It struck midnight before Malfoy came back. Harry jumped at the sound of the clock, surprised that it was only twelve. The night had gone slow, time dragging its heels as if reluctant to leave that still moment when Malfoy had knocked over the peppermint tea.
Harry had no idea how he was going to get through the night. He did not expect Malfoy to return.
Malfoy did, though. He came in with very little fuss, swinging a shopping bag and giving Harry a mildly concerned look.
“Have you been sitting there like that for an hour, Potter?”
“Felt longer,” Harry muttered.
Malfoy blinked at him, slow and a bit startled for some reason, and said: “You should at least have turned the lamp on.”
He did it for him, clicking the little switch and then retreating behind the counter that separated the kitchen and the sitting room, as if he was moving into safe territory. Harry blinked, stranded in a pool of sudden yellow light.
“I didn’t know you were coming back tonight,” he said.
He was about to say that he was glad Malfoy had, that they could fix this, but Malfoy interrupted him.
“But I left my bag,” he said, looking honestly puzzled. “And all our friends are still at Pansy’s. Where did you think I was going? I would not wander the streets like a vagrant: that is not the Malfoy way.”
“Well, I thought Professor Snape, or maybe—Zabini, I don’t know.”
Malfoy looked scandalised. “I hope you’re not suggesting that I would ever borrow nightclothes from Zabini,” he said. “You should’ve seen some of the stuff he wore at school. That man’s not right.”
Harry did not care what nightclothes Zabini had worn at school. “Then—where did you go?”
Malfoy put the shopping bag on the counter, where it landed with a thunk. “I went for a walk,” he said. “Then I bought some tequila. I felt in need of some. I wasn’t going to leave you alone.”
The way Malfoy said it, a little belligerently but also as if it was perfectly obvious, made Harry remember they were partners: made him remember he’d told himself, a hundred times in that endless hour, what he should say as soon as he saw Malfoy again.
“I didn’t mean what I said,” he burst out. “I’m really sorry.”
Malfoy frowned at him, a pin-scratch line appearing between his eyebrows. He leaned forward, elbows on the counter, and did not look as relieved as Harry had thought he would. He did look a bit relieved, but the chief thing he seemed to be feeling was massive bewilderment.
“Then why would you say it?” he demanded. “Are you completely insane? Was it some sort of joke?”
“No, I don’t actually think taking advantage of people would be a very good joke,” Harry snapped, and realised he shouldn’t be snapping at Malfoy when he’d said something unforgivable to him, and fell wretchedly silent.
“Sometimes you make extremely bad jokes,” Malfoy said, in the distracted way he spoke when he was thinking about something else and yet for the life of him couldn’t stop babbling. “It makes me sad for you.” He bit his lip and said: “Taking advantage?”
Harry leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and tried to catch Malfoy’s eyes. Malfoy swallowed slightly and looked determinedly away.
“Well—when I said—”
“I remember what you said.”
“I didn’t mean it,” Harry repeated hopelessly. “Not that I wouldn’t care. I mean, of course I would, I would never just—” He thought of that Veela dream, of hunting in the woods, the hammer of Malfoy’s heart in his bed, and had to look away himself. “Take,” he said at last, low.
“Right,” Malfoy said. “Well, I didn’t think you would.”
Harry’s gaze lifted to Malfoy again and Malfoy looked back for a moment, looking calm and a little quizzical.
“Of course I am very concerned at all times about the preservation of my maiden purity,” he said. “You idiot. I know you wouldn’t intentionally use this on anyone. I’ve seen you with the enraptured masses, you know, there were plenty who were easy on the eyes—”
“I don’t,” Harry said, who hadn’t really noticed. “That wasn’t—I wouldn’t—”
He choked on the absolute impossibility of trying to explain that he hadn’t noticed and wouldn’t have cared if he had, that other people weren’t a temptation, without making it sound as if he’d been lying before when he’d said he hadn’t meant it.
It’s not real, Malfoy had said, and Harry understood that it had to be real. It wouldn’t be right, otherwise. He wouldn’t do that to Malfoy.
He had been lying when he said he hadn’t meant it. He had meant it, at that moment, with Malfoy before him saying impossible things. He hadn’t cared about anything else.
Then Malfoy had left, though, and he remembered that it mattered what Malfoy thought on the subject, what he thought when he was in his right mind. What he’d think of Harry: what Harry had to lose.
“You didn’t mean that. I know,” Malfoy said, soothing, surer than Harry was himself. “But the rest of it,” he said, and hesitated. “Did you mean that?”
Harry was confused for a moment. He hadn’t said much, he’d thought: just enough to indicate he didn’t care and send Malfoy away forever. Only Malfoy had come back.
I want you too much to care. I want you.
“Yeah,” Harry said, his voice rough and breaking at once. “Yeah, I meant that.”
“Oh,” said Malfoy.
He was studying the kitchen counter. Harry remembered something he wanted Malfoy to know.
“And that time when—when I asked for you not to be my partner,” he burst out, and ignored the sudden warning bunch of Malfoy’s shoulders, as if faced with an unexpected threat. “That’s what—that whole thing was about. You didn’t do anything wrong. It was—it was me.”
Malfoy looked at him then, head jerking up. He looked stunned and utterly lost, as if the world had betrayed him by turning out to be so different than he’d thought. It broke Harry’s heart.
“What?” he said, and sounded completely dismayed. “But that—Potter, that was years ago.”
“Yeah,” Harry said, and when Malfoy didn’t look any less dismayed he said: “It seemed—I thought it was unprofessional,” because it was true, and so that Malfoy would know being Aurors and being partners mattered.
It seemed to help. Malfoy’s shoulders eased a fraction.
“I want you to know,” he said in a shaken voice. “I’m starting to doubt my elite Auror detective skills. This is very worrying. It means neither of us has them.”
“Maybe Cuthbert has them,” Harry offered.
He was terribly relieved when Malfoy laughed, a little sound like the amusement had been surprised out of him. It felt for a trembling instant as if everything might really be all right.
“I should ask,” Malfoy said in a voice that was suddenly hard with resolve. “This isn’t—it isn’t a big deal, is it? It’s not going to change anything?”
Harry took a deep breath and tried to sound reassuring. “No, Malfoy,” he said, and his voice managed to be almost gentle. “Nothing has to change.”
Malfoy nodded and Harry told himself he was glad. Malfoy knew everything, now, and he’d come back, he’d shown no signs of wanting to keep away. The solid ground of partnership was under their feet: there were no more revelations to be made. They were safe, now. Nothing had to change.
“You must have a hardcore thing for blonds or something,” Malfoy said in his funny, stunned voice.
“I don’t know,” Harry muttered, looking at his hands. “Never really thought about it.”
There was a little space, a little silence in which Harry tried very hard to be glad, and Malfoy busied himself taking the tequila bottle out of the plastic shopping bag, a tawny bottle that went briefly golden in the light. Malfoy twisted the cap off and then fiddled with the cap, a metallic gleam between his restless hands. He was always fiddling with something.
Malfoy said abruptly: “So I have a plan.”
“Jesus, Malfoy. There is no need to make things any worse!”
Harry was combing with unfocused dread through a list of possibilities, all the while knowing that Malfoy would come up with something far more ridiculous and unbelievable, and then Malfoy proved him right by saying: “It would solve all our problems if we slept together,” and Harry’s train of thought went off the rails and exploded, leaving nothing in his mind but ringing shock.
“Oh my God,” he said. “You’re crazy.”
“With chat-up lines like that, Potter, no wonder we’re having such a hard time finding someone for you to sleep with,” Malfoy snapped, and opened the cupboard where they kept the glasses. “D’you want a glass?”
“Of tequila, no,” Harry said.
“Suit yourself,” Malfoy told him. “Personally, I think you’re making a mistake.”
“I thought you weren’t going to drink like this anymore.”
“Under normal circumstances, no,” Malfoy said, pouring himself a shot and then taking it, pale throat glinting in the fluorescent light as he swallowed. “But I have a lot of—a lot of new information to process and I am feeling somewhat shaken, so I think under these particular circumstances I am allowed to have a damn drink. And I think you should have one too. Or several.”
“Well, I’m not going to,” Harry said. “And stop being insane.”
Malfoy scowled. He seemed a little calmer after the drink, restless hands playing with his shot glass now. Harry looked at his hands and thought about how familiar and dear it was, being able to glance across his desk and see Malfoy play with quills or doodle on his parchment. It was one of the sights in the world that grounded him, that made him feel as if it was possible to be at home. He forced himself not to think of anything else.
“I’m not insane,” said Malfoy, who was wrong about that and not making this easy for Harry. “I think—I think it’s a good solution. You can’t keep going like this, riots and not being able to go out to the shops, and I said I’d help and I will. I want to. And we have to be able to do our jobs, especially with the halfbreeds going missing and the Aurors under suspicion. And I’ll get my Veela vaccination and everything can be like it was.” His voice became calmer as he went on, became almost the easy drawl he always used when he’d convinced himself of his own brilliance. “It’s not a very sophisticated plan,” he admitted. “But it’s not like you gave me much time to think it up. I blame you.”
If Malfoy had intended to turn the tables and make Harry as stunned and incredulous as he’d been, he could stop it now. He’d already succeeded. Harry couldn’t even think of an argument why this was a terrible idea, because if he thought about it then he’d have to think about what Malfoy was offering.
He was wretched enough to plead. “Malfoy, don’t. I can’t—please.”
He stared fixedly at the floor. He heard the sound of Malfoy pouring himself another glass of tequila and then the sound, much more hesitant, of Malfoy coming out from behind the kitchen counter, into more dangerous territory.
Harry looked up and Malfoy was leaning, his back to the counter, his expression distinctly worried.
“There’s more to this, isn’t there,” he said.
Harry looked at him, mute.
“I should’ve known,” Malfoy said. “You’re into something weird, aren’t you?”
Harry kept staring at him. It was a different sort of staring now, that was all.
“What?”
“This whole time, you were making a giant fuss because you have some terrible secret fetish you don’t want anyone to know about,” Malfoy said. “That’s it, isn’t it? Come on, you can tell me. I guess we can—” He waved his glass around in a conceding gesture and finished doubtfully: “Work something out?”
“Malfoy, I do not and you must be joking.”
“I’m joking as long as it’s not true,” Malfoy said, breathing a sigh of mock relief. Harry looked up, meant to steal a glance and look guiltily away again but Malfoy was smiling, a pale shadow of his easy teasing smile but trying, and he caught and held Harry’s eyes.
Don’t, Harry thought, and: Please. He didn’t say it this time.
“I’d rather go to Sinistra’s,” he said instead, in a low voice.
Malfoy’s eyes widened. “I think I’m a little bit insulted, but if you think that would be best.”
“I didn’t mean I was going to Sinistra’s,” Harry said hastily. “I’m never going to Sinistra’s.”
Insulted, Malfoy said. As if that was what this was about, the stupid, stupid idiot, with his ridiculous plans and his willingness to sacrifice anything for people he liked. Well, that wasn’t how things worked: people didn’t sacrifice themselves for Harry. He wouldn’t let Malfoy do it.
“Well, you have to do something!” Malfoy burst out. “I’m—I’m sure you’d rather find someone who—”
“That’s not it—” Harry said.
“The point is,” Malfoy said, glaring about having been interrupted. “You can’t go out and meet anyone while you’re like this. And so we will be trapped here forever unless we find a solution involving someone you already know. This is the solution and actually, I think that it’s all very convenient.”
“Oh, do you,” Harry said in a hollow voice.
“Yes I do,” said Malfoy. “We’re both single. You have your blonds fetish or whatever, fine. You said you wanted—someone you liked and you said we were friends.” He looked angry, as if he suspected that Harry was going to snatch something away from him and he’d had to point out that Harry’d given it to him in the first place.
“And what about you?” Harry snarled.
Malfoy blinked. “What about me?” he asked, as if he was truly puzzled that he was an issue at all. Harry felt a pang of despairing protectiveness that was about even with his desire to hit Malfoy around the head. “I’m not like you, I don’t have to beat off admirers with a stick and a scowl. I don’t see why you keep expecting me to be angry with you and—and you’re my friend, too. It’s not just—I care about you,” he spat out, as if the words had a terrible taste, and went instantly pink and cross. “Can we please stop talking about this?”
“Oh, you’d rather have gay sex than talk about your feelings,” Harry said.
He meant the words to come out scornful, meant to make Malfoy see that it wasn’t just wittering on about his brilliance and trying to convince Harry that his latest plan was gold, trying to make what he was suggesting seem real to him.
Except saying it made it seem real to Harry. He looked at Malfoy for a moment and remembered how it had felt, seeing the tea spill, before he’d had a chance to think about what this could mean and how he could mess up. He looked at the line of his throat, the sharp angle of his jaw, details Harry had memorised but which seemed new now, because they seemed possible.
But they weren’t.
Malfoy crossed his arms over his chest. “I’d rather have gay sex with Professor Slughorn than talk about my feelings,” he claimed. “I am manly and stoic like that.”
“This isn’t funny,” Harry said, low. “I wouldn’t—I won’t do anything that might hurt you. I won’t let you do anything you don’t want to do.”
For an instant he thought Malfoy was going to move towards him: he had that look he got sometimes, when he thought Harry was being crazy but he felt fond of him all the same. Usually he touched Harry’s hair when he looked like that, but not this time. This time he stirred, but he walked across the floor and to the window rather than to Harry. He leaned against the window casement, staring through the glass and into the darkness, and he said: “It’s what I do want to do. That’s the problem.”
“Oh,” said Harry.
“I’m not being altruistic,” Malfoy continued in a tone that seemed to sneer at himself, at the very idea. “That wasn’t why I was running off to some hotel. I’ve had—thoughts.”
“Really,” Harry murmured, and Malfoy glanced over at him involuntarily, startled as Harry was by the way that one word had come out. He hadn’t heard that note in his voice before, rough but coaxing too, threatening and promising at once.
He wasn’t horrified by it, like he should have been. He was too busy looking at Malfoy, wondering if it would work.
“Yes,” Malfoy said in a clipped voice, not elaborating. “But—my plan will solve that, too, and then we’ll be fine. Everything will be fine. Everything will go back to normal. We can live together just like you said and nothing has to change.”
There was always a moment when Malfoy’s lunatic schemes started to sound sensible. Harry had to fight against this one, but it was horrific how difficult it was. They could live together just like they’d planned. What was the other option, that Malfoy would have to go away again? Malfoy had offered. Harry hadn’t asked. He did want everything to go back to normal.
He tried to crush down the thought of what else he wanted. The other choice was nothing, but this way—Malfoy’d offered—he could have one night. Just one night. We’ll be fine, Malfoy had said. He’d promised.
Maybe, if Malfoy liked it, Harry thought suddenly. Maybe. Ron had even said that maybe things would work out. It was possible.
Harry was terribly, forcibly aware of Malfoy’s presence in the room, as he hadn’t been even a moment ago. He’d been glad about his return, concentrating on not saying anything wrong, not losing him again. He was used to crushing down anything else, trying not to betray himself, but now everything was betrayed.
Now he could look at Malfoy the way he’d looked at him three years ago, as someone who might be attainable. Only three years ago he’d still been able to be reasonable, he hadn’t wanted to be unprofessional, he hadn’t really known who Malfoy was. Three years ago he’d never spent days in a cell with the prospect of death and the thought of Malfoy, never felt protective of him as something terribly valuable and unquestionably his own. Never wanted him to the exclusion of almost everything else.
It was all different, now. It was Malfoy’s idea. Harry wouldn’t hurt him.
Malfoy made a slight sound, his profile ice-pale and indifferent, his fingers nervously moving on the window catch. “This prolonged silence is very ominous,” he said, trying to make a joke of his words.
“What do you want me to do?” Harry asked abruptly. He didn’t mean it to come out as a demand.
“I think to start with you’d better use the Veela sparkles or whatever,” Malfoy drawled, making a gesture that was apparently meant to indicate sparkliness but which looked more like a sick duck. It was the drawl he always used when he felt uncomfortable, the gesture one of his silly extravagant ones. Harry felt his heart twist with familiar longing, with how well he knew him and how much he wanted him.
He was still looking out the window. Harry leaned forward a little more, as if trying to persuade a shy animal to come closer, except instead of reaching out a hand towards Malfoy he reached out with these powers. He’d never consciously tried to use them before, this remnant of some creature with wings in a wood, but they were there, lying coiled. He could send them out like snakes, like vines to wrap around someone—Malfoy—if that was what Malfoy wanted, if that was the only thing that would bring him close.
Malfoy turned around suddenly, face blazing and cold. It was like having a door slammed on all the power, a sword wielded, his eyes the glittering colour of steel. Harry straightened, shocked backwards by having Occlumency thrown in his face, relieved and savagely disappointed and wanting him more than ever.
Malfoy’s chest rose and fell on a sharp breath. He raked fingers irritably through his hair, and said: “I’m sorry, that was—I was a bit taken aback. Go again, please.”
“No,” Harry snarled.
“Why not?” Malfoy demanded, and then shut his eyes. “Okay,” he said, leaning back against the glass. “No. I should know better than that, when you hate the whole stupid Veela thing anyway.”
He stopped talking with an exhalation of breath. For Malfoy, silence could be one of his rare admissions of defeat.
It was a good thing, Harry told himself. It was for the best. The whole idea was crazy.
Malfoy drew the breath back in, slowly, and said: “Why don’t you come over here?”
Harry was standing before he realised that he’d moved, with no trace of stiffness after sitting so long in one position, in fluid instant movement like a river rushing naturally and inevitably to its destination.
He was only half-way there when he realised that Malfoy had only opened his eyes a fraction: he thought that Malfoy might be tracking Harry’s movements under his lowered eyelids, but he couldn’t be sure. He certainly hadn’t moved an inch towards Harry, and he was holding his body tense as if waiting for an attack.
If Malfoy was dreading this…
Maybe he was simply nervous, though. He’d had to argue about this and he was utterly inexperienced and he was so very proud. And in that case the worst thing Harry could possibly do was turn this down.
And maybe Harry was being selfish, lethally, terribly selfish, and he was inventing excuses so he could have this.
The room was dark except for the lamp Malfoy’d switched on, the pale yellow light outlining his face, those glinting lowered eyelashes, the sharp line of his nose. Light went soft on his pale skin. The only sound in the room was his breathing, catching a little.
Harry would have liked to be gentle, if he’d known how. He felt a rush of that awful compunction again, the fear lest he was going to ruin everything. He’d never touched anyone in his life who he hadn’t been certain wanted to be touched. He didn’t know how to do this. He wished—he almost wished—that he could be someone better, nobler, someone who wouldn’t want this so desperately.
Harry took a step, and then another. It felt like an impossible distance covered at last and Malfoy was close, now, so close that Harry could feel how close he was, the nearness of his body heat, the almost-medicinal smell of his funny shampoo. He was so close, but it felt like there was another impossible distance to cross.
When Harry reached out, he saw his hand was shaking. He drew it back.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said in a small, fraught whisper.
Malfoy’s eyelids lifted a little. “You don’t?” he asked, lurking amusement in his low voice, as if he was about to make a filthy joke about hearing otherwise at the Slytherins’ poker night. “Then we’re both in trouble.”
Malfoy didn’t know what he was doing at all. Harry hadn’t forgotten that, not for a moment, but it hit him with double force hearing Malfoy admit it, even cautiously. Harry lifted his hand again, saw the flicker of Malfoy’s eyes under those lowered eyelids, watching carefully and covertly. He was being sneaky and trying to scheme something out, even now. Harry looked at the faint lines, laughter and pain, around that thin expressive mouth, looked at the veiled eyes and the pulse beating wildly at his throat and thought, this one.
He didn’t know how to start. Malfoy might break away or he might obviously hate it, Harry would stop then, he would. It might only last for a moment.
Malfoy’s hands were behind his back, probably still playing with that damned window catch. Harry’s heart was beating too hard: he could feel a burst of adrenalin in his chest, the wild urge to do something, and yet he was held still by sheer terror. If he dared move, even this would be taken away.
He reached out and touched Malfoy, knuckles running lightly over the scar that snaked silver along Malfoy’s white throat, letting himself touch and trying to remind himself not to hurt Malfoy, not ever again. A long slow shudder ran throughout Malfoy’s body and Harry shut his eyes, hopelessly selfish, he didn’t want to see revulsion and have to stop.
He found Malfoy fumbling in the dark, leaning in until the smell of his hair and skin flooded through Harry, the collar of his shirt fisted in one of Harry’s hands. His nose brushed Malfoy’s nose, his lips slid over Malfoy’s cheek.
“Tell me if you hate it,” he murmured, and his mouth met Malfoy’s mouth.
Everything was quiet now, the world hushed. He kissed him and it was slow, slow and wonderful. Malfoy’s mouth was so warm. Harry concentrated for a moment on his lower lip, the soft, sometimes-mocking curve of it. He tried to memorise the taste.
Malfoy’s mouth parted suddenly and Harry felt the graze of teeth against his mouth, the curl of cool fingers firm on the back of his neck, and knew that Malfoy had just given him permission.
He slammed Malfoy up against the window, the last distance breached, Malfoy’s fingers tight in his hair. Harry was shaking and did not care at all, the torn sounds of Malfoy’s breathing the only important thing in the world. He kissed Malfoy again and again, not able to ever really break the kiss, desperately trying to swallow every little sound he made, drink the noises down and keep them. It felt like someone had laced Harry’s blood with little shards of ice, so cold it burned and made him shiver, made him want to beg. Malfoy tilted his head back against the glass and dragged him a crucial fraction nearer, the kiss deeper, and Harry tried to shove Malfoy’s thin shirt aside and get closer, have the feel of sleek skin over whipcord muscle under his hands. This one, Malfoy at last, he thought. Please.
He felt a sort of random despair at himself. This was unacceptable, he couldn’t do this. He’d always been perfectly able to keep in the correct amount of control before. He was supposed to be gentle with Malfoy, he’d promised himself he would be. He had to give him a chance to say no. He had to stop.
The shirt tore, a couple of buttons hitting the ground, and Harry tore his mouth away from Malfoy’s.
“Sorry,” he gasped out.
“What?” said Malfoy.
Harry’s chest hurt a bit, he wasn’t sure why: it might have been from not breathing much. So much for being gentle, he’d tried to tear Malfoy’s clothes off, if it hadn’t been for the window they would have been on the floor… but at least he’d managed to stop. He opened his eyes and saw Malfoy, shoulders rising and falling with each laboured breath, mouth red in his pale face, hair silvery and dishevelled, and he had to kiss him again. One more, and then he shut his eyes and breathed in, forehead against Malfoy’s. He wasn’t quite kissing him right this minute. That felt like an achievement.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I shouldn’t have—I shouldn’t—”
Malfoy caught his mouth and kissed him, carefully at first. Then less carefully, mouth searching, fingers combing through Harry’s hair.
“Er,” Harry said when Malfoy pulled a fraction away, speaking only to distract himself from the urge to pull Malfoy back at once. “I don’t—do you remember what I was saying?”
Malfoy laughed, breathless. “No. Do you want to go to bed?”
“Yes,” Harry said, and remembered there was some sort of insane objection to that. He couldn’t work out how to force his thoughts into order, so they’d make sense in his mind again.
Malfoy slid away from his place between Harry and the window. Harry followed him automatically, would have done so even without Malfoy’s tight familiar grip on his wrist, and somehow they made it to the bedroom door.
Malfoy hesitated on the threshold. He was probably panicking, Harry thought. They should probably stop.
“Shh,” he said, trying viciously hard to be soothing, and reached up and touched Malfoy’s face, fingers light on the sharp line of his jaw. And then they were kissing again, which wasn’t exactly stopping.
“I don’t,” Malfoy said, his new rough breathless voice driving Harry insane. “You’ll have to, I’ve never—” He stopped, frustrated.
“If I ask for anything you don’t want,” Harry said. “You have to tell me.”
He slid his hands to the small of Malfoy’s back, arms around him for the first time. He was bad at this holding back stuff: maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise but it was. It had always been easy before, easy not to want very much.
“That’s not what I meant,” Malfoy told him, mouth brushing against Harry’s as he spoke. His lips curved under his in a sudden smile and he murmured, in a slow, dark way that made it excruciatingly clear that he had no idea how little control Harry had right now: “Ask me for anything you like.”
That was it, this was all some insane plot to drive Harry mad. Harry didn’t care, sliding a hand under Malfoy’s shirt and feeling the warm skin at the small of his back, following the line of his spine. Malfoy’s back arched against his hands and just the touch of bare skin was making Harry feel dizzy and desperate. He buried his face in the curve of Malfoy’s throat, nuzzling a little. This time he did it deliberately, his cheek rasping against the skin, and he felt shocked and thrilled by Malfoy trying to press in closer.
Malfoy said; “Take off your shirt.”
He said it in that rough new voice, commanding, and nobody had ever tried to command Harry before.
It should have been easy, but he found he viscerally hated being separated from Malfoy, hated having to move back even far enough to take off his stupid shirt. He did it, though, struggling out of it with hands that seemed to have stopped working, threw it in some random direction and reached to have Malfoy back.
Malfoy was looking at him funny: a slow considering look under lowered lashes, a look that felt like a touch.
“What?” Harry asked, ready to panic.
Malfoy smiled and did touch, just his fingers against the side of Harry’s face. Harry turned his face into the touch and shut his eyes.
“Nothing,” Malfoy said, tender. “I think I’ve ruined your hair forever. We’re going to have to shave it off and start from scratch. Don’t worry about being bald, it will be awesome! You’ll look like Kingsley Shacklebolt.”
“If that’s what you’re into,” Harry said, hopelessly honest, and leaned in and kissed him again, holding him pressed up against the doorframe and kissing his mouth, the curling corner of it, and his jaw and a place near his ear. Malfoy made a little sound, broken in the middle, that made Harry’s heart stutter in his chest.
Malfoy moved, a little hesitant, and touched Harry’s bare shoulders, a deliberate sort of gesture. Harry tried to stay still, breathing quietly against Malfoy’s ear, trying not to shake apart. Uncertain, his touch not quite steady, Malfoy stroked up Harry’s ribs and he turned his face in against Harry’s and Harry kissed him, felt a wild thoughtless rush of possessiveness and happiness, this man, this mouth, this one, and only the clink of metal brought him back to his senses and he realised that he’d gone for Malfoy’s belt buckle.
Malfoy started and Harry moved his hands up fast. He’d meant to move his hands away but didn’t seem able to manage it, didn’t seem able to ever quite stop touching Malfoy, so he rested his hands on Malfoy’s arms, which were a little tense.
“Sorry,” he breathed, getting the word out against Malfoy’s mouth.
“No, no, it’s okay,” Malfoy said, sounding determined and still breathless. “Bed?”
Harry fought the urge to say helpfully that he had one, and it was right there, and that going to it was a great idea. Because this was new to Malfoy, he was obviously a little unsure about how to deal with it, Harry had to be careful.
“If you don’t,” he offered, and Malfoy pushed him back a step and he brought Malfoy with him by main force, keeping his grip on Malfoy’s arms, keeping him chest to chest, hips brushing his. He kissed Malfoy and forgot exactly what he’d been trying to say. “I know it isn’t—familiar—”
Harry felt sudden black rage at the thought of Malfoy getting through this by thinking about Katie or, God, even Zabini. He remembered having to see Malfoy with marks Katie had left on him, made a snarling sound and kissed Malfoy again. She wouldn’t get the chance to touch him, not ever again.
“Sure it is,” Malfoy told him, with his sudden bright mad smile, and now Harry knew what the shape of that smile felt like against his mouth.
Then Malfoy pushed him back, not gently, shoving him and making sure with an ankle hooked around his that he’d fall, and he fell backwards onto a soft mess of blankets and pillows. Malfoy hovered over him, a warm weight against his legs, eyes bright.
“Surrender?” he inquired, making a sound too breathless to be a laugh.
“Come here,” Harry ordered, desperate, and Malfoy shook his head, smirking, and pulled off Harry’s glasses, holding Harry pinned with his free hand and folding them shut with his teeth on one of the earpieces. Then he tossed them over his shoulder. “Come here,” Harry repeated, gathering a fistful of Malfoy’s shirt.
“Make me, Potter,” Malfoy said. “I dare you.”
He pulled Malfoy down, close, and Malfoy tried to wriggle away and Harry threw him over his hip, there was a sudden tangled scramble in bedclothes that Harry probably would’ve straightened out if he’d known this was going to happen. It was like sparring and yet nothing like, they weren’t trying to hurt each other, all Harry wanted was his hands knotted in Malfoy’s soft hair.
Well, that wasn’t all he wanted. But it would do for a start. He got it, and Malfoy’s mouth under his, opening slick and soft and mouth curling, still a little teasing, maddening. Harry’s heart beat wild and harsh in his ears. He kissed him again, slow, and then kissed the underside of his sharp chin, licked the long smooth line of his neck and felt the skin heat under his tongue. Malfoy moaned, low in his throat, and arched up as if the sound wasn’t bad enough, so Harry groaned and pressed down on him and said, muffled into his throat: “Don’t.”
“What,” said Malfoy, warily. “Why?”
Harry shut his eyes. “Why d’you think, Malfoy, you idiot?”
“Oh,” Malfoy said, sounding a little startled and a little pleased for no reason Harry could see. “I must have been misinformed. I read that Veela—”
“Shut up,” Harry said and bit him, teeth scraping his pulse.
Malfoy did not shut up, he kept making soft sounds and it made perfect sense, of course Malfoy would be noisy because he always was. Harry kissed the hollow at the base of his throat, his collarbone, opened one of the few buttons remaining on Malfoy’s shirt with shaking hands and kissed his chest.
“Hey,” Malfoy said, struggling up. “Um.”
He reached out and touched Harry’s hair, in that lingering gentle way Harry liked best, and Harry turned his head and kissed the inside of his wrist. Malfoy started and Harry blinked up at him, realised why: it was his left wrist, the one that bore the Dark Mark.
God, it was impossible, it was so strange. They always were, though. He’d given Malfoy that scar, Malfoy’d taken that mark, Malfoy was supposed to like women, he’d never gone to bed with anyone who bossed him around and then touched his hair like that.
Harry looked up at him, trying to focus: Malfoy, leaning back on his elbows, thin white shirt pushed off his shoulders, hanging on by exactly one button now, hair the colour of moonlight in this light falling into his flushed face.
“Can I?” he asked, his voice rasping in his throat.
“Well—I mean, well, you can,” Malfoy said, voice soft and lovely and terribly distracted. “Obviously, my mother didn’t raise any fools, those rumours about another son who lived in the attics and was crazy from the inbreeding weren’t true.”
“I always thought of you as the son who was crazy from the inbreeding,” Harry said, able to laugh somehow through the haze, and he kissed Malfoy’s chest again.
Malfoy stroked his hair, a little less gentle, and said: “You don’t h—” and then Harry ran a hand up Malfoy’s taut, quivering stomach, the smoothness of his skin and the interruption of scars, the faint little line of hair. He touched it, ran his fingertips along it, felt Malfoy’s stomach contract under his hand with a sharp breath.
Malfoy stopped talking.
Harry wanted to get it right, exactly right, but he wasn’t exactly practised and it was so difficult to think, he was shaking, blood burning in his veins and Malfoy making those long, low, soft sounds almost like breaths but not quite. Harry stroked his hip as he got his jeans open and Malfoy’s hands were tight in his hair, holding on too hard so he could keep still, and Harry had to be gentle with him and wanted to forget every careful thought he’d ever had, torn between the instincts to protect and possess. It was driving him mad, but not as fast as the rising sounds, blurring into incoherent words, and the arch and change of Malfoy’s body.
Malfoy dragged Harry up by the hair, pulling. Harry would’ve thought hair-pulling might hurt, help ease the hot urgency instead of intensifying it and the world was a sort of wild melting blur and Malfoy was undoing his jeans, fingers moving fast but fumbling, and Harry moaned and kissed the damp side of Malfoy’s face.
It was like Harry hadn’t ever done this before and he hadn’t, really, it wasn’t the same, Malfoy’s voice in his ear a continuous soothing maddening stream of words, curling in the air, the way Malfoy always talked and talked as he was working something out but his tone changed, words becoming nonsense again as Harry twisted and hit his head on the headboard and didn’t care as he caught Malfoy’s mouth, the kiss long and hot and frantic, never quite broken.
It was so different.
“You’re brilliant,” Harry said as soon as he could remember how to form words again, his heart still going far too fast. He felt unreasonably happy.
Malfoy laughed, a soft dazed sound. “I’ve been telling you that for years, Potter.”
Afterwards—always before that had been that, it made no sense to fuss about these things. Harry had been known to turn his back a few times, just because—it was more sensible, everyone had to sleep. He was surprised that this had changed, too, and he was possessed by the wondering urge to keep touching, wasn’t sure exactly how, Malfoy’s hair and the inside of his elbows. This one.
Malfoy propped himself up on one elbow, eyes suddenly suspicious. “This isn’t some sort of tactful prelude to making me sleep on the sofa, is it? Because I’m not going to and actually now I think of it, poor little Malcolm Baddock a few years back, did I ever tell you how extremely rude throwing him out was, your manners are—”
“No!” Harry almost shouted, cringing away from the mention of Malcolm Baddock’s name as if he’d been burned and someone was advancing with a hot poker. “No, I wasn’t. I—I want you to stay.”
“Okay, then,” Malfoy said, voice mollified and soft again.
He seemed to know how to do what Harry had wanted to do, drawing up a sheet over them and settling it rather gently over Harry, curling against him, easy. “Sorry,” he murmured, dropping a kiss on Harry’s shoulder.
“Don’t be sorry,” Harry murmured back, helplessly happy again. Malfoy’s face was tucked between the pillow and Harry’s shoulder, eyes sliding shut as Harry stroked his hair, trying to do it the same way Malfoy did it, fingers straying to his neck and his face.
Until Malfoy was asleep, breathing light and untroubled in Harry’s bed, and Harry felt calm as well as happy. Moonlight was streaming in through the windows, the curtains open, turning the sheets into silvery-white ridges and hollows around them, icing the side of Malfoy’s face that was not shadowed by Harry hanging over him, and in the silence Harry was able to find the words he’d been wanting to say, stumbling over them but carrying on until he reached a kind of momentum and was able to pour it all out.
He kept his voice as soft as he could, so he wouldn’t wake Malfoy.
Eventually he was hoarse, it hurt to speak, and he lay with his arm around Malfoy, a jealous guarding circle. Malfoy stirred, shifting a little closer, and started to make that low murmuring sound he always made, familiar to Harry from a hundred stakeouts and that one time they’d been trapped in that ice cave. It sent a wave of just as familiar longing through Harry and then it struck him that he could do what he always wanted to. Now he could. He bent down to Malfoy’s mouth, fingers curled beneath his jaw, and kissed him, made it slow and long and sweet, body a careful arch over Malfoy’s, until he felt Malfoy’s mouth curl into a gradual smile beneath his.
Harry’s eyes snapped open. Malfoy’s already were, wide and startled and hazy silver in the moonlight. He was still smiling faintly, and as Harry looked at him Malfoy stretched, wonderfully. He slid an arm around his neck and drew Harry back down for another kiss.
It was almost morning, the sky pale bright yellow and dark blue fading into grey, when Harry finally fell asleep. He didn’t want to fall asleep but he was so comfortable, body humming with contentment and exhaustion, and his eyelids were so heavy, they seemed dragged down without his consent. He was drifting into darkness, easy and warm, and then he got a little jolt that woke him for an instant.
Years ago now, he used to wake up finding himself reaching out, his hand closing on nothingness and falling open onto an empty pillow and shadows. He’d thought he’d stopped doing it, or got so used to reaching out and finding nothing that he slept through it.
That must have been it, because he was woken by the startled new feeling of reaching out and having something: his eyes opened a little at the surprise to see pale gold morning on Malfoy’s face, wakeful and watching, and feel Malfoy’s fingers laced through his, palm against his palm.
Harry went to sleep happy.
He woke up earlier than Malfoy because he always did, he’d learned to wake up early during the war and never lost the habit, and besides that except on Quidditch days nobody ever slept later than Malfoy.
He woke feeling terribly surprised, Malfoy’s light fine hair against his shoulder. Harry didn’t risk moving.
Last night, he thought, looking up at the ceiling and feeling thoroughly awake. Well. A lot had happened last night.
Now Harry had to—he had to make a plan, because Malfoy might be a good deal more unpleasantly surprised by his awakening. Especially considering the fact—and oh God, why hadn’t Harry considered this before—he’d had more to drink than Harry had last night. Even before the tequila shots.
Malfoy’d said, Malfoy’d asked him to promise, that nothing would change. If Harry could prove to him that—that the plan had worked, and they could be partners just like before, and then Malfoy could be calm and pleased and maybe have a chance to think about all this.
Harry was certain Malfoy’d liked it. He was almost certain. And if Malfoy had the chance to think about it and he didn’t seem upset, then maybe—Harry could ask—
The first thing to do was not allow Malfoy to panic. Which meant getting out of bed. Harry moved slowly so as not to wake Malfoy, which was easy enough since every cell in his body protested leaving the warm bed. He didn’t even let himself look at Malfoy in case his resolve broke.
He found his jeans all right. His glasses had somehow ended up on the chest where he kept his broom. His shirt was out in the kitchen, where he started making coffee still in a state of almost dreamlike shock.
He dragged in a chair from the kitchen and placed it what he thought might be an appropriate distance from the bed, sat in it and said, softly: “Hey. Hey, wake up.”
Malfoy stirred, turning in bed, and reached out sleepily. His hand fell open on an empty pillow and every cell in Harry’s body came to burning longing life and screamed, you idiot, we told you not to leave that bed.
It was too late now. Malfoy was already blinking and sitting up, hair a soft mess in the morning light, sheet held just below the scar on his chest. Harry looked away and held out the coffee as a peace offering.
“Here.”
“Thanks,” Malfoy said automatically, his fingers brushing Harry’s as he accepted the cup. Harry came within an inch of tipping coffee all over the sheets.
“I thought,” he began and realised he couldn’t explain his line of thought about Malfoy panicking lest Malfoy take offence. “I thought you wouldn’t want to be late to the office today.”
He was already greatly heartened by the fact Malfoy did not look angry and had not started talking about moving out, breaking up partnerships and people who took advantage of other people when they were drunk and deranged.
“The office,” Malfoy repeated, and sounded pleased by the sound of it, if still a little startled. “Yes. We should go.” He hesitated and added: “D’you know where I left my—”
Harry risked a look at him and nodded towards the windowsill, then looked away from the long lean line of Malfoy’s back as he reached for his jeans.
“A day at the office, this is very exciting and new,” Malfoy said. “Can we stop at that pastry place I like beforehand?”
“‘Course,” Harry said.
Malfoy smiled at him, a faint but real smile, as he cheerfully stole and then buttoned up one of Harry’s shirts.
They took the long way and walked to work in a grey but dry London morning, traffic rumbling and rattling by them on Blackfriars Bridge while Malfoy speculated on the possibility that the pastry place was slipping addictive substances into the raspberry tarts.
“If they are I think it will be my duty as an Auror to shop them,” Harry said.
“You won’t do it,” Malfoy said, this smile brighter and more real. He stole a piece of Harry’s croissant despite Harry’s half-hearted attempt to slap him away and popped it in his mouth. “You would never hurt me like that.”
They got to the steps of the Auror headquarters and Malfoy’s smiles were still hesitant and Harry’d had to fight off the urge to kiss Malfoy on Blackfriars Bridge but they were still them, that much was salvaged, and Harry was painfully, terribly relieved. And maybe, after work, depending on how the day went. Maybe he could work out something to say.
“Hi Harry,” said Lisa the receptionist, not looking up from her files at first. Then she did look up and her whole face lit and Harry’s heart sank. “Oh, good!” she exclaimed. “You got fixed.”
“Er,” said Harry, instead of expressing how very unfortunate he found Lisa’s choice of words.
“What a relief,” Lisa said. “Lisa was getting pretty annoyed about me flirting with some guy I work with.”
“Speaking of yourself in the third person is generally considered a bit of a danger sign,” Malfoy observed.
“My girlfriend Lisa,” said Lisa the receptionist. “You two were in her year at Hogwarts, weren’t you? Lisa Turpin?”
“I don’t think so,” Harry said.
“Yes of course we were,” Malfoy said. “Very, very attractive girl. Well done. You must tell me all about how you met and everything some other time.”
“Don’t harass me in the workplace, Mr Malfoy, I’ve seen your record and it doesn’t need that on it on top of everything else,” said Lisa, and returned cheerfully to her files.
Harry’s deep and overwhelming delight at the Veela stuff apparently being dealt with was dimmed by the sudden realisation that Lisa had not taken one look at Malfoy and known how. Usually with Katie he’d—but it was different, Harry knew that, and besides Malfoy was strained and still a little anxious. It didn’t necessarily mean things were hopeless. It didn’t.
“Lisa and Lisa,” Malfoy murmured as they entered the office. “Wouldn’t that get a little confusing?”
“Maybe not,” Harry said.
Malfoy laughed. “Well, obviously it wouldn’t for you. You’d solve the problem by cunningly forgetting the other person’s name.”
“I just didn’t really get to know the Hufflepuffs that well,” Harry said, not caring much since Malfoy was laughing at him and telling him wrong answer, and that he should try again.
“There were four houses,” Malfoy said, leaning against Harry’s desk, playful and almost the same as ever. “I’ll give you a hint: one was—”
“Draco!”
He was cut off by the scream. Malfoy’s face went pale and Harry tensed, out of his chair but keeping his muscles locked so he wouldn’t move in front of Malfoy and keep her away.
He couldn’t keep her away. Katie Bell came running, around desks and paperwork as if she barely noticed they were there and the only thing she could see was Malfoy. Her blue robes were crumpled and her eyes red, and she flung herself into his arms.
Malfoy put his arms around her at once, holding her close without an instant of hesitation, as if it came naturally. He stroked her hair with one hand, pushing the tumbled locks out of her face, and he said into her ear: “What is it, sweetheart? Tell me.”
Katie was crying, gulping into Malfoy’s shoulder. Harry was ashamed to realise that all he wanted to do was hurt her more, get her away. He did nothing, holding onto the chair, his hands clenched into fists.
“It’s Conleth—” Katie sobbed.
Malfoy’s voice took on a cold, dangerous edge. “What did he do to you?”
“Nothing,” Katie said, sobbing harder. “Nothing, nothing. He’s been taken by—by those people, the ones who take halfbreeds. You have to find him, Draco. Promise me that you’ll find him!”
“Of course I will,” Malfoy said, head bowed over hers. He wasn’t looking at Harry: he probably wasn’t aware Harry was there at all. “Anything you need,” he went on, careful and gentle, loving. “You know that.”