry’s friends, Gin was the one person where the filthy, juicy details weren’t off limits – in fact, they were often encouraged. Demanded, practically. Maybe it was weird to share intimate details about your sex life with your ex, but for Harry and Ginny, it was more a kind of therapy. It was just how they bonded; it brought them closer. And maybe that was weird, but in all honesty, Harry didn’t give a fuck.
“Well,” he said. “Good for you, I s’pose. I’ve seen that man in silk that was like a second skin, and those robes are concealing something pretty impressive.”
“Oh, I know.” Ginny flashed him a wicked smile. Her face grew a touch more serious, and she swallowed. “I don’t know why, but he makes me feel mad, Harry. I swear, it feels like more than sex—”
“Wine?” Zabini interrupted, reappearing at Ginny’s side, holding a glass in each hand. Ginny flushed and cleared her throat. She took the offered drink and drank several gulps. Harry watched them, the way Zabini’s free hand settled back on Ginny’s waist, his thumb stroking softly. He watched the light flush spread prettily across Ginny’s cheeks, and the way Zabini watched her as she talked.
“Hey, Potter,” Zabini said, after several minutes of casual chatter, “I heard what you did for Pansy, and I just wanted to say thanks. That was really decent of you, and I’m not entirely sure the bloody harpy deserved it.”
“Eh,” Harry shrugged awkwardly. “She’s not too bad.”
“Well, she’s been insufferable ever since Charmed Couture booked her for future features, including her upcoming collection.”
Harry snorted. He caught Ginny’s curious expression – she’d heard all about The Great Clothing Swap Debacle, but he hadn’t mentioned Parkinson’s photoshoot to anyone. He figured it wasn’t important; anyone who cared about fashion would probably see the magazine, anyway.
“Sorry about that.”
Zabini chuckled, and Harry had to praise Ginny’s taste. The man was extremely attractive. “Pansy has had many a good thing to say about you over the past week,” he said. “I think you’ve gained a new fan, Potter.” He chuckled again. “Draco is one comment away from strangling her, I swear. He’s been distracted recently—I think he’s plotting the best way to silence her and get away with it.”
His throat tight, Harry managed to say, “Well, if any of you report a murder, I’ll know it was premeditated.”
“If you lived with Pansy, you’d call it self-defence,” Zabini said.
At that moment, Hermione reappeared, flushed and out of breath, but glowing with productivity. She was riding such a high that she barely blinked as she greeted Ginny, and then Zabini. Proper pureblood that he was, he lifted her hand and kissed it. Hermione seemed pleased, and she all but leapt into a conversation about some article that Zabini had written – Harry didn’t catch the topic – and listed the many follow-up questions she had about it. Zabini seemed happy to indulge her, and Ginny seemed happy to stand and gaze at him, so Harry felt his attention drifting.
He glanced towards the doors leading to the terrace; there was a large group posing for a photograph in front of them, making it unlikely for Harry to escape outside. A subtle scan for a bright blond head in the hall came up empty, so Harry assumed Malfoy was currently stuck outside.
Harry felt a sort of sick restlessness that urged him to push his way through the photo group, past the door to the terrace. Instead of doing that, though, he ran a hand over his face and interrupted the current conversation with, “I’m just, er—I’m going to the bathroom. Back soon.”
Hermione nodded and patted his elbow without breaking the flow of her conversation. Making his way through the hall, Harry dodged several people who he noticed eyeing him like hawks, although he wasn’t quick enough to escape the Minister for Magic himself, who greeted him with a familiar thump on the shoulder.
“Good to see you, Harry—forgive me, Auror Potter.”
“If you call me Auror Potter, do I have to call you Minister Shacklebolt, Kingsley?”
With a wink, Kingsley said, “I suppose we’re both unused to each other’s titles, eh? Though we’ve had years to get used to them.”
“I guess it’ll take us a while longer,” Harry said. He managed to bid Kingsley goodbye and headed for the nearest Ministry bathroom, which was down a corridor just outside the hall. He really did need to piss now.
He pushed open the door to the men’s, and his breath caught like a snag in fabric. At the sound of the door opening, the man standing before the mirror peered over his shoulder and froze. It so greatly resembled their previous interaction at a Ministry gala that Harry felt temporarily disoriented; he was even wearing the same bloody robes.
This time, however, Malfoy wore a truly breathtaking set of dove-grey robes. More modern than the dress robes he’d displayed at the last gala, but no less eye-catching. They were all the more elegant for their simplicity, and Harry knew he was staring, but how could he not?
“We have to stop meeting in Ministry bathrooms, Potter.”
Malfoy spoke casually enough, but the line of his back was tense, his shoulders stiff in a way that made Harry want to reach out and touch him. He hadn’t known how it would be when they inevitably ran into each other, post-shag, but awkward had been a solid guess. It wasn’t awkward, but the air was certainly loaded.
Harry had wondered which version of Malfoy he’d be receiving, and it was the polished, untouchable version, as he’d been at the last Ministry event. Rather than being filled with the usual tense excitement, however, Harry was almost … disappointed. As he ran his gaze over every exquisite detail of Malfoy’s outfit, the carefully arranged expression on his pointy face, Harry couldn’t help remembering the other Malfoy – the one who worked on the Knight bus. The one whose eyes twinkled with genuine amusement over Harry’s drunken comments.
Harry wanted to see the man he’d glimpsed for a few precious moments, who’d let Harry hold him and caressed his thigh so softly, almost tenderly.
“It’s terribly unfashionable to wear the same set of robes twice to a formal event, especially in a row. Don’t you own any others, Potter?”
“No,” Harry said.
With a snort, Malfoy turned back to the mirror; he was fiddling with one of the buttons on his robe, which appeared to have come loose. “I’m not surprised. You’re very predictable, Potter.”
“Not always.”
Malfoy swallowed. Softly, he agreed, “No. Not always.”
It was so disorienting, these switches between the side of Malfoy Harry was familiar with, and the side he itched to know more about. Everything felt uncertain, unpredictable, and it was both terrifying and thrilling. Harry found that his heart was racing.
In an attempt to ease the tension and calm his thumping pulse, Harry leaned against the wall and asked, “How come this event interested you, then? Do you think it’s good so far? Because Hermione’s been going on all evening about how great it is.”
Malfoy blinked and turned away from the mirror to face Harry. “Do you actually want to know?”
“Yeah, I do,” Harry said, the corner of his mouth curling up.
Malfoy looked like he didn’t know what to do with this answer. It was unusual for Harry to see him looking uncertain like this. He took a few steps away from the sink, towards the middle of the room, then stopped.
Harry moved towards him – he couldn’t help it. If he were lightning (appropriate, given his scar), then Malfoy was a mountain, his summit a temptation to strike that Harry couldn’t resist. And he didn’t want to.
That was the thing with lightning – it was drawn to high points, summits just beneath the thunderclouds. Harry crackled with charged energy. It felt so good to know what he wanted.
Malfoy’s silver eyes flashed, the uncertainty still there. “This is a bad fucking idea.”
“Wasn’t so bad the first time.”
“I’m not going to become your cautionary tale, Potter.” But the way he said it sounded like a warning, rather than a refusal.
“You might not,” Harry said, stepping in closer until he and Malfoy were sharing the same space, circulating the same air.
He brought his hand up to press against Malfoy’s jaw, and then lips were crushed against his, and he didn’t think he’d leaned in first, but he couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t be sure of anything when Malfoy’s mouth was silky and hot, and his hands were pushing into Harry’s hair.
Malfoy broke the kiss but didn’t pull away; he rested his forehead against Harry’s, his eyes closed. “Fuck it, but you’re going to be mine, Potter.”
Harry forgot about cautionary tales; for a moment, Malfoy’s words repeated themselves in his head, like a whisper trapped in a canyon with no way to free itself. You’re going to be mine.
Cautionary tales or not, that was a future as of yet undetermined. For right now, this moment belonged to them. It was all theirs.
Harry leaned in for another kiss, but Malfoy surprised him by wrapping his fingers around Harry’s wrist and pulling, practically dragging, him towards a stall.
He felt himself smiling into the next kiss as he was pressed against the door of the stall. He reached up to twine his fingers in Malfoy’s pristine, formal hairstyle, but found his wrists pinned against the door by his sides. Clearly, Harry wasn’t trusted not to make a mess of Malfoy’s outfit, but Harry found he didn’t mind being manhandled against a surface if it meant he had a fit, delicious body between his legs, pressed against his front, licking into his mouth and stealing his air. He also didn’t mind the hand now scraping across his scalp, tugging at his hair to tilt his head back. Malfoy’s tongue slipped deeper into his mouth, and Harry groaned. His now-free hand wrapped around the small of Malfoy’s back, dragging him closer even though they were pressed about as tightly together as physically possible. Still, Harry was known for his impossible feats.
The stall door rattled slightly as Harry was pushed harder against it; he flipped them over, using his full weight to press against Malfoy. Malfoy resisted a little, just enough to get Harry’s blood pumping, to make him kiss the other man with renewed fervour, kiss him until he gave in to it, turning soft and pliant in Harry’s arms.
That’s what Harry thought, anyway. He had Malfoy’s hands tangled in his hair, his own hands roaming beneath Malfoy’s robes, feeling the ghost of warm skin, and Malfoy was making soft, breathy sounds in his ear as Harry sucked a bruise against his jaw. Then, quite suddenly, Harry was being flipped around, his body making the door rattle loudly, his lips breaking contact with a small, wet noise. His surprise was muffled against Malfoy’s mouth, as was his low moan when he felt a hard palm rubbing him through his neatly pressed, formal trousers.
Malfoy broke the kiss; his face was blazing, hot with desire, and yet soft, too. The corner of his mouth quirked up – not a smirk, but not quite a smile, either. His hands toyed with the buttons on Harry’s trousers for a few teasing moments, and then, slowly, he sank to his knees.
Mid-crouch, glancing at the floor, Malfoy reached into his sleeve and withdrew his wand. He waved it at the ground twice; first, a Scourgify, and then a cushioning charm. The charm seemed like an afterthought, and Malfoy looked satisfied as he rested his knees against the tile.
Harry kept his hands away from Malfoy’s hair, despite how badly he wanted to tangle his fingers in it, to cup the back of Malfoy’s head as the other man mouthed at the bulge protruding from his trousers. Long, slim fingers popped open the buttons, pulling at the elastic waist of Harry’s underwear, letting it snap back against his skin. Harry settled for running his palms along Malfoy’s shoulders, ghosting light touches across his arms.
“Did you get softer chairs, in the end?” Harry asked, his voice low and definitely indecent. His tone was such a contrast to the ridiculousness of the question that a giggle bubbled its way up his throat, escaping before he could hold it in. He pressed a hand to his mouth, but it was no use. Malfoy was looking at him, his expression unimpressed, his eyebrows raised. However, his mouth twitched.
Malfoy cleared his throat, lightly, and then said, “I bought cushions.”
A snort burst from Harry’s chest, and Malfoy’s lips twitched again as he visibly fought a smile. Then, they were both muffling laughter, Harry with his hands pressed over his mouth and Malfoy with his face hidden against Harry’s hip. His hands clung to the waist of Harry’s trousers, which gaped open, revealing his Gryffindor-red underwear to the cramped cubicle.
Malfoy slowly eased Harry’s pants down beneath his balls and ran his nose along the dark curls at Harry’s groin. Then, he silenced Harry’s amusement in one smooth motion by drawing the entirety of Harry’s length into his mouth. Well, almost the entirety – his pale fist circled around the last couple inches at the base. His unoccupied forearm pressed against Harry’s stomach, effectively pinning him to the wall to prevent him from jerking forward as Malfoy swallowed around his prick.
Harry’s low groan was strangled; a small, choked sound as Malfoy drew away only to sink back down onto his cock, his tongue swirling around the shaft with a wet, sloppy sound. Malfoy smirked around his cock, and Harry let out a sighing moan. Malfoy’s eyes flashed; he flicked his tongue against the head of Harry’s prick. Then, with a final smirking smile that was more smile this time, he began to suck Harry’s cock in earnest.
Harry longed for somewhere to put his hands, somewhere to anchor himself against the onslaught of sensation. After several overwhelming minutes, where he wanted to close his eyes but couldn’t look away from the sight of Draco Malfoy on his knees, pink lips stretched taut around the dark shaft of his cock, Harry thought fuck it – he ran his fingers through Malfoy’s fine, silky hair and held on. He tugged lightly; Malfoy’s eyelids fluttered shut, and he moaned. And Harry let out a throaty moan at the sound, at the vibration that ran through his cock, at the tight heat of Malfoy’s throat as he took him deep, nose buried against Harry’s groin.
His hands raked soothingly through Malfoy’s perfect hair, and it felt like delicious rebellion. Like saying I want everyone to know who had their fingers in your hair; like saying everyone in that hall will know what we’ve been doing in here, and they can all go and suck a bag of cocks. Like standing on a platform in the middle of Diagon Alley and yelling fuck you!, middle fingers presented to the crowd. And maybe some of his anger with the public was a cover for his anger towards himself, for how lonely he felt, and how, deep down, he knew it was on him. Because he was too intense. He wanted to give too much, take too much, and the things he wanted just weren’t what people expected Harry Potter to want.
The noises that Malfoy made, as if he loved this, as if there was nothing hotter than having a cock sliding down his throat, in his mouth; they were intoxicating. His lips were red, swollen, and the corners of his eyes watered a little, but he continued to take Harry deep.
Using the hand in Malfoy’s hair, Harry gently pulled him off his cock, made him take a pause to catch his breath. Harry was achingly hard, almost dizzy with it, and Malfoy was heaving deep breaths in through his nose. He rolled his eyes at Harry, at his display of courtesy – or, as Harry thought, basic consideration. However, his hand replaced his mouth while he let his throat recover and regained his breath.
“So gracious,” he said. His voice was raspy, low.
Running his fingers through Malfoy’s hair, Harry said, “Purely selfish on my part, I promise you. Don’t want you to pass out.”
Malfoy’s hand twisted, his fingers teasing the underside of Harry’s prick, and he inhaled sharply, his head falling back against the stall door. “I won’t,” Malfoy said, and then he licked along the same path as his fingers, ending at the tip, letting it rest against his tongue. He mouthed at the head, sucking lightly, teasing, until Harry’s hips were bucking, his legs unsteady.
Malfoy moved his arm pressed against Harry’s stomach, ran his palm along a golden thigh instead, nonverbally allowing Harry to thrust into his mouth. Harry tried to hold back at first, to keep his thrusts shallow, but Malfoy tightened his hold on his thigh and pulled him forward. He moaned when Harry complied, and then the stall echoed with an almost continuous string of soft moans as Harry thrust into the heat of his mouth, fucking it hard and slow. Saliava dripped down Harry’s prick, down Malfoy’s chin; his lips were shiny, stretched thin.
The pleasure built steadily, slowly, intensely. Harry tried to keep his eyes on Malfoy, on his face, but they kept falling shut as his climax drew nearer. He tugged on Malfoy’s hair. “I’m—Malfoy, I’m close, I’m gonna—fuck, I’m—”
His hand was slapped away. He clenched his fist around nothing, and then in the fabric of his trousers. His hips jerked as the suction around his prick increased, and then Harry was crying out, thrusting forwards as he spurted his release down Malfoy’s throat. He might have gasped out Malfoy’s name – Draco, you’re, god – but honestly, his brain was static, his vision blurred as he slowly came down from one hell of an orgasm.
When he’d regained the use of his body, Harry tilted his head down to look at Malfoy. The man was flushed, his lips spit-slick, his hair messy. Heaving in oxygen, Harry slumped back against the door, resisting the urge to slide completely to the ground.
Delicately wiping the back of his mouth – using the sleeve of his robe, which made Harry grin despite his current boneless state – Malfoy glanced up. The corner of his mouth quirked up. “I know I’m good, but that seems a little over-the-top.”
Harry’s hazy brain struggled to comprehend what he was talking about, but slowly, he figured it out. He snorted, feeling his cheeks flush, but managed to contain most of his embarrassment. He pulled Malfoy up, so they were standing face to face. He pressed their mouths together in a surprisingly soft kiss, tasting his own release on Malfoy’s tongue. One hand was still tangled in his pale hair, while the other worked at the fastenings of Malfoy’s robe and trousers.
“I’ve been in a church before. I believe the best way to do one’s worship is on one’s knees.” Harry pushed Malfoy backwards so he sat on the down lid of the toilet seat and, unconcerned about the comfort or cleanliness of the floor, sank to his knees. Shoving aside the layers of clothing just enough for Harry to pull Malfoy’s prick out, he gazed at it hungrily; the tip was flushed a deep red, the length rigid and so fucking hard that Harry couldn’t help the small, low moan that left him.
One of Malfoy’s hands slid into his hair. “Nothing about this is very holy, Potter.” He released a long moan as Harry sucked the head of his cock into his mouth, and then ceased to say anything else other than breathless words of encouragement while Harry took him apart with his mouth and tongue.
Not long later, when Malfoy gasped, “Holy shit” and came in Harry’s mouth, his knees spread wide but bracketing Harry in, it felt less like Harry was kneeling in worship than in prayer. His mind was full of things he couldn’t say, didn’t know who to say to, who to ask. Let me do this again. Don’t let whatever this is end, not yet.
His palms ran along Malfoy’s thighs, his fingertips slipping beneath his undershirt to stroke the hidden, hot skin. Let me have this.
“Why is it,” Malfoy asked, once he’d caught his breath, “that we keep choosing the bathroom as the best place for this?”
“The decor really sets the mood,” Harry replied, standing up from his knees, his legs a little stiff. Malfoy rose with him.
“Whatever kinks that suggests you’re into, I don’t wish to know.” Malfoy fastened his trousers and his robe and smoothed his clothing down, setting himself to rights. He glanced at Harry, and with an exasperated sigh, reached out and tucked his spent cock back into his pants. He pulled up Harry’s trousers and neatly buttoned them closed. Harry found himself holding his breath, then breathing shallowly as Malfoy’s hands ran along his shoulders, smoothing out the creases in his robe so it hung properly again. It somehow felt far more intimate to have Malfoy touching him like this than when he’d had his hands on Harry’s cock, or his mouth.
“Do you have to get your bloody house elf to dress you in the mornings, Potter?” Malfoy rolled his eyes.
“Yes,” Harry said, entirely too pleased when Malfoy let out a snort. “What, are you telling me you don’t? You can’t tell me you didn’t use to, at least.”
“Perhaps. When I was six.” Malfoy’s expression tightened, and Harry suddenly regretted saying anything. “I rather…I rather think I made the elf’s task far more difficult than it needed to be.” His mouth twisted into a wry half-smile. “I was an unpleasant child.”
Before Harry could say anything, he added, “Don’t you say whatever it is you were about to.” His arm wiggled past Harry and unlocked the stall door; as Harry had been leaning his weight against it, he went tumbling backwards, barely catching himself by grabbing at the swinging door. Malfoy – or, Draco? Merlin, Harry had called him Draco, hadn’t he? – strode past him with a snort, over to the sinks. Harry gazed after him, still feeling, if he was honest, a little dazed.
“I was going to say at least you, er, grew out of it?”
Malfoy – or Draco; Harry was feeling a bit confused – laughed lightly, his face turned to the mirror as he attempted to smooth down the mess Harry had made of his carefully styled hair. “Yes, I am no longer a child. I can dress myself without elf assistance.”
Harry frowned. “I meant, you’re no longer unpleasant.”
Malfoy’s head turned sharply; he looked at Harry over his shoulder, barely facing him, so Harry couldn’t see his face. He turned back to the mirror, his eyes cast down at his hands as he rinsed them under the sink. “Careful, Potter, if you keep saying such sweet things, you’ll make me cry,” he drawled. “And we’ve seen how things play out from there.”
The joke already lacked humour for Harry, but when Malfoy looked up and met his eyes in the mirror, he was thrown back into a parallel moment with such intensity that for a moment, the Malfoy before him was the same as he’d been then – bloodshot eyes, tear-stained cheeks, flushed with anger and embarrassment and fear. The fear, swamping everything else as he jerked and gasped, blood trickling across the soaked bathroom tiles, a ghastly crimson halo.
“What, too soon?” Whatever Malfoy had seen on Harry’s face had him frowning gently, and he finished soaping his hands without looking at Harry. Then, taking Harry utterly by surprise, he said, “I apologise. I find joking about things helps me, but…I know it’s not always that way for other people.”
Harry felt there was quite a lot to unpack here, but instead, he said, “I’m sorry, I must have misheard. Did you just apologise to me?”
A look that could have almost been gratitude crossed Malfoy’s face. Some of the tension in his shoulders fell away; he dried his hands and turned around, leaning against the sink and smiling at Harry. “And you just apologised to me back, so can we maybe agree to leave all this resentment and guilty tension behind us? Water under the bridge, as I said before?”
Harry considered, briefly, if this was something he believed he could do. But then he saw the genuine plea beneath Malfoy’s lighthearted expression, and he considered the way he’d been feeling for a week now, and he found that saying yes was far easier than he’d thought.
“I think this tension—” Harry gestured between them “—is, like, seventy percent sexual.”
He felt strangely light as Malfoy laughed; the other man barely got out the words, “What, we can’t aim for eighty?” before Harry was pressing him back against the sink and seizing his mouth in a firm kiss. Malfoy was only surprised for a second or two, and then he was kissing Harry back, intensely and heatedly. It felt like everything they did together was intense, as if things couldn’t be any other way. As if a world in which Harry Potter could simply ignore Draco Malfoy was impossible – laughable, even – and the only options were fighting or … this. This thing that Harry couldn’t put a name to.
The bathroom door swung open, and Harry felt himself being shoved away. He stumbled back, breathless and dazed, and followed Malfoy’s eyeline to the doorway.
Blaise Zabini stared at them for a couple of painfully silent seconds, then said, “Terribly sorry, chaps. Am I interrupting?”
“You’ve never been sorry a day in your life,” Malfoy scoffed, turning back to face the mirror, where he inspected the appearance that Harry had just attacked all over again.
Smirking, Zabini turned to Harry. “Your date is getting tetchy, Potter. I’ve been sent to find you. It seems you’re meant to be doing some charming?” He looked between Harry and Malfoy and raised an eyebrow, his smirk widening. “I’m not sure this is what Miss Granger had in mind.”
“Fuck off, Blaise,” Malfoy said.
“Such sweet words, Draco.” Zabini rolled his eyes. “If you’re going to shag Potter for favours, I’d recommend locking the door.”
“Er—sorry?” Harry said, confused.
“A favour?” Malfoy hissed, suddenly looking furious. “Exactly how much of a slut do you think I am, Blaise?”
“Is that not what this is?” Zabini asked, looking genuinely curious. “We are at a charity gala—I assumed this was business.”
“I don’t tend to conduct business on my knees,” Malfoy said with a sniff. Without another word, he strode past Harry and Zabini and left the room, his robe swishing behind him.
After a moment, Zabini cleared his throat and walked over to the urinal to piss. “That went well,” he commented.
“It was going well,” Harry muttered.
Zabini huffed. “Well, I didn’t know, did I? If I thought all I had to do to get something I wanted was suck off Harry Potter, I’d do it. I’ve an eye for opportunity.”
“What kind of repulsive man do you think I am, Zabini?” Harry asked incredulously.
“No, you’re right,” Zabini sighed. “You do all these nice things out of the goodness of your heart—a concept I have trouble understanding, truth be told.” Zabini fastened his trousers and adjusted his clothing – a truly striking, stylish Muggle suit in aubergine silk, with a slight iridescent sheen that shifted to emerald. It reminded Harry of peacock feathers.
While washing his hands, Zabini asked, “I’m curious, Harry—can I call you Harry? If not a payment-reward situation, then what are your intentions with Draco?”
Harry felt a bit like he was being confronted by someone’s posh, traditional parent. Deflecting (and in hindsight, trying to out-slytherin an actual Slytherin was a pretty foolish plan), Harry said, “What are your intentions with Ginny? Because I’ll warn you, Zabini—looking a half-dozen Weasleys in the eye after breaking up with their only daughter isn’t something you ever want to have to do. I think the only reason I’ve still got my bollocks is because Gin told them all the agreement was mutual.”
“I’ll take that under advisement,” Zabini said. He shot Harry a dashing smile. “But your bollocks aren’t safe until you answer my question.”
“I think my intentions were pretty obvious,” Harry said, raising an eyebrow and trying not to look like he wanted to drown himself in the sink from embarrassment. “I reckon they’re probably the same intentions you have with Ginny.”
“If you mean take her out on several expensive dates, admire every inch of her thoroughly using my mouth, make a great impression with her friends and family and then spend every night in her bed—not necessarily in that order—then you would be correct. We have the same intentions.”
Well. Harry didn’t quite know what to say to that. It did sound kind of … nice, though. He hadn’t done any of those things in … well. He hadn’t done any of those things.
Except for the friends and family thing. Because, you know, Weasleys – but then, the Weasleys were also Harry’s friends and family, so it didn’t really count.
“We…we might have the same intentions,” Harry said carefully. “…In that case.”
Zabini’s bright, white smile was a little disorienting. “That is wonderful news, Harry. I will admit that I was somewhat concerned that Draco was having another disastrous lapse in judgment. You know how he is—he can make some spectacularly terrible decisions.”
“Er…can’t we all?”
“And giving you a blowjob in return for public or professional favours would be one of his more self-destructive ideas.”
Though his cheeks were flushed, Harry frowned at Zabini. “What could Malfoy possibly expect that I could do for him?”
“Oh, he won’t have any expectations,” Zabini said, taking out his pocket square and carefully refolding it. “Draco’s learnt not to expect anything, especially not from people. But from my perspective?” Zabini leaned his hip against the sink. “Well, my first thought was, with the sway you have at the Ministry—anywhere, really—you’d be able to stop the pricks in charge of licensing from dragging their feet. You know, isn’t it part of the process of obtaining a license to brew commercial potions that an Auror has to come and inspect one’s brewing lab?”
“Malfoy’s trying to get a brewing license?” Harry asked, the neuron in his brain that craved any and all information on Draco Malfoy lighting up and flashing.
“Did you think he was fulfilling a childhood dream by working on the Knight Bus?” Zabini – or maybe it should be Blaise, if they were apparently on first-name terms – said with a heavy eye roll.
Harry shrugged. “I considered it.”
“Well, he isn’t. Draco’s always loved potions—the swot. But he wouldn’t be brewing for free to donate to the clinic in Knockturn Alley if he could actually be making money—which he could do if you knobs at the Ministry would finally grant him a license. He deserves it.”
Blaise sounded as serious as he ever had in Harry’s presence; it made a small, guilty something squirm inside him. How had he not been aware of how badly the Ministry was handling Malfoy’s license application?
“When did he apply?”
“Two years ago.”
Harry gaped – surely, that wasn’t right? Something, clearly, was going on there. And if there was one thing about Harry, it was that he was a practised mystery-solver.
If there was another thing about Harry, it was that his first instinct was always to get Hermione Granger on the case.
“I’ll look into it, Zabini—Blaise. That doesn’t sound right at all.”
Blaise looked surprised, but also a little pleased. He regarded Harry in a way that seemed like he felt Harry had said something not wholly unexpected, but pleasant. Like he’d gotten the outcome he’d hoped for, but not put much expectation on actually panning out.
“I’d thank you, Harry, but it shouldn’t even be like this in the first place.”
“Yeah, please don’t thank me.” Harry grimaced. “I’ve been thanked so many times over that, you know…” he shrugged one shoulder.
Fortunately, Blaise didn’t need him to elaborate. He flashed a smile, then said, “Well! Back to the party, I suppose. I expect I’ll be seeing you around outside of business hours?”
Harry really wasn’t sure how to respond to that – a common theme with him, unfortunately. Blaise didn’t wait for a reply, though, simply clapping Harry on the shoulder as he passed. The bathroom was left smelling faintly of his seductive aftershave, and something coconutty that Harry assumed he put in his hair. It was a rather common, fresh scent that felt at odds with the rest of Blaise’s general … vibe. It reminded Harry more of the man who’d tried exasperatedly to stop his flatmates from tearing each other’s heads off, or the man who’d shaken Harry’s hand after giving his statement – or perhaps the man who’d smiled softly at Ginny when she wasn’t looking.
Back to the party, Harry lamented, holding out hope that Hermione wouldn’t need him to talk to too many more people. He had a rather interesting and important topic that he wanted to bring up with her.
It was only once Blaise had left, the door shut behind him and the sound of the party beyond muffled, that Harry remembered why he’d come to the bathroom in the first place. He still needed a piss.
* * *
See, the problem with Harry – one of his many flaws, he could admit – was that he had absolutely no idea how to initiate contact with people. He’d been that way his whole life, and he’d never managed to grow out of it – or rather, grow into the social skills that most of his adult friends seemed to have.
The people in his life had sort of just happened to him; Ron on the train, asking him if he was really Harry Potter, Hermione and the troll … basically all of his other friends, in various similar circumstances. Any romantic pursuits he’d wanted to explore had also always had a way of falling into his lap, even if they didn’t work out (wanting to ask Cho to the Yule Ball but not being able to get her alone, and then just happening to bump into her at the perfect time? Ginny, after Gryffindor won the Quidditch match? His first date with Sue, organised by Cho herself?) Essentially, Harry had never needed to know how to approach people because throughout his life, people had always approached him. He’d never needed to be the one to send the first owl, because somebody always wrote to him first. Whether it was friends checking up on him, fans desperate for his attention, or someone at the Ministry needing another favour from the Boy Who Lived … Harry was always requested.
Therefore, he was having an impossible time deciding where he was supposed to go from here. Five days since the Ministry gala – since Draco had sucked him off in a toilet stall (not to be crude, but, well) – and Harry could feel his sanity starting to slip. Honestly, he was impressed that he’d gone five days before he started to feel a bit mental. At least seventy percent of his waking thoughts were about Draco, and Harry didn’t dwell on the thoughts that played through his mind while asleep.
The thing was, Harry had no idea what the next step was. After the bathroom incident at the Ministry, he hadn’t seen Draco for the rest of the night, despite keeping his eyes peeled for a flash of blond. Of course, he hadn’t heard anything from Draco either – not that he’d expected to. But it left Harry at a loose end. He had a goal, but he didn’t know the direction to take to get there – was he supposed to wait for the next random meeting? Should he send an owl, or find an excuse to go around to the Slytherins’ flat again?
He was so distracted by his indecision that even Kreacher noticed, and suggested in his thin, croaking voice that ‘Master ask his friends to help with whatever is on Master’s mind, like old times.’ That made Harry snap somewhat out of his daze; if his house elf was noticing how weird he was acting, that was a sign that he needed to do something about it.
And so, early on Friday evening, after a solitary dinner cooked by Kreacher (sometimes it was easier to just give in and let Kreacher do housework, so that the elf didn’t have time to start chastising Harry on how he didn’t take proper care of himself), Harry grabbed a bottle of dusty, posh looking wine from the cellar and Flooed over to Ron and Hermione’s place. He felt bad about turning up unannounced and without warning, but he tried to remind himself that both of his friends had told him he was always welcome. He repeated this in his head as he retrieved the wine and scooped up a pinch of Floo powder. He didn’t bother putting any shoes on.
As he tumbled out of the Floo – and it was a tumble, unfortunately, he’d never gotten the hang of exiting the fireplace gracefully – he was greeted by Hermione’s cheerful exclamation of “Harry! Oh, I’m so glad you’re here!”
“Er, you are?” Harry asked, dusting the ash from his clothes and vanishing it from the rug with an apologetic glance at Hermione.
“Always, of course, but I was actually just talking about you—Ron!” Hermione called through to the kitchen, where Ron was singing along to a muggle song that he clearly didn’t know the words to, not that that put him off. “Ron, Harry’s here! And he’s brought posh, potentially poisonous wine!”
The singing stopped, and Ron popped his head around the doorway. “Poison wine? Say no more. Do we want pavlova to go with?” He shook his head. “Of course we want pavlova. One sec.” He retreated back into the kitchen.
“Come sit, Harry.” Hermione led him to the comfortable sofa, where she flopped down and gestured for him to do the same.
“I checked the wine. This one’s just vintage and expensive, no extra poison added.”
“Lovely,” Hermione snorted, summoning over three glasses and uncorking the bottle. None of them were really wine drinkers, but since Grimmauld Place had such an impressive collection just sitting there, they’d had a bit of fun picking out (likely disgustingly expensive) bottles at random and testing them out. They tended to break out the wine when one of them needed a long chat or rant, or an evening spent laughing and trying to forget about whatever was on their mind. It seemed this was going to be one of those evenings.
Ron returned, pavlova in tow, and settled himself on the squashy armchair. He served up three enormous portions (or an appropriate amount of pavlova, in Harry’s opinion) and lobbed a spoon at Harry’s head. It was only his Seeker instincts that stopped the metal from smacking him on the nose.
“Thanks,” Harry said anyway. “And I’m sorry for just turning up—”
“Nonsense,” Hermione interrupted, waving her hand. “Anyway, as I said, I’m glad you’re here. I thought more about what Blaise told you, about the Ministry dragging their feet on license applications—”
“Oh, here we go,” Ron sighed through a mouthful of cream and meringue. “You’ve given her a new project, Harry. She’s been relentless, looking into it all.”
“As I should, seeing as it appears nobody else is bothered!” Hermione said. She put down her wine glass and turned to Harry. “From everything I’ve gathered, it seems that the Ministry is purposefully holding off on giving Malfoy his license.”
“But that—” Harry gestured around with his spoon, “That’s outrageous, right? They can’t do that.”
“Not intentionally. But obviously, they’ve got plenty of excuses to offer if questioned, reasons why it’s taking so long to process, et cetera. If Malfoy can’t prove that they’re purposely denying him his license without a valid reason, then there’s not much he can do.”
Harry slumped back against the sofa, letting his spoon fall back into his bowl. “I can’t believe that.”
“I know,” Hermione agreed. “The whole thing made me angry—not because it’s Malfoy, even though he does seem to be a bit better nowadays. But it’s all so corrupt. I thought the Ministry had come a long way since the war, but it feels like there’s still so much to do.”
“If anyone can fix it, it’s you, ‘Mione,” Ron said, gazing at her with admiration, a bit of cream on his nose. Hermione huffed and leaned over to wipe it off, and Harry felt a small twinge in his heart at the ease of the gesture, the simplicity of such fondness.
“Although,” Ron continued, “I won’t pretend to understand why you care about helping the ferret-face.”
“It’s not about him, Ron,” Hermione said, exasperated. “It’s the fact that the Ministry can get away with such blatant prejudice, and nobody cares enough to do anything about it! And from reading the application files that Malfoy sent in—”
“Do you have the authority to do that?” Ron interrupted, eyebrow raised.
“Eh.” Hermione waved her hand. Harry tried to stifle his snort. “Anyway, from what I read, he’s filled it all out perfectly, with all the relevant information and such. There is no valid reason for him not to get his brewing license. It’s a shame, really—there’s such a lack of decent, licensed brewers available. They’re all employed by places like St Mungos or the big apothecaries. It makes trying to hire someone to work for F.U.M.B.L.E near impossible.”
“Are you saying you’d hire someone like Malfoy?” Ron asked, mouth gaping.
“Yes, Ronald, I am! Frankly, he is a talented brewer, and I could do with someone who knows what they’re doing. They’re not easy potions that we need for F.U.M.B.L.E, you know. Not everyone can brew Wolfsbane, or Veela suppressants.”
“Okay, okay, point made,” Ron said. “But this charity is your baby, Hermione, and I don’t want anything to cock it up. So next time you need access to restricted files, let Harry and me sneak them for you, yeah?” He looked over at Harry, his face determined, and Harry hummed, taking a large bite of pavlova.
“I’m in. Dunno why you even had to check.”
Hermione beamed at them, looking unduly touched. She leaned into Harry’s side, and he put his bowl of pavlova on the coffee table to wrap his arm around her. Some of his restlessness had calmed as Hermione spoke, and he felt a little more relaxed. He’d known it was a good idea to get Hermione involved, which he’d done as soon as he left the bathroom at the Ministry gala. The reason he’d Flooed over to Ron and Hermione’s in the first place was still on his mind, but maybe he would just finish his pavlova first … and his wine. Maybe a few glasses of wine.
Half an hour and most of his glass of wine later, the conversation shifted to something that made it very difficult for Harry to put off bringing up the reason for his visit. After his second helping of pavlova, Ron was sitting back in the armchair, his hands resting over his stomach and a strained expression on his face.
“Bloody hell, I’m gonna have a double hangover tomorrow. A food hangover and a wine hangover.”
Harry laughed. “Why did you eat so much, then?”
“It’s pavlova,” Ron said, groaning as he reached for his wand to send the dirty bowls back to the kitchen. Harry suspected the sight was making him feel queasy.
“Did you buy any hangover potion?” Hermione asked, stretching her leg to poke Ron with her big toe. He groaned again and threw his head back, closing his eyes.
“Bollocks.” He opened his eyes and fixed Harry with a pleading look. “Harry. Spare your best and oldest mate a hangover brew, won’t you?”
“I’m out, sorry. At least you haven’t got work tomorrow. I’m doing a cover shift—Sunday too.”
“Ew, why?”
Harry sighed. “Because I just agree to this shit.” He accepted the sympathetic shoulder squeeze from Hermione and continued, “And Nguyen took the time off to volunteer at a kitten adoption event. Kittens, Ron.”
Ron snorted. “You’re such a softie, mate.”
“And that’s why you’re so easy to love,” Hermione said, affectionately ruffling Harry’s curls.
Alarmingly, Harry felt his throat tighten. He cleared it, staring down at the last dregs in his wine glass. It must be the wine. That was probably it.
Aching to change the subject, he said, “Yeah, Gin called me soft as well. We were supposed to catch up tomorrow, but she had to cancel as well.”
Hermione leaned forward, a very Hermione-ish expression on her face. “So…Ginny and Blaise Zabini, eh?”
“I know,” Ron said, his nose wrinkled. “I hope she’s not serious about him. I mean—” Ron quickly backtracked at the disapproving look Hermione shot him. “I mean, I want Gin to be happy and find love and everything, but, you know—” he flapped his hands around a bit, looking frustrated when Harry and Hermione didn’t know.
Ron huffed. “Well—Slytherins, yeah? I mean, I s’pose Zabini is one of the more inoffensive blokes from our year, but still. Can you imagine Ginny and Parkinson being chums? Gin and Malfoy? My dad still gets twitchy at the thought of Lucius Malfoy, and the bastard is dead.”
“Well, Ginny isn’t dating Malfoy, is she?” Hermione said. “Besides, Draco isn’t his father. I think he’s made a real effort to better his life.”
“Well I think he’s a pointy, ferrety wanker!”
“I shagged him,” Harry blurted, and then winced at the stupefied expressions on his best friends’ faces. He hadn’t quite meant to come out with it like that.
After a moment of silence like a held breath, Hermione softly, very carefully, reached out and placed her hand on Harry’s knee. He jerked his gaze up to look at her, confused and a little wary.
“Harry…are you having a crisis? Do you need to talk?”
“Merlin.” Harry threw his head back against the sofa and covered his face with his hands. “No, okay?”
“You sure, mate?” Ron said weakly. “Cause that’s something you would do in a crisis.”
“I’m not in crisis.” Harry groaned, still covering his face. Desperate to offer something that wouldn’t make his best friends think he was genuinely losing his mind, he went with the simplest and probably most universally understandable explanation. “It was a leather miniskirt, ‘Mione. And the blouse was sheer—did I say that before? Sheer—and heels. And I had to undress him.” Harry rubbed his palms over his face as the images flashed behind his eyelids. “So much leg.”
After a few agonising beats of silence, Harry parted his fingers and peered out at his friends. Ron’s mouth was gaping, and he looked a bit like he’d been hit with a Stupefy. Hermione released a long exhale.
“Harry,” she said, pained. “Please tell me you weren’t on duty.”
“Er…I wasn’t on duty?”
“Oh my god.”
Pulling his hands away from his face, Harry said, “He cut his hand, yeah? And I was healing it, and I took his shirt off—the blood, you know, he doesn’t like blood—and then I—and we—”
“Oh my god. It’s like a bad porno.” It seemed as though Hermione was speaking to herself. She refocused on Harry and said, “Couldn’t you have waited till the end of your shift to have a one-off shag with Malfoy?”
Harry smiled weakly. “Funny you say that—”
“You—” Hermione’s eyes narrowed, and she stared at him for a second before her gaze suddenly turned triumphant, as if she’d just solved a puzzle. “I knew it was weird that you hid in the bathroom for so long at the gala! Is that why Blaise was…bloody hell, Harry, couldn’t you just take Malfoy home with you?”
This comment appeared to give Ron his voice back. He spluttered and choked out, “Or you could not do that! You could not take Malfoy home, and not undress him and drool over his long, pale legs and—oh fucking hell now I’m thinking about Malfoy’s legs.”
“You’ll live, Ronald.” Hermione’s gaze was earnest as she looked at Harry. “What are you going to do?”
Harry turned and faceplanted into the squishy arm of the sofa. Muffled, he muttered, “I don’t know.”
Hermione’s hand began tracing slow, soothing circles on his back – warm, familiar, grounding. It made him feel vaguely like a child being comforted, which was … honestly, a bit bizarre. But also kind of sweet. Hermione would be the best mum if she and Ron ever decided to do the whole kids business.
With a thoughtful hum, Hermione asked, “More wine?”
“More pavlova,” Ron said firmly, as if he’d just decided something important. He was already up and headed for the kitchen. Judging by the racket coming from the cutlery drawer, he was on a noble quest for spoons.
Harry exhaled a long breath into the sofa cushion. That hadn’t gone nearly as terribly as he’d feared. With the three of them on the case, his small ferrety problem – as Ron later called it– didn’t feel quite so complicated anymore.
* * *
As a thank you for the previous evening, Harry popped out early Saturday morning before work, picking up hangover potion for Ron, and for Hermione, the fancy parchment she liked but always said was too expensive to justify buying for herself. He tasked Kreacher with delivering the gifts and apparated to the Ministry.
He must have looked particularly scruffy that morning, because Meri raised both eyebrows at him when she walked into his cubicle. She perched on Ron’s unoccupied desk. “Rough night?”
Harry nodded, and Meri grimaced. “Firewhisky? That always fucks me up.”
“No. 1832 Moonflower wine and pavlova.”
Meri snorted. “Sounds brutal.” She shuffled aside some of Ron’s clutter and said, “You’re working with Nguyen’s partner today, right?”
“Right. Cheery bloke.”
Meri’s lips twitched at Harry’s sarcasm. “You know, as long as I’ve worked in this department, I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to him. What’s his name?”
“It was some kind of bird, I think. Hawk? No, that’s not right…Sparrow, maybe?”
“Pidgeon?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, let me know if you find out, won’t you?” Meri hopped off the desk and shot Harry a broad smile. “You’re a gem for doing the cover. I owe you one!”
“Yeah, okay,” Harry said, rolling his eyes. Just as Meri was heading out, he asked, “Hey, is Bullstrode in today?”
“Yes, but she’s helping with a training exercise. She’s hired muscle, I think.” The corner of Meri’s mouth curled up. “There’s something about women who look like they could wrestle a lion that’s just so attractive.”
“Or terrifying,” Harry pointed out, grinning.
“Speak for yourself.” Meri waved over her shoulder as she walked off. “Enjoy your thrilling weekend.”
“I’ll cherish every second,” Harry grumbled, his grin fading as he looked at his mountain of paperwork with a sigh.
Right. First things first, he needed a cup of tea. Preferably four if he was going to tackle these overdue reports.
The rest of Saturday was uneventful, and Sunday passed in much the same way – the morning, at least. Harry managed to finish a few of the older reports that had been hanging over his desk like old, sour laundry. Without Ron, his cubicle was quiet, though not peaceful. His temporary partner (Harry had been calling him Sparrow, although he hadn’t confirmed if that was, in fact, correct) was a dull, quiet man who made a decent cup of tea, and that was about it. He wasn’t unpleasant to work with, but the hours seemed to drag especially long.
Other than the paperwork that was even duller than his partner, Harry had nothing to distract him from the one thing circling his mind like a persistent snitch. He wanted to contact Draco – he should, even Ron had reluctantly agreed to that eventually. Hermione was very in favour of it, and suggested that Harry owl Draco and ask if they could meet up and talk, so they could, to quote, ‘Communicate like the adults they were instead of using sex to avoid any talk about feelings.’ Personally, Harry thought that sounded like a dreadful plan, but he had enough of his marbles intact to know not to say that. Ron was in favour of just turning up at Draco’s flat and ‘clearing things up’, although what those things were supposed to be, Harry had no idea. He wasn’t sure Ron did, either, but Harry respected his direct, no-nonsense approach.
Unfortunately, Ron’s plan made Harry break into a nervous sweat if he thought about it for too long, so that was firmly off the table. As for what Pansy Parkinson might do to him if things went poorly … best not to visualise that at all.
All this thinking about how to approach Draco led Harry to dwell on what he would say when he finally did. He was a little more reluctant to share these inner, more personal thoughts and feelings with Ron and Hermione – not because he didn’t trust them, but because they were two people who, as hard as they would try, just wouldn’t fully understand. They’d been together since the end of the war, fallen madly in love, and things had only gone up from there. Sure, they’d had their share of rough patches and arguments (and they weren’t exactly rare), but they always came back together stronger, steadier than before.
They’d never had to navigate the awkward uncertainty of post-war dating – never had to struggle through dates, knowing that the person there didn’t want to date Harry, but Harry Potter, war hero. They’d never had to make up excuses for why a hookup couldn’t stay the night, sidestepping the truth about the nightmares, or the fact that Harry clung to people in his sleep like a koala – which, after a single shag, most people found a bit much.
Ron and Hermione had never had to come home to an empty house after a hard day, eat a silent, solitary dinner, and climb into a cold bed alone.
Whatever happened, Ron and Hermione never had to feel lonely or left behind because they always had each other. In ways that didn’t apply to Harry.
In all the ways that Ron and Hermione understood him, there were just as many ways that they didn’t – couldn’t, and it wasn’t their fault. Harry didn’t resent them for it; he never had, not really. His best friends wouldn’t understand how Harry felt about Draco Malfoy. How the feelings had popped up so quickly, so intensely, that it hardly made sense, and yet somehow made all the sense in the world. Made the only sense in a part of Harry’s life that had felt so lost.
Harry knew what he wanted. He wanted to kiss Draco again, obviously. He wanted to fuck him again, be inside him, touching him, just around him in some way. Harry wanted to see him in fancy robes, and his silk pyjamas, and a white shirt, and nothing at all. Harry wanted to go out flying with him, and to the pub; he also wanted to stay in, listen to the wireless, and discover what kind of books Draco enjoyed reading (Harry suspected all of them). He could show Draco the Black library, a room Harry rarely ventured into, and ask him about all the old, dodgy, possibly illegal and/or dangerous objects in the attic that Harry had never gotten around to sorting through due to his pitiful knowledge of wixen history. He could show Draco how much Grimmauld Place had changed, the work Harry had put into improving it. How much better it was now, even though it was still missing something; the light, warm comfort of shared space. Maybe also the reassurance that if he fell down the stairs to his death, or was impaled by a cursed candlestick while investigating the attic, it wouldn’t be Kreacher that found him in a pool of his blood days later.
All of that sounded quite a lot like dating. It sounded long-term. Which, after two shags in the bathroom and a handful of conversations, mostly non-hostile, was maybe a bit fast.
But then, Harry had always been a man of action, someone who leapt into things, braved the unknown – once he’d made the decision, that was.
And so Harry decided that Sunday afternoon, halfway through picking out the pickles in his sandwich, that he was going to ask out Draco Malfoy. He was only mildly apprehensive of humiliating rejection.
Every hour that ticked by since their last meeting made the prospect of reaching out even more awkward. Reaching out now would mean acknowledging that Harry hadn’t already. Not reaching out meant … something that felt like guilt and longing, twisted together in a knot beneath his ribs. Harry was used to waiting around for things to happen, but he suspected that if he was waiting around for Draco to contact him first, he would be waiting a very long time.
Pick up your bollocks and get on with it, Harry, he told himself. Who’s the Gryffindor here?
It turned out that the opportunity was thrust upon him later that same day. An hour before the end of his shift, Robards popped his head around Harry’s cubicle and let out a sigh of relief when he saw Harry was there.
“Ah, Potter. I need you to go and sort out a dispute between two lads and an elderly witch. I’ve got the Apparition coordinates—it’s a street in Frome, shouldn’t be too busy. Hopefully not too many nosy onlookers.”
Harry sighed and started pulling his robe on. “Is Sparrow coming with?”
Robards grimaced, the scar on his lip distorting the expression. “Ah, no. He went home an hour ago—food poisoning, apparently. You can handle this one on your own, though, I’m sure.” Robards dropped a memo with the Apparition coordinates on Harry’s desk. He turned to leave, but then paused and said, “I thought it was Finch? I’ve been calling him that near on twenty years.”
Harry shrugged, and Robards left him to it. With another sigh, Harry picked up the memo and inspected the coordinates, fastening his robe at the same time. He ran a hand through his hair, trying to make it slightly more presentable for the public, but then thought that looking more Harry Potter (War Hero) couldn’t be a bad thing when dealing with an angry civilian. After all, he knew exactly why Robards had wanted him to go and sort this out rather than any of the other Aurors on duty. Although the Mrs Miserables and Mr Grimblethorns of this world did exist, they were a very small minority among the Golden Boy worshipers. And to be honest, it was that point in the evening when Harry would put up with whatever it was if it meant he wasn’t stuck in a long, excruciating encounter with whoever was causing trouble in Frome.
Upon landing on the pavement (and stumbling into the window of a small corner shop with a Daily Prophet displayed in the window – a magical street, then), Harry palmed his wand and glanced around for any obvious disturbances. At first, the street appeared totally deserted; the road was empty but for a kneazle that darted across it and scurried down a nearby alley. Wishing he at least had Ron to chat to while he dealt with this shit, Harry began to walk down the street, keeping his ear out for any noise.
As he neared the end of the street, he felt a small prickle of magic cross his body, a little like the feeling of a soft blanket on bare skin. He recognised it immediately as a muffling charm of some kind, like a silencing charm. He turned the corner, his wand out now, and felt a little leap in his stomach as he spotted the vibrantly purple spectacle that was the Knight Bus parked in the middle of the street.
Harry passed the boundary of the Muffliato surrounding the area; once he was inside the charm, he started to pick up on the situation. His stomach felt all fluttery – he couldn’t remember if Draco was working that day, and the thought of seeing him in his uniform did strange things to Harry’s insides.
As he approached the vehicle, and the raised voices from within shifted into coherent phrases, a nervous smile crept onto Harry’s lips. He knew one of those voices, all right.
“Mrs Prindle—”
“It’s Ms, thank you, my husband has been dead for twenty-six years!”
“Ms Prindle, as I have explained to you nine times, you cannot take the slippers off the bus with you. They are charmed to return to the bed from which they appeared.”
“Well, I think as a passenger who has been riding this bus since before you were born, boy, I should be allowed to keep the slippers! Good heavens, this country used to be so much more pleasant…what happened to ‘Give gladly to thy magical kin?’”
“I believe that phrase fell out of fashion when people began to object that it always seemed to exclude Muggleborns whenever it was brought up.”
“Yes, well, there’s lots I could say about—”
“D.M.L.E., Auror Potter here.” Harry knocked on the window of the bus as he hopped up to announce himself. “We got a report of a dispute. Would anyone mind explaining the situation?”
The bus was empty, except for three people: Ms Prindle, an elderly witch wearing garish, old-fashioned robes and purple slippers, with a towering updo of grey curls adorned with various pins and clips; Blaise Zabini, his waistcoat undone and his tie tossed aside, his face taught with frustration; and Draco, whose uniform was impeccable, although his hair was loose and a little frizzy, as if he’d been tugging on it. Sex hair, Harry’s brain supplied extremely unhelpfully.
All three occupants seemed pleased by Harry’s appearance. Blaise and Draco looked relieved; Ms Prindle, on the other hand, looked moments away from suffering a cardiac event. One bony hand flew to her chest as she stared at Harry with wide, astonished eyes, as if Merlin himself had just strolled in, fresh from the grave.
She spluttered once, twice, and gasped, “Oh my—It’s Harry Potter!”
“So they say,” Draco said.
Harry felt his cheeks heat a little. “Uh, good evening—Ms Prindle, wasn’t it?”
The woman brushed her flyaway hairs hurriedly out of her face as she said, “Yes! But—you’re—you’re Harry Potter! Goodness me, I—well. Such a surprise!”
“It’s a regular miracle,” Draco said, watching Harry with a dry expression.
Harry tore his gaze away from Draco, clearing his throat. “Ms Prindle, I understand that you’re a little upset this evening?”
Ms Prindle’s face immediately shifted from awe to irritation – not at Harry, judging by the way she spoke to him as if he were her knight in shining armour, come to fight for justice on her behalf. “Quite right, I am upset! It is late, and I am tired and wanting to get home, and these young men are telling me that I am not allowed—not allowed, can you believe—to take the slippers with me!”
Blaise groaned. “We also want to get home, Ms Prindle. We don’t get paid overtime, you know—”
Predicting a disaster on the horizon, Harry quickly cut in before Ms Prindle had a chance to react. He pasted on his best saviour smile (and ignored the snort that Draco tried to stifle). “It sounds to me, Ms Prindle, as though it’s impossible for you to take the slippers with you. You know—” he ran a deliberate hand through his hair, letting his smile go a little crooked “—old magic, and all that. Don’t wanna mess with the Knight Bus and its historical charms.”
Ms Prindle visibly softened a bit, but she still looked unconvinced. Her frown was still present as she said, “I understand, Mr Potter, but I find it hard to believe that I cannot be allowed to just take a single pair of slippers. I’ve been using this service for decades—can exceptions not be made for loyal patrons such as myself?”
“No, they cannot, Ms Prindle,” Draco said, exasperation cutting through his mask. “Because, as I’ve repeated so many times that I fear the words will have rubbed friction burns into my vocal cords, there are charms in place that we cannot remove. The slippers cannot leave this vehicle in any way, physically, spiritually, emotionally—”
“Well, I never! Such rudeness! And to think I’d decided to give a Malfoy a second chance!”
Draco’s face shuttered, his flat mask back in place, and Harry had had enough.
Affecting an understanding tone, he leaned in towards Ms Prindle as if preparing to share a secret and said, “I completely sympathise, Ms Prindle. Everyone is so stingy nowadays—I mean, what happened to being generous towards strangers, eh?”
Ms Prindle looked mollified, so Harry went for phase two. “Now, I can’t get you these particular slippers—” he put a hand on hers and leaned in closer, dropping his voice “—but I reckon that if you head down to Fleetfoot’s Footwear in Diagon, they’ll be able to find you an identical pair. I hear royal purple is the in shade this season.”
“Who is going to pay for my new slippers, though, Mr Potter?”
“You, you old bat,” Blaise muttered; thankfully, Ms Prindle was too old and too deaf to hear him.
“Tell you what, Ms Prindle,” Harry said, his smile painful at the edges. He patted her hand. “You tell Fleetfoot’s Footwear to send the invoice for the slippers to Auror Potter at the Auror Department in the Ministry. I’ll settle that for you.”
“Well, I—that’s awfully kind of you, Mr Potter. I knew you would be just as lovely in person as you are in the papers!”
“You flatter me, Ms Prindle,” Harry said, already guiding her towards the front of the bus, one hand on her lower back. He glanced up; Draco rolled his eyes at Harry, although there was a small curve to his mouth. Harry winked.
“Now, Ms Prindle, would you like any help making your way home?”
The old woman waved a hand at him, her cheeks lightly flushed. “That’s quite all right, Mr Potter. My house is only across the street, there.”
Harry helped her down the steps and onto the pavement and handed her her purse. “You take care, Ms Prindle.”
“Thank you, Mr Potter. It was a delight to meet you. I’ll be telling the girls at my cross-stitching club how absolutely charming you are!”
“You’ll make me blush, Ms Prindle.” Harry was backing towards the safety of the bus. He waved her off, hesitating just as long as it took for Ms Prindle to cross the street and get to the other side in one unharmed piece. He darted back onto the bus and rested his forehead against the cool glass window, groaning.
“Fucking hell.”
“Who knew you could be so charming, Potter?” Draco was leaning against one of the bedposts, his lips curled up at one corner. “Why, I was almost impressed.”
Harry rubbed a tired hand through his hair, aware that it was especially messy and unusually self-conscious about it. “I think that’s, like, all my charm used up for the year.”
“Who needs charm when you’re Harry Potter?” Blaise said, rolling his neck, which gave an audible pop.
Harry snorted. “You’d be surprised. I get the impression that most people’s interactions with me are rather disappointing.”
“Well, you’ve certainly made Ms Prindle’s year. She’ll probably have that story written in her eulogy as the happiest moment of her life,” Draco commented, his hands behind his head as he scraped his hair into a knot. It did strange things to Harry’s insides when he wore his hair like that; it reminded him of the first time he’d seen Draco on the Knight Bus.
“Fuck, I’m tired,” Blaise groaned. He checked his watch. “Our shift ended ages ago, Draco. Can we get the bloody bus back to London, already? So next shift can take over.”
“Definitely,” Draco said. He glanced at Harry and smiled. “Want a ride back to the Ministry, Potter?”
“My shift is over now, too,” Harry said, heart in his throat for some reason. He coughed and said, “I’m gonna, uh, deal with the report for this shit tomorrow.” Drawing his wand, he cast a Patronus to send back to Robards, saying something like, ‘Dispute sorted. Going home now.’ He didn’t want to accidentally initiate a Harry Potter search party.
Blaise hummed. “Home, then? Remind me of the address again.”
Harry swallowed. “Twelve Grimmauld Place.”
He knew that Draco had noticed the change of address – the specific house number. His eyes widened slightly, and his gaze was bright and intense, like a storm held still – all grey clouds and lightning.
Harry couldn’t say when he’d started trusting Draco Malfoy, only that he did. The only thing he didn’t trust was that Draco would want Harry in all the same ways that Harry wanted him.
You’ll never know unless you ask, Hermione’s voice echoed inside his head.
So (and Harry was not looking forward to seeing her smug expression when she found out that he’d followed her advice), he swallowed his nerves and said, “Er. Would you, uh, like to come back to mine?” Draco’s eyes widened, and Harry quickly continued, “You can see my horrible house—say hello to your Aunt Walburga. And I’ve got an awful family tapestry with all the good people blasted off of it.”
Draco’s surprise gave way to a smile so dazzling it made Harry’s breath catch. “With an offer as tempting as that,” he said, voice low and amused, “how could I refuse?”
“You could ask Draco to go litter picking with you, Potter, and he wouldn’t refuse,” Blaise chimed in, the smirk evident in his voice.
“Oh, I absolutely would.” Somehow, Draco looked perfectly relaxed – a stark contrast to the slightly giddy somersaults Harry’s stomach was currently doing. “I’m proud to say I’ll do many things to serve the community, but I have a line. And I draw it at picking up other people’s rubbish.”
Despite his nervous energy, Harry grinned. “Would you dress up as an elf at Christmas to hand out presents to underprivileged kids? Ron does that every year.”
With what looked like a painful level of effort, Draco said, “I…could be—possibly—persuaded.”
“You’d look very fetching in a pair of stripy tights,” Harry said, grinning.
“If you want to see me in tights, Potter, you can just ask.”
Well fuck, now he’d said that, Harry couldn’t stop picturing it. He sort of really wanted to see that, actually. “Would you really?”
“What, wear tights?”
“That too.”
“Twelve Grimmauld Place!” Blaise’s voice came from the front of the bus as it gave one final, dramatic lurch and squealed to a halt. “Here we are.” He poked his head around the wall that separated the driver’s seat from the rest of the bus. He was smirking.
“Enjoy your evening, old chaps.” He turned to Draco. “Shall I expect you home tomorrow?”
“You’re a meddlesome cow, Blaise,” Draco scoffed, although his cheeks were pink.
The bus rumbled softly like a sleeping beast as Draco strode past Blaise, muttering something about ‘subtlety being dead.’ Harry followed, feeling oddly weightless as they stepped down onto the quiet, shadowed pavement.
Draco adjusted his sleeves like it was any other evening, then turned to watch the Knight Bus jolt once and lurch away, rattling off and quickly gaining speed. It was still faster than any muggle bus, though noticeably slower than Harry remembered from the past. In its wake, it left a ripple of displaced air and the scent of burnt fuel.
Beneath that, faint but lingering, the soft echo of everything Harry still wasn’t sure he’d said.
They were alone now, shoulder to shoulder in the empty square, bathed in the yellow glow of a flickering lamppost. Harry’s heart thudded behind his ribs, all of it feeling a little unreal, like a vision he’d accidentally conjured that could dissolve at any moment.
Draco turned to face the row of houses, brows slightly lifted.
“Huh,” he said, gazing at number twelve.
“Oh, yeah,” Harry said. “Fidelius Charm, you know…” He fiddled with the buttons on his robe, suddenly unsure what to do with his hands or his mouth or the way his heart was tripping over itself. Feeling like he’d forgotten how to do this part.
He supposed he never really had, not like this. He’d brought people home before, and he’d had sex with Draco before, too, but he’d never brought someone home and needed so badly for things to go well. He’d never entered his house with someone and been thinking, not of the immediate promise of sex, but of the potential for a morning after, of waking up in his bed tangled around someone else. The newness of it all made Harry feel momentarily overwhelmed.
“Come on, Potter,” Draco said, surprising Harry by taking his hand. “Show me around your ghastly house. I want to see my aunt—it’s been so long since we last caught up.”
Harry snorted, his nerves easing. “Alright, then.” Together, they walked across the square to Harry’s front steps. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Their entry into the house was, thankfully, met with peaceful silence – peaceful only because it was free from Walburga Black’s screeching. Any other time, Harry found the silence unsettling. It’s why he often left the wireless on when he wasn’t listening to it.
“Quick thing,” Harry said as he slid his robe off and hung it on the hook by the door. “Er, just…be gentle with Kreacher. He’s pretty old—the presence of a blood descendant of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black might actually trigger a stroke.”
The lamps flickered to life in the hallway, and Draco gazed around as he took off his shoes. Before he could place them on the shoe rack, however, a pop rang through the air, and Kreacher appeared before them. His pointy nose touched the ground as he dropped into a deep bow.
Looking slightly apprehensive under the weight of Harry’s pointed look, Draco cleared his throat and said, “Good evening, Kreacher.”
Kreacher looked up, his wide, watery eyes fixed on Draco. In his croaking voice, he said, “The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black is most pleased that Master Malfoy has returned to it. The house has been in mourning without the blood of a Black within its walls.”
“Charming as always, Kreacher,” Harry said, rubbing a palm over his face. “Would you mind, er…I dunno, going somewhere else?”
Harry let out an oof as Draco’s pointy elbow got him in the ribs. “Don’t be rude, Potter. It was a pleasure to see you, Kreacher.”
Once Kreacher had disappeared into the depths of the house again, Draco’s forced smile fell, and he pulled a face. “Merlin, do you think he plans to drain my blood and paint the walls with it?”
“Possibly,” Harry said, his lips twitching. “I won’t let him. Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried,” Draco scoffed, crossing his arms. His gaze was flickering around the hallway, the curtained portrait of Walburga, the staircase. Some of his easy confidence had left him, a hint of uncertainty edging through the cracks in his carefully maintained composure.
“I’ll keep a very close eye on you,” Harry reassured him, the corner of his mouth curling into a smile.
“I’m sure you will,” Draco muttered. He turned to face Harry and seemed momentarily surprised at how close they were, close enough that Harry could see the delicate blue veins beneath his eyelids.
Draco raised his eyebrows. “Is your eyesight that terrible? What’s your plan here, Potter?” Harry could feel his breath against his face, sweet and warm.
“That depends,” Harry said softly, “on how close you’ll let me get.”
Draco looked at him for one, two beats that felt like minutes, his gaze a quiet sea, grey and deep and searching. Then, like the tide, he crashed over Harry in a wave of motion; hands, pulling him in by the waist; lips, sliding against his and exhaling a sigh into Harry’s mouth. It was heated and deep, the kind of kiss that made Harry’s knees weak and his hands greedy.
Harry pressed his palms to Draco’s face, cupping his cheeks and holding him like a pearl as he returned the kiss with equal feeling. Capturing the soft sound that escaped Draco’s lips and drinking it in, holding it inside.
His cock was hard against Draco’s hip, and growing harder as he moved them so that Draco was pressed against the wall, trapped between Harry and the renovated walls. Swapping the creepy wallpaper for paint had been one of the first changes he’d made.
And Draco looked right in the cosy, inviting entrance way. It drew out the softer parts of him, highlighted the gold undertone of his hair, the warm pink of his skin. His pointed chin and the sharp angles of his body seemed softer here, too.
Harry reached around to pull Draco’s hair free from its bun, letting it fall around his face. He ran his fingers through it as their mouths connected, over and over, wet and warm and surprisingly slow, as if there was no rush. As if they had all the time in the world.
Maybe they could, Harry’s brain whispered, the thought kindling slow and soft, like the way Draco’s hair slipped through his fingers. He didn’t tug or grip too hard; he didn’t hold on. He just felt it – the weight, the softness, the ease of it all – and let the moment unfold without asking too much of it. He let it settle, as Draco’s breath brushed against his cheek and the world held still for them.
Draco’s arms around his waist pulled him closer, his clothed erection visibly straining his smart trousers. Harry pressed their hips together, lining up their cocks and rolling his hips. Draco moaned, turning his face to the side, his neck bared practically in invitation. Harry attached his lips to the pale skin, licking and kissing but not biting – not yet. The moans Draco let out were small, breathy, almost sweet, and Harry found he couldn’t get enough of them.
Harry pressed Draco a little harder against the wall as he rolled his hips again, the curtain of dark fabric beside them shifting as Draco brushed against it. Harry was too lost in sensation to register the curtain rustling, but then he was yanked firmly back to shore by the blood-curdling shriek that ripped through the hallway.
“FILTH! SHAME! Abominations of nature defiling the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black!”
Draco flinched hard enough that his skull hit the wall with a dull thunk. Harry leapt back, breathless as he drew his wand, his Auror instincts on sudden alert.
Massaging the back of his head, Draco pushed off the wall and stared at the shrieking portrait. Walburga’s fury was fixed entirely on Harry; her face flushed an ugly red as she howled obscenities, her voice shrill and rising as she battered him with a storm of personal insults and less creative generic homophobia.
“How dare you! Twisting magic with your perversions!” Her eyes fell on Draco, and they seemed to bug out of her head. Her face contorted into a hideous mask of rage, and she screamed, “YOU! You disgrace the House of Black! Our Noble and Most Ancient bloodline—”
With a flick of his wand, Draco resealed the curtain, muffling Walburga’s shrieks. After a few moments, she fell silent once more.
“Well,” Draco said, slipping his wand back into his pocket, “now that the pleasantries are out of the way, what do you say we—”
“House tour?” Harry interrupted. He took Draco’s hand and pulled him towards the stairs. “Great idea. Do you mind if we start upstairs?”
“Well, I rather wanted to see the library—”
Harry paused on the stairs to tug Draco in close, cutting him off by pressing their mouths together. They snogged for a few minutes; when they broke apart, Draco was panting. Harry dragged him up the rest of the stairs and along the hallway, clear destination in mind.
“Nice,” Draco said as he was pulled along, “but I’d still like to see the—”
Harry flung open a door to their left and shoved Draco in front of it, holding him tight at the waist so Draco could peer in but not move.
“There’s your fucking library,” Harry growled. He yanked the door closed with a twitch of his wandless magic and pulled them onwards. He ignored Draco’s small sound of surprise and the snorts of laughter that followed, and didn’t slow his pace until they were outside the door to his bedroom.
“It’s all far less…gothic than I remember.”
Harry huffed out a laugh. “Velvet snake-patterned wallpaper wasn’t really my style.”
His bedroom was one of the only rooms that hadn’t been completely redecorated. He’d kept much of Sirius’ decorations, but he’d changed things, too. Modernised some of the furniture; kept the antique pieces that were actually quite nice (mostly the stuff not covered in carved snakes). He’d managed to remove the posters of bikini-clad women, but he’d kept the ones of motorcycles. And of course, the Gryffindor flag hung proudly on the wall, though Harry had shrunk it to a less overwhelming size. He didn’t think Sirius would’ve minded.
The flag was the first thing that caught Draco’s attention, obviously. He stared at it for a moment and then fixed Harry with an incredulous look. “Are you serious?”
“Hey, at least my sheets aren’t red and gold anymo—mphh!” Harry was cut off as he found himself with an armful of Draco Malfoy, who was shoving him backwards towards his bed. He laughed into Draco’s mouth as he was pushed by the hands on his chest; he toppled onto his back, landing on his firm mattress. He shuffled back and grinned up at Draco, who was yanking off his purple waistcoat with a very un-Malfoy-ish disregard for the buttons.
Harry reached out and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, pulling until Draco was in his lap, straddling his thighs. They kissed, heated and messy, and when Draco pulled back, he’d managed to undo all the buttons on his shirt.
“You look good in purple,” Harry murmured, nosing at Draco’s neck, kissing the spot below his ear.
“I look good in every colour,” Draco said. He moaned as Harry grazed his teeth along his throat. “Except red.” Another moan. “Too pale.”
“Good thing I changed my sheets then.” Harry flipped them over so he was leaning over Draco, his knee between Draco’s legs, pressing against the bulge in his trousers. “You look good against my sheets.”
“Well, sage green is one of my colours.” As if to prove his point, Draco writhed a little beneath him, stretching his arms above his head so his shirt fell open across his chest. The scars were like a sharp stab to Harry’s gut, but he pushed the feeling aside; this wasn’t the moment for that. There were things he wanted to do.
Harry slid Draco’s shirt from his shoulders and tossed it aside. He undid the fastenings on Draco’s trousers and regretfully lifted himself off of Draco, standing by the bed to remove them. He gestured to Draco’s feet, and Draco laughed as he presented each foot as if he were Cinderella trying on her slipper. Harry removed each sock and dropped them to the floor, allowing himself to gaze at the long, lithe body spread out in front of him.
God, but he was just so beautiful. And sage green was his colour – although he’d look even better against blue sheets. Harry ran his hands along the delicate bones of his ankles before stilling his touch, letting his eyes roam hungrily, drinking in their fill.
The first time they’d fucked had been fast and desperate, with that edge of teasing that made it feel like something to be won.
This was nothing like that. This was needy and heated, but … with an edge of care that came with familiarity.
“Are you just going to look?”
Harry glanced up at Draco’s raised eyebrow and smiled; he removed his hands from Draco’s legs and reached for his belt. He swiftly divested himself of his trousers and socks beneath Draco’s heated gaze. His pewter eyes were dark, his pupils wide as Harry’s skin was revealed to him for the first time.
When he was in just his pants and t-shirt, Harry leaned over Draco and kissed him, bracing his arms on the bed beside Draco’s head. In no time he found himself flipped onto his back again, which he didn’t mind at all because Draco was a solid, warm weight on his hips, their cocks pressing together through the thin cotton of their pants.
“Fuck, I wanna fuck you again,” Harry groaned against Draco’s lips. Draco’s gaze darkened, and he nipped Harry’s bottom lip with his teeth, soothing it with a tiny lick that had Harry rutting up against him, trying to get some friction against his aching cock.
Draco held his hips just out of reach; he leaned in to Harry’s ear and whispered, “Say please.”
Harry didn’t care if he was supposed to argue. He just wanted Draco to touch him. “Please.”
The twitching curl of Draco’s lips was almost fond. “So easy, Potter. And they say you can resist the Imperius curse.” He began to circle his hips in a maddening grind, and Harry let out a low moan.
You’re not the Imperius curse, Harry thought. He placed his hands on Draco’s hips to aid his movements, pulling him in harder as Harry ground up against him.
Draco plucked at Harry’s t-shirt. “Since when were you someone who did things half-arsed, Potter?”
“I’m not.” Staying true to this, Harry leaned up and reached for the hem of his t-shirt; he took a breath before pulling it over his head in one smooth motion.
He held his breath as Draco’s eyes took him all in; the firm muscle of his stomach, the scars on his chest that were no longer visible beneath the sweep of something new – strokes of colour where scarred skin used to be. Where it still was, underneath. Only it was now concealed by a mark that Harry had chosen to carry instead.
Draco stared at the swirling coloured ink, the red and orange that bloomed outwards from his chest to his shoulder and curled around his ribs. Harry shivered as Draco pressed a light, almost curious palm over part of his tattoo. Nobody else had ever touched his chest like that – or any part of him like that, really. Other people’s touches always bordered on awe, but never curiosity.
“You have a—”
“Yeah,” Harry interrupted, low and quiet.
“What does it mean?”
Harry groaned as Draco shifted his hips. “Can I tell you after?” He said breathily, huffing out a small laugh as Draco ground his hips down again.
“I’ll hold you to that,” Draco said.
Things moved quickly from there. Harry removed their pants, leaving them both gloriously naked, fevered bodies pressed against each other from chest to feet. He rolled Draco over onto his stomach and ran his hands along his back, feeling the nobs of his spine and thinking wildly that Draco could do with a few of Mrs Weasley’s gargantuan Sunday roasts. Harry felt along the faintly textured skin of Draco’s upper back and shoulders, where the small scars were the most concentrated. Draco shivered with each touch, his head resting in his folded arms.
Harry trailed kisses along Draco’s skin, sliding lower until he was lightly nipping at his arsecheeks. He was hunched over Draco, his palms holding his hips steady as he pressed wet kisses to the crease of between Draco’s thigh and his arse.
Draco made a muffled sound, and Harry lifted his head; he tapped Draco’s thigh.
“Up,” he said, his voice husky.
Draco seemed to understand the direction; he shuffled forward, bringing his knees underneath him, his arms folded beneath his head, cushioning it. He tilted his head and gazed at Harry, his cheeks flushed in the soft light of the room. His breath hitched as Harry cast a wandless charm, his flush deepening, and then he let out a broken moan at the first touch of Harry’s tongue.
Harry licked a broad stroke over his arsehole, and then did it again, using his hands to hold Draco’s cheeks apart. He kept his tongue flat and wide, repeating the movements until the puckered skin was wet and shining with saliva. The sounds Draco made were obscene, enough to drive Harry mad with longing – breathy whines and long, muffled moans. Harry ignored his own erection, which was flushed near purple at the tip and steadily leaking precome against his sheets.
When Harry fastened his lips around Draco’s hole and sucked, Draco yelped and writhed, somehow pressing both away and towards Harry’s face. Harry held him firmly by the arse and kept an unrelenting rhythm of licks and suction, so that Draco was soon a quivering mess.
At the first probing stab of his tongue, Draco let out a choked moan. The point of Harry’s tongue slid past his rim as deep as it would go, but before Harry could start fucking him with his tongue, Draco was pulling away.
“Fuck me now,” he said, his voice sounding wrecked. He went to turn around, but Harry grabbed him none too gently by the hips and yanked him back.
“I’m not done,” he growled, thrusting his tongue right back where it belonged.
“I’m fucking—nngh—ready you absolute—oh fuck—” Draco broke off with a whine.
“Yes?” Harry murmured against his saliva-slick hole. His chin was wet with spit, and his jaw ached, and he couldn’t have cared less.
“Wanker,” Draco finished, the impact ruined by the fact that it came out as a high-pitched moan.
All the beautiful sounds he was making were muffled against his arms and Harry’s sheets, and Harry decided that that was not on. With a burst of spectacular horny inspiration, he released Draco and flopped down onto his back beside him; he ignored Draco’s confusion and grabbed a handful of his round, taut arse to pull him closer.
“Come sit,” Harry said, finally succumbing to the urge and giving his prick a leisurely stroke, groaning at how fucking good it felt, how sensitive he was. “On my face.”
Draco’s eyes widened, and the sound that left him was high and sharp. He seemed annoyed by it, but Harry chuckled and tugged him up the length of his body.
“I will manhandle you up here. Don’t make me get out my D.M.L.E-issued restraints.”
“Sounds terrible,” Draco murmured, lifting a leg to swing over Harry’s waist. He ended up straddling Harry backwards. “Really unpleasant, I’m sure.”
He squeaked as Harry’s hands gripped his hipbones, lifting him slowly up the inked terrain of his chest. Draco was a vision, his pale skin blazed against the vibrant, tattooed flames; an echo of a past darkness, now reshaped into something breathtaking. A different kind of heat pulsed between them. A different kind of fire.
Once Draco was situated comfortably above him, Harry got right back to business; he spread Draco open and licked up into him, his tongue thrusting in and out with as much rhythm as he could manage while Draco’s weight was pressing down against him. Draco tried to hold himself up at first, his thighs shaking with the effort, but he slowly relaxed under Harry’s encouraging moans. Eventually, his full weight was resting against Harry’s chest, and he began to rock his hips backwards, riding Harry’s tongue – which was now officially the hottest thing Harry had ever seen.
Draco’s arms were raised, holding his hair up and out of his face as he pressed his arse back, his pleasure wanton and open. He kept his hands away from his own prick, and Harry hoped he’d keep it that way; he wanted to make Draco come from Harry’s efforts alone.
His hips were jerking, and Harry held him tight as he thrust his tongue up, Draco’s loosened channel dripping with spit now. “Oh, fuck, I’m—” Draco choked out a moan, jerking again. “So good, I’m close, I’m—”
His hands reached behind him to bury in Harry’s hair, holding his head in place, and Harry let out a loud, rumbling moan. The vibration seemed to do it, because Draco started to come. He moaned and gasped above Harry as his arsehole spasmed around Harry’s tongue.
“Holy mother of Merlin,” he gasped, once he’d regained use of his vocal cords.
“It’s impolite to say another man’s name whilst you’re coming on someone else’s tongue,” Harry said breathlessly, letting his head fall back.
Draco didn’t even seem to notice Harry parroting his comment from their first time. He collapsed forward, his body going boneless on top of Harry’s, his chest heaving with gasping breaths. His head rested right beside the curls at Harry’s groin.
After a moment, he seemed to realise this, because Harry felt the feather-light touch of fingers circling the base of his weeping cock.
“Well, hello,” Draco murmured, his tired voice tinged with a sort of mischievous lust.
“God,” Harry groaned, as hot pleasure rippled through him like electricity. His balls were tight and aching. “I’m gonna come if you keep doing that.”
“Mmmm.” Draco hummed as he continued circling Harry’s cock with his barely-there touch. It was excruciating as much as it was incredible.
He flicked his tongue against the head of Harry’s cock and asked casually, “Still want to fuck me?”
“Do I—” Harry shook his head disbelievingly, the haze of desire making his thoughts fuzzy as Draco continued to stroke his prick – more firmly now, his other hand tracing circles on his lower stomach.
“Do you?” Another stroke, another lick at the crown.
“Uhh.”
With a huff, Draco abruptly let go of Harry’s cock and sat up, turning around so he sat facing Harry. God – his scarred stomach was smeared with his release, his soft cock already starting to harden again. He was flushed, lightly sweaty, and looked completely unreal on top of Harry like this.
“I don’t know why you’re so incapable of speech. You didn’t come.”
That was funny, Harry thought; speech was something Draco never seemed incapable of.
Draco leaned down and kissed him, a hard, deep melding of mouths that almost made Harry forget where he was, where they were.
He was swiftly reminded by the tight fist that enclosed around the base of his cock, squeezing almost to the point of discomfort. “Wake up, Potter.”
Contrary to his words, Draco’s expression as he gazed down at Harry was amused. The corner of his mouth curled up, and there was a glint in his eyes – hungry, knowing, infuriatingly in control. He rolled his hips back just enough to make Harry twitch beneath him. “Lube?”
Harry waved his hand; the entirety of Draco’s left hand was coated in slick, shiny liquid, dripping down his wrist.
Whoops, Harry thought. Maybe he’d overdone it a bit.
“That’s sufficient, thank you,” Draco said, lips twitching.
His erection had returned, and he gave it a few lazy strokes with his slicked-up hand. Harry watched him, gaze heavy and cock even heavier, his entire body vibrating with need. When Draco reached back and coated Harry’s prick liberally, Harry had to bite his lip, the pleasure almost too much. He was so close – had been furiously turned on for so long – that he was worried it would be over before it really got started. Draco wouldn’t let him forget that for a while.
Draco shifted around until Harry’s prick was sliding into the crevice of his arse. He rose up, reaching behind himself to grasp Harry’s cock with a slick hand and guiding it to his entrance. Harry could feel the puckered skin against the tip of his cock and let out a low moan. Draco probed for a moment, searching for the right angle – and then, thighs trembling, lowered himself onto Harry’s cock. He did it in one smooth slide and stayed perfectly still once Harry bottomed out. He sat atop Harry like a Greek marble statue, all smooth white flesh, his lip caught between his teeth as his eyes fluttered shut.
Harry’s hands grabbed for his thighs, his waist, anything to steady himself and resist the urge to thrust up because sweet fucking Merlin, Draco’s arse was squeezing him to perfection and Harry wasn’t known for strong self-control. He was so fucking tight, his inner muscles working to accommodate Harry as they both trembled from the overwhelm of sensation.
Draco adjusted his seat a little, his eyes still closed, and his lip swollen from his teeth. Harry let out a broken moan and jerked his hips up – a reflex movement despite his efforts not to move. Draco’s fingers tightened on his thighs, digging into Harry’s flesh, as a low sound escaped him.
“Sorry,” Harry whispered, caressing the pale skin of Draco’s thighs, his hips, soothing with his touch. He gradually felt Draco relaxing, the vice around his cock easing to a more bearable squeeze.
He continued to run his hands along Draco’s skin until his eyes blinked open, and he said, “You can move now.”
“Yeah?”
“Are you deaf as well as blind?—Oh.” Draco made a sharp noise as Harry gave a short thrust upward, one hand slipping from Harry’s chest; he grabbed onto Harry’s bicep instead. He canted his hips forward a little and leaned back, and on the next stroke he made a different sound, a throaty “Uhhh” that made Harry dizzy.
Draco rode him hard and slow, his hips rolling, his thigh muscles working as he lifted himself up before falling back onto Harry’s cock. He let his head fall back, eyes fluttering shut. God, Draco didn’t even need to look at him for Harry to feel consumed by him, entirely and hopelessly.
It was so good, too good – Harry felt himself nearing the edge embarrassingly fast. If that was the case, then he at least wanted Draco to come just as quickly.
Harry flattened his feet on the bed, bending his knees and changing the angle of his thrusts, pumping his hips in a smooth, hard slide in and out. Draco gasped and fell forward, his hands slipping from Harry’s broad, sweaty chest to wrap loosely around his neck. Draco’s hair tickled Harry’s skin, and Harry wrapped his arms around his back, keeping Draco in a firm hold as he thrust his hips up, drawing sharp, muffled moans from Draco. Each sound was like a song, a perfect ringing note to Harry’s soul, his heart, and he couldn’t help but cling tighter, thrust slower, drawing it out.
It felt like he’d never be able to hold him tight enough, thrust deep enough. This would never last long enough.
Maybe it came from growing up with little to no possessions to call his own; maybe it came from having the things he cared about snatched away from him without a chance to ever process exactly what he’d lost. But Harry had never known how to eat his food without inhaling it. He didn’t know how to eat just one cauldron cake, and not the whole box. He didn’t know how to buy just one toy for Teddy, and not the whole shop. He didn’t know how to buy just the one broomstick, and not each new model that came out. He didn’t know how to get involved a little, just a little bit, and stop there.
Harry didn’t know how to want. How to have a little and not demand all. He didn’t know how to kiss Draco and then stop, to have him once and then … not have him.
But then, Harry thought – maybe that was okay. Maybe there didn’t need to be urgency. Maybe he didn’t have to take everything all at once.
There could be time. Time to hold Draco, to map the places that made him sigh and learn every way he liked to be touched. Maybe he didn’t have to gather every moment in trembling hands.
He gathered this one, though. He pushed his hands through Draco’s hair to move it out of the way and cupped his face, capturing his lips as his orgasm finally crashed over him. Harry arched up into him, moaning into his mouth as he spilt his release inside him. Draco had his hand between their bodies and was jerking his prick, all speed, no technique as he followed Harry over the edge with a gasp of, “Oh fuck—Harry—”
And Harry kissed him through it; kissed him as his trembling limbs stopped holding him, and he went boneless in Harry’s arms. Kissed him as his cock slipped out, soft and sticky – as his come leaked out of Draco’s arse. He kissed him until Draco made a soft noise and rolled off of him, sprawling on the mattress beside Harry.
“Circe,” he said, breathless, flinging his forearm over his face. His chest still heaving, Harry turned his head to look at him, admiring his profile, his sweat-shiny skin. Draco turned his head too and caught Harry watching him. His expression was so open, so soft. “What?”
Harry shook his head, a smile pulling at his lips. “Nothing.”
Clearly not believing this, Draco rolled his eyes and said, “Should’ve known you were a cuddler”, though Harry hadn’t moved. In one wriggling motion, Draco curled his body into Harry’s side, throwing a leg over and resting his head on Harry’s shoulder. Harry blinked and tried not to combust; instead, he gently wrapped his arm around Draco, resting his hand on his waist and softly stroking the bare skin. Considering Harry had been declared the cuddler, Draco was the one who seemed perfectly content, whereas Harry was afraid to make any sudden movements in case it all came crashing down around him.
Draco shifted and made a sound of discomfort. “Every crevice is sticky.”
With a soft snort, Harry cast a wandless cleaning charm. As an afterthought, he used a clumsy wandless spell to lift the lightweight quilt at the end of his bed over the two of them, draping it around their waists.
Draco hummed. “Thanks.”
They lay together in a silence that was warm, like sunlight through a window – gentle and present. Draco’s fingers traced the patches of colour on Harry’s golden skin, following the feathering lines. His touch asked the question without the need for words.
“I got it pretty soon after the war.” Harry swallowed, his own fingers stroking Draco’s ribs. “There were scars I didn’t want to see anymore. I hated the reminder. It felt like it was stopping me from moving on, you know? Like, I couldn’t become anything new because I was stuck there, always seeing it when I undressed.”
Draco ran his finger along a nipple, and Harry twitched. His touch trailed up to Harry’s shoulder.
“Why a phoenix?”
Harry turned his head so he could watch Draco, even though the other man was busy gazing at Harry’s body. “My wand core is a phoenix feather. Also, a bit for Fawkes—you know, Dumbledore’s phoenix. He was a great bird—saved my life once.” It was one of the scars Harry didn’t mind, and hadn’t been desperate to cover – the small, starburst puncture from a basilisk fang. Fawkes had healed him, of course, but these things always left marks.
“After I got it, Hermione pointed out that phoenixes represent—you know, rebirth, and everything. Continuity of the soul and all that. That’s kinda what happened to me, I guess.” Harry gave an embarrassed chuckle. “So—yeah. Feels…appropriate.”
Draco was quiet as he pondered this. Then: “I would have assumed you just thought it looked cool.”
“Well, there’s that, too,” Harry said with a grin.
He went back and forth about whether to ask, but he decided to just do it. “Why didn’t you cover yours?”
Draco stiffened, and Harry hastened to add, “I’m not saying you should have. I just wondered…why?”
Although he relaxed a bit, Draco was still tenser than he had been. Stiffly, he said, “I couldn’t, right after the war. Didn’t feel right.”
Harry dropped his hand to stroke along the inside of Draco’s forearm – his right one, not his left, but Draco shivered anyway. “I thought you were letting it all be water under your bridge. If it’s something you wanted, why not tattoo over it now?”
“I—because—I need to remember.”
“What, so you can feel guilty?” Harry leaned his head back to try to see Draco’s face. “I thought you weren’t doing that anymore.”
Draco’s hair tickled Harry’s bare skin as he shook his head. “No, it’s not that. I mean—obviously, I am guilty, you know. Of everything I…everything I did. Right after the war, the guilt was stronger than I was. I mean—” Draco gave a tight, painful laugh “—It doesn’t take much to be stronger than I am. But—well, anyway. I told myself: if I let go of the guilt, then I have to keep this reminder of my biggest mistake. And then, you know—hopefully I won’t make any more, going forward.”
Harry didn’t know what to say, so he did the only thing he could think of; he slid his arms around Draco’s waist, tightened them. He could feel that Draco was trembling, ever so slightly.
He didn’t lean into it, exactly, but he didn’t pull away either. After a moment, he exhaled, sharp and almost amused, although Harry wasn’t fooled even a little.
“I’ve a talent for making mistakes. I thought I was getting better, but then I went out with Ernie Macmillian for a bit—wasn’t anything serious, but you know. Big fucking mistake.” Draco’s laugh was empty of humour. “I always wore long sleeves with him. I thought that even though I have to see the reminder of my fuck-up, he shouldn’t have to. He said it didn’t bother him, and maybe it didn’t. Not the Mark, anyway. Just the rest of me.” Draco shrugged with studied nonchalance. “Just because people are willing to look past something, doesn’t mean they forgive it. That became pretty obvious when he shared a few tasteful nudes of me with the rest of his office. Sans Dark Mark, of course.”
Draco’s sharp smile didn’t reach his eyes. He didn’t look at Harry. Didn’t fidget, either. Just lie very still, like moving might make something crack. It felt like silence was the only thing that belonged in the space Draco had just made, but Harry had to get his words off his chest. It felt vitally important that he say it, no matter how clumsy he might sound.
“I’m not looking past anything.” A pause. “I mean—I’ve seen it all. More than anyone else, probably.” He swallowed, aware of the weight of his own words, of how much they might mean – or how much Draco might not believe them. Still, he pressed on.
“You can wear short sleeves with me. You can wear whatever you like.” There was a flicker of something unreadable on Draco’s face. He hadn’t moved, hadn’t spoken. Harry felt the moment stretching too taut, too serious, and something in him itched to pull it back, to give them both space to breathe again.
His smile was crooked when he said, “Preferably nothing, of course.”
That did it – Draco let out a scoffing breath, not quite a laugh, but not nothing either. Grinning, Harry added, “I wouldn’t mind that leather miniskirt, either.”
“In your dreams, Potter.”
“We’ll see,” Harry said, yawning into his hand as he stretched his arm above his head. “Don’t wake me up and ruin my fun if I start drooling in my sleep.”
Draco watched the ceiling as if it had something important to share. Half-smiling, Harry said, “Were you planning to leave?”
Draco’s gaze flickered over to him then. “You want me to stay?”
In response, Harry tightened his arms around Draco’s waist and tangled their legs together. Their exhales mingled, and their breaths slowly fell in sync with each other.
After a soft, comfortable moment, Harry said, “Seriously, unless I’m, like, groping you in my sleep, don’t wake me up. My magic can get a bit…unpredictable when I’m woken up unexpectedly. Nothing dangerous, just…yeah.”
Draco hummed. “What sort of thing? Levitating furniture? Indoor rain clouds? Wilted plants or blown lamps?”
“Yes.”
“To which?”
“Er…yes?”
Draco snorted disbelievingly, and Harry felt himself grinning as well. He reached down and pulled the quilt up higher so they were safely cocooned, Draco’s head on Harry’s shoulder, his soft prick resting against Harry’s thigh.
Harry had almost completely drifted to sleep when he heard Draco’s whisper in the quiet, dark room.
“Harry?”
Stirring, Harry tilted his head and inhaled deeply, smelling sweat and Draco’s shampoo. “Hmm?”
“Am I still on the family tapestry?”
Harry blinked his eyes open. Draco was so warm in his arms. “Yeah, you are.”
Draco was quiet for a minute. Then:
“In the morning, can we blast me off it?”
Harry smiled. “Absolutely.” He yawned, letting his breath brush through Draco’s hair. “Now, go to sleep.”
And Draco did – wrapped up in Harry’s embrace, in his bed and settled beneath the quilt Mrs Weasley had lovingly made for him.
For Harry, sleep came easily, pulling him under without resistance. He slipped into a dreamless slumber, carrying the quiet certainty that whatever shit he had to do tomorrow, however boring or tedious a day lay ahead, he’d be able to get out of bed and face it.
Because he wouldn’t have to start the day alone.
* * *
Harry woke slowly, the kind of waking that was unurgent, without alarms or abrupt noises. Just warmth, and his soft quilt draped across his chest, the familiar weight pressing him gently into the mattress. His muscles were loose, lightly sore, his body heavy in that pleasant, boneless way that only came after a deep sleep. The pipes of Grimmauld groaned and creaked, as always, but the sound was familiar and made the morning feel more alive – like everything else had begun its day already. Settled into its reassuring routine.
For a few blissful seconds, he didn’t think, didn’t move – he just let himself drift at the edge of consciousness, the faint scent of something familiar clinging to the pillow pressed to his cheek. Harry turned his face, inhaling deeply; it smelled sweet and sharp, like citrus – like Draco. Harry’s lips curved into a smile before he’d even opened his eyes, and his body shifted automatically, instinctively, reaching out and expecting to feel warm skin beneath his hand.
His touch met nothing but cold sheets. The space beside him was empty, the covers folded back neatly, the pillow fluffed.
As if Draco had never been there at all.
The slow, soft comfort of waking vanished as a cold, sick weight settled low in Harry’s gut. That familiar twist in his stomach – the one that had long ago gotten used to feeling abandoned and left behind – curled tightly around his insides, squeezing.
Slowly, Harry sat up, feeling the hollow ache that came with the knowledge that Draco hadn’t stayed. Hadn’t wanted to face Harry after he’d opened himself up, bore his heart in such a precious display of honesty. Of trust.
Clearly, Harry hadn’t said enough to convince him to stay, to stick around. Not enough, not the right things, whatever. Maybe Draco had woken up, seen this all as a misstep, another mistake, and not wanted to drag it out any further.
Harry pushed the quilt off of him, rubbing his tired eyes as he reached for his glasses and shoved them onto his face.
It was then that he saw the note. Written on a small, yellowed sheet of Black family letterhead, the crest shining faintly in the morning light. Harry recognised it from the stack of identical parchments that sat abandoned for decades on the desk in the library.
Heart racing, Harry reached out and snatched it up. He blinked the last of the sleep from his eyes and read.
Forgot about my early meeting with Granger to discuss ‘potions theory.’ I don’t know what she actually wants. Hopefully she’s not winding up her right hook – I’m not sure if I’ve earned myself a fistful of justice. Not recently, anyway.
You told me not to wake you, but I didn’t want to just disappear. Kreacher tried to stop me from leaving – he was very distressed at the idea that I was ‘abandoning you.’ I think you should have a heart-to-heart with your elf, Potter. I don’t know what you’ve put him through all these years, but I think he could use a hug. I’ll leave that delight to you.
Maybe I’ll see you soon. I’d like to chat to my aunt again – we didn’t get a chance to catch up properly.
I had a good time yesterday. I want you to know that I wouldn’t have left this morning if I didn’t need to. But I suspect Granger isn’t the kind of person you can just blow off without repercussion.
Save me a seat at the tapestry blasting.
— D
Relief crashed into Harry like a wave – sharp, so sudden and overwhelming he almost laughed aloud. He read the note again, then gently set it down, pressing a hand over his face.
Draco had left.
But he wanted to come back.
Harry flopped back onto his pillows, staring at the moulded details on the ceiling. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
This was what he wanted. Not just someone warm beside him, but the knowledge that they were coming back. That he didn’t have to cling on so tight, didn’t have to brace for it all to vanish. Because when they left, it wasn’t an ending – it was just a pause. A departure with every intention of returning home. Returning to Harry.
He wanted the kind of space that was never truly empty, just waiting. A space that held its breath, keeping place until it could be filled again.
With a sudden, sickening clarity, Harry bolted upright in bed. He ran a hand through his hair, no doubt making it even messier, and glanced at the clock. It was eleven in the morning – he never slept this late. He and Ron were working a night patrol, so he didn’t have work for hours.
He got dressed with a kind of restless energy and forced himself to take a few calming breaths when he missed the leg of his jeans for the third time. Once he’d managed to shove both feet into his trouser legs and do up the fly, he yanked on a t-shirt and hurried out of his room and down the stairs.
He bumped into Kreacher on his way to the drawing room. The old elf lowered his feather duster and peered at Harry. “Is Master Harry going out? Master must do something about his hair before he leaves.”
Harry ran his fingers through his hair, wincing as he caught a tangle. “Uh, yeah, I’m just going out, Kreacher. I won’t be long. Probably.” With the words from Draco’s note fresh in his mind, Harry cleared his throat and added, “I, er. I appreciate everything you do, Kreacher—you know that, yeah?”
Kreacher blinked. “Kreacher knows that Master does not like Kreacher’s interfering. But Kreacher cannot help but try to make small efforts to make Master happy.”
Well, now Harry felt like a monumental dick. “I’m saying that I do appreciate it, Kreacher. Even though I don’t always—er, show it. I just wanted to say…thanks.”
Harry wasn’t sure they were ready for hugs, regardless of what Draco’s note had said. So he offered an awkward sort of handshake instead. Kreacher took it hesitantly, his gnarled hand dry and bony, his expression a muddle of suspicion, surprise, and something that might have been touched.
In his croaking voice, Kreacher said, “If Master is not letting Kreacher look after him as he needs, then Master must take better care of himself.”
“Yeah. I, uh—I will. Cheers, Kreacher.”
Kreacher nodded and disappeared down the corridor, muttering something that sounded vaguely pleased, though Harry couldn’t always tell with him. Harry stood for half a second, momentarily distracted from his plan.
He didn’t have a plan. Actually, he was totally lacking in the plans department. His heart was hammering, a sort of giddy jig inside his chest that made it hard to organise his thoughts into a sensible plan of action.
He needed help. So, he turned to the two people he always turned to in times of crisis.
When he burst out of Ron and Hermione’s fireplace not a minute later and found them snogging on the sofa, he had the brief thought that he should have called ahead. Hermione spotted him first, and she pushed Ron away from her as her eyes widened in apparent worry. She jumped up from the sofa, her eyes running over Harry’s body, as if she were looking for critical wounds.
“Harry? What’s wrong, are you okay?”
Ron stood as well, his face full of concern. “Mate?”
Harry knew what he must look like: hair a mess, eyes wide and a little wild, nervous energy buzzing through his body. Floo powder all over his shoes where he’d spilt it in his haste.
“Guys,” he started, sounding a little breathless, his gaze fixed on his best friends. “I need you to help me figure out how to get Draco Malfoy to move in with me.”
His friends’ expressions might have been comical if Harry could pay attention to anything other than his racing mind. Hermione’s eyebrows shot up, her mouth opening slightly, but no sound came out. She looked like she was searching for words and coming up blank, which was rare enough that Harry was almost alarmed.
Ron just gawked. He glanced at Hermione, then back at Harry, as if checking whether he was allowed to say what the fuck? Or if he had to be sensitive because Harry was clearly going through something.
Hermione recovered first. She closed her mouth, swallowed, then said, “Okay, Harry. Why don’t you sit down?”
Harry did as he was told, though his leg was bouncing restlessly. Hermione was watching him worriedly; he reached behind himself and pulled the cushion (patterned with the Chudley Cannon’s flag, a relic of Ron’s interior design) onto his lap, quelling his fidgeting movements. Ron and Hermione sat back on the sofa – at a respectable distance from each other – and watched him, clearly waiting for Harry to speak. When he didn’t, Hermione spoke up, her tone careful.
“We weren’t aware you and Draco were…seeing each other. As in, dating.”
Harry swallowed. “I don’t know if we are. I mean—I think so. Or—well, I want to, and I’m pretty sure he does too. I didn’t say it in so many words—you know I’m crap with words, ‘Mione.” Clutching the cushion, he asked, “How did he seem when you saw him this morning? He left a note—seemed to think you might punch him. Told me to hug Kreacher.”
Hermione blinked, a little thrown. “Uh—well. He was…pleasant. Softer than usual, maybe. Definitely more sincere than he used to be.”
She ignored the noise Ron made as he gaped at her, mouth open like a fish. “So. He spent the night, then?”
“Yeah.” Harry glanced down at the cushion, tracing the orange and black lines. “Grimmauld loved him. Like, immediately, the whole house felt different. The floorboards didn’t creak at all the whole time he was there.”
“Is that why you want him to move in?” Hermione asked gently. “For the house?”
“‘Course it’s not,” Ron snorted. He seemed to have come out of his shock. “It’s because Harry’s always been obsessed with Malfoy. They were always desperate for each other’s attention—”
“Hey, that’s not—”
“And now Harry’s got it, he’s not going to let it go.” Ron turned to raise an eyebrow at Harry, his eyes fierce. “Am I wrong, mate?”
Harry slumped in his armchair. “He told me off for being rude to Kreacher. He asked about my tattoo and why I got it, and I told him. He…makes fun of me, quite a bit.” Harry shrugged one shoulder, his fingers tracing circles on the cushion in his lap. “I—I dunno. He…knows me. He knows me, and he still wants me.”
They were like two notes in the same chord, resonating in harmony. Harry was a solitary note, and he knew now that he’d always felt like a sparse, incomplete chord. He made a fine sound on his own, but he’d always … known that he could have more, that his sound could be fuller. He had so much room in his life, in his home, in his heart. So much room for more.
“What did you want to meet him about this morning, Hermione?” Harry asked suddenly.
Although clearly surprised by the abrupt question, Hermione answered. “Well. As you know, F.U.M.B.L.E has been struggling to find a reliable brewer. In particular, someone with the skill to brew Wolfsbane and Blood Supplement potions—for vampires, of course. I had a proposition for Draco—I could get his brewing licence sorted immediately, file formal complaints about the delay in the process, and ensure it never happens again. In return, he would agree to work with me.”
“What did he say?” Harry asked, leaning forward.
“Well.” Hermione huffed. “He seemed to think it unlikely that I would be able to push through the licensing process. Or that I had the power to keep on top of any future similar incidents.” She scoffed, as if the very notion was ridiculous. “I had to remind him—I’m Hermione bloody Granger, aren’t I? I’m a war hero, for goodness’ sake. Nobody at the Ministry is going to argue with me.”
Ron was gazing at Hermione with such open adoration that Harry wondered suddenly if he should leave so they could get back to whatever they were planning before he arrived.
“He agreed in the end, of course,” Hermione said, with a small, smug smile. Her expression faded, and she looked at Harry with that familiar worry that always made his stomach squirm. “Harry,” she said. “If you really think it’s serious between you two—”
“Do you think that, mate?” Ron asked, grimacing a little. Hermione shot him a sharp look.
“If you think it’s serious, then why don’t you ask him to join you at an event or something—as your date, you know. Start off a little smaller, and work your way up to the rest.” Her face suddenly brightened. “I know—why don’t you ask him to be your plus one at George and Angelina’s wedding? That’ll get Molly off your back, too.”
Harry barely registered Ron’s choked sounds and Hermione’s sharp comments that he was acting like a child. His mind was racing, barreling down a hill at a hundred miles an hour – or maybe that was his heart, which was beating so quickly it was fluttering, like there was a butterfly trapped in his chest cavity.
Feeling like he might spew all over Ron’s Chudley Cannon’s cushion, he said, “Do you think if I asked Draco to marry me, he’d say yes?”
Silence. Deafening, stunned silence.
Weakly, Hermione said, “I thought you weren’t—erm, officially dating.”
Harry ran a hand through his hair, letting his eyes fall miserably shut. “Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.”
“Just a bit, Harry.”
* * *
Epilogue
The bedroom was quiet and warm, as it was every morning. Sunlight pooled through the open window, golden and sparkling, filtering across the bed in lazy stripes. The sky-blue, 800-thread-count Egyptian cotton bed sheets were rumpled and twisted from the careless way they’d been tossed over the bed the previous night.
With a long, slow stretch, Harry blinked open his sleep-heavy eyes and turned his head to gaze out of the window. It was a good day for a wedding – bright and sunny, but not overly hot so that everyone would be sweating in their dress robes. May was a good month for it; it would be nice to have a wonderful memory to associate with the month, rather than the anniversary of the battle.
Harry stretched his arms to the side above his head, smiling faintly at the satisfying pull of sore muscles – only to yank one arm back as a small, disgruntled noise came from the pillow beside him.
He rolled onto his side and reached out, fingers brushing over warm skin. Sleep-flushed and a little creased from the pillow, the cheek beneath his palm softened slightly at his touch. Harry leaned in and pressed a kiss to the corner of a mouth that was pulled down in a frown.
“Sorry,” Harry murmured, his voice rough with sleep. “Didn’t mean to whack you in the face.”
“A likely story,” Draco mumbled, turning his body to press his face further into the pillow. The blue sheets had slipped down to his waist, his lovely skin bared for Harry’s eyes, and Harry let his gaze roam over the absurdly beautiful man in their bed, something tender settling behind his ribs. It was the anticipation of the day making him soft – that’s what Draco would say, anyway.
Harry manhandled him until he was facing away, his back pressed to Harry’s chest. Harry buried his nose against Draco’s neck and lightly kissed the skin, letting his lips trail along to the knobs of his spine. Draco didn’t fight it, but he complained the entire time he was being shifted around.
“Is this abuse punishment for coming to bed so late?” He said grumpily.
“Don’t be a knob. You were upstairs until three in the morning—I didn’t want you tired for today.”
“Yes, well, brewing waits for no man.” Draco yawned and sat up a little, his hair deliciously mussed. “Didn’t stop you from fucking me over my workstation. Those ginger nettles are all contaminated now, by the way.”
Tugging him back down, Harry said, “I’ll buy you some more.” His prick gave an interested twitch at the mention of their late-night – or rather, very early morning activities.
“I should think so,” Draco said brusquely in response, as if he hadn’t been sprawled across his work table, clawing at the wood and crying out as Harry pounded into him not six hours earlier.
Harry had thought – naively, and stupidly – that the mindblowing quality of the sex would fade a bit after a year of doing it. When it was no longer all new and exciting.
However, a year down the line from when they’d graduated from bathroom sex to bedroom sex (although they still made use of the shower, as well as the sink on occasion for old times’ sake), and it was all just as thrilling as that very first time. It was better, because they could take their time or rush it; be quiet and serious or laughing, and none of it mattered because every moment was just one of many in a future of more moments to come.
They had a lot of sex (they’d made a special effort to shag in every room and on most surfaces in Grimmauld Place, just to piss off Walburga and the spirit of every homophobic, prejudiced arsehole Black that had lived in the house before them). But beyond the sex, they also talked, and argued, and cuddled without getting overly handsy. They shouted at each other, too – and once, Draco had thrown a large chunk of moonstone at Harry before locking himself in the library for half an hour. He eventually emerged looking very upset and came willingly into Harry’s arms.
“I don’t want to be the person who lashes out and throws things,” he murmured into Harry’s shoulder while Harry stroked his hair. “I don’t want to be like my father.”
“You’re not,” Harry told him. “Well—I guess in some ways you are, because he raised you. But you’re your own man. And that’s everything I love about you.”
That was the first time either of them had said those words aloud. Verbally, at least. Harry had been showing Draco that he loved him for ages, and Draco had been doing his best to act like he had no idea what Harry was saying with his actions, his touches, his kisses.
Draco had since said it back – as an offhand comment while shooing Harry from his lab, insisting he was at a crucial stage in the brewing process and couldn’t afford Harry’s ‘pissing about and being a general nuisance.’
He’d said, “I love you, but anywhere you stand is in my way. Fuck off somewhere else until this has steeped, alright?” and then turned back to his cauldron as if he hadn’t just cracked Harry open and lit a lantern in the part of Harry that still feared the dark.
Harry Potter loved Draco Malfoy. And Draco loved him back.
At present, however, Draco was pushing Harry away, trying to wriggle out of his arms. “No time for that,” he said with a small laugh as Harry huffed against his neck, his semi-hard prick rubbing gloriously along the crease of Draco’s arse.
“S’always time,” Harry said, sucking on the sensitive spot below Draco’s ear as he rolled his hips, his cock slipping between Draco’s cheeks. Draco let out a long-suffering sigh.
“Make it quick, then. Under ten minutes—we’ve got a schedule to stick to, you know.”
Harry let his prick slip out from Draco’s crease. “Your enthusiasm’s really turning me on. Thanks,” he said with a grumble.
Draco sat up and hopped out of bed, his naked arse a cruel tease made even crueller as he turned around and rolled his eyes at Harry’s grumpy, pitiful face. He braced his palms on the mattress and leaned in, dropping a kiss to Harry’s lips. “Stop sulking, Harry,” he said, his mouth twitching into a smile. “Aren’t you excited to see the outfit Pansy made for you to wear?”
“Depends on whether she ended up using that red and gold velvet like she threatened.”
“Of course she didn’t.” Another kiss. “It’s a beach wedding, Harry,” Draco said as he headed for the bathroom.
Harry stared shamelessly at his arse until he disappeared behind the door, then flopped onto his back with a sigh. Merlin, but he’d never felt so consistently annoyed and enamoured with someone. Neither the frustration nor the infatuation had lessened since Draco had moved in – in fact, both feelings had intensified.
Harry wouldn’t change a thing.
“You need a shower as well, you know,” Draco called from the bathroom over the sound of the running water.
Grinning, Harry practically leapt out of bed in his eagerness, his cock heavy between his legs as he hurried towards the bathroom.
* * *
The beach beside Shell Cottage was a gorgeous venue for a wedding. The tide had rolled back, leaving smooth, glistening sand scattered with pale seaglass and the occasional shimmering shell. Further away from the water, where the sand was dry and warm, chairs had been set up, with a large archway at the end of the aisle. The arch was made of pale wood with drapes of white, floaty fabric tied with peach ribbons. A mixed bunting of shells and pearls hung along the top, and the pieces of shell tinkled together in the light breeze.
Wild grass swayed gently on the small hills above the beach, where the cottage sat, overlooking the blue water. The waves lapped softly at the shore as if the sea, too, was coming by to watch the ceremony. The air smelled like salt and the end of spring.
“Harry, will you stop that? You look like you have a nervous twitch.”
Harry stilled, the curl he was trying to flick out of his face falling right back in front of his eye. He probably should have gotten a haircut. He gave Hermione a sheepish look when she sighed at him.
Beside him, Draco echoed the noise. “Honestly, I can’t take you anywhere.” He turned Harry towards him and ran his own long, ring-covered fingers through Harry’s hair, pushing it back and out of his face. “Andromeda finds it ridiculous that you still haven’t figured out how to tame your hair, and I quite agree with her. She’s very exasperated by Teddy copying your style.”
“What?” Harry said, frowning as Hermione snickered at him over Draco’s shoulder. “When have you two been getting together to make fun of me behind my back?”
“Oh, we do it in front of you as well. You just never seem to notice.”
“Because you two talk in bloody riddles sometimes. The two of you combined are worse than Hermione.”
“Are you slandering my girlfriend, mate?” Ron appeared at Hermione’s side, a little flushed from rushing around at his mother’s instruction. Mrs Weasley was not messing around with this wedding – which was fair enough, given that the last of her children’s weddings had gone a bit awry – and she’d been ruthless in the planning and lead up.
Harry subtly poked Draco in the side – a warning to behave himself. To Harry’s amusement, he noticed Hermione doing the same thing to Ron.
Before they’d prepared to Floo from Grimmauld to Shell Cottage, Harry had given Draco two firm instructions: “You and Hermione are banned from talking about work,” and “You and Ron are forbidden from calling each other names.”
So far, things were going well. But that wasn’t to say that there wasn’t time for things to change. The ceremony hadn’t even started yet, after all, let alone the reception.
“How’s George doing?” Harry asked, hoping to divert from any potential bickering on the horizon.
“Pissing himself, mate,” Ron said. He chuckled. “I’ve never seen him so scared in his life, and I was there when Mum found his stash of naughty Quidditch magazines under his mattress.”
Harry snorted, and he saw Draco trying to stifle his amusement. “Is Gin doing a good job of calming him down? That’s, like, eighty percent of what a best man is supposed to do, right?”
“You think Ginny is good at calming people?” Ron said, raising an eyebrow. “It’s still weird to me that she’s the best man. I mean, it’s in the name. Why isn’t she the maid of honour?”
“Because Lee is the maid of honour, Ronald,” Hermione said, with a tone that said this wasn’t their first time having this conversation.
“Well, why didn’t Lee be the best man?”
“Do try not to be so rigid, Weasel—er, Weasley.” Draco cleared his throat, flexing his toes on the foot that Harry had just stepped on. “We’re living in modern times, and it’s not like it’s something that’s crucial to the success of a wedding.”
“Rigid!” Ron scoffed, shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe such an accusation. “I’ll show you rigid, Ferret—”
“Ronald!”
“Ouch! Why are your elbows so bloody pointy, ‘Mione?”
“I’m sure Lee Jordan will make an excellent maid of honour,” Draco said, his tone nonchalant. Harry knew that not biting back at Ron was less about keeping the peace, and more a reflection of how nervous Draco really was. He was excellent at hiding his nerves through a combination of talking slightly too much and ramping up his poshness by half. He was also, as Harry knew well by now, a master of deflection and distraction.
Ron, a master at being distracted, appeared to forget the train of the conversation entirely as he bickered back and forth with Hermione – that was, until Hermione brought it right back up again. Harry had to fight the urge to bury his face in his palm. Hermione had never been very good at letting things go.
“Draco makes a good point, though, Ron. You can be a little old-fashioned at times.”
“I’m not rigid,” Ron protested. And then, sullenly, “I just don’t like change.”
“I know, love,” Hermione said, wrapping her arm around the crook of Ron’s elbow. “It took you months to come to terms with Harry and Charlie when they first—” She suddenly cut off and shot Harry a panicked, guilty look.
Harry laughed at her face. “I told Draco about that ages ago, ‘Mione.” He elbowed Draco lightly in the ribs. “He was jealous.”
“Oh, very,” Draco said. “Have you laid eyes on that man?” He looked pointedly over to the group of Johnson cousins that Charlie was currently flirting with instead of showing them to their seats. “Circe, if his tattoos were on show, I may very well swoon.”
“Draco’s had the hots for Charlie since fourth year,” Harry added, grinning. His grin only broadened when Draco smacked him, hard, on the shoulder.
“That was disclosed to you in confidence,” he hissed. He was not pacified by the kiss Harry pressed to his cheek, although he did look somewhat amused at the badly-disguised distaste on Ron’s face. It wasn’t that Ron disapproved or was disgusted by Harry’s relationship with Draco. He just …
… Well, he didn’t like change. And Harry Potter in a committed, loving relationship with Draco Malfoy was quite a change to digest.
He’d actually come a long way over the past year. Harry was convinced that Ron and Draco’s constant bickering was a cover-up for the fact that they actually got along quite well, but neither wanted to accept that.
“Do Angelina’s cousins know that Charlie is gay?” Ron said, his face twisting with revulsion as Charlie stretched his arms in a way that let the sleeve of his robe slide up, revealing the collage of colourful dragons winding up his forearm. “Merlin, it’s revolting watching your siblings flirt.” He shot Harry a look. “I’m including you, mate. It’s actually worse with you, because I chose to spend time with you. I share your company willingly.”
Touched as Harry was by Ron’s declaration of brotherhood, he couldn’t help but exclaim, “I’ve been watching you and Hermione flirt since we were sixteen! Probably earlier, honestly.”
“Yeah, but at least Hermione and I were subtle!” Ron turned his head to look at Hermione. “Right, love?”
Clearly exasperated and reluctantly amused, Hermione simply shook her head at them. Ron took this as a victory and turned back to Harry with a smug expression.
Harry crossed his arms. “Yeah, well, I’m in love.”
“Yuck,” Ron and Draco muttered in unison. Harry didn’t know who to be more offended by. Probably Draco, because … ouch?
Harry voiced his offence. Draco was not very sympathetic.
“I just find it terribly unbecoming when frivolous declarations are thrown about so brazenly in a public setting.”
Harry gaped. “Frivolous? You’re the love of my life, you git!”
Draco was so beautiful when he blushed – rose pink, the colour like a fallen petal across his cheeks.
“Well—what—how am I meant to respond to that? Circe, public affections are so uncomfortable.”
“We’re at a wedding!”
“Speaking of,” Hermione cut in, pointedly nodding her head towards the rows of chairs on the sand. “We should be taking our seats, yes?”
She led Ron down the aisle and towards the front rows, reserved for siblings of the bride and groom – which was mostly Weasleys – and their partners. There were two seats at the very front set aside for Molly and Arthur, although they were currently unoccupied; Molly was likely micromanaging a last-minute detail, and Arthur was going to be walking Angelina down the aisle.
On the way to their seats, Harry felt warm, dry fingers hooking around two of his own. He glanced at Draco, whose gaze was on the decorated aisle ahead, his posture casual with practised ease. Still, his blush hadn’t faded. Maybe it was the sun. Harry didn’t think it was.
Smiling, Harry interlaced their fingers. Draco squeezed his hand, just once, tightening his grip – and Harry didn’t need him to make any Weasley-level public declarations of affection. This was all Harry needed.
Already sitting in his assigned seat near the front was Blaise. He looked stylish as always, in a light Muggle-style suit with a peach tie to match Ginny’s dress. Beside him, curiously, was Pansy. She’d been tight-lipped about whose plus one she was ever since confirming she’d be attending the wedding.
Draco had been desperate to figure it out but hadn’t managed. A near impossible task in hindsight – Pansy Parkinson seemed to know everybody.
Blaise grinned as the group sat down, shifting in his chair to better face them.
“Ah, if it isn’t my favourite Gryffindors,” he said.
Draco scoffed. “Not worth a simple greeting, am I?”
“Well, you did abandon us, darling,” Pansy said. Her nails were long and bejewelled with delicate rhinestones, and she’d set her usually sleek hair in soft waves. Very beachy.
“Oh, put away the violin, Pans. You turned my bedroom into a studio within two hours of my departure. Did you attach that awful blond wig to that mannequin with a permanent sticking charm, you psycho?”
“Darling. I missed you. Not to mention, you look absolutely stunning in my creations. You’re a wasted beauty, doing whatever potions stuff you do with Granger—now, if you modelled—”
“Now, Pansy,” Hermione started. “Draco is certainly not wasted. He is quite an invaluable part of the operation of F.U.M.B.L.E—without him, we’d—”
“Yes, yes, he’s a relative expert on stinky old potions—but you don’t find a bone structure like that on any old street—”
“I’ve never been fought over before,” Draco said, his lips close to Harry’s ear, amusement twinkling in his eyes. That glint caught in Harry’s chest, settling like a star in the night sky of his heart – a cosmos already strewn with lights, each one burning quietly for him.
Harry hadn’t known how to burn quietly before Draco. But for a man who said the most when he didn’t speak at all, whose manners remained unwavering in any situation but who froze when pulled into a Molly Weasley hug, who accepted his gifted Weasley Christmas jumper with a polite thank you and remained quiet for the rest of the evening, his fingers stroking the soft, knitted dragon on the front …
For a man like that, Harry had learned that he didn’t need to burn so hot. That there was a beauty in the softer things, the unsaid things, the silence and the still. There was beauty in collecting those flames and letting them glow steadily in his chest, warm enough to stay, quiet enough to last.
Harry’s response was overshadowed by the arrival of Percy. They were momentarily confused as he sat down in the seat beside Pansy – but then, Draco let out a gasp that made Harry start, his hand automatically reaching for his wand.
“You hypocritical bitch,” he hissed.
Pansy’s face broke into a slow, smug smirk. “Now, now, darling. Let us not resort to name-calling on such a beautiful day.”
Harry blinked between them. Percy had just sat down next to her like it was the most natural thing in the world – like he belonged there. Which, as far as Harry was aware, he absolutely didn’t.
It appeared that Harry’s awareness was frightfully lacking, however, because Blaise didn’t appear the slightest bit surprised. On the contrary, he seemed perfectly relaxed. Holding a hand out to Percy, he said, “Blaise Zabini. It’s good to finally meet you properly, Weasley.”
“Likewise.” Percy shook his hand. “And it’s Percy, please.”
“Of course. And please, call me Blaise.”
Pansy was staring between them, her mouth twisted into a frown. Her expression suddenly turned sulky. “Oh, you absolute bore!” she whined, pouting at Blaise. “When did you figure it out, you horrible man?”
Blaise brushed a little sand from his trouser leg. “You don’t think I realised something was up when I saw you giggling and kicking your feet every time the post arrived? It practically reeked of Gryffindor, Pans. And of Weasley—don’t forget, I’m dating one.”
Pansy huffed. “Oh, boo. You’re no fun.” She turned to Draco, and some of her previous glee crept back onto her face. “You’re absolutely fuming that you didn’t figure it out, aren’t you, darling?”
Draco scoffed. “Or maybe,” he said pointedly, “I’m simply in shock at the betrayal. You mock me for a year for shacking up with a Gryffindor—”
“Dating,” Harry muttered. “Dating, in a loving and committed relationship.”
“—living in delicious sin with a Gryffindor, and all the while, you’ve been getting the same treatment.”
The penny dropped, then. Percy cleared his throat and adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses, and Pansy’s smirk reached an alarming level. Harry’s mind was racing, though, as a flood of memories suddenly returned to him.
“That day I had you make a list of people you’d upset for the investigation into that cursed box, and there was all that drama in the Portkey office…” Harry distinctly remembered the way she’d muttered something about ‘uptight, sexually frustrated bureaucrats’ and felt himself flushing. “That was all to do with Percy?”
“That was about a lot of things, Harry darling.” Pansy reached out and patted his hand. “The Department of Magical Transportation just doesn’t know how to appreciate good gossip—isn’t that right, Perce?”
“You were causing quite a large distraction, Pans,” Percy said disapprovingly, although Harry noticed that his eyes were fond as he gazed at Pansy.
“Oh, I know,” Pansy practically purred, trailing a finger along one of Percy’s thighs.
Someone let out a squeaking, choking noise, and Harry looked around to find Ron gaping at his brother, his eyes wide and his jaw slack. Hermione noticed and tutted exasperatedly.
“Close your mouth, Ronald, you look like a fish,” she said.
Ron stared at Percy. Then back at Pansy. Then Percy again. His eyes widened, somehow, even further. “Wait a second. Pansy’s the one you were—? In your office?”
Percy went bright red – which wasn’t helped by Pansy’s cackling. “I—now, Ron, that would hardly be professional. Of course I didn’t—”
While he tried to deny the accusation – a little fruitlessly, in Harry’s opinion – Pansy smirked at them all. Percy couldn’t see this, so he rambled on; meanwhile, Pansy sank her teeth into her bottom lip and tilted her head back, letting her eyes roll into the back of her head, her eyelashes fluttering.
The look of horror on Ron’s face rivalled the time he’d Flooed over to Grimmauld and caught Harry with Draco spread out on the kitchen table. They hadn’t been unclothed yet, but they’d been getting there.
Pausing in his speech, Percy turned to frown at Pansy. “Are you alright, Pans?”
Pansy, who had just let out a breathy moan, immediately schooled her face into something perfectly casual and replied, “Never better, Perce. I say—don’t you think the outfits I designed for Harry and Draco are just lush? I’m glad I went with the seashell blue in the end. Draco looks absolutely gorgeous in that colour.”
“He looks good in every colour,” Harry said with a smile. He shifted a little closer to take Draco’s hand. He didn’t miss the slight rosy blush that bloomed high on Draco’s cheekbones, even as he preened under the complimentary attention.
Even red, Harry thought, feeling almost giddily happy. Maybe especially red.
* * *
God, but Harry loved weddings. He hadn’t been to many in his life, but each one was a warm, twinkling memory residing in his heart. He was awed by the decorations, the outfits, the guests and the magical gifts they brought for the happy couple. The effort that went into planning such an event, such a bold display of love – of wishing that same love for the two soon-to-be married.
This was set up to be another beautiful wedding. The atmosphere was relaxed and radiant – a perfect blend of nature and celebration. Under the canopy of a pale blue sky, the soft sand cradled the feet of guests who had chosen appropriate footwear, and tripped up those who hadn’t considered the setting. The salt in the air seemed to carry the promise of new beginnings, inhaled into one’s soul with every crisp, fresh breath of sea air.
Harry wanted Draco to love this, too. He hadn’t said as much, not aloud, but the wish lingered, quiet and persistent, as the breeze teased at the edges of the white canopy overhead.
The ceremony itself had already melted into memory: a sun-warmed blur of golden light, of small sniffs and watery smiles, of vows spoken in trembling, emotion-choked voices. George had looked more serious than Harry had possibly ever seen him – eyes suspiciously shiny, but fingers steady as he held Angelina’s hands. And she, radiant in a white dress that brought out the rich shine of her skin, braids piled around her head and adorned with tiny pearls, had cupped his cheek with a steady certainty that steadied everyone else, too. Molly’s soft weeping had trickled off into the occasional sniff, although she still wiped her eyes frequently.
As the couple kissed beneath the arch, to the cheers of the guests, Harry noticed George’s gaze flicker to the empty space at his side – the one that left his wedding party unbalanced with Angelina’s.
For a few heartbeats, it felt like Fred was there. Like he was in the sea breeze, and the softly shining sun glinting off the sand, and the echo of George’s voice.
Then, the moment broke, and George’s mouth shifted into a broad grin as Angelina whooped, her arms in the air, laughing with the powerful, infectious joy of the just-married.
Now, the celebration spilt across the sand in casual, colourful chaos. Tables were set up beneath a large canopy, with endless spreads of food prepared by Mrs Weasley and copious bottles of champagne, as well as a few of Charlie’s homebrewed liquor for later in the evening. Both Harry and George had been firmly prohibited from touching the stuff.
While everyone ate, one of the chairs had been transfigured into what could only be described as a wooden throne, which was currently occupied by Hagrid and several squawking seagulls – all four of whom were trying to nest in his beard, by the looks of things.
Ginny and Blaise were on the dance floor, absolutely dominating the space and putting the rest of the dancers to shame. Pansy was sitting at a table with Percy, touching him just a little too often to be considered casual, and Ron was sitting at an adjacent table, not even paying attention to his brother; he was gazing at Hermione, holding Victoire on her hip and laughing with Bill. Ron’s expression was so sappy that Harry couldn’t help but grin.
A little further down the beach, Draco crouched beside Teddy, his feet bare in the damp sand as he pointed out small, glittering pieces of sea glass. Teddy, having already filled his own pockets, dropped each new find into Draco’s cupped hands. The breeze kept tugging stray strands of pale hair across his eyes, and he kept flicking them back with a jerk of his head, not that it worked. His hands weren’t free to do it properly, but he didn’t drop the glass.
He turned around to find Harry watching them from a distance. Still crouched, he gestured pointedly with his cupped hands, raising an eyebrow. Harry just waved, his cheeks aching with his smile.
He would go and drag Draco back to the wedding at some point. This moment with Teddy was Draco’s way of taking a break, getting a breath from the overwhelm of hugs from Molly, and fatherly pats on the back from Arthur, and ribbing from each Weasley child. Harry knew Draco struggled with it, just as Harry struggled with Narcissa’s polite formality and the almost business-like way she showed affection with her son. According to Draco, that was just how they’d always been. They’d never been bold or outright with their love for each other, but that was okay, because they knew it was there – would always be there, even despite their differences.
Harry hadn’t liked this explanation, but he worked with it, for Draco. He was polite to Narcissa and made an effort to get to know her and make interesting conversation.
He would do many, many things far more unpleasant than tea with Draco’s mother to please the man he loved.
Harry would go and fetch Draco and Teddy soon. But for now, he was content to watch them, his heart full to bursting with the emotions of the day, and the past year, all of it wrapped up in a cosy, aching ball in his chest. A ball that he’d gotten so used to, the space was permanently carved out inside him to hold it, his organs shoved aside to make room as it grew ever larger.
Harry took a seat on a small, grassy hill where the beach transitioned to the sandy, grassy ground that Shell Cottage resided on. It gave him a wonderful view of the celebrations in full swing on the sand. He let out a contented sigh, pulling off his shoes and stretching out his sock-clad toes.
Harry had actually asked Draco to marry him, a week after Draco had moved into Grimmauld. Which he’d done when Harry asked two months into them dating properly. Those two months had tested Harry’s patience and willpower in ways he was unused to.
Draco had laughed in Harry’s face, shifted his head until it was resting more comfortably against Harry’s shoulder, and pulled the duvet up to cover their naked, flushed and spent bodies.
“You’ve only had me here a week, Potter. Wait until you’ve seen how grumpy I get in the summer—this skin doesn’t do sunshine. Not to mention, I’ve been holding off on insulting your taste in furniture.”
Harry had very nearly gotten angry. Give yourself a chance to get fed up with me – that was what Draco had been saying.
The notion that Harry would tire of him – that Harry wasn’t capable of making his own decisions and deciding his own feelings about the man he was hopelessly in love with – stung. It stung more than the rejection of his proposal, which he’d somewhat anticipated, though that hadn’t stopped him from blurting it out while he was still basking in the glow of a spectacular orgasm.
He’d just needed Draco to know. That he was serious about this – about him.
The next time Harry proposed to Draco, they were cuddling on the sofa and half-listening to a Quidditch game on the wireless. Draco was reading a book from the Black library that looked at least two centuries old, his head in Harry’s lap; Harry was weaving tiny plaits in Draco’s hair at random (his hair was getting longer, and Harry hid his wand, as well as the scissors, whenever Draco mentioned cutting it).
Draco had said no that time, too – although he’d done it a little softer, more seriously.
“I’m not rejecting you, Harry,” he’d said, carefully. “Things are working as they are.” He’d looked back down at his book and flipped a page, a performance of casualness. “Don’t you like this as it is now?”
“I love it.” Harry swallowed, his throat tight. The grandfather clock Draco had identified as the work of some wildly famous nineteenth-century clockmaker ticked at the opposite side of the room. “I just want…” More. I want more.
Draco, as he usually did, understood what went unsaid. He slipped a bookmark into his book. “You can want more…” he started, “and still enjoy the present. Doesn’t it make the wanting sweeter?”
Harry frowned. “But if you want it too, then why…?”
“Because I’m not done here yet.” Draco turned his body slightly into Harry’s, the weight of his head a comfort in Harry’s lap. “I’m still enjoying things as they are now. I’m not ready for it to change.”
“This wouldn’t change. We wouldn’t change.”
“Of course things would change.” Curling further into Harry, Draco’s eyes slowly closed. Harry brought his hands up, one to cup Draco’s face, his thumb brushing against his jaw, and the other to run his fingers through Draco’s hair. Draco let out a contented, fluttering sigh.
“I look forward to the change, Harry. Know that I mean that,” Draco said. “But for now, this is nice.”
“Okay,” Harry had whispered, after a minute. He’d continued to stroke Draco’s hair until Draco’s breathing grew steady and slow, and he drifted off to sleep. And it had been enough.
Harry no longer felt sick with his wanting, not like he used to. He felt … happy. Contented. Fulfilled in a way that made him think he’d never really understood what that meant before. His want was a softly burning thing; not a blaze, not a roaring fireplace or towering bonfire, but an everburning candle, enchanted to never burn out. It sat in the corner of every room, the centrepiece of every table, every mantlepiece, always present. Even when they were apart – at work, or visiting separate friends, living individual lives as well as the one they shared, the candle was always lit, constantly releasing its fragrant smoke, reminding Harry of what he had.
Harry could smell that smoke now as he watched Draco spinning one of Lee Jordan’s younger sisters across the dance floor. She was beaming, young, joyful laughter spilling from her mouth as Draco made an admirable effort to keep up with her. Draco’s hair was loose, tumbling around his shoulders, and he’d tucked it behind his ears.
After a little while, Draco managed to break free from his enthusiastic dance partner, pawning her off on Charlie Weasley, who looked mildly alarmed for all of five seconds before the young girl was dragging him back to the centre of the dancefloor. Harry saw Draco looking around, and he smiled when he spotted Harry on the grass. His pale skin was flushed, his immaculately ironed outfit somewhat less so after a day of wear. He started to make his way over to Harry.
And Merlin, but he was beautiful. And not just for how he looked, but for who he was, too. Who he’d become – who he’d wanted so desperately to be that he’d put in the effort to change, to leave behind the parts of himself that no longer had a place in the kind of man he strived to be.
Harry let himself feel his old, roaring, desperate wanting for a moment; allowed it to burn white-hot beneath his ribs as the longing to touch and hold on itched at his skin. Then, he released it all with his breath.
He smiled as Draco plopped down on the grass beside him, too exhausted from dancing to lower himself with his usual grace.
“Circe, Amara Jordon can certainly tear up the dance floor. I never thought I’d find a worthy opponent in an eleven-year-old.”
Harry bumped his shoulder against Draco’s. “What about me?”
“We were both eleven, that is entirely different.” Draco lowered himself to his back, stretching out his legs and staring up at the still-light sky. “Merlin, my ankles hurt like a pensioner’s. I’m getting old. I’ll start wrinkling soon, and I’ll warn you now that the Malfoy genes do not bode well for my hairline.”
Harry reached out and brushed aside the stray locks of hair from Draco’s forehead. You’re not even twenty-five, you drama queen, he wanted to say. I don’t care if you end up completely bald. I’ll love you until you can no longer chew solid foods. I’ll love you until you’re too old to walk without assistance, and I’ll keep loving you after that. I’ll love you until I’m no longer here to do it, and then I’ll love you from beyond. Wherever the train takes us.
He wanted to say, I’ll love you for as long as you’ll have me. For as long as I have you.
So he did.
Draco took Harry’s hand, pulling him down so they lay side by side. His palm was soft, his metal rings warmed by the heat of his skin. The rhythm of his breathing was quiet and steady.
And it was enough to lie beside him and listen to the sound of the gentle lapping waves, the music carrying across the dance floor, the laughter of the wedding guests. It was enough to feel the weight and warmth of Draco, leaning in just slightly when the rest of the world grew just a touch too loud.
It was in those moments – the quiet flames – that Harry learned how to love without burning out. To enjoy the journey, the wait, the in-between. To know that they didn’t need to get married right away, because they were still enjoying the now. And the now still had so much more to give.
It was a love that didn’t demand, didn’t consume, didn’t pull him apart. Just one that stayed.
END