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The room was fascinating, beautiful. Honey yellow wood as far as the eye could see, high arched windows framed by thick purple drapes, plush looking sofas and thick oak desks, and books, books everywhere. Beautifully and colourfully bound tomes were all that was to be found at every turn, piled on desks, scattered across windowsills, and covering every inch of the walls. The ceiling was high, as high as the Great Hall, the shelves towering upwards to meet it, every single one crammed with books. There were ladders and mezzanines, and a polished card catalogue, the little cards dancing around each other gently, rearranging themselves as books floated lazily back to their spaces. And there, over in the far corner of the vast room, was the most fascinating thing of all.
He sat in the corner of the furthest windowsill, feet pulled up with a book resting open on his knees. More books surrounded him, some open and others with bookmarks placed between the pages, as though choosing one to read had been an impossible task, the only option left being to take as many as he could carry. The moonlight shone brightly through the window, bleaching his dark robes and staining his hair whiter than snow. The small, rectangular shaped glasses were perched on the bridge of his nose, brow pulled into a delicate frown as he stared down at the book in his hands. His lips, dark and full in the light, moved silently, mouthing the words he was lost within.
Harry hadn’t meant to follow him. Well, okay, he had, because he’d gone upstairs to his dorm room and collected the map and the cloak, and then followed the little label on the map all the way here, invisible and silent as possible, so the following thing would probably look a little premeditated to an outsider, but he truly hadn’t meant to. It was just that the common room had been boring, hell, the last few months had been so mind-meltingly boring that as soon as Harry had seen a chance for something interesting, he had leapt on it before thinking twice. It really wasn’t his fault if Draco Malfoy was the only interesting thing in the sea of monotony that was Eighth Year.
He’d thought it would be fun, at first, back when they had all been sitting around the scrubbed wooden table at the Burrow and Hermione had suggested it. One last year at Hogwarts together, complete with Quidditch and classes and NEWT revision, trips to Hogsmeade and Hallowe’en feasts and nobody trying to kill them. It seemed like the perfect remedy for all of the grief and the guilt and the exhaustion; one last chance to be a normal kid, for a change. It hadn’t taken Harry long to work out that normal was as boring as hell.
Hogwarts had been the same, and yet totally different. The students were quieter, more subdued, the professors smiling tiredly. More than once, Harry had witnessed McGonagall smoothing a hand over the heads of the younger ones. Professor Sprout had taken to giving out hugs as well as house points when a student answered her questions correctly, and Flitwick handed out candy canes at the end of each lesson. They could all be seen in the Great Hall at mealtimes, looking down fondly upon their charges, eyes sparkling with something approaching gratitude. Harry understood the sentiment; he too, was glad that so many had survived. It could all have so easily been so different.
The Houses were somewhat all the same, still keeping to themselves as much as possible. The Gryffindors avoided the Slytherins as much as possible, and vice versa, while the Hufflepuffs and the Ravenclaws kept to their Gryffindor-neutral positions. The friend clusters were all the same, Harry, Ron, and Hermione in their little group of three, sometimes pulled into a larger gathering but never separated from each other. While a mountain troll in the girls’ bathroom had done enough to solidify their friendship all those years ago, the last year spent in a smelly tent had only pushed those roots deeper, tangling them up in each other so thoroughly that nobody could tell where one ended and the next began. And for the most part, Harry liked it that way; he would just have preferred not to have to witness all the face sucking going on between the other two.
But all the changes Harry had been expecting; he’d known that coming back to the castle after everything that had happened there would make things a little unsettled at first. War changes people, nobody can live through what they all did and come out the other side exactly the same. He’d expected his friends to be quieter, to want to spend time together, to check in on each other regularly, to look out for each other more. He’d expected the younger students to look upon him and his friends with awe, to have the frustrating hero-worship follow him around. He’d expected the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs to have become closer together following their united front, and he’d expected the Slytherins to keep their distance, to shoot mistrustful and maybe even vengeful looks at everyone they met.
He hadn’t expected Draco Malfoy to turn up in the Great Hall for the welcome feast, wearing reading glasses and holding a book carefully in his hands.
“That’s… He’s reading Lewis Carroll,” Hermione had said, as though it was the biggest mystery she’d ever come across.
Harry was more interested in the glasses. How many times had Malfoy laughed at him for being a speccy git? The way the fine silver framed his face, the lenses making his grey eyes look bigger and paler than usual, made Harry’s stomach jump strangely. “Who’s that? Some Pureblood fanatic?”
Hermione turned exasperated eyes on him and sighed. “Lewis Carroll was an author, Harry. A Muggle author.”
And yes, that was something to be intrigued by, especially when Malfoy ignored the rest of his house and stuck his nose in the book and read all throughout the feast. Harry watched him confuse the sugar with the salt and upend it into his tea without noticing, too busy turning the page to continue on. But the strangest event of the night was when Malfoy had pulled himself out of the book long enough to intercept Hermione on her way out of the hall, and apologise to her. Harry and Ron, confused and wrong-footed, had simply stood there, slack-jawed, as Hermione graciously accepted and then tentatively asked Malfoy about what he was reading.
“I like it,” he said, turning the leather bound book over in his hands. “It says things that I feel but don’t know how to express.”
“Like what?”
“I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.”
“I think a lot of stories have that power,” Hermione had replied, smiling slightly, understanding something in Malfoy’s words that Harry had missed completely.
“Yes, they do,” he’d said, and drifted off through the doors towards the Slytherin dorm.
“What the hell was that about?” Harry asked, once he’d overcome his shock. Ron was still doing his impression of a very red-faced guppy.
“Haven’t you ever read Alice in Wonderland, Harry?” Hermione rolled her eyes at Harry’s head shake, leading them back to their common room. “It was a quote. Alice is telling the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon of her adventures, but only beginning that morning.”
“Okay,” Harry said, still confused. “But why did Malfoy quote it?”
Hermione hummed, smiling a little. “I think he’s trying to move on from the past.” And with that she scrambled through the hole and began directing the younger students off to bed.
From then on, it became common place to see Malfoy, separated from the rest of the Slytherins, his head firmly entrenched behind an open book. And they were all Muggle books, Harry soon learned, as Hermione would whisper the titles almost reverently under her breath, before scurrying closer to talk to Malfoy about them. Harry and Ron would stare after her in confusion, eyebrows raised in amazement when the pair would settle themselves at the end of the Ravenclaw table and start an animated discussion. More than once, Harry had to literally drag Hermione away so that they wouldn’t be late for their classes.
“He’s reading Hamlet, Harry, did you see?”
“Yeah, I did. That one’s Shakespeare, right?”
It was all very suspicious, watching them together, in the courtyard, in the Great Hall, in the corridors and the library. Malfoy had to be up to something, but what it was, Harry couldn’t figure out for the life of him. Ron, however, quickly decided that what Malfoy wanted was to split him and Hermione up, after the Satisfactory Bookmark Episode.
They’d been sitting in the library, Hermione and Malfoy whispering quietly together – and when did Hermione start thinking that talking in the library was okay? – while Harry and Ron sat on the other side of the table and tried not to stare at them. Well, Harry wasn’t sure what Ron had been doing, because he’d been too busy trying not to stare at the way Malfoy’s mouth moved as he spoke quietly, the shocking pink of his tongue as it darted out to wet his lips, and those glasses, how they made him look too put together, too serious. He looked as though he was just waiting for someone to come along and muss him up. Harry’s palms were itching; he wanted to be that someone.
He’d been entertaining these thoughts for a while, ever since Hermione had first dragged Malfoy over to spend an afternoon down by the lake with them. Ron had huffed and sullenly thrown his sandwich crusts into the lake for the squid, but Harry had looked up just in time to see a small smile sent in his direction, before Hermione had pulled Malfoy’s attention back to the wonders of Jane Austen. Ever since then, Harry had been a little more attentive, watching the careful way Malfoy handled the books that he brought everywhere with him, the way his long fingers danced elegantly around as he sat and talked with Hermione. He’d collected the small smiles and glances sent his way, not even realising it until he began replaying them over and over late at night. Harry was rapidly becoming obsessed with Malfoy all over again, only in a different and confusing way.
He’d been careful not to say anything to Ron about it though, because his best friend seemed liable to blow at any minute, he was so upset about the situation. More than once, Ron had loudly proclaimed what a git Malfoy had always been and always would be, only for Hermione to scowl at him and storm off in a huff, refusing to speak to him for the rest of the day. Ron spent those days ranting to Harry about the unfairness of it all, and Harry would make best friend noises of almost-agreement, while in the back of his mind he was replaying the way Malfoy had passed him the newts’ eyes in Potions, the tips of his fingers lingering on the back of Harry’s hand.
But the library incident had been the most explosive, both in terms of Ron and Hermione’s relationship and in Harry’s rapidly growing yet still confusing feelings for Malfoy. Hermione and Malfoy had been locked in their whispered discussion over the latest book – something to do with Hobbits, whatever the hell they were – while Ron flicked through his Transfigurations textbook with far more force than necessary and scowled at them both. Harry was busy trying desperately to get his mind off wondering if Malfoy’s hair really was as soft as it looked so that he could get the last two inches of his Defence essay finished. Finally, after having had enough of clearing his throat pointedly and getting no response, Ron reached out and snatched the book out of Malfoy’s hands.
“So, it’s about a ring?” He asked, rather sullenly, flipping through the pages and stopping at random. “Wow, fascinating.”
“Actually, it’s about good triumphing over evil, even when all seems lost,” Hermione replied with a frown. Malfoy said nothing, his eyes glued to the book in Ron’s hands. “Don’t lose Draco’s place, Ron.”
It still sounded weird hearing Malfoy’s given name like that. Hermione had asked them both to consider doing it themselves (“It might make him seem more human, more approachable, than if you think of him as just an extension of his family name.”), but Ron had sneered at her and told her that “Malfoy will always be ferrety git to me, thanks.” Harry, for his part, had wanted to know how the name would feel to say out loud. So far he’d only worked up to whispering it to himself in the few moments he was alone. Harry had never given much thought to names before, but it was amazing how well it seemed to suit Draco, or at least this new Draco that he was just starting to get to know. The sharpness of the consonants surrounding the softness of the vowels, the way it could be said softly, whereas Malfoy could only ever be said in harsh tones. It was weirdly fitting for this new version of the boy they’d all once thought they’d known. Beautiful, almost.
Ron’s scowl had deepened further, and he flicked back to the pages Malfoy had been keeping his little finger between. He turned down the corner of the page and then dropped the book, sliding it over to Malfoy with an agitated flick of his wrist.
“Ron!” Hermione whisper-yelled, louder than Harry had ever heard her in the library before.
“It’s alright,” Malfoy said quietly, although his fingers shook slightly as he picked the book up. “It’s not my own copy, it doesn’t matter.” But he quickly opened the book and carefully smoothed out the crease.
“What?” Asked Ron, switching his glare from Malfoy to Hermione and back again. “You didn’t want to lose your place, now you haven’t.”
“That’s not the point, Ron! You can’t go around… defacing other people’s books like that. It’s bad enough you do that to your own.”
“Defacing? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Books are to be respected,” Hermione said shrilly. “You should take care of all of them, but especially other people’s!”
“I didn’t deface it at all! All I did was mark his place, which you told me to do!”
“I meant with a bookmark or something, not by bending the page back! Who does that?”
Harry did, quite a lot, but when he looked up, he saw that Malfoy seemed to agree wholeheartedly with Hermione. His finger was still trying to smooth the corner of the page. Pulling out his wand, Harry leaned over and performed the ironing spell Molly had taught him. The crease disappeared, and Malfoy looked up. The smile he gave Harry was blinding, and Harry was still suffering its effects after Madam Pince had thrown them all out for disturbing the peace. Ron and Hermione had argued with each other all the way up to the common room, getting progressively louder until they were standing in front of the portrait yelling at each other. Harry didn’t pay any attention, even when the yelling turned into somewhat angry kissing braced against the wall, the Fat Lady letting out a shocked, “well I never!” He was too busy thinking of the way Malfoy’s smile had changed his whole face. Pointy was not a word that could be used to describe Malfoy when he smiled like that.
After that, Ron seemed to settle down around Malfoy somewhat, his grumbling and glaring giving way to eye rolls and bored groans whenever the conversation around them inevitably led itself back to books. Malfoy was quickly becoming Draco to Harry, although he’d still yet to utter the name out loud in front of anyone other than himself. It wasn’t until late night chatter in the common room brought up the question of just where Draco was getting all this Muggle literature from, that the idea of following him came into Harry’s head.
“I wish I owned that many books,” Hermione said dreamily, rocking a little in her seat by the fire.
“You already own way more than any sane person does, ‘Mione,” Ron muttered, concentrating on the chess board in front of him. To everyone’s great surprise, Harry seemed to be beating him for once.
“But they’re all school books, which I need if I’m ever going to pass my NEWTS.” Harry and Ron shared a look. “I’d give anything to have an entire collection of Muggle literature like Draco’s.”
“Yeah, but they’re not his, are they?” Ron directed his knight across the board, checking Harry with a grin.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, they’re library books, aren’t they? They’ve got those little white tags on the spines.” Both Harry and Hermione stared at Ron, astonished. “What?”
“How do you know that?” Harry asked, at the same time as Hermione said, “But then where is he getting them from?”
Ron shrugged, uncaring. “No idea. There’s not exactly one of those Muggle libraries in Hogsmeade, is there?”
“Maybe he’s getting them from the library here?”
“No, they don’t stock Muggle books, I’ve asked Madam Pince before,” Hermione said, with the air of someone with a great grievance.
“Could he be getting them delivered?”
“I don’t think Muggle libraries have an owl post service, Harry.”
“Checkmate!” Ron yelled, punching his fists in the air. “Who cares where he gets them from, they’re just a bunch of boring books.”
Harry quickly said goodnight and left the common room, shrugging unapologetically as Ron caught his gaze mournfully. He wasn’t going to sit and listen to another lecture on the importance of books if he didn’t have to. He went up to his room and pulled out the map, settling cross legged on his bed with a tin of Molly’s fudge beside him. He munched away happily as he watched the little labels all moving around, searching for Draco. It wasn’t long before he found him, sitting much as Harry was, alone in his dorm room. Harry figured he was probably reading.
It was soothing somehow, to sit there in the dark, watching Draco at the other end of the castle doing much the same thing. It rapidly became Harry’s favourite pastime, much like Sixth Year, only now he was happy just to sit and look at the little name, feeling relaxed instead of frustrated.
Until the night Draco left his dorm room.
Harry had been sitting in the common room staring off into space, thinking about the sound of Draco’s laugh. It was different this year, too, all traces of mockery gone, and in its place a light, tinkling sound that Harry felt all over him when he heard it. He slowly became aware of the fact that Hermione was suddenly sitting in Ron’s lap, her face flushed red as she giggled. Harry got up quickly, turning his back to the sofa before he could catch a glimpse of where Ron’s hand might be, mumbled a vague goodnight and fairly ran up the stairs to his room. Once there, he laid down on his bed, hand slipping under the pillow to grab the map. He unfolded it just enough to see the Slytherin dorms, and frowned when he realised that he couldn’t see Draco’s name on there anywhere. He sat up, spreading the map out, his finger moving almost feverishly across the parchment. There he was, in the Slytherin common room. Harry breathed out a sigh of relief, stuttering when the label moved out into the corridor.
Harry didn’t stop to think, didn’t stop to realise that this could probably be described as stalking and if Hermione knew she would likely look at him suspiciously with that strange expression she always seemed to wear these days whenever Harry brought Draco up in conversation. He didn’t think, he just moved, off his bed and to his trunk, pulling out the cloak and throwing it over his shoulders and running down the stairs.
Ron and Hermione were too busy with each other to notice the portrait open and then close seemingly all by itself, and then Harry was outside in the corridor, hidden under his cloak with his nose buried in the map, searching for Draco. There he was, on the third floor in the East Wing. Harry had only been down there once, back when Fluffy had been guarding the Philosopher’s Stone. He wondered what could have drawn Draco there in the middle of the night.
He raced down the stairs and along corridors, watching as Draco came to a stop, seemingly in front of a blank stretch of wall. Harry copied him, two floors above, and watched in astonishment as a room suddenly appeared on the map. It wasn’t even labelled, and Harry had no idea what it could be, or what Draco might be doing there. He stared at Draco’s name as he carried on, standing in the middle of a blank room.
The door was closed when he reached it, and Harry dithered for a moment outside, wondering if he could possibly get in without Draco knowing immediately. For all Harry knew, the room on the other side could be a store cupboard, or a toilet. But before long, curiosity got the better of him, and he took a deep breath and quietly pushed the door open.
The room was fascinating, beautiful. Honey yellow wood as far as the eye could see, high arched windows framed by thick purple drapes, plush looking sofas and thick oak desks, and books, books everywhere. Beautifully and colourfully bound tomes were all that was to be found at every turn, piled on desks, scattered across windowsills, and covering every inch of the walls. The ceiling was high, as high as the Great Hall, the shelves towering upwards to meet it, every single one crammed with books. There were ladders and mezzanines, and a polished card catalogue, the little cards dancing around each other gently, rearranging themselves as books floated lazily back to their spaces. And there, over in the far corner of the vast room, was the most fascinating thing of all.
He sat in the corner of the furthest windowsill, feet pulled up with a book resting open on his knees. More books surrounded him, some open and others with bookmarks placed between the pages, as though choosing one to read had been an impossible task, the only option left being to take as many as he could carry. The moonlight shone brightly through the window, bleaching his dark robes and staining his hair whiter than snow. The small, rectangular shaped glasses were perched on the bridge of his nose, brow pulled into a delicate frown as he stared down at the book in his hands. His lips, dark and full in the light, moved silently, mouthing the words he was lost within.
Harry crept quietly closer, only now realising that his feet were bare and he was wearing his pyjamas. Draco was still fully dressed, his robes impeccable and his Slytherin tie still perfectly knotted at his throat. He had that look again, as still and pristine as marble, just waiting for someone to come along and lay their hands on him, pull him about until he was flushed and mussed and beautifully alive. Harry swallowed. He wanted very much to be that person.
It wasn’t a new thought, but it was the first time that the need was this strong, pulling Harry a couple of steps closer, one hand already reaching out to touch. He stumbled to a halt, breath catching in his throat when Draco stopped reading and looked up, a delicate frown pulling at his eyebrows. Then he smiled, placed his bookmark between the pages, and laid it down on the windowsill.
“I thought you’d gotten out of the habit of following me,” he said quietly. His eyes didn’t flicker around the room as Ron’s or Hermione’s did whenever Harry was under the cloak, as thought they could spot him if they just looked hard enough. Instead Draco looked down at the floor, waiting for Harry to reveal himself. His smile widened when Harry removed the cloak, throwing it over the nearest sofa.
“Sorry,” Harry said automatically, already hearing the lecture Hermione would give him.
Draco shook his head, the little smile still on his face. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”
Harry nodded, feeling wrong-footed, and cast his eyes about the large room. “What is this place?”
“It’s a library,” Draco replied, just enough of his old snarky tone to let Harry know he was being gently mocked.
“Yeah, I can see that.” Harry pulled a face, then gestured at the shelves. “I suppose I mean, what is it doing here? Why are all these books here, instead of down in the proper library?”
Draco shrugged. “Probably because these are all Muggle books.”
“They are? How did you find this place?”
“By accident, during sixth year.”
Harry stared around at the thousands and thousands of books in the room, trying to imagine all the stories caught between the pages, the views of the world seen through all those authors. Then he turned back to Draco and quietly asked the question he’d been dying to ask for months but hadn’t known how. “Why are you reading Muggle literature, Draco?”
Draco shifted on the windowsill, letting his legs drop down to the floor. He picked up one of the books from the haphazard pile next to him and turned it over in his hands, biting the inside of his cheek.
“The Muggle part isn’t all that new, you know.” Draco shrugged lightly. “They have a small section in Flourish and Blotts, just the classics, right behind the Hexes and Curses shelves. I used to hide them in the pages of the wizard books and read them while Mother was shopping.” He looked up at Harry. “But as to the why, well…”
He paused, frowning lightly, as though trying to find the right way to explain it. Harry waited, transfixed by the sight.
“Words have power. As wizards, we know that, we’ve felt the way a simple word can change the meaning of a spell entirely. Prophecies spoken aloud gain the power to map out a person’s entire future. Words can heal, they can hurt. They can kill.” He swallowed, dipped his chin towards the ground. “But Muggles, even though they don’t see the power as we do, somehow they still manage to wield it with just as much force. The words in these books still have the power to heal, they still have the power to hurt, and it’s like they’ve found a way to turn these words into their own kind of magic. These writers weave their own kind of spells, and they bring the world to life in a way that wizards could never imagine. That’s why I read them.”
Harry had drifted closer as he listened, compelled by the softness of Draco’s voice, the quiet passion barely hidden. He wanted to be able to see it in Draco’s eyes, see the way they lit up like they did whenever he was talking with Hermione. He wanted to see it directed at him. “Give me an example?” He asked, gesturing at the books.
Draco looked down, hands reaching out to shuffle through the pile, finally extracting a thick, heavy tome. He opened it almost reverently, and quietly read out loud. “Our destiny, our nature, and our home/ Is with infinitude, and only there;/ With hope it is, hope that can never die,/ Effort, and expectation, and desire,/ And something evermore about to be.”
“It’s beautiful,” Harry murmured, even closer now, close enough to reach out and touch. “What’s it mean?”
Draco snorted and rolled his eyes, as though unsurprised that Harry wouldn’t get it. “It’s about the infinite ability of the mind, of our imagination. That we can do anything, be anything, be more than what we can see with our eyes. That’s what fascinates me about Muggle literature; the way they see things in ways that we can’t. We know that magic exists, and we’re taught its limitations, but for Muggles? Magic is infinite. Gamp’s Law doesn’t apply to them. And they see magic everywhere, in rainbows and dawns and falling in love. They don’t know anything at all about magic, and so absolutely everything is magical.”
His glasses were slipping down his nose as he talked, and Harry reached out, couldn’t stop himself, just reached out and gently slid them back into place. Draco looked up at him, and Harry smiled a small smile. “What are you reading right now?”
Draco rummaged once more through the stack, withdrawing the book Harry had seen him with when he’d first arrived. He held it up, and Harry read the title and author. The Shadow of the Wind. Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Harry had never heard of him.
“Read some of it to me?”
Draco looked at him, and Harry made a show of settling himself on the sill next to him. Their thighs pressed together, and Harry leaned back against the window, letting his shoulder brush against Draco’s.
Draco cleared his throat, and opened the book, letting the bookmark slip out into his hand. “Alright.
“A secret's worth depends on the people from whom it must be kept. My first thought on waking was to tell my best friend about the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. Tomás Aguilar was a classmate who devoted his free time and his talent to the invention of wonderfully ingenious contraptions of dubious practicality, like the aerostatic dart or the dynamo spinning top. I pictured us both, equipped with flashlights and compasses, uncovering the mysteries of those bibliographic catacombs. Who better than Tomás to share my secret? Then, remembering my promise, I decided that circumstances advised me to adopt what in detective novels is termed a different modus operandi. At noon I approached my father to quiz him about the book and about Julián Carax--both world famous, I assumed. My plan was to get my hands on his complete works and read them all by the end of the week. To my surprise, I discovered that my father, a natural-born librarian and a walking lexicon of publishers' catalogs and oddities, had never heard of The Shadow of the Wind or Julián Carax. Intrigued, he examined the printing history on the back of the title page for clues.”
“Hang on, I thought the author’s name was Carlos… something?”
“It’s a book about a book, they just share the same title.”
“Oh, right. Sorry.”
“According to my father, Gustavo Barceló was, technically speaking, loaded, and his palatial bookshop was more of a passion than a business. He loved books unreservedly, and--although he denied this categorically--if someone stepped into his bookshop and fell in love with a tome he could not afford, Barceló would lower its price, or even give it away, if he felt that the buyer was a serious reader and not an accidental browser. Barceló also boasted an elephantine memory allied to a pedantry that matched his demeanor and the sonority of his voice. If anyone knew about odd books, it was he. That afternoon, after closing the shop, my father suggested that we stroll along to the Els Quatre Gats, a café on Calle Montsió, where Barceló and his bibliophile knights of the round table gathered to discuss the finer points of decadent poets, dead languages, and neglected, moth-ridden masterpieces.”
“Wow, it seems like these guys love books just as much as you do.”
“That’s kind of the point of the book, Harry. Are you going to keep interrupting me?”
“No, sorry. Keep going, please.”
Draco was right, Harry thought, as he listened to the words pouring out of those soft, invitingly pink lips. Even Muggle words had a kind of magic. These ones made Harry want to snuggle closer to Draco, kiss the perfect paleness of his skin, touch his tongue to the pulse in Draco’s throat, press his palm to Draco’s chest and feel the vibrations. Draco’s voice curled around him, slipped beneath his clothing and caressed his skin, soft as smoke. The spell wove itself around him, pulling him inexorably closer, until his breath was ghosting over the skin of Draco’s neck.
And still Draco read, even when Harry finally gave in to temptation and pressed his open lips against him, let his tongue dart out to taste, breath hitching through the words. They were both caught up in the web of magic the words on the pages had created, and Harry was almost certain that he could see, just out of the corner of his eye, the edges of the bubble that surrounded them, transporting them without moving, straight into the pages of the book, onto the streets of Barcelona, right into that Cemetery of Forgotten Books. Harry wanted to stay in that bubble forever, just him and Draco, reading his books to Harry in his voice made of honey and silk.
Draco finally stuttered to a halt, and it was only then that Harry realised that his hand had slid to Draco’s thigh, his fingers inching upwards.
“Harry…”
“I know, I’m sorry, I just-” Harry stopped his hand from moving, but couldn’t convince it to let go. “I just, your voice, oh, God-”
“I wasn’t going to say stop,” Draco said, his voice roughened from all the reading out loud. The sound of it sent shivers down Harry’s back, made him start imagining other things that he could do to get Draco to sound like that.
“Oh. Good.” Harry whispered the words into Draco’s neck, unwilling to let his lips leave the smooth skin, wanting to feel the vibrations as Draco’s pulse sped up. “What were you going to say, then?”
The book dropped with a muffled thud onto the floor. Draco’s hand dropped to Harry’s wrist, fingers curling around the bones and forcing it up another inch on his thigh. “I was going to say that you should kiss me now.”
“Oh God, yes.”
Harry slid his lips upwards to meet the bolt of Draco’s jaw, skin tingling from the light stubble. He mouthed his way across to Draco’s chin, letting his teeth graze lightly across his jaw. And then their lips finally connected… And their glasses crashed together, pushing painfully into their noses.
Desperate not to lose contact, Harry growled and ripped his glasses off, not caring where they fell. Draco huffed a laugh into the kiss, and Harry took advantage of the moment to lick his way inside Draco’s mouth.
“You should put them back on,” Draco mumbled when their lips separated. “I only need mine to read. You can’t even walk without yours.”
Harry shook his head and kissed him again. “I’ll put them back on when I need to go somewhere, then.” This close, he could see just fine, could see the way the silver rims accentuated the grey of Draco’s eyes, how they settled against the top of his cheekbones, the metal bright against the flushed yet still pale skin. They were fucking sexy, and if Harry had to squint a little then he was more than happy to do so, if it meant Draco kept the glasses on.
Draco kissed Harry this time, tilting his chin and bringing a hand up to curl around his jaw. His other hand was still clamped around Harry’s wrist. Harry could feel the slight tremors in his fingers, as though he wanted more but didn’t know how to ask for it. Heart in his throat, ready for rejection, he moved his hand up, up, until he was cupping Draco through his trousers. His relief at finding an erection as hard as his own made Harry whimper into the kiss. Draco’s hand spasmed around his wrist, fingers clenching and then loosening before falling away, tacit permission for Harry to continue.
The angle was awkward, seated as they were side by side on the windowsill, and Harry’s neck and shoulders were aching. His left hand was twisted downwards, and all he could do was rub stiltedly up and down the ridge of Draco’s cock and it was enough, he needed more contact, needed skin on skin. Without breaking the kiss, he slid down off the sill, pushed one thigh between Draco’s, his knees spreading in invitation. Fumbling under Draco’s robes, Harry’s hand found the waistband and slipped his fingers inside, finding hot, smooth skin and a trail of soft hair.
Draco hummed into the kiss and lifted his knee until his thigh pressed up against Harry’s balls and his cock that had been achingly hard since the moment Draco had begun reading out loud. His hands clamped down around Harry’s waist, pulling him firmly forward, and Harry got with the program. He unzipped Draco’s trousers and shoved his hand inside, beneath the layer of boxers, until he could curl his fingers around the hot length waiting for him. Draco was already leaking, sticky around the head, and Harry painted his palm with it, using it to slick his way down as he began a firm, slow, slide. Draco’s hips jumped, and his hands clenched hard into Harry’s hips, forcing him to ride his thigh.
Their kiss became something closer to just breathing the same air, tongues flicking out over lips and teeth, connecting and sliding together before retreating to make way for panted breaths. Harry quickened his pace, knuckles brushing against Draco’s stomach with every upstroke, thumbing the head and twisting his wrist at the base because he’d quickly learned that Draco liked that, and then Draco was moaning into his mouth and his hand was wet and Draco said his name in a choked whimper as he came, and Harry didn’t think he’d ever been harder in his life.
A second, then two, of Draco breathing hotly into Harry’s mouth, and then fingers were at his pyjama bottoms, undoing the drawstring and shoving them down over his hips enough to free his red and leaking cock. Draco broke away to look down between them, and Harry knew that the moment Draco touched him it would be over, and then he did and it was, Harry coming all over Draco’s fingers with a stutter and a groan.
They stayed like that for a long moment, Harry’s hand still shoved down Draco’s trousers, Draco with his fingers still wrapped around Harry’s slowly softening cock, breathing hard into the heated space between their bodies. Then Draco sat back against the window, eyes on his hand as he slowly lifted it up to his mouth and licked his palm. Harry couldn’t stop staring, because Draco no longer looked like the perfect marble statue. His hair was sticking out in sweaty tufts, the faint pink blush on his cheeks turned a deep red, his robes mussed and wrinkled and his grey eyes glittering, and he was licking Harry’s come off of his own fingers. He looked so beautiful, so alive, and Harry’s dick gave a painful twitch and his hands itched to reach out and touch this new Draco all over again.
So he did, leaning in and cupping his hand around Draco’s jaw and kissing him until they were both breathless again. He found Draco’s wand among the pile of books beside them and cleaned them both up, redoing Draco’s trousers and sitting back down beside him. Then he picked up the book and gave it back to Draco.
“Read to me some more?”
Draco smiled and opened the book, flicking through the pages to find his place.
“Alright.”
FIN.