Chapter Text
Harry couldn’t sleep, but he did lay down eventually. He took two of the three potions his persnickety Healer prescribed him but skipped the Sleeping Draught disguised as Calming Potion. The stuff knocked him out for at least six hours, and Harry didn’t have that many hours left. Though he had to commend Draco for his efforts, however sneaky.
Harry squeezed his eyes shut and stretched until his back popped, then relaxed with a sigh. Bed was nice. It had been a while since he’d laid in one and expected it would be a while before he did so again. The lumpy mat in his pocket-sized pup tent was satisfactory, and Harry wasn’t picky about where he slept — or attempted to sleep. But it had nothing on this.
He’d get the chance to rest eventually, just not right now. Right now, Harry had an entire criminal network to take down at the heart before they flooded one more city with their unregulated potions, preying on the desperate and vulnerable masses.
He rolled his head on the pillow to look at the man next to him. Harry thought people were supposed to look peaceful when they slept, but not Draco — always with a crease between his brows. He was probably reviewing case notes in his dreams.
Harry should have known Maria would call Draco. She remembered what the Betrayer’s Curse looked like and knew the devastation it could cause. No one else would know how to contain it, and Draco was just about the only Healer willing to treat Harry while he was conscious. Harry made sure of that.
He wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t like Healers. He hated the poking and prodding, the smell of antiseptic, the dry-mouthed questions. But it was a hell of a lot easier to handle all that when your Healer looked like Draco Malfoy — lean and pale with sharp eyes and razorblades for cheekbones. And Draco had to be very pretty to be as priggish as he was when in his Healer’s greens and still make Harry’s heart race.
So maybe Harry faked an injury now and again, allowed a lesser fighter to land a punch, perhaps even weakened his shield before stepping in front of a Reducto in Arizona and landed himself in an American hospital, because he just couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Harry knew Draco was attracted to him from the get go, though he questioned whether Draco himself knew it. It was in the way he swayed towards Harry when he talked, or how his eyes lingered. How he’d never let Harry take off his shirt at any cost. Harry tested the boundaries gently, just to see what would happen. For a long time, it was nothing at all. Draco wore his professionalism like a suit of armour. All Harry had to do was find the right joint, a vulnerable hinge in the chainmail to access vulnerable flesh.
It took ages before Draco gave in, close to a year. Harry had to get himself cursed by a rogue witch he encountered in the Canadian wilderness. He was hallucinating and out of his bloody gourd when Draco arrived and started muttering counter-curses between angry words. And once he finished, Harry thought he might still be dreaming happily when Draco threw him up against the wall and kissed the hell out of him. Even more so when he stripped Harry naked, sucked his cock, ate his arse, and then rode him until he saw fucking god.
Harry didn’t expect anything to come of it — nothing serious, at least. He thought maybe they’d fuck for a while, and he’d get Draco out of his system. Then Harry would carry on with work like always.
Over a year later, he was still waiting for that aching need to pass.
Harry always assumed it was a relationship built on convenience — for Draco, at least. But, oh god, the look on Draco’s face when he stepped into that exam room. Harry’s stomach plummeted just thinking about it. He rubbed his hands roughly over his eyes, then his whole face, as if he could scrub away the memory.
Draco was a tricky bloke to read on a good day. But every now and then, his mask would crack, and Harry could see everything. The weight of the emotions that flashed across Draco’s face before his walls of cool professionalism slammed back into place would haunt Harry. There was shock, of course, and anger. But also fear, betrayal, and relief. The sheer relief.
Harry’s guilt was fucking flattening.
Harry half assumed Draco would have moved on by now. If Draco tossed the few things Harry left at his flat in a box and dropped it on Maria’s desk, Harry wouldn’t have blamed him. Sometimes he thought Draco would be better off without him, without all the secrets and lies that followed Harry like his shadow.
It was more than the guilt of leaving Draco wondering for four months. He would forgive Harry for that. Probably already had. They survived these sorts of upsets on the regular because that was the nature of the unnamed thing between them. Harry worked. Draco worked. And sometimes, when they both weren’t working, they fucked.
But that was the thing. They didn’t just fuck anymore. Harry couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment it changed, though he suspected it might have been that fortnight they spent in the small city of Hạ Long, Vietnam last spring. Harry’s targets were a group of Limax poachers (though judging by the carnage left behind, the Limax were doing most of the poaching). Harry and his team were taking injuries from all sides. So Maria brought Draco in, and put him up in a posh seaside hotel, just to silence his constant whinging.
Draco’s accommodations were way better than the communal barracks Harry shared with the other agents. Harry spent a lot of hours in that hotel with Draco and the view of Hạ Long Bay as the assignment stretched on. Once they finished fucking, Harry would order room service, and while they ate, they would chat — never about work, but about stupid things like the worst sort of Muggle transportation (Harry thought busses though Draco said aeroplanes), and whether Irish whisky was superior to American (it was, obviously).
It wasn’t like the one-night stands Harry was used to. Harry didn’t expect to want Draco sticking around. He assumed Draco’s haughtiness extended outside of the exam room, and in some ways it did. But in other ways, it didn’t. Draco was different outside of work. It was like someone yanked the stick out of his arse and he slumped. He was warmer like that, and really bloody handsy — always combing elegant fingers through Harry’s hair or gripping at his clothing like he might pull away. It made Harry feel wanted, important, but not for the reasons people usually considered him important: because he was powerful, because he was famous, because he was Harry Potter. And Harry liked it. A lot.
Harry told himself that was why he did it. Why when Vito handed him the cure — a magic leeching potion made of Merlin knew what, though it definitely wasn’t legal — and told him it was to be taken as soon as his curse binding healed, Harry tucked the vial away in the attic of the home he never visited. It remained there to this day, forgotten beneath the Quidditch jersey signed by Viktor Krum that Draco wouldn’t let Harry hang up in his flat (even though it was framed, practically art), and some old DMLE training manuals.
Harry knew it was bad when he did it, and he always intended to take the cure, eventually. But he wanted to see Draco again, to know if he’d made up their weird chemistry in his head. So, he kept the curse just a little longer, and gave Maria reasons to bring Draco in as often as possible.
Maria required Draco to inspect the curse regularly, to be sure it wasn’t misbehaving. This either meant Harry got a free weekend in London, or Draco would be transported to wherever Harry was. The exam itself took all of five minutes, and Draco always remained professional. It messed with Harry’s head in the best way and only fed his desire to hear profanities uttered in Draco’s clipped accent.
The side-effects of the curse were manageable. Sometimes Harry’s arm ached, or the ink became inflamed enough that the fabric of Harry’s shirt brushing across it could bring him to his knees. But Harry grew accustomed to that little pocket of Dark Magic, a parasitic passenger lying dormant.
It should have been fine. Except that Harry fucked up and the curse almost took them both down a second time.
Harry pressed his thumb against Draco’s brow, smoothing the wrinkle that had permanently embedded itself in his otherwise perfect face.
Draco’s eyes moved beneath his lids, then opened, pale and storm grey.
He swatted Harry’s hand away and Harry smirked back.
“What time is it?” Draco asked in the raspy morning voice that Harry found really bloody sexy.
“Early,” Harry said.
“Then why are you poking at me?” Draco threw an arm over Harry’s chest, settling back into the pillow.
Harry didn’t say it aloud, but Draco’s eyes opened again, studying Harry’s face, then he sighed and withdrew his arm. “Leaving, then?”
Harry sat up, reluctantly dragging himself from the comfortable softness of the bed. “I know what kind of defences they’re using now. I know what to expect. There are parts of my intel that still hold, but they didn’t expect me to get that far. They’ll be packing up and ready to move. After what I did, I’m sure of it. I have to catch them now.”
“Did you sleep at all?”
Harry said nothing, and instead went to his half-empty dresser and fished out a clean pair of pants. Draco sighed again, louder this time. He patted the floor beside the bed for his wand, then Summoned the scattered bottles of Healing potions, and dropped them into the centre pocket of Harry’s rucksack.
“Take your potions.”
Harry smirked. “Yes, Healer.”
Harry turned back to the dresser before he got distracted and pulled on trousers and a t-shirt. He grabbed a couple extra sets of clothing, then gathered a heavily annotated Muggle map, and a box of granola bars from a drawer. He shrunk all of them and tossed them into the rucksack, rattling the potion bottles.
Harry continued to collect his things but watched Draco out of the corner of his eye as he rolled from the bed and stepped into his trousers. He then began poking around in Harry’s wardrobe. Draco tugged from its hanger, a white cotton shirt Harry only bothered with for meetings and threw it on, buttons undone over his naked chest. Harry grit his teeth. Harry had no doubt Draco had a suitcase stuffed with clothes shrunk in his pocket, posh tosser was never without a change of wardrobe after Iceland. No, he did that on purpose, because Draco knew that seeing him in Harry’s clothes made Harry a little feral. It ignited something dark and possessive that burned inside of him.
Harry busied himself with a mental inventory of everything in his pack, then snagged his wand holster from where he’d tossed it the day before. He looped it around his upper thigh, but before he could pull the straps tight, Draco stepped in, dropping elegantly into a crouch in front of him. He batted away Harry’s hands and threaded the leather through the buckle. The click of metal on metal sent Harry back to the night before, the clasp of the lead locking into the collar around his neck. His cheeks burned at the thought of it, and making Harry Potter blush was no easy feat.
Draco didn’t linger. He tightened the straps with nimble fingers, the ever-present wrinkle between his brows deeper than usual, as if he didn’t trust Harry to do up his own holster properly.
Harry could tell Draco was chewing on something. He got that look about him, like a rain cloud gathering behind the mountains, and all Harry could do was wait. He let Draco check the tightness of the holster with a tug, then smooth the creases in Harry’s t-shirt with his hands as he stood. His movements were calm and steady, never fluttering, but Harry could see them for what they were. What Draco had to say was either going to be devastatingly painful, or something Harry wanted very much.
“It’s Pansy’s birthday on the sixteenth of November.”
Harry blinked. That wasn’t exactly what he expected, but Draco wasn’t finished.
“I’m throwing a party. At the flat.”
Harry noted that he said the flat, not our flat, but also not my flat. He waited.
Draco cleared his throat, eyes fixed somewhere around Harry’s chest. “You’re invited.”
Harry tilted his head to one side, suppressing a smirk. “Why would Parkinson want me at her birthday party?”
Draco’s gaze snapped to Harry’s and his mouth worked. “It’s not — Pansy’s not inviting you, I am! I — want you there.”
Harry unleashed the smile and bit his lip as Draco straightened, puffing up and ruffling his feathers like an irritated peacock.
“You did that on purpose,” he said with a scowl. “And excuse me, you act so bloody stupid all the time I forget you are apparently clever enough to work undercover. Although that’s all hearsay as far as I’m concerned because I have yet to see Harry Potter outsmart me. Now” — he gave Harry’s shirt a little tug — “tell me you’re coming to my party.”
“I’m not good at parties.”
“Well, I’m excellent at them, and I won’t let you out of my sight.”
“Your friends hate me.”
Draco rolled his eyes. “My friends are frightened of you. It’s not the same thing.”
“Maybe I like that they’re afraid of me. It means I don’t have to worry about them hexing me as soon as I turn my back.”
“In my presence? They wouldn’t dare. And I beg your pardon, I must have misspoken, as you seem to have taken this invitation as a request.”
“So, it’s an order?”
Draco grabbed Harry’s face, his long fingers reaching all the way across Harry’s jaw to his ear, and Harry let him. Draco was always manhandling him, and it drove Harry a little wild. Nobody threw Harry against a wall and lived to talk about it. Except for Draco.
“It’s an order,” Draco said.
“And since when have I been any good at following orders, hm?” Harry asked, eyes on Draco’s mouth.
Draco’s fingers dropped from his face to the collar still looped at Harry’s neck, a comforting weight and pressure against the hollow of his throat. Draco pulled out his wand and cast the Concealment Spell and the leather returned to rough-hewn twine. Harry silently mourned the loss.
“You’re not so bad,” Draco said, giving the string a little tug. “I can train you yet.”
Harry’s insides turned to liquid, and he dragged Draco in by the waist and kissed him — all tongue and teeth. Draco kissed him back, fingers tangled in Harry’s hair, as they so often were, until he pulled back, eyes heavy-lidded and mouth swollen.
“Keep your tongue in your mouth, you snake,” Draco said with a smirk. He attempted to push Harry away, though his fingers remained twisted in Harry’s t-shirt.
Harry hissed back at him in Parseltongue, soft words he couldn’t bear to say aloud, especially when he knew he would have to turn his back and leave this tent. But Draco’s eyes darkened anyway. They always did that when Harry let his power show. It was totally fucked up and Harry loved it.
Loved him.
“November sixteenth,” Draco said, releasing his grip on Harry’s shirt and stepping back. “I’ll get your suit cleaned.”
“Oh, it’s a suit kind of party, then?”
“That’s not negotiable.”
“And what if I’m not finished?” Harry nodded towards the door of the tent and everything that lay beyond it.
Draco’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, but his eyes remained hard as stone. “Then I’ll take someone else.”
Harry’s heart squeezed in his chest, though not from jealousy, because while Harry would understand if Draco wanted to move on, Harry didn’t think he would go looking for someone new. It was an idle threat. Draco stopped trying to pull almost a year ago and didn’t think Harry noticed. But he did. Harry noticed everything. No, it was the look on Draco’s face that made Harry’s heart ache, because he seemed so bloody resolved, as if he were convincing himself to both take the fall and stand his ground all at once.
“Who?” Harry asked, not unkindly.
Draco shrugged. “Whoever I want.” Then he looked left and lowered his gaze. “But I’d like it known, I asked you first.”
Harry allowed himself a small smile. “Noted.”
Draco nodded and took another step back, creating space between them. Harry understood that. The sooner they stopped touching, the easier it would be.
“Now, off with you. Back to endangering your life and others,” Draco said with a flippant wave of his hand.
Harry threw the rucksack over his shoulder and Summoned, from the set of drawers, a yellow and black disposable camera — the reserve Portkey he’d stolen from Maria’s office when she wasn’t looking. And with that, he threw back the tent flap and stepped outside.
It was a misty day in the jungle, and the humidity wrapped around him like a wet blanket. Harry tugged at the collar of his t-shirt and resettled the rucksack on his back.
“Repeat the date back to me.”
Harry turned to find Draco standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, in Harry’s shirt, and with Harry’s teeth marks staining his pale throat. A collar of his own.
“November sixteenth.”
Draco nodded, and Harry winked back at him, though it did nothing to ease the tension in Draco’s posture. Harry moved towards the curtain of wards surrounding his tent.
He activated the Portkey.
Draco would be gone by the time Harry came back, if he came back, and that was a small relief. Draco was a competent wizard for certain, but it wasn’t exactly safe here. Even with the ten layers of wards Harry wove around his tent, and the extra five he added as he waited for Draco to step through his Floo, there was still a threat, and it made him jumpy. Harry didn’t want the people he cared about within a hundred miles of his work, no matter how much Harry needed his Healer. Not to mention that whenever Draco showed up, he had Harry thinking about impossible, faraway things, like home, and a life not spent on the run. It made him think about staying in one place for more than a few days at a time, preferably in Draco’s posh London flat with the view of Hyde Park.
Five.
Harry didn’t raise his hand to wave, and neither did Draco. They never said goodbye, or I’ll miss you, or acknowledge aloud that each time Harry left, he might never return. That much was left unspoken, but some things need not be said to be felt.
Four.
But for the first time ever, they parted with a promise, a tentative date on the calendar, tying Harry to Draco with a string, no matter how far away he travelled. And damn it all, it gave Harry hope. Hope that Draco wanted more. Harry knew he felt more, but that wasn’t the same as wanting it. Draco could resist like no one Harry had ever known. As always, Harry simply had to wait until he gave up or gave in.
Three.
Draco disappeared back inside the tent, and Harry stepped beyond the boundary of his wards. The tent blinked out of existence, and with it, the little oasis they built for one night.
Two.
If Harry made it home in time, and if Draco was still waiting for him, Harry thought he might just dig up that potion. Because Draco wanted him there with his friends, in his home, and that felt like an admission. It might just be able to move Harry to make his own confession: the truth about the curse and why Harry couldn’t let it go. And if Draco still wanted him after that? Well. Harry couldn’t think that far ahead. Not now, when he had work to do.
One.
The world twisted, wringing itself of Harry’s hidden tent, and his Healer, as if they were never there, replaced by more indiscernible and endless green. Harry raised his wand and stormed back into the jungle with singular purpose.
He always did work better with proper incentive.