Chapter Text
On the morning of Ginny’s wedding, Harry wakes up to the distant sound of sheep bleating in a neighbouring field. His arse is wet, his glasses are missing, and his mouth tastes like something crawled in there and perished overnight.
It’s a terrible place to regain consciousness, really, his front lawn.
With a groan, he rolls onto his back and stares at the sky.
Blurred clouds. A dawn mist he pictures descending dramatically over the hills, air thick with the scent of damp grass and earth. Soon enough the sky will open up, the gauzy fog giving way for June’s cheerful sunshine.
The perfect day for a ceremony.
“Fuck.” He groans pitifully. “Fuck fuck fuck, blasted—fuck.”
It is with great and valiant effort he manages to pull himself to his feet and stumble back toward the Manor.
Valiance has a different sort of meaning to Harry these days. When he was eleven, valiance meant facing the reality of his parents’ demise. It meant discovering the person he was, the real person, and the man he was to become; it meant facing the evil who robbed him of the world he had no idea he was even a part of. The world he now can’t imagine stepping out of.
No, valiance—in a post-War world—holds no such importance to Harry Potter. Valiance is about dragging himself to his feet after a heavy night of drinking, a heavy night of gambling, and a heavy night of fucking, summoning his spectacles from the bushes, and putting one foot in front of the other.
A vial of hangover potion, a quick wash and change of clothes later—he has to pick his way over slumbering men the whole time, all in assorted states of undress and dotted around his home like breadcrumbs leading to his sleeping chambers—Harry is on his way to Devon, stepping out of the Burrow’s fireplace and into a crammed living room that smells of rich fruitcake, of elf wine, and of the ticklish, powdery scent of ladies’ perfume.
At the family dining table—extended hugely to host all of the food for later—Molly and Arthur are frantic. They’re arranging and rearranging plates, bickering over serviettes, over glasses, the noise of their swiping dulled by the din of chattering guests.
Ron is the first to spot him. He grabs Harry by the elbow and steers him away from the Floo, dusting off ash from the arm of Harry’s tailcoat.
“Before mum sees you and gives you a job,” he says darkly, walking them through the throng, expertly weaving them between gaps in the crowd until they’re out through the open door and into the wider space of the Burrow’s back garden.
“Late one?” Ron asks.
A couple of flutes of something fizzy have materialised in his hands, and he passes one to Harry and practically necks the other in one gulp.
Right, then. It’s that kind of wedding.
“Late one, early one… what’s the difference, really.”
Harry squints against the warm glow of the sun as it rises higher in the sky above the handsome rolling hills of Ottery St. Catchpole. “Barely got a wink.”
“Of sleep, or…?”
Harry chuckles and takes a short sip of his wine, rolling the glass around slowly and watching the bubbles fizz and rise to the surface. “Behave yourself.”
“How come you always look good after a heavy night and I literally look like death walking?” Ron’s scanning the small gathering crowd at the wicker arch weaved with flowers and crops from the season: orange spray roses and oat grass and elderflowers and gypsophila. In less than thirty minutes, Ginny will be married to Pansy Parkinson beneath that arch, and Harry will hopefully be able to start drinking in earnest.
“Lots of practice, I suppose.”
“Er,” Ron says suddenly, frowning, his eyes still on the rows of heads in front of them. “Don’t look now.”
Which, of course, does nothing but make Harry want to turn his head. When he does, he inhales sharply.
“Shitting hell,” he mutters, and Ron hums his assent, because walking arm-in-arm with Pansy Parkinson’s mother—the Dame Parkinson attired gaudily in a chartreuse green empire dress decorated with black feathers, no less—is Draco Malfoy.
“I mean,” says Ron, adopting a rather airy tone. “You knew he was going to be here. Yeah? Surely.”
“Surely,” Harry breathes, swallowing hard at the sight Malfoy makes: the peacock blue tailcoat, the muted yellow breeches nipped so closely at his slender waist, the fingers full of delicate silver rings the same shade as his eyes. His hair is tied back with a pale yellow ribbon, some cornsilk wisps escaping around his face; a face so lovely, so radiant like the sun, yet all Malfoy seems capable of holding in his expressions are storms. Rain, thunder, ice.
Harry scoffs, rolls eyes, and looks away. “Stuck up bastard. I see he hasn’t removed his wand from his rectum for the occasion.”
He thinks back to how they were at school—he and Malfoy—that last year. How Malfoy had returned to Hogwarts with his tail between his legs, Lucius in Azkaban and Narcissa stuck in Wiltshire under house arrest while Malfoy carried out his studies in near silence, swapping his antagonism toward Harry for quiescence; a hot head replaced with a cold shoulder.
Harry had hated it. In the two years since—their world knitting itself back together, a raw, tender thing still—Malfoy has evolved into something of a puzzle: a pureblood bore of enormous proportions, yes, but a renowned beauty that apparently refuses to let any man near him.
Ron snorts. “Quite. Thank Merlin Pansy’s fun. How is it they’re still so close, do you think?”
“Fuck if I know,” Harry says. He sighs and tips the remaining wine in his glass down his throat, leaving Ron to his groomsman duties as music floats into the air from the string quartet behind them and the ceremony begins, bringing with it a hush amongst the large crowd.
Ginny and Pansy walk to the altar together, feet careful and deliberate on the grass circle, their hair woven with the same arrangement as that wrapped through the wicker arch. Malfoy stands at the front arm in arm with Mrs. Parkinson; both looking stiff amongst the gaggle of cheerful Weasleys, Prewetts, and their friends, but as the rites come to an end, Harry thinks he catches Mrs. Parkinson shed a small tear when Pansy drinks deep from the same cup of blessed wine as Ginny.
The afterparty begins with breakfast in the marquee on the lawn, which bustles with life as soon as the main plates disappear: guests gather in couples for dances, they stand around in groups to gossip, to eat, to drink. It’s rowdy and loud and it’s the best thing ever. It’s so very Weasley.
“Galleon for your thoughts?”
Harry has been staring at Malfoy for a solid fifteen minutes.
“A galleon?” he asks distractedly.
Malfoy’s sitting with Mrs. Parkinson again, their heads bowed together, her thin lips tucked up into a serene smile as he murmurs into her ear and gestures slowly with one slender hand. He’s been sipping from the same champagne flute for a while, or so it seems; Harry hasn’t seen him pick up any new glasses from the floating trays Harry and his friends have been grabbing from liberally all day.
Harry drags his gaze away from Malfoy and blinks at Ginny, taking in her flushed cheeks, the flower drooping from the top of her head and grazing her freckled jaw. He reaches up and fixes it for her with a smirk.
“I’m made of money now!” She bats his hand away with a grin. “Haven’t you heard?”
“Congratulations,” he says, clicking their glasses together and offering her a short bow, head tingling with a bubbly sort of tipsiness that hasn’t quite reached the rest of his body yet.
He glances at Malfoy again.
Earlier, he ended up in a throng with George, Charlie, Seamus, and Dean; the five of them drinking mead in a circle as they swore profusely and Charlie regaled them with a story about Romania and a hot spring on the colony that had them all crying with laughter. They’ve dispersed now to mingle further, to dance, to find further pleasures, but before Charlie broke away, he left Harry with a familiar look; a look Harry’s seen him wear countless times. A look he’s been bringing with him to England for the past three or four years. Later, Charlie had mouthed before he allowed himself to be dragged into a dance.
Ginny follows Harry’s gaze and tilts her head to one side. “Oh, I see.”
Harry sighs raggedly and drops his empty glass onto a passing tray.
“Well,” she adds, glancing at her nails.
“Well what?”
“Ask him to dance.”
Harry laughs dryly. “Very funny. I’m not much in the mood to have my toes spitefully trampled on. Merlin,” he breathes. “I did him a bloody favour. His whole family! And he acts like I’m the one who should be contrite. It’s been two years!”
Ginny shrugs one thin shoulder, the puffed sleeve of her pale pink dress bunching up slightly, the silvered thread catching against the light of the lamps overhead. “Maybe he feels like he has something to prove. He’s always been proud.”
Harry grumbles and grabs another full glass. “The world’s moved on. He and his family should move along with it.”
Ginny pouts dramatically. “Aw. You’re in a sulk because he’s the only man in Wizarding Britain who won't go to bed with you. Not only that, but Draco Malfoy is arguably the most beautiful man in Wizarding Britain… and he won’t go to bed with you.”
Harry sputters, his face growing hot, and before he can form a meaningful comeback, she laughs, loudly, and clasps his shoulder in one alarmingly strong hand, draping an arm across her belly. “Oh, you should see your face right now. You’re far too easy to wind up, Mr. Potter.”
He rolls his eyes and sets them on the object of their discussion once more. Malfoy is hailing down a silver tray of oysters; Harry can still taste the salty, fresh flavour of them on his own tongue.
The tray settles neatly onto the table between Malfoy, Mrs. Parkinson, and another middle aged pureblood witch Harry thinks might be Theodore Nott’s mother.
“Perhaps he—” he starts to say as Malfoy picks up a slice of lemon with his fingers. Harry squints. “Perhaps he prefers—”
“Merlin, Harry, stop,” Ginny says through a rush of fresh laughter. “Before you embarrass yourself. Look at him, of course he doesn’t.”
Harry huffs.
“Anyway,” says Ginny, patting him gently on the arm. “I’m guessing you haven’t heard the rumours.”
Harry’s eyebrow twitches. “Rumours?” he asks. Malfoy plucks an oyster from the tray and delicately prods it with a gleaming fish fork the same colour as his rings. “What rumours?”
“Malfoy has a suitor.” Ginny’s voice is low, furtive, and when she leans into Harry, Harry can smell the lavender of her perfume oil, the mineral scent of the powder she wears on her nose and décolletage. “Or so it seems.”
“He has a whole county of them, what else is new?”
“It’s Cormac McLaggen,” says Ginny, and Harry proceeds to choke on a mouthful of too-fizzy wine.
Ginny hums, her lips twitching. “Indeed.”
Harry spins away, clearing his throat, and asks tightly, “McLaggen? But he’s been—”
“—in London, yes. He’s coming to Bath next week, apparently. Both of their parents are vying for a match. It seems the Malfoys are quite smitten with him for their dearest Draco.”
“Well they would be!” says Harry, dabbing his mouth with his sleeve. He turns back to face the sprawl inside the marquee, tilting his head this way and that, trying to catch sight of Malfoy again. “Marrying a war hero? It’s the closest thing to social salvation.”
Ginny eyes him shrewdly. “The closest thing? Mr. McLaggen? Really, Harry?”
Harry rubs a hand over his overwarm cheek. He puffs out his chest. “Malfoy’ll have none of it. Just you wait.”
Ginny clicks a gloved fingernail against the glass in her hand, and, ignoring her penetrating gaze, Harry turns and smiles, relief flooding him as a familiar figure breaks away from the current dance, heading straight for them.
Merlin bless Charlie Weasley and his miraculously perfect timing.
Charlie bows first before his sister, quirking a cheeky grin in Harry’s direction.
“Pardon the intrusion,” he says. Harry pushes the swarm of uneasiness radiating inside of him someplace low, someplace difficult to find, and returns Charlie’s smile with one of his own. “But I was hoping I could borrow Harry for a mo.”
“Be my guest,” Ginny says, glancing between them, pressing her glass into Charlie’s hand with a sigh. “I should probably find my wife. Last I saw she was being lifted into the air by several of my more badly behaved brothers. Excuse me.” She curtsies, and with a swish of pale pink skirts, she shuffles back through the crowd. Charlie turns to Harry.
“She thinks me well-behaved.” He presses the words to the shell of Harry’s ear and Harry hides a smirk against the rim of his glass, setting it down half-finished on another floating tray. Charlie smells like he always smells: dragonsmoke, leather, the forest after a heavy downpour.
Delicious; familiar; reliable.
His first ever shag, and a fucking phenomenal one at that.
“Shall we?” Harry asks with a bow of his own, offering Charlie his arm.
“Merlin, you still taste like almonds,” Charlie mutters into the crook of Harry’s neck ten minutes later.
It was easy enough to find a patch of grass behind the marquee after several covert loops by foot. Charlie has Harry pressed up against one of the thick wooden poles keeping the whole thing up, reinforced with magic that prickles against Harry’s back like whispering, wandering fingers. The lively folk music inside is nothing but a rhythmic hum, and the laughter from guests a gentle ebb and flow, like water kissing sand. Out here, Harry can smell the sea: the Channel coast, briney and sharp and alive.
It’s getting truly dark now. Straight ahead, the jaunty outline of the Burrow is just visible against the murky skyline, the sun a fading pink where it touches the horizon.
Harry closes his eyes and breathes in through his nose. “Do I?”
He tilts his hips forward suggestively just as Charlie’s clever fingers begin to snap away his buttons and laces, knuckles brushing against the fattening outline of Harry’s cock.
“Do I everywhere?”
It only takes a gentle touch of his palm against the top of Charlie’s head to send him to his knees.
Charlie looks up at him with a swift grin that’s so easy, so warm, and when he frees Harry from the confines of his drawers, the cool evening summer air hits the heated skin of his cock, Charlie’s close breath mingling with it; heated, damp, soft.
The first swipe of Charlie’s tongue is sweet and familiar; it sends a zip of pleasure through Harry all of the way to his toes, and with a happy sigh, he pushes his fingers deep into that thick red hair. Charlie works his cock expertly; licks the slit with the flat of his tongue, applies sucking kisses to the shaft, building up a steady rhythm that has Harry gritting out soft swears and moans of encouragement.
He’s rising onto the balls of his feet to meet Charlie with a slow roll of his hips when he sees him.
When he hears him.
A snap of twig underfoot.
A gasp of surprise.
A pair of wide, grey eyes, staring at them both.
Malfoy is a deer caught at the wrong end of a hunter’s gun.
Harry should push Charlie off him; should tuck himself away.
He shouldn’t be tightening his fingers in Charlie’s hair and fucking up slowly into the plush, wet heat of his mouth like he is now, staring at Malfoy beneath his lashes, drinking in the way Malfoy’s cheeks darken under the oplascent light of the winking moon overhead.
Malfoy is holding onto the edges of his blue tailcoat, his long leg in midstep. Some of his hair has come loose from his ribbon, and it falls in delicate waves over the stiffened arch of one shoulder.
Harry groans and lets his head drop back against the pole, Charlie slowly working his prick with deft strokes of his tongue, with vulgar, wet pops of his lips as he pulls back to suck on the head without a care in the world.
Alright? Harry mouths to Malfoy, and he grins helplessly, a breathless, open thing, delighting in the way Malfoy’s flush creeps lower, beneath the line of his pale yellow cravat.
He’s completely frozen on the spot.
Harry licks his lips and tightens his fingers in Charlie’s hair, and he’s panting now, open-mouthed, and he stares at Malfoy and mutters, “C’mon, don’t stop, ‘m so close.”
And Charlie groans and works harder, faster, gulping Harry down noisily, and Harry’s hips start pushing up quickly to meet him, chasing the heat coiling at the base of his spine, his balls drawing up tight.
Malfoy blinks a few times, and when he darts out his tongue to pull his lower lip in between his teeth, Harry comes with a rough hah!, staring at him wide-eyed, drawing Charlie down hard to swallow him.
He shoots hard into the back of Charlie’s well-used throat.
Malfoy draws in another sharp, audible breath, and Charlie spins around on his knee with—one can only presume—a mouthful of Harry’s spunk, his wrist pressed against his lips.
“You spying little pervert,” Harry says, loud and darkly amused. Malfoy gapes at him and he quickly holds a hand in front of his face with a wince, turning his head while Harry lazily tucks his half-hard cock back into his breeches.
Malfoy’s blush practically lights up his entire face. A pretty and dear thing only a few steps away from Harry’s touch, should he have a wish to touch someone with the temperament of a viper.
“How long has he been standing there?” Charlie asks, dabbing at his lips, which are, on closer inspection, delightfully swollen. He rises to his feet beside Harry, folding his arms casually across his broad chest, one red eyebrow quirked.
“Oh, at least three minutes. Maybe even five,” Harry sighs, leaning back against the pole.
“Enough time to leave.”
“Enough time to leave,” Harry repeats, grinning wickedly. “Enjoy the show, did you Mr. Malfoy?”
Malfoy’s eyebrows snap together in a deep frown.
Snippily, “I did not.” He lets go of his coat, turning away on his heel. They’re the first words he’s uttered to Harry all day; his posh drawl is as snooty as remembered, the salt and sharpness of a fresh Devonshire oyster.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Potter,” Malfoy says airily over one shoulder, marching quickly away, dry grass crunching under the heels of his smart black boots that fit around a pair of extremely well-turned calves. He disappears back around the marquee, his slender form casting a long shadow across the white cotton.
“You’re welcome!” Charlie calls out, his chuckle warm, his sigh soft. He holds out an arm for Harry, and Harry uses his shoulders to push himself away from the pole, sliding his hand over Charlie’s wiry forearm and giving it a squeeze.
“What a bore,” says Harry, kissing Charlie once on the lips, tasting himself there.
Charlie grunts his agreement. “How about we say our farewells and make haste to Bath so I can give you a proper goodbye before I head back to the colony, hm?”
~*~
When the Boy Who Lived and his friends want to take a dip in the town’s mineral springs, the entire bathhouse is cleared out for them, no questions asked. Every time.
Of course, many of the locals know what Harry and his companions get up to between those ancient stone walls; much like Harry’s weekend parties at the countryside Manor, his trips into the town centre are infamous. The Daily Prophet call him a rake, a beau, dandy, a libertine, a playboy; what gentleman—or, rather, gentlemen—have been seen on Mr. Potter’s arm this weekend, you’re probably speculating! Well, we here at the Prophet know how to keep a shrewd eye on our favourite debauchee, once the Boy Who Lived, now the Boy Who Knows How to Have a Good Time! Turn to page 5—
“—fucking Merlin, I think I’m still a bit foxed, you know,” Harry announces as he slips into the water, wincing as the heat of it laps against his calves, his thighs, his waist, and finally his sternum when he sits on a stone step beneath the cloudy surface.
The air is pungent with the aroma of sulphurous springs, but it’s soon masked by the oil lamps Harry has requested for his visit, a sharp nettle and peppermint; something to awaken the senses and all of that bollocks, he’d said to the attendant twenty minutes ago when he and his posse bundled through the doors, stripping off in the atrium, their discarded clothes left in a heap for someone else to pick up.
George settles beside Harry. His freckled skin flushes red as soon as it comes into contact with the hot water, mottled and spreading up over his broad chest, his collarbones, the underside of his bearded chin. Harry grins at him, tipping his head back, thinking of the Weasley brother who had just vacated the Manor earlier that morning after fucking Harry over the dining table at breakfast, their plates of salmon and eggs rattling from the force of it; a sweet and fitting farewell.
“It’s always so bloody hot,” George grumbles, wiping a wet hand over his face.
“That’s what the plunge pool is for,” says Dean as he swims by them, long and elegant strokes, his naked limbs mere blurs beneath the murky surface.
“Speaking of icy, did anyone get a chance to interact with Malfoy?” says Seamus, his smirk wide. He’s sitting on the opposite side of the baths, and his voice echoes across the space, ricocheting against the pillared walls. “I asked him to dance but, alas, shot down.”
“I imagine fucking him would be like dipping your cock into a plunge pool anyway,” Dean remarks lazily. “What do they call it… frostbite? Fair and delicate as snow but not worth losing your cock over.”
“Good luck to McLaggen then.” Harry stares at his nails, feeling the prickle of all three gazes on him. Water drip-drips in the silence, a constant rhythm of it.
It’s George who finally speaks up. “Cormac McLaggen?”
“The very one,” Harry says grandly.
Dean has migrated to Seamus’s side; they sit close together, Dean’s arm draped on the ledge behind Seamus’s blond head. Harry supposes it won’t be long before either of them announce their inevitable engagement. He frowns at the thought, wondering how many more friends he’ll lose to marriage.
“They’re being matched by their parents. Apparently,” he says, tilting back further to stare at the ceiling, gazing up at the painted mural, cracked and faded with time; a naked man on a horse, arm rearing back a spear, his muscles curved and strong. “So, yes. Good luck to him.”
It’s not as if McLaggen would take one look at Malfoy and say no, either. It’s Malfoy, who has grown into his looks with an alarming pleasingness that hasn’t gone unnoticed by—well, almost every available bachelor in society. McLaggen won’t have seen Malfoy since he left Hogwarts for London—not outside of his portraits anyway, which, Harry will admit begrudgingly, hardly do him justice—he’d be daft to turn anything official down, a seal of approval straight from Malfoy’s parents, permission to get a leg over a beauty no one’s been able to get close to.
And McLaggen is—well, McLaggen. From what Harry remembers: big; stupid; wealthy. A sportsman.
Harry sighs raggedly.
“Someone’s rather jealous,” Dean crows from across the water, and Harry scoffs, flicking his fingers uselessly against the surface.
Harry doesn’t dignify Dean’s ridiculous insinuation with a response. There’s a difference between wanting to be betrothed to someone and wanting to shag them after all. “They’re summering in Bath, the two of them. To get acquainted. Just in time for Malfoy’s coming of age. What a disaster.”
“A disaster for whom, Mr. Potter?” Dean asks, still smirking, and the other two chime in with laughter.
Harry stares moodily at the water, his reflection foggy and unclear.
~*~
Cormac McLaggen is as big as he was in school.
Hulking, really. Inelegant. And just a tad sloppy, Harry thinks, as he watches McLaggen spill mead down the front of his waistcoat.
What on earth do the Malfoys see in him? Surely, it’s not still the war hero rubbish. McLaggen had barely lifted a finger.
“Status.”
Harry looks at Ron like he’s grown an extra head. “Surely not. I know they’re still—traditionalists, but that’s toeing the line, even for them. Caring about that nonsense now.”
The Crup and Nugtail is one of the seedier taverns in Bath’s Wizarding quarter; dark and wood panelled with a floor covered in mud and straw and nut shells that never seem to get swept away. It’s just the kind of establishment that would host illegal duels and, more excitingly, Muggle-style bare knuckle boxing.
Ron shoves a tankard from the bar into Harry’s hand, the foamy, golden liquid slurping over his fingers. The place is mobbed; it always is on nights when Harry shows up for these fights.
Harry’s long suspected his admirers think he might have a go at it himself, if he’s given enough to drink.
Ron licks at his foam moustache. “Not blood status, mate. It’s the Ministry thing, isn’t it? If the Malfoys marry into that, they won’t have to watch their backs again.”
Harry sips deep from his cup, the pale amber liquid sloshing wetly down his throat, foaming pleasantly at the back of his tongue, warm and familiar. “And what, dare I ask, do the McLaggens get out of all of this? Besides, you know, the obvious.”
Cormac getting to fuck Malfoy, that is. All day and every day, no doubt.
Ron groans. “You know his father’s got his eye on the election next year?”
Harry balks. “Minister? Seriously?”
Ron hums, affirmative. “Ginny reckons they’re in this to look—charitable. To help clean the image of a young man caught in the crossfires of war when he was just a child. Besides,” he adds, rolling his eyes. “They’ll get the Manor.”
“I heard it’s in a bit of a state?” Harry asks dubiously.
“All the more reason to want it. To purify it, and improve for good. People love a reformation story, after all,” Ron murmurs.
“Yeah,” Harry mutters, biting at his nail, holding back a sigh. “I suppose you’re right.” He squints across the room. McLaggen is flanked by two men Harry only vaguely recognises from school, from a few years above. Malfoy’s nowhere to be found of course—it’s not exactly his scene.
He’s probably at home, getting his hair brushed by his mother.
“Do you think he’s being forced into it, then?” he asks, pulling on Ron’s elbow when he notices his friend getting jostled around by the growing crowd, always careful of Harry’s space even at their wildest. He drags Ron in closer, securing them a spot around the makeshift ring where two men stand in the middle, circling each other as they remove their shirts and toss them aside. One of the men is light of complexion and dark of hair, his lithely cut torso covered in blurry tattoos. Harry thinks of Sirius, and with that, he chooses his side, turning to the bookmaker to pay up before the match begins.
“Because I look at Malfoy,” Harry says slowly, his eyes ahead as the men continue to circle each other like prey. “And I look at—” Harry gestures with a wave of his hand at McLaggen standing at the other side of the circle, his lacy shirtsleeve flapping. “—him. And it doesn’t exactly add up to me.”
“You shallow bastard,” Ron says with a chuckle, then raises his voice as the crowd erupts when the man with the tattoos takes his first swing, barely missing his opponent's scraggly bearded cheek. “You don’t know what Malfoy’s into. That could be it! McLaggen might be the one to—you know. Thaw his heart. Besides, I heard he’s a massive traditionalist too. No sex before marriage, that sort of nonsense. So perhaps they’re truly made for each other.”
Harry huffs, stepping back quickly as the two fighting men get closer to the edge of the crowd. His beer slops over his fist again, and he takes a deep sip from it.
“Time will tell, I suppose,” he says, pushing aside a prickly uneasiness at the thought of seeing McLaggen and Malfoy arm in arm in society; at the thought of McLaggen’s rough hands all over Malfoy’s body.
Several pints later, the tattooed boxer loses and Harry waves goodbye to his galleons. He’s half cut, elbowing his way to the bar for another round, and by the time he’s shoved into the Floo to head home to the Manor, he’s practically asleep on his feet, accepting the warm hands shoving him onto his bed, that pull his glasses and boots off for him. He hears a gentle, familiar voice wish him a goodnight from the fireplace, and Harry clumsily rolls onto his back just in time to see the green flames engulf a head of red hair.