Chapter Text
Ron invites him out to the pub after work on Tuesday but Harry declines, scratching his hands through his hair and smiling so big the apples of his cheeks lift his glasses; he makes sure his eyes crinkle in a way that no one can argue with. Ron believes the smile—he believes, especially, the crinkling eyes. They embrace and part ways on the snowy London street.
Twenty minutes and two tube stops later, Harry ducks into a furniture store—one of those big, faceless affairs with a showroom that takes up a whole city block. Couples with snowflakes on their eyelashes bounce on mattresses of varying firmness and Harry picks out a mirror. There’s nothing special about it in the slightest: narrow, grey-trimmed, floor-length. He doesn’t look at the price and no one tells him either. Harry stabs around in his pockets and comes up with a handful of scratched-up credit cards, picking one at random. The girl working the register refrains from comment, but runs after him when he leaves his card in the payment terminal; Harry almost smacks her in the face with the mirror, cantilevered awkwardly under his arm. By the time he’s out on the sidewalk again his cheeks are stinging with embarrassment, teeth gritted against a jumbled edge of panic.
There’s nothing wrong, he reminds himself. Nothing’s even happening.
Harry’s palms itch in an alley a few streets over as he shrinks the mirror pocket-sized and apparates home.
He closes the front door with a clumsy kick, hands trembling as he fishes the mirror out of his jacket. He doesn’t even consciously spell it back—the magic leaks out of him and suddenly the mirror leaps from his hand, larger than it had been even in the store. The impact when it hits the floor, face up, puts a spidery crack right through it.
Harry doesn’t care; he barely notices.
He’s shuddering now, as if with fever; chills zip up and down his spine. His teeth will set to chattering in another minute or two. Something miserable and bright and eager is flapping around in his chest—trying to escape or maybe die—the sensation some unholy midway between a tickle and a burn.
Right there in the hallway Harry props the mirror next to the coatrack. He unbuckles his belt and shoves his pants and wool trousers down around his knees, allowing himself to fall against his forearms on the opposite wall and arch his back.
Grimmauld is a quiet place except for Walburga, but she’s got the curtain over her at present and isn’t making a peep. So, it’s just Harry, his sputtering, stupid breaths, and all that silence—its terrible, generational weight: it’s just Harry and a bloodline that was blown out like a match (he’d done a good bit of the blowing after all). It’s just Harry and the heads of house elves who would’ve sooner ripped their own hearts out and stomped them to pieces than see Grimmauld go to Harry. It’s Harry and the finger of whiskey in a crystal tumbler on the mantle under a stasis charm.
His shaking dies down to something finer. A vibration—like Harry is a net of metal wires that some small, precise weight landed on the far end of.
He’d broken all the mirrors in this place a long time ago after waking up from a dream; the magic rolled out of him with a whimper and every single one cracked—but that’s not why he’s covered them all—he’d covered them all because magic mirrors always look back.
Harry turns to see himself. As soon as his eyes focus he gasps—a cut-off sound, like he's been punched in the chest from only a few inches away.
“Fuck,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut so hard it hurts and opening them again fast, desperate.
It’s getting hard to stand under the weight of all that silence, so Harry slowly slides down until he’s a crumpled pile on the ground. It barely registers, how the polished wood skins his palms just a little, how his galleons jangle dully in his pocket, and his heavy silver belt buckle thunks onto the dark floorboards.
All Harry knows is the discoloration of his ass and thighs, starting to green at the edges. The meat of the cheeks, the hearty tops of the thighs, the back of his testicles all remain that beautiful gradient—lavender and midnight purple, layered like dangerous clouds.
He’d been dying to see it all day.
It hurts so badly. Harry loves the way it hurts just to sit down; the way he had to bite back a painful moan when his hip accidentally hit the elevator’s railing as his colleagues piled in. They’re deep bruises, possibly to the bone—the pain fits snug inside the empty pocket of his heart, weighs down that unbearable lightness that sometimes expands in his chest, that has him dreaming of rising up and up through the ceiling and the sky so far above the earth he’s not sure it’s even a part of it anymore, not sure he ever was—so, so far that Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, just unspools like thread.
Pain keeps his feet on the ground, keeps him able to place one in front of the other—but it’s just not the same thing as seeing it.
Harry licks his lips and reaches behind to trace his calloused thumbs along the aggravated lines that cross themselves over the bruises. Long, straight perfect fucking things, like fingers of dawn.
God, he could cry.
How can he need this again, so soon?
Surely he can wait a day. He’s an Auror, for Merlin’s sake. He killed Voldemort piece by piece. So, if he can do all that, then he can get off his hands and fucking knees and march himself to his room. The dreamless is right by the bed—two drops under the tongue administered with shivering hands. He doesn’t need to brush his teeth or eat or change. All Harry has to do is get to bed.
It shouldn’t feel like this–it’s just one more day.
But you need it now, the mirror would’ve whispered, had the glass not been muggle.
Harry thinks about taking the mirror with him upstairs but the second he pulls his eyes away from the brutal mess of his backside, the steady drip of nameless dread starts up again and he flees up the stairs, awkwardly holding up his trousers.
Harry doesn’t remove his snow-damp jacket or any of his clothes, just dives into bed and clamps his hands around his biceps to stave off the cold. He could go now, couldn’t he? So what if it’s only been four days? But, it had been a week before, and two before that. Harry can’t…he can’t need this every night, it just isn’t normal.
Three drops of dreamless, then, which is also not normal.
Harry blinks once, twice, realizes he’s still wearing his glasses, and then sleep eats him whole.
* * *
“Gin is coming. She’s in from Holyhead.” Ron grips Harry’s forearm. His tie is loose at the collar; they’d had a rough day—upset the goblins, which was always unfortunate. “We wanted to surprise you. Mate…just twenty minutes. Please?”
It’s snowing again. Harry’s glasses are fogged with both their breaths. Partners, they’re supposed to be. Lives in each other’s hands, and so forth.
“I promised Teddy,” Harry lies—can’t drag himself to the kid’s fourth birthday, but will happily use his name to deceive his best friend.
There’s hurt in Ron’s eyes; a quick, deep shadow. The question they both know should come next is promised Teddy what? so Harry smiles pathetically, because Ron can’t stand him pathetic and Harry just wants this to be over.
“Then come round to mine and Mione’s this weekend?” offers Ron, not quite frowning.
“Sure, brilliant, sounds good, I’d love to.”
Jogging away, Harry waves back over his shoulder at Ron who blurry in the falling snow and darkness, his hair like a copper coin held against the night.
* * *
Labyrinth is an old establishment—it used to be pureblood, but they opened it up with the end of the war. Rumor was the previous owner had died or had their soul kissed away in everyone’s favorite torture crypt by the sea. Personally, Harry likes to think that they died. But, whatever the case, Labyrinth no longer discriminates on the basis of lineage.
Not that it’s non-discriminating—the application process was really rather vigorous, involving the best veritaserum Harry’s ever had the pleasure of being interrogated under.
The questions were weird:
If you were a flower, would you have thorns? (Harry was disappointed to discover he didn’t know). What is your least favorite color? (White). What color do you dream of most often? (Grey, like stones under stream water).
The purpose of the ordeal was to match you with a suited partner—or not, there were plenty of people there who preferred to move from partner to partner, or simply watch. Harry had considered these options, but then came the question what do you think it would feel like to belong to someone? and he’d started sobbing so hysterically the interviewer had to stop and make him tea before he could attempt to regain his composure.
In the end it'd all been worth it, because he’d met Astra—who didn’t care who Harry was, or what he wanted. She didn’t care about him at all, actually. Astra knew what she needed and, in Harry, found someone who could provide it. She’d left him bruised and bleeding onto the concrete floor after their first session. The door closed behind her with a neat snick and Harry sucked in such a violent, deranged breath of air that he was half-convinced he’d been walking around with a punctured lung since the Battle of Hogwarts. Suddenly the air had so much oxygen, ripe and sweet as fruit, and Harry—in a puddle of sweat and tears and blood and cum—couldn’t stop laughing. He’d rolled on his back and kicked his bruised feet in the air and clutched at his ribs and screamed with laughter just for the fact that there was suddenly so much fucking air.
Yes, Astra made everything better; he couldn’t wait to see her.
“Good evening, Mr. Potter.” The greeter extends her hand for his coat.
Harry shakily shrugs out of it and shoves it at her with a tight smile. “Evening.”
She checks a tiny leather ledger, one arm crossed beneath her ribs, elbow propped on her palm. It’s a cute gesture, and Harry would find it so, except his cock is already hard, his head is full of sharp, whirling thoughts, and his bruises throb in time with his pulse.
“Ah,” she says quietly, eyes flicking to Harry from behind the tiny spine of the tiny book. “Well…”
Harry is not encouraged by her tone. “What is it?”
“I’m so sorry Mr. Potter, but Mistress Astra is not available this evening.”
Harry smiles; the apples of his cheeks lift his glasses.
“Oh.” He wets his lips. His breath feels too big for his chest. Buoyant. This has never happened before. “Alright.”
The attendant looks at him feelingly. “Do you want…I mean, I could try to find…” she flips through the journal’s palm-sized pages, finger quickly tracing over lines. Her finger jerks to a stop, like it’s hit a snag in the road. She furrows her brow. “Hm.”
Harry swallows down the dread, beginning to drip.
“Wh—er—what?”
“Well, there is….someone,” she says cryptically.
“Oh,” Harry says. “Oh, no. I mean, I appreciate that, but I really only want…”
“You’re a perfect match.” The attendants voice lowers to a conspiratorial whisper. “Perfect. Mistress Astra is only a seventy-two percent match, but—" she bravely turns the little book around.
Harry James Potter x Eltanin >100 ?!
“Well…that’s…" to Harry, the book did not, upon first glance, seem to be a perfect system. Astra was a perfect system, for his lonely, dark orbit. "I mean, why wasn’t I matched with them in the first place?”
Labyrinth's well-appointed foyer room smudges a little at the edges as Harry's breath floats higher and higher in his chest.
“He declined—oh, but steady on, Mr. Potter.”
The attendant flicks her wand and a contract materializes in Harry’s hands.
“Look this over, I’ll go speak with him. I mean surely…” she surveys Harry once more, then shakes her head as if shaking away raindrops. With that she turns, pattering up the sweeping marble stair that leads to Labyrinth's upper levels.
Harry’s eyes fall numbly to the contract; its handwriting is unpleasantly exquisite:
There will be no permanent marking of the face or permanent injury or unprotected penetration. The client is permitted the use of a safe word—once spoken, all activities will cease and the session will come to an end. The session may be terminated at any time upon the discretion of the dominant, Eltanin.
By signing below, you agree to earnestly follow the dominant’s instructions to the best of your ability. You agree to endeavor, truthfully—with full faculty of body, mind and spirit—to please the dominant to the best of your ability. Failure to do so will result in the permanent termination of the relationship.
Eltanin’s contract is very different from Astra’s—which came with a long list of activities to be included or excluded, many clauses, and allowed the use of safe words to guide the interaction. He should walk away, wait for Astra. One more day. A few more drops of dreamless under the tongue.
Harry conjures a biro, signing in a messy rush.
* * *
Moans float from the airy hall. It is a beautiful open floor, made of marble so pale it could be moonstone, and little light. The marble seems to drink what light there is; imbued with its own faint pulse. Bodies drip like sprays of flowers from dark mattresses, oak tables, and ancient velvet settees. Harry smells sweat and cum. Wanton moaning, crying, and little, tumbling whispers fall out of mouths then are licked back in. The slapping of flesh follows after Harry and the attendant as they pass Astra’s studio and continue down the long hall.
“In through here,” the attendant gestures softly to the last door on the left, carved with swirling lines with a cruel bent about them; a tangled, leaning canopy.
Harry doesn’t thank her for her assistance; his heart beats too wildly. He feels it in his gums and his finger pads, in his throbbing jugular. His palms press flat against the door. Harry doesn’t know what he needs; he’s never, ever known—but he’s half-blind with it anyway. It’s killing him, he realizes. He’s dying slow, amongst pub crawls and spell burns and loving embraces; amongst headlines and memories and his static-noise-nothing of a future. Where were all the ghosts? There used to be so many. But the ghosts have left him now, and it’s just Harry alone, so light that one day the emptiness might simply take him.
The door swings open on its own and Harry stumbles in, just managing to avoid falling. The room is like Astra’s—made of milky marble with a waist-high slab of it rising smooth from the floor like an altar. There is a wardrobe in the back corner and not much else. There is a bay window to Harry’s right. The night beyond its frost-streaked glass is old and deep and blue, strewn with feathers of snow and dim stars.
A person is sitting on the edge in the bay window. His forearms rest on his thighs and his head is bowed, hair hanging in the bright, straight line of a weapon. His shiny shoes tap musically against the floor.
Harry knows who it is just from this. He doesn’t need the face, the voice, the languid line of his body as he rises, but he gets it all anyway—he gets the specific, stupid way he adjusts his cufflinks. The coltish toss of the hair. The narrowing and hardening and glittering of the eyes.
“Potter,” Malfoy drawls. “Do come in.”
The door slams behind Harry and he flinches. Was this someone’s idea of a joke? God's, maybe? All along, was that God laughing?
“Mal—”
Malfoy presses a single, pale finger over his lips. The image is arresting. Harry hadn’t known Malfoy was even still in the country. Last Hary heard he’d fucked off to France. A faint ringing begins in Harry’s ears; he needs this so badly.
“Potter.” Malfoy says, terribly final. “Come in.”
Harry feels frozen and unable to move, already failing to obey—which is a sad thing to fail at when it's all you want to do—but he's failed at everything for a long time now. He’d failed, even, to die, and yet they praise him. They look to him. They love him, and they have no idea how badly he’s failed them. Harry tries to tell them, but he fails at that too—
Suddenly, Malfoy’s moving, heels clicking like the second-hand of a clock. Malfoy reaches for him, then Malfoy’s hand is fisted in Harry’s hair, pulling back his head, tilting up his chin.
“Potter,” he says again, velvet.
“Why didn’t you want me?” is all Harry can think to say with Malfoy's hand on him. “We’re a match.”
Malfoy twists, tugging the hair at the roots until it aches. Harry’s arms dangle uselessly at his sides.
There’s too much roiling inside him and it’s all going to come out. It’s going to spill all over the floor and stain Draco Malfoy’s perfect shoes and get all over his pretty hair and skin, and Malfoy’s going to laugh. Malfoy’s going to laugh and laugh, and he’s never going to stop laughing at how stupid and messy and obvious—
“On your fucking knees.”
Harry goes to his knees on the marble, hearing the crack of their impact like apparition, but it doesn’t hurt. He’s trembling madly. His teeth start to chatter and he can’t manage anything, vision narrowing, airways constricting.
Malfoy follows Harry down, crouching before him. His fingers are still wrapped in Harry's tangled hair, pulling. Malfoy sniffs, tilting his head in blank estimation.
“When we are in this room, you do not think. You do not speak unless you are spoken to, or to say the word ‘stop.’ If you say stop, we stop. If you do not say stop, then you don’t do a single thing, you don't draw a single useless, undeserving breath unless I tell you to. Do you understand me? Yes, Potter, I do see that you’re nodding as if you understand, and yet you are still fucking breathing, Harry.”
Harry inhales; sucking his last breath back in and not breathing again.
“Listen to me, Potter. Are you listening? Answer my next question honestly, and I’ll let you breathe. If you lie, I will know.” Draco licks his lips softly. Harry can’t read the radiance in his eyes. “What do you need from me, Potter? Take a breath. Deeper, you fuck. There. Another. And again. There, good. Now, no more." Malfoy positions Harry's head back another inch, and Harry has to squint to look at him. "Why are you here?”
“I need…” Harry closes his eyes, remembering thread-like cracks in a muggle mirror. “I need help.”
Time passes, Harry doesn’t know how much. Briefly, there is a touch as soft as a feather on his cheek.
“I can see that.” Malfoy says this so quietly Harry can't trust it has been said at all. Then Malfoy loosens his grip on Harry's curls, fingers slipping through and away. “Breathe,” he says.
Harry obeys with a gasp. His eyes fly open, catch and hold on Malfoy's as he stands and extends his hand down.
“Come,” he tells Harry. “I have need of you.”