Blueprints for a Dream

by Frayach

Summary:

Harry breaks Draco’s heart, but that doesn’t mean Draco’s going to let him go without a fight.

 

THE HOUSE ON ST. WENCESLAUS’S STREET

Harry kissed him on a Sunday. He remembers this because the seventeen bells of All Hollows-By-The-River were ringing, and he hadn’t heard Harry say “I want to kiss you” before he did. Their noses bumped, and Harry laughed nervously. Draco remembers because he’d never heard Harry sound nervous before, and it reminded him how much he wanted to see Harry without his glasses – which would also be a first. He was hungry for firsts. He was hungry for Harry, and they kissed for a long time as the blowing leaves gathered around their ankles.

 

In the “real world,” things were being repaired and people were being buried. Sometimes, he and Harry glimpsed each other on opposite sides of a grave. A new Minister had been elected and the trials were sorting out who got to live and who died, and who got to rot in Azkaban. Harry had already been made an Auror, and Draco had watched the contents of the Manor auctioned off to pay his parents’ legal fees. In the “real world,” Harry was an unwilling hero, and Draco was...well, nobody. But when they were together, they were explorers of each other’s bodies. Archivists of each other’s memories. Architects of each other’s dreams.

 

“It’s good for you,” Harry had said. “It’ll build character.”

Those were Harry’s first words when they met in front of the house on St. Wenceslaus’s Street. Harry had pulled a string or two in the new administration to make it Unplottable. When he told Draco he’d found a place for them to meet, Draco had pictured anything but this abandoned half-burned-out brick Victorian house in a dodgy Muggle neighbourhood.

They entered through a smashed in door at the back and tip-toed to a steep set of stairs. Glass and grit crunched under their shoes. There were no furnishing, but all of the intricate rather whimsical fixtures were in place and relatively undamaged. They climbed the stairs side by side, not because they were fearful but because being side-by-side meant they brushed up against one another, and every bit of contact – no matter how light or fleeting – made their hearts beat faster.

“The mattress is new,” Harry said when they reached the loft. “And so are the bedclothes, so don’t have a hissy-fit, little rich boy.” He kicked off his shoes and sat down.

Draco wrinkled his nose because he knew it would annoy Harry, but even if a tramp had slept there, Draco wouldn’t have cared.

They stood, stooped because of the sloping eaves, with their backs turned as they undressed. First one sock and then the other. Belt buckles, jumpers, shirts and then jeans. When they turned to each other, they realised they both still wore their pants, and for some reason this was hilariously funny. They crawled under the sheets and lay on their backs, close but not touching, their breathing quick and shallow.

They both knew they were going to have sex, even if neither had actually said it. When his body couldn’t take waiting any longer, Draco finally broke the silence.

“Have you ever done this before?” he asked.

Draco pushed away only far enough to look in Harry’s eyes. Harry shook his head. It didn’t seem like the right occasion to indulge in any silly one-upmanship.

“Me neither.”

“I think we probably won’t need detailed instructions.”

“Maybe we should take it slow…”

“Or maybe you should just shut up and let me get back to snogging you.”

Harry’s lips were ridiculously soft, and Draco paused long enough to tell him just how girly he was before he rolled on top of Harry and returned to their feverish snogging. Kissing Harry had felt…well, the only word Draco could come up with was “pillowy.” Warm and wet and pillowy. He put everything he had into kissing those lips, and he didn’t even realise he was pressing and rubbing his groin against Harry’s until he was on the verge of coming. He pulled his mouth away and buried his face in the angle between Harry’s neck and shoulder.

“You’re going to lose it, aren’t you?” Harry’s voice contained something like awe.

Draco could only nod. The feeling was too intense.

Harry squeezed Draco’s hips between his thighs and began pushing up every time Draco pressed down. He turned his head so he could whisper in Draco’s ear.

“I want you to,” he said.

Afterward, they lay on their sides facing each other. It’d been the first time he’d ever seen Harry without his glasses on, and for some reason that, more than anything else, made him realise how seriously in over-his-head he was.

“What’s that?” he asked trying to take his mind off the dawning realisation he was in love.

Harry glanced down to see what he was talking about. Draco touched the pendant hanging on a leather string around his neck.

“It’s an ugly fake gold sovereign.”

“It doesn’t feel magical.”

“Because it’s not.”

“Well, if you think it’s ugly and it’s not for protection, then why do you wear it?”

“I wear it to remind myself not to believe everything I think.”

Draco propped himself up on his elbow and brushed Harry’s thick fringe away from his eyes before running his fingertip lightly from the middle of his eyebrows, over his nose, down his chin, along his throat until it rested on the pendant.

“Are you going to tell me what you mean or are you going to pretend to be mysterious?”

Harry smiled and lay his hand on Draco’s hip. “I sometimes think some really stupid things,” he replied. “I used to think my Muggle cousin was a useless wanker.”

“Is he?”

“Yeah, for the most part,” Harry replied with a laugh.

Draco frowned his confusion, and Harry rolled onto his back, pulling Draco with him so that Draco was again held tight and close between his Harry’s thighs.

“He definitely was a wanker, but he isn’t useless. I was wrong about him, and I realised that if I could be wrong about him, then I could be wrong about anyone.”

Harry reached his arms around Draco’s shoulders and pulled him down for a kiss that started light but quickly deepened.

“So what does the pendant have to do with any of this?” Draco asked when their mouths separated for longer than a breath.

“He gave it to me…Dudley, my Muggle cousin, I mean. Somehow he found out where I’m living and sent it to me along with a card that said ‘Hope you’re alive. Sincerely, Dudley.’ I was wrong about him...and I was wrong about you.”

Draco shook his head at crazy Harry and his crazy logic, but then they were kissing again, and nothing – absolutely nothing – else mattered.

 

A year later...

 

THE ROSE GARDEN

 

They hadn’t planned to meet that evening.

But Draco had visited his parents in Azkaban for the first and last time. They were already losing their sanity and barely recognised him. They’d been gruesome shadows of their former selves. They’d picked fleas out of their thinning hair and eaten them. His mother’s beautiful face was covered with scabs. She asked him to take care of her roses.

He was never going back.

He wished he knew how to contact Harry and beg him to stay with him. But he didn’t know where Harry lived. So he’d gone to the house on St. Wenceslaus’s Street. If he couldn’t be with Harry, he could at least sleep in their bed.

He’d just reached the top of the stairs when he heard Harry’s voice.

“C’mere,” Harry said.

“You look prettier than ever,” Harry said.

“Take off your knickers,” Harry said.

Time stopped. Draco’s breathing stopped. His heart stopped.

He only remembers scraps of what happened next. The Weaselette’s ginger hair and pink bra. Harry moving under the bedclothes. Their giggles and sighs and eventually Harry’s groan.

Draco has no idea how long he stood there. Long enough for darkness to fall and the Weaselette to go asleep. Harry had got up to find his jeans and t-shirt when their eyes locked.

He’ll never know what Potter would have said. When he’d opened his mouth, Draco Disapparated. Not having planned where he was going, he ended up in his mother’s ruined rose garden. As he lay among the thorns, he tried to cry, but he was beyond tears. They came later by the gallons, but for now, he floated in a warm sea of disbelief, his mind as blank as the sky above him.

 

A year later...

 

THE BEDROOM WINDOW

 

Leave it to Potter to be the kind of person that never pulls the curtains.

Draco looks up at the window on the second floor of the ordinary terraced house and watches a shirtless Potter rummaging about in a chest of drawers. The only other furnishings he can see from the street are a light bulb without a shade dangling by a wire from a hole in the ceiling and a map of the world pinned slightly askew to the plasterboard wall.

Potter is wearing jeans that settle low on his hips and the pendant around his neck. The light in the room is so bright Draco can count the vertebrae in Potter’s spine as he bends to pick up something from the floor.

Draco walks to the house next door. He pulls his key from his jacket pocket and turns it in the lock until he hears a grinding click. His hands are full of groceries, so he has to shove the door open with his shoulder. It’s dark inside; the only light comes through the gaps between the curtains.

He sets the groceries on the floor and unties his shoes. His feet hurt, and he takes a moment to massage them through his socks. He draws his wand and casts a charm to turn on the Muggle lamp on the desk by the settee. The dining table is cluttered with books and unwashed dishes. He’d never get used to living without house-elves.

In the kitchen, he puts away his groceries and boils water for spaghetti. The door looking out on the garden is always stuck, but he finally manages to open it. He places a cigarette loosely between his lips and lights it. The first smoke-filled inhale is the best thing that’s happened to him all day, and he exhales with his eyelids half closed.

Two cats are either fighting or fucking in a nearby garden, and someone somewhere is playing horrible music at a horrifying volume. There’s a sour smell coming from the skip behind the chip shop on the corner. Next door, Potter descends the stairs two at a time and slams his front door closed. After a moment, his motorbike sputters to life and he speeds away to wherever it is that saviours go on Thursday nights.

Draco puts out his cigarette in a half-empty cup of cold tea and drains the spaghetti in the sink. While it cools, he slips on his unlaced shoes and goes back into the street. Potter has left the light on in his bedroom. From this angle, Draco can see a corner of an unmade bed and a tartan duvet. His breathing quickens at the thought of tangled unwashed sheets.

The spaghetti is cold and clumped together by the time he wipes his hand on the settee and pulls up his jeans. He casts a warming charm and eats it anyway.

 

THE WINDOW ON THE STAIRS

 

He looks up and immediately pulls his knit cap down to ensure that his hair isn’t visible.

Potter is standing at a window on the stairs looking down at the street. The window’s balanced between two floors, and, like all the windows in Potter’s house, it has no curtains. It’s dark, but Draco can still see Potter leaning against the frame with his forehead touching the glass. He looks either tired or sad or both, although what Potter could possibly be sad about, Draco can’t imagine. As far as Draco can tell, he has everything he always wanted.

It’s raining, and all Draco can smell is the damp wool of his coat. Puddles shine in the orange light of the streetlamps. He can see clearly Potter’s faded jeans, his pale face, and the reflection off his glasses. He doesn’t move, and Draco sighs with relief. He has no desire to have Potter find out that nothing separates them but a wall.

Merlin forbid. Potter might buy some curtains, and the tiny sliver of his life that Draco still has access to would be gone.

This is the second nondescript Muggle neighbourhood he’s followed Potter to. The other one was just the same – treeless pavements, corner shops with adverts for Lucozade and Cadbury Flake bars in their windows, and row upon row of terraced houses, their bricks blackened with car exhaust. He has no idea why Potter doesn’t upgrade. After all, he’s rich enough to afford a flat in one of the wizarding districts in Soho or Notting Hill Gate. He seemed to prefer living amidst Muggle noise and squalor.

Sometimes, if he’s home while Potter’s out, Draco steals his post. That morning there’d been a postcard of the Coliseum from the Weaselette. He’d incendioed it in the kitchen sink and put the ashes in an envelope addressed to Potter. He’d mailed it on his way to work.

Once, in the last neighbourhood they’d lived in, he’d seen Potter and the Weaselette fucking. As usual, Potter hadn’t pulled the curtains. He was on his back, and the Weaslette’s breasts jiggled as she bounced up and down on his dick. Draco had hated them both so much in that moment, but still he hadn’t been able to look away. He’d seen them in the kitchen later laughing and making breakfast in nothing but their underwear.

Draco takes one last glance at Potter’s house, and then walks away as quickly as he can without seeming suspicious. Potter’s still in the window, his forehead still resting against the glass. What is he thinking? Who is he waiting for?

Draco slams his front door shut and lights a cigarette before he even gets to the kitchen. The match flares and the tobacco ignites with a sound like snakes hissing. He pinches the flame out between his fingers and throws the spent match on a dirty plate and stands there shaking as he takes one long drag after the other.

 

THE PASSENGER SIDE WINDOW OF THE WEASEL’S CHARMED BENTLEY SILVER SHADOW

 

He hears Potter’s voice before he can see Potter’s face.

The Weasel’s stupid car is stopped at a broken traffic light with the windows down. Potter is sitting in the passenger seat. The Weasel is honking repeatedly and swearing at the top of his lungs. Obviously he and Potter have somewhere important to be. What else was new?

“The light’s broken,” Potter says. “Honking isn’t going to fix it.”

It’s dark and the pavement is crowded, but Draco steps into the shadows anyway and turns up his collar.

“We’ll never hear the end of it,” the Weasel groans. He slams his palm against the horn again and holds it there for several seconds. Someone in another car gives him the finger and yells something in a Cockney accent. The Weasel ignores him and honks again.

“I’m not joking, mate,” Potter says. “I’ve got a headache, and you’re not helping.”

The Weasel looks like his ginger head might explode. “Mum made us promise we wouldn’t be late! The reservations are for 8! It’s 10 to!”

“Fred will order drinks and get her tipsy. She won’t even notice we’re not there after her second Pimms.”

“I’m not worried about my mum as much as Ginny! She’ll hex me to Tuesday if I make her fiancé miss his own engagement party. Move, you bastards!” He honks again.

Draco inhales sharply and leans against a wall. He’s about to slip out of the shadow and get away, but before he can, Potter turns his head and looks right through him as though he’s a wraith. Draco feels pinned to the spot even though he knows Potter isn’t aware of who it is he’s staring through.

He looks tired, and the collar of his shirt is crumpled as if he’d slept in it. It’s obvious he’d tried to tame his hair with some kind of goopy product; it’s plastered to his head and glistens unnaturally under the streetlamps.

“It’s not an engagement party,” he says without turning to look at the Weasel. “And I’m no one’s fiancé…”

“Yet.”

Potter is quiet.

“Hey, mate,” says the Weasel. “I feel like I’m dragging you to a funeral. What’s wrong with you?”

Potter closes his eyes wearily. “Nothing. Just tired.”

“You’re not flaking out on my sister or anything, are you?” the Weasel asks. “Because if you are, I’ll have to jinx your arse right here in front of everyone.”

“Of course I’m not! It’s just…it’s just that things are moving so fast...”

“Harry,” the Weasel says in a warning voice. “We’ve talked about this. It’s been a year for fuck sake. She’s been back from America for a year! Bill and I had a bet over whether you’d propose on Christmas or Valentine’s Day. I said Christmas; I know how much you hate Valentine’s Day. But now they’ve both gone by!”

Potter turns to look straight ahead and tips his head back against the seat.

“I just turned 21, and Ginny’s only 20 – just barely. Why does everything have to happen tomorrow? Is it because I’m sleeping with her?”

The Weasel turns and punches him on the arm. “You’re not supposed to tell me that. Ginny will be a virgin on her wedding night…”

Potter chuckles wearily. “Yeah, whatever helps you sleep at night. Don’t worry. I wouldn’t give you the details.”

“Fuck, I sure hope not. Cm’on!!”

The Weasel leans on the horn again.

“All joking aside, I still don’t see why you haven’t got her a ring yet. It’s not like you were with anyone else while she was away and are still pining after her or something. Besides, whoever she is, Ginny is much prettier and casts a quicker hex.”

Draco wants to laugh aloud. Harry closes his eyes and rubs his face with his palms.

“Right?”

“Harry?”

“Yeah, right,” Potter says at last.

“I didn’t think so,” the Weasel replies. “You may be a bad tempered git, but you’re definitely a one-girl kind of bad tempered git. At least you better be…”

Eventually the traffic loosens up as a cop starts sorting things out, blowing his whistle and waving people along.

“About fucking time!” says the Weasel. “I thought we were going to have to have our post delivered to this corner we’ve been here so bloody long!”

Potter smiles and turns his head to look out the window again. It’s then, suddenly and unexpectedly, that he looks straight at Draco. His eyes widen in surprise, and as they drive away, Potter leans out the window to look back.

Draco doesn’t acknowledge him in any way. Let him think he’s seeing ghosts. Let him feel haunted for the rest of the evening.

The Silver Shadow disappears, and Draco steps out of the dark and back onto the crowded sidewalk. He walks until he gets himself lost and sits down in a dimly lit park. His cigarette is almost as bright as the nearby streetlight. He smokes an entire packet trying (mostly in vain) not to imagine Potter seated beside the Weaselette and feeding her cake with his fork just like a couple Draco had once seen in a restaurant. The woman had closed her eyes and opened her mouth and then, after the man had fed her the cake, she’d playfully dabbed some frosting on his nose and then kissed it away with a laugh. Draco’s stomach growls at the thought of food, but the image in his head of Potter and the Weaselette kissing frosting off each other’s noses makes him want to be ill.

“I don’t know,” Potter had said once as they lay on their backs sharing a cigarette. “I’m not sure whether I feel love for her...or, I don’t know, just fondness. Is there a difference? What is ‘love’ anyway? Can you be in love without being happy...or happy but not in love?”

Draco had told him to shut up and said he didn’t have a fucking clue.

But he’d lied. He’d had to.

 

THE LIVING ROOM WINDOW

 

He’s had a long day at his inconsequential Ministry job, and when he steps outside, he sees that it’s already dark. He’s tired and longing for a glass of whisky – or three. He stops at the pub before Apparating into the vacant factory building at the end of his street, disturbing the sleeping pigeons.

It’s Monday, and there are few people about. When he reaches Potter’s house, he hides behind the postbox across the street.

Potter is slumped in a shapeless couch with his feet on a coffee table watching football on the telly-thing. He’s wearing jeans and a dark green t-shirt. His feet are bare, and now and then he flexes his toes. He lazily munches some crisps from a bowl.

Draco’s had too much to drink and feels almost brave enough to walk across the street and ring Potter’s doorbell. This is why he doesn’t drink. It’s too dangerous to let his inhibitions slip – even just a little bit.

After all, that’s how it had happened in the first place. The kissing. The groping. The awkward fucking. The silly words that spilled from his lips. Silly words like “Harry.”

Potter gets up from the couch and disappears for a moment until he turns on the kitchen light, and Draco can see his silhouette. He opens the refrigerator door and returns to the living room with a beer in his hand. He slumps back down on the couch and points his wand at the telly. The program changes from football to porn. Draco can tell because Potter opens his jeans and begins to move his hand up and down. The other hand still holds the beer can which he occasionally raises to his lips. Potter leans his head back, and Draco can see the curve of his throat. He watches Potter’s hand speed up and then abruptly stops. He turns the channel back to football. His jeans are still open. Draco knows how his pubic hair smells after coming. The memory makes his throat constrict painfully.

 

THE BATHROOM WINDOW

 

It’s morning. Up and down the street front doors are opening, spewing forth people dressed for work or just barely dressed enough to step outside and grab their papers without flashing their bits at the neighbours. An owl scratches on Draco’s window to deliver The Prophet. Potter’s on the front page again. He’s wearing his customary scowl and holding up a hand to shield his face as he makes his way out of some club or restaurant. Sometimes he has the Weaselette on his arm, and Draco will throw his half-eaten breakfast in the bin.

He hates mornings with all their commotion. Car doors open and slam shut, and shrieking children run by in packs. The only good thing about mornings is watching Potter shave.

Draco Disillusions himself and slips through the smallest crack in the door he can manage. Potter’s bathroom window is made from opaque glass, but Potter always keeps it open. He watches as Potter wanders through the door with his hair sticking out every which way. He kicks off his pants, and Draco can hear the sound of piss hitting water. The steam from the shower hides Potter from Draco’s sight, and he can’t see anything until Potter reaches out from behind the shower curtain and retrieves a towel. When he steps out, his back is pink from the shower’s heat, and the towel is wrapped loosely around his waist. He lathers his face and then holds the skin of his cheeks taut as he drags the razor through it. When he’s done, he turns on the tap and splashes his face with water. He dries it and pauses to admire his work.

Back in his own house, Draco fire calls the office and tells the receptionist he’s ill. He then goes upstairs and crawls back into bed. Over the course of the day, he wanks four times and dozes on and off. His fourth orgasm takes forever and results in a pathetic unsatisfying dribble. As the sun starts to set, he hears the cars and kids come back. When he hears Potter’s motorbike, he gets up and goes down to the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. Next door, he can hear Potter’s voice but not the words he’s saying. There is someone else with him. A witch. The Weaselette. Draco punches a cabinet door, and his fist goes right through with little effort. It’s unsurprising that a cheap house would have cheap cabinets.

He knows he’ll spend the evening with his ear pressed to the wall trying to catch the sounds Potter makes when he comes.

He pours the boiling water into a cup and dunks his tea bag. He hears laughter through the wall and the sound of footsteps ascending the stairs

 

THE DISPLAY WINDOW AT FLOURISH & BLOTTS

Flourish & Blotts is virtually empty, which is the way Draco likes it. He trails his fingers across the spines of books as though he is touching a lover. Some books are as idiotic as their titles: Boil His Cauldron: 50 Ways to Brew Passion with Potions or Do You Too Do Voodoo? but others are more promising, their titles in Latin and their covers embossed with gold. Some of them purr and a couple cackle. He finds it sad that he’s had to turn to inanimate objects for a response to his touch.

Potter used to melt under his hands, his body quick to react to the slightest change in pressure, quick to respond to whispered commands. Roll over. Raise your arms. Arch your back. Spread your legs. Come.

“Can I help you find anything?”

Draco jumps. He hadn’t realised anyone was near him. He blushes as though the man could read his thoughts.

“We have the latest unofficial biography of Harry Potter. This time from the point of view of his former Hogwarts roommate’s toad.”

Draco can’t help the smile that tugs at the corners of his lips.

“Really?” he asks.

“Actually, yeah,”

“Okay. Where is it? I have to see this.”

The clerk leads him to the plate-glass window at the front of the store which features a life-sized statue of Potter holding out his hand on which sits a rather self-satisfied looking toad. He pulls one copy of the book off a stack of twenty or more and hands it to Draco. There’s a fuzzy photograph of a teenaged Potter on the cover careening around like he’s drunk. The camera moves too, its owner obviously trying to run away. Draco turns to the front page…

I first met the famous Harry Potter on the Hogwarts Express when he was eleven. At the time, I was still as frisky as a tadpole and escaped my nice but bumbling Keeper. Harry Potter’s Familiar was a rather rude snowy owl whose temperament in many ways reflected her master’s. True, I could only see Harry Potter from my vantage point under the opposite seat, but what I did see (i.e. his ankles) told me he was a fine, if rather badly groomed, young man...”

Draco can’t help himself and laughs aloud. Potter had probably bought a copy out of sheer pity for the author – Trevor the Toad (with the aid of famed ghost writer Charlotte Bronte). He opens the cover to look at the inked print of a four-toed amphibian.

“He was very high maintenance,” says the clerk. “He refused to sign in purple ink.”

Draco runs his hand over the glossy cover and thinks for a fleeting moment that he’ll buy a copy and take it with him to their attic hideout so they can have a good laugh after they shag.

But then he remembers and puts the book back.

 

THE KITCHEN WINDOW

 

The most surprising thing he’s learned about Potter in a year of stalking him is that Potter not only likes to cook, he’s rather good at it as well.

He must be having a party on the weekend because he’s spent an inordinate amount of time in the kitchen, which means Draco has to crawl over the wall that separates their gardens and stand on a patio table to watch him. His face bears a concentrated expression, and he leaves flour in his hair when he runs his fingers through it distractedly. Now and then, he stands looking into the middle distance and tapping his fingers on the counter.

Draco, himself, can’t cook at all. He’d never had to. Everything he eats now has to be boiled or thawed with a heating charm. Potter prepares meat and cooks vegetables and mixes salad without the help of his wand. Even his salad dressing is made from scratch.

Once. Once they’d shared a meal together, just the two of them. Nothing fancy, just bread and cheese and puny tart apples. He’d watched Potter’s fingers tear at the bread. His nails were gnawed to the quick. Draco wonders whether, now that the War is truly over, Potter still chews his nails.

In all these months, he’s never got close enough to tell.

Potter opens the window and looks outside. Draco is almost sure Potter can’t see him, but he holds his breath all the same. A cat on the wall hisses at him, and he tries to will it to go away.

“I know there’s someone out there,” Potter calls in Draco’s general direction. “I know you’re following me.” His tone is surprisingly matter-of-fact. “If you’re a reporter then you can just fuck off, but if you’re someone else, show yourself. I’m more curious than pissed off.”

Draco bites his tongue to keep from replying, and after a minute, Potter shrugs and goes back to stirring something in a pot on the cooker.

 

THE DINING ROOM WINDOW

 

The only electric light on in Potter’s house is the naked bulb in his bedroom. Every room downstairs is lit with candles and fairy lights. There’s a tacky candelabra hanging above the table in the dining room, and it’s turned down low, but not so low that Draco can’t see the table piled high with hors d’oeuvres.

There are gingers everywhere. Some are in the kitchen, some are in the living room, and some – including the Girl Weasel – are seated at the dining room table. Potter is nothing but a sprite, drifting from one room to another, carrying plates and glasses and bottles of wine. Everyone appears to be having a dandy old time.

Draco sneers and taps his packet of cigarettes against his palm before opening it. The night is unseasonably warm, and everyone up and down the street has their windows open. Nearby, someone is listening to the telly with the volume turned all the way up, and down towards Rajput’s off- licence, a couple is screaming at each other while a baby cries. A group of hooligans spill out of the Three Castles, and there’s the sound of glass breaking followed by raucous laughter.

Bloody lowlifes.

Suddenly, Potter’s door slams, and the Weaselette comes running out with Potter right behind her.

“Ginny, wait!”

The Girl Weasel turns around abruptly. Her fists are clenched at her sides.

“I’m sick of it, Harry! All of it!”

“Ginny, please. Come back inside.”

“Whoever she is, I hope she knows how lucky she is.” The Weaselette starts to cry, Potter puts his arms around her.

“I’ve told you a thousand times. There is no ‘she.’ I’m not cheating on you.”

The Girl Weasel cries harder, and Potter pulls her close.

“Maybe,” she says. “But you think about her. That’s almost as bad as cheating.”

“I don’t know what to say other than what I’ve already said. I don’t know how to make you believe me.”

“You dream about her. I know you do, Harry.”

Potter is silent. Draco pulls out a cigarette and places it between his lips.

“I can’t help what I dream about.”

Obviously that was not the answer the Girl Weasel wants to hear because she starts crying again.

“Just because I dream about something doesn’t mean I want it to happen in real life.”

She pushes Potter away and starts walking down the street.

“Ginny. Please. It’s your birthday, and I’ve spent all week putting everything together. I wanted you to have a good time.”

She turns, her skirt flaring.

“I don’t want a fucking party,” she says. “I just want my boyfriend back!”

Potter spreads his hands in a helpless gesture.

“I haven’t gone anywhere.”

“Bollocks!”

Potter looks down and kicks at the pavement for a moment. He looks up again.

“Listen Gin,” he says. “I have never cheated on you. If it makes you feel better, I can tell you that the relationship I was in before we got back together was the only relationship I’ve ever cheated in. And the person I cheated with is you. Does that make you happy?”

Potter’s voice is angry. Draco swallows and takes a long drag on his cigarette. The Girl Weasel sniffles and comes back to Potter’s arms. They stand there in silence for a while.

“Did you love her as much as you say you love me?”

Potter doesn’t answer, and Draco thinks he never will until he says in a small voice: “She wasn’t a she.”

The Girl Weasel pulls away and looks up at Potter’s face.

“You had an affair with a boy?” Her voice sounds incredulous.

“Yeah,” Potter replies softly. “Yeah, I did.”

“Who was he?”

“That’s not important.”

“It’s important to me. Were you sleeping together?”

“This is really not a conversation I want to have out in the middle of the street . . .”

“Were you?”

“Yes, alright. Yes. Is that what you want to hear? Because I can tell you other things.”

The infamous Potter temper finally shows itself. Draco smiles grimly and lights another cigarette.

“Did you love him?”

Draco almost burns his fingers. He holds his breath for the answer.

“Gin, none of this matters. When you came back from America, I knew I wanted to be with you. I wanted to marry you . . . I still do.”

The Girl Weasel smiles, and Potter brushes her hair back from her face.

“That’s all in the past,” he says. “Now please come back in. Ron will kill me if he thinks we’re fighting.”

She stands on her tiptoes and kisses his nose. Draco wants to throw up.

“I love you, Harry Potter,” she says.

All of a sudden, the Mudblood opens the door and leans out.

“There you two are! We were wondering where you’d gone to.”

The Weaselette goes skipping up the steps and follows the Mudblood back inside.

Potter walks over to the steps, but he doesn’t go in. Instead, he sits down and puts his face in his hands.

Draco crushes his cigarette under his heel, takes a deep breath, and steps out of his hiding place.

He’s been waiting for a moment just like this one. He’s been waiting for a fucking year.

“Nice evening, isn’t it, Potter?”

Potter looks up with a gasp. His face is pale, and his expression is both surprised and helpless looking.

“Dra . . . Malfoy! What the hell are you doing here?”

Draco shrugs. “Out for a walk.”

Potter leaps to his feet and draws his wand. “Bollocks.”

Draco raises his hands to show Potter he’s unarmed.

“I heard there was a party at your place. Thought I’d stop by and give my best to the birthday girl…”

“You shouldn’t be here. I don’t know how you found out where I live, but you shouldn’t be here.”

Draco shrugs again. “The Glorious Saviour’s address isn’t that hard to come by if you know the right people to ask.”

Potter hasn’t put his wand away.

“Why are you here?” he asks.

Draco looks him straight in the eyes.

“It was a year ago this week when I caught you fucking her.”

Potter closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

“Malfoy,” he says pleadingly. “You and I were just fooling around. It wasn’t like we were in a relationship or anything.”

Draco takes a step closer until he knows he’s completely out of the shadows.

“That’s not what you just told your precious girlfriend,” he says nastily.

Potter scrubs his face with his palms. “This is not happening to me,” he mumbles. He looks up again. “I have nothing to say to you,” he says. “The past is the past.”

Draco reaches out his hand so fast to grab Potter’s wrist it’s like a snake strike. Potter tries to break free, but Draco holds on tight. He jerks Potter toward him and kisses his lips.

Potter struggles to get free. Half-heartedly. Draco smiles against his mouth.

“What do you dream about?” he whispers.

“None of your bloody business!”

Draco bites down on Potter’s bottom lip until he tastes blood.

“Is that so?”

“Malfoy, go home,” Potter says hoarsely, but he doesn’t pull away.

The door behind them opens, and the light from inside spills out onto the steps.

“Harry?”

It’s the Mudblood. She recognises Draco and draws her wand. Draco raises his hands and steps away from Potter.

“I was just leaving,” he says sneeringly. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist.”

Without another word, he turns and walks away, past his own door and down the street.

“Malfoy!”

It’s Potter’s voice, but Draco doesn’t turn around.

“Jesus, Malfoy! You can’t come here and then just leave!”

Ah, but Potter’s wrong about that. Draco keeps walking even though every step feels like an attempt to defy gravity. At last he turns the corner.

 

Potter doesn’t come running after him. Draco knew he wouldn’t, but still…

 

DRACO’S DOOR

 

He pulls the door shut and locks it. He stands on the steps staring at it for a moment. It is entirely unremarkable. Brown wood of an indeterminable source. A miserly little window at the top that’s too grimy to let much light in. The tarnished mail slot.

He isn’t going to miss this door or anything else about this house. Including the wall it shares with Potter’s.

He’d waited for all of Potter’s guests to leave, and then watched Potter and the Weaslette enter Potter’s bedroom and – uncharacteristically – turn off the light and pull the curtains. As soon as his whole house went dark, Draco went back to his own house and started packing.

He knew as soon as he’d walked away from Potter that he was going to walk away from his house and with it a year of creeping around like a cockroach. He’d expected to feel relieved, unburdened, but instead he feels empty. Utterly empty.

 

He puts his key in an envelope and drops it through the mail slot. He is free to go anywhere now, but “free” is actually the last thing he feels.

 

PANSY’S DOOR

 

Pansy lives in a newly gentrified wizarding district in the Docklands where the streets have no trees but lots of delicatessens and installation art. She and many others Draco knows from school live in a renovated Muggle factory with wood floors and high ceilings and huge windows.

Pansy’s door is painted as thick and bright as her lipstick, and her name glitters above the knocker which is shaped like a hissing Kneazle with its back arched. He stands unsteadily, waiting for Pansy to find her lock with her key. A monumental task after the number of drinks they’d had at The Werewolf’s Den with Daphne and Zabini and their respective significant others.

He and Pansy have been sleeping together since Draco showed up on her doorstep with four shrunken trunks in his pockets. It hadn’t really been a conscious choice; it’d just felt natural after all the fucking they’d done in school. He has no idea if they’re in a “relationship” or not and doesn’t really care.

The only other person he’s ever slept with is Potter, and apparently, according to Potter at least, they were “just fooling around.” It sure hadn’t felt that way at the time.

Neither of them had ever kissed – let alone fucked – a boy before, and there’d been awkward moments and embarrassing admissions. They’d progressed slowly, haltingly; giving up only tiny bits of distrust at a time until there’d been none left. He knows the sounds Potter makes when he’s asleep. He knows about the cupboard under the stairs. He knows that Potter loved to be pinned beneath him, impaled on him, unable to get away even if he wanted to. He knows what Potter’s face looks like when he’s coming or crying or sometimes both at the same time. He knows Potter has freckles on his shoulders that you have to be close enough to see. He knows that Potter has a tiny fleck of brown in the iris of his left eye. He knows that Potter’s cock twitched when Draco whispered “Harry” in his ear, and he knows Potter moaned and curled his toes when Draco gently bit the arches of his feet.

Pansy finally gets the door open, and they tumble into her flat. He heads immediately for the kitchen and a glass of pumpkin and blackcurrant squash, and she heads for the bathroom where she falls down and laughs until she pees. He knows because she tells him – and likely the entire building.

Both of them quit their Ministry jobs last week. It was either quit or be fired. The new Minister wanted anyone even remotely associated with the Dark Lord to be “removed” from every department. Draco doesn’t miss his job, but he does miss the money. The War and its aftermath left him with nothing except the crap he could pack in a few trunks.

“Hey baby,” Pansy coos. She just got out of the shower and is wearing nothing but a woozy grin. He puts his glass on the counter and goes to her. Her tits are heavy in his hands, and he kneads them, brushing his thumbs over her nipples. She reaches for his crotch.

“Too much to drink tonight?” she murmurs. “That doesn’t mean you can’t still fuck me with Mr. Sparkles.”

Mr. Sparkles is Pansy’s favourite dildo, and it lives up to its name, releasing a shower of sparks when she comes that sometimes burn his hands like embers from a fire.

They haven’t talked about their jobs or how they’re going to be able to keep paying Pansy’s rent, and they’re even less likely to discuss Draco’s frequent impotence. Which is a huge relief. It’s his opinion that if he makes her come – no matter how – that it’s really none of her business. Besides, Mr. Sparkles is nine and a half inches of thick hard sparkly fun. His dick simply can’t compete.

“Baby,” she says as they turn off the light and pull up the blankets. “What’s wrong?”

They’re both on their backs looking up at the ceiling.

“Nothing,” he says, but he’s taken too long to answer.

“Bollocks.” Pansy pushes herself up and snaps her fingers. “Cigarette,” she says. “Pronto.”

Draco rolls over and rummages in his jeans that he’d left on the floor. At last he finds the packet and pulls out cigarettes for both of them. Pansy lights them with another snap of her elegant fingers.

“It’s high time you told me who kicked you out,” she says before taking a long drag.

“Nobody kicked me out,” he replies, releasing the smoke in one long breath through his nostrils.

“All right,” she says. “Then who evicted you? Your landlord or the Aurors?”

He laughs ruefully. “Neither, strictly speaking.”

Which is true. Potter is an Auror, and he is the reason Draco had left his house, but strictly speaking, Potter hadn’t evicted him.

“Okay then. Whose girlfriend did you fuck and who’s got a vendetta against you? Because really, Draco, love, I have the right to know since you’re staying here.”

“I didn’t fuck anyone’s girlfriend,” he says. “And no one’s got a vendetta against me. At least that I know of.”

Pansy frowns. He can tell she’s getting sick of this guessing game.

“You’re still mourning your parents and drinking too much and kipping on people’s couches until they kick you out.”

He closes his eyes and takes another drag. She’s half right; he is still mourning his parents. He doubts he’ll ever stop.

Potter had insured that they wouldn’t get the Kiss, but he hadn’t been able to save them altogether. The night they were sent to Azkaban, Potter lay on top of him as though his body could shield him from the truth. They didn’t speak. They didn’t fuck. Potter merely lay down on top of him and held on to his wrists. Draco could’ve died like that. Often he wishes he had. “The Last Malfoy Suffocated by the Saviour,” the headlines would’ve read, and people would write to the editor expressing their gratitude once again for their Hero.

“I miss my parents,” he says. Pansy lost hers too, so there’s really no need to elaborate.

“I know, baby,” Pansy says, snuffing out her cigarette in the already-full ashtray on her nightstand. They lie silently for awhile listening to a bell on a buoy in the harbour.

“Well, obviously your heart’s broken,” she says at last. “What are you going to do about it?”

He sighs and rolls over. “Nothing,” he says. “There’s nothing I can do except figure out how to get through tomorrow.”

Pansy rolls over, puts an arm around him and pulls him close. “I’m sorry,” she says softly.

“It’s not your fault,” he replies.

“Maybe we can open a little shop or something. Or start a business. Pansy’s Dildos, Inc.”

He gives a snort of laughter and closes his eyes. “Night, Pans,” he says, and she whispers Nox.

 

THE MANOR’S DOOR

 

The clinging ivy his father had always – just barely – kept at bay has covered the front door of his family’s house. Not “home.” House. The Dark Lord had destroyed the home, but not the house. The family, but not its individual members.

Draco stands at the top of the marble steps and uses his wand to hack through the vines in search of the latch. He’s not sure he wants to go inside, but he has to try. He hasn’t been here since the night the Aurors arrested his parents and he’d fled to London to live like a ghost with the other remaining Pure-Bloods in the Notts’ townhouse, which, like the Manor, had been stripped of everything strippable.

With the ivy gone, he can see the enormous sign covering the splintered wood.

“SEIZED PROPERTY! KEEP OUT!”

He tears it off and kicks in the door. Inside everything is dark save slants of sunlight peeping through cracks in the boarded-up windows. There’s no furniture, and all of the permanent fixtures with any value are gone. He strolls from room to room feeling nothing but the horrible guilt for feeling nothing. He wants to cry or rage – anything to siphon off some of the emotion from the overflowing well in his chest. His feet crunch on the shattered crystal from a chandelier. When the wind blows, he can hear it whistle through broken windows.

He hears footsteps in the hall and a voice calling his name.

Potter.

Suddenly, Draco knows why he’s come here. He knew the Aurors had warded the grounds and would know someone was there the moment they stepped through them. And of course Potter would know it was him, and of course he’d come himself – alone.

He’s too predictable for his own good.

“Here!” Draco calls from the top of the stairs.

Potter looks up and shades his eyes which clearly haven’t adjusted to the dark yet.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he says. “You know that.”

Draco doesn’t reply; he’s too distracted by the red of Potter’s robe and his slow ascent up the stairs.

“Why didn’t you send someone else?” Draco asks.

Potter’s reaches him and stands three stairs below the place where Draco’s sitting. Draco notices Potter’s collar is open and his sleeves rolled up. Even those small expanses of bare skin make Draco feel light-headed.

“Because I knew it was you, and I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“How very gallant of you.”

They’re silent for a while. Neither of them moves.

“I haven’t seen you in a year, and now I’ve seen you twice in a month. What do you want from me, Malfoy?”

Draco swallows down the pain that Potter’s use of his last name inflicts. They’d been Harry and Draco for awhile.

“Maybe I just want a proper good-bye,” he replies.

Potter sits down and takes his glasses off. Draco swallows again. Seeing Potter without his glasses is almost like seeing him naked again. Potter scrubs his face with his palms, making his fringe stick up.

“You wouldn’t let me,” Potter says. “You Disapparated and then I couldn’t find you.”

Draco laughs humourlessly. “Bollocks,” he says. “If you’d really looked for me, you would have found me.”

“I didn’t know where you lived…”

“Just admit it,” Draco snaps. “You didn’t want to find me.”

“Well, maybe I’d just figured you didn’t want to be found.”

“You fucked her in our bed.”

Potter’s breath catches at the abrupt change of subject.

“That wasn’t ‘our bed.’ It was just an old mattress in an attic.”

Draco stands, suddenly angry. Very angry.

“Get out of my way,” he spits. “I’m leaving. You don’t need to escort me out.”

Potter stands too. “Malfoy,” he says in a voice one might use on a cornered dog. “Please. Not like this.”

Draco clenches his teeth. “Then like what?” he asks in a hiss. “Good-bye. Now I’ve said it.” He pushes pass Potter who tries to stop him with held-out arms. He thinks he’s free until Potter grabs the collar of his shirt and yanks, causing him to cough and stumble.

“We were just comforting each other.”

Just.

Draco tries to get away, but he only succeeds in tearing off the buttons of his shirt. He turns abruptly and watches as Potter swallows when he sees his bare chest.

“I’m not even gay,” Potter adds pleadingly.

“You were awfully keen to have my cock shoved up your arse for someone who isn’t gay…”

“But it was only you,” Potter says. “No one else. I’ve never wanted a man other than you, but I’ve wanted plenty of women.”

“Only me?” Draco says sneeringly. “How romantic.”

“That’s not how I meant it.”

“I figured that out on my own, thank you very much.”

“I don’t want it to be like this,” Potter says, still with a pleading note in his voice. “I don’t want us not to be friends.”

Draco laughs for real this time. Friends?

“Yes, I’d like that,” he replies. “It sounds lovely to go out with your Weasels and watch you giggle and snog with your girlfriend like two little love birds.”

“I didn’t mean go-to-the-pub friends. I just meant not-avoiding-each-other friends.”

Draco suddenly realises he’s going to cry.

“Good-bye, Potter,” he says. He wrenches free, leaving his shirt in Potter’s hand, and runs down the stairs with as much dignity as possible. He leaves the door open and tries to pretend it’s not because he wants Potter to come after him.

 

THE LITTLE GREEN DOOR IN THE NARROW ALLEY CONNECTING PARACELSUS’ PLACE AND CROWLEY COMMONS

 

“Speciality quills?”

Zabini sounds incredulous, but Draco doesn’t take it personally. It isn’t the idea he’s mocking; it’s the whole concept of work.

They turn off Crowley into an alleyway so narrow that three people cannot walk abreast. The cobblestones are worn and uneven, and the brick walls on either side are damp and mossy. Halfway down, Draco stops in front of a door that anyone over five and a half feet in height would have to duck to get through. It’s painted a bright fresh Slytherin green, and its iron knocker is shaped like a serpent. There isn’t a window on the door, but there is an elegant, understated sign: “The Quillery” it read. D.M., Proprietor.

“Is ‘quillery” even a word?” asks Nott.

Draco shrugs. “If you heard it said, would you know what it was?”

“Well, probably…the word ‘quill’ is in it, so…”

“Alright then. That’s all I care about. That and how it looks on the sign.” He uses the sleeve of his jumper to polish the brass lettering.

“It looks lovely, baby,” says Pansy, kissing him on the cheek. “Show us inside.”

Draco pulls an old rusty key from his pocket and turns it in the lock. He has to use two hands because the lock is just as rusty as the key. Finally, it opens, and he holds the door for his friends.

Inside, it’s dark and close and mouldy smelling, but there are two interesting brick arches and two sizeable windows opposite the door. They’re opaque with soot, but they look out into a little garden overgrown with weeds and nettles. When they were cleaned, they’d let in a lot of light. And he’d do something with the garden too, probably roses. He wasn’t his mother’s son for nothing.

His friends walk around peering into all the nooks and crannies.

“Well?”

“It needs a good thorough cleaning…”

“…and some new plasterboard…”

“…and a tiled floor…”

“…and…”

Draco grins. He’d anticipated this exact response.

“Great!” he says. “We’ll start tomorrow.”

They all give him vacant expressions which slowly change to confusion and then chagrin.

“No way, Malfoy. You’re not our prefect anymore.”

“Oh shut up, Theo,” says Pansy. “What else do you do that’s so important you can’t put it off till another day?”

“Where are the quills?” asks Goyle.

Draco points to a stack of wood crates.

“They’re from birds all over the world. Now I just need to charm them.”

“Ah, right,” says Zabini. “That special quill charm thingy we learned in our third year.”

He’s being factitious, of course. There’d been no such charm. Draco will have to invent it on his own.

“Uhm,” says Millicent, “that seems like something you should’ve considered before you signed the lease for this place.”

Draco isn’t the least bit fazed. He’s had to do harder things in his life. Plus, it seemed that Pansy’s Mr. Sparkles might be able to shed some light on the whole issue; although he kept that little nugget of information to himself. Merlin forbid that it ever got around that the magic in The Quillery’s quills had its origins in a dildo.

And Potter’s hands.

I will not tell lies

They were about to have sex for the first time. Potter was lying on his front with his legs spread while Draco used one hand to position his cock and the other to brace himself on the spongy mattress. It took forever and a pillow tucked under Potter’s hips, but at last, he slid right in. He moved as slowly as he could, watching the muscles in Potter’s back loosen and then let go as discomfort turned to pleasure. Potter hadn’t wanted to be on his hands and knees, saying he felt like a dog getting fucked, but instinct overrode self-consciousness, and before long Potter was pushing up and back into Draco’s thrusts. His hands clutched the bedclothes for leverage, and Draco found himself staring at them fixedly as he tried to keep his orgasm at bay for as long as possible. Potter’s hands were clenched into fists, and moonlight seeping through one of the gaps between boards fell across them, turning his knuckles even whiter than they already were. And that’s when Draco had seen the thin white scars as though the back Potter’s hand was an enchanted map that required the light of celestial bodies to reveal its contents.

I will not tell lies

The words transformed into a mantra in his head as he pushed into Potter’s body as deep as he could with his barely controlled thrusts. I will not tell lies. Over and over again as Potter writhed beneath him trying to get more. I will not tell lies as his belly tightened when Potter came. I will not tell lies when Draco fell after him as though they were climbers tied together by a rope, and Potter had let go, trusting his body to gravity and Draco’s arms. I will not tell lies.

“Harry!” Draco gasped into that gap of lucidity between almost there and there. Between wave crest and sand. Between words and spell. “I love you!”

He, too, could not tell lies, although he wished he could the instant he stopped shaking. That’s when it had first occurred to him: the idea of a quill that forced the writer to always tell the truth.

Later other ideas came – quills with which to write down recipes that would always result in a perfect outcome, quills that only their owners could use, quills that only wrote in riddles, quills with which to write music that would always be harmonious, quills that caused the receiver of letters to feel the exact emotion the writer had felt when he wrote it, quills that didn’t need ink and could write in any colour under the sun, quills that could carve metal, and quills that could draw an infinite number of angels on the head of a pin.

Over time, he came up with dozens of ideas. But they all owed themselves to the memory of Potter’s hand clutching the bedclothes while Draco fucked him for the first time in slats of moonlight.

“When do we start?” asks Goyle, looking around rather mournfully at the thought of manual labour.

Right now, Draco wants to say. There’s too much energy trapped in his bones. But it’s late, and his friends might revolt.

“Tomorrow morning,” he says. “I’ll bring the scones and coffee.”

 

THE LOO AT THE GOLDEN PHOENIX

 

He’s pissing when he hears the voices. The Weasel and Thomas. The former sounded drunk and the latter long-suffering.

“He’s your best mate.”

“He’s also a fucking bastard.”

“Maybe if you leave him alone for a little while…”

“I’m not hassling him. This is the first time I’ve seen him all bloody week. He’s avoiding me…”

“He’s says he’s been busy…”

“Bollocks.”

“Well then, what do you think is going on?”

“Do you want to know, Dean? Do you really want to know? I think he’s shagging someone else.”

“No way. Not him.”

“That’s what I used to think: How could the high and holy Harry Potter ever do something as lousy as cheat on his girlfriend. But now I’m not so sure…”

“Have you asked him?”

“Yeah.”

“What does he say?”

“Mind my own business. See what I mean? He’s being a fucking bastard. If he wasn’t Harry, I’d have kicked his arse by now. Dean, he’s sleeping with her! He’s shagging my little sister! And if he’s cheating on her, so help me, I’ll…”

“Ginny is a big girl.”

“She’s still my little sister. She denies it to Hermione, but I know she’s waiting for a ring. You can tell every time she opens a gift from him. That little bit of disappointment and hurt. It breaks my heart! He knows he’s going to end up with her, so why is he playing games?”

“You know Harry, Ron. He’s socially inept. He probably just doesn’t know how to go about it, and the more you pressure him, the more likely it is he’ll withdraw.”

“I am not pressuring him, I’m simply pointing out…”

“S’taking you long nuff.”

Potter’s voice. He’s clearly arsed. Draco leans his forehead against the wall and casts a locking spell on his stall door.

“I can’t believe you’re so pissed,” says the Weasel. “This is your and Ginny’s anniversary!”

There’s a sound of someone kicking the metal bin, and Potter laughs.

“Ow,” he says. “That hurt.”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“S’thing ‘bout me being pissed…”

“And that you’re an arsehole because this is the two and a half year anniversary of when you and Ginny got back together again after she came back from America!”

Potter’s laughter turns rueful. “Why don’ we hav’ an anniversary for the day I first wiped my own arse?”

“You’re walking on thin ice, Harry,” says Thomas warningly. “Why don’t we all just go home before something gets said that can’t be unsaid.”

“Like wha’? Like I don’ want t’get fucking married?”

There is nothing but silence until someone – most likely Potter – throws up in the sink.

“Fuck.”

“You and me, mate. Outside. Right now.”

There’s a sound like a brief scuffle.

“Ron! Put your wand away!”

“This is none of your business, Dean. This is between me and Potter.”

Potter laughs again but weaker this time. Someone turns a tap on and rinses out his mouth – again, most likely Potter.

“‘Potter’ is it, Weasley?”

“Yeah it is. Until you can be a bloody gentleman to my sister.”

Someone kicks the bin again.

“How’m I not being a gentleman? I’ve done everything for Gin!”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Like, uhm, buying a house th’she fancies and I loathe…”

“And?”

“Like joining her stupid Quidditch club…”

“I thought you liked the club.”

“You think a lot ‘bout me, but only half of it’s true.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you don’ know everything. You don’ know wha’ I gave up for her. If you ‘ad even th’slightest fucking clue, you’d take tha’ remark ‘bout being a ‘gentleman’ an’ shove it up your arse. Now leave me alone. I gotta take a piss. Wha’s wrong with tha’ toilet, outta order or s’thing?”

Draco takes a deep breath and opens the door.

“No, it works just fine. Hello Weasel, Thomas, Potter.” He nods at each in turn. “May I please use the sink? The one Potter didn’t just vomit in would be appreciated. Cheers.”

“Jesus. Malfoy. Could this night possibly get any worse?”

“Lovely to see you too, Weasel.”

“Uhm, can we just please get out of the loo before someone kills someone?”

“Malfoy.”

Draco’s stomach lurches when he hears Potter say his name. He looks at Potter’s reflection in the mirror above the sinks.

“Yes?” he replies with polite disinterest.

“I need t’talk t’you.”

“Why?” the Weasel demands. “Ginny’s out there waiting for you.”

“Certainly,” Draco says. “What do you want to talk about?”

“I wanna talk alone...outside.”

“Why? What the fuck do you and the ferret need to talk about?”

“Ron, please. Just let it be. You’re both drunk.”

“Need t’talk to Malfoy...”

“Fine,” Draco says. “I’ll meet you outside. Good night, Thomas, Weasel.”

“Fuck off, Malfoy.”

Draco moves through the crowd to the door, his heart pounding. When they step out into the alley, Potter grabs his arm to keep himself from falling. On instinct, Draco holds him close, his arm around Potter’s waist.

Potter responds by kissing his neck. Draco pulls away. Potter stinks of alcohol and his breath smells terrible.

“What did you want to talk with me about?” he says coldly.

Potter looks at him with bleary eyes. “Can’t remember,” he replies. He drops his head on Draco’s shoulder.

“Le’s fuck,” he slurs. “I’m sick of pussy.”

Draco closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “That’s not my problem,” he says.

Potter makes a sound like laughter. “You c’always make me laugh.”

Draco is about to reply. He was actually going to ask “then why did you leave”? But suddenly there’s a commotion involving a lot of ginger hair. The Weasel grabs Potter and pulls him away. Potter staggers against the wall and slides down to the ground.

“Draco,” he says and passes out.

“You have one minute, Malfoy,” says one of the older Weasels. “Leave or have your Death Eater arse hexed into next week.”

Draco looks at their drawn wands and then again at Potter who’s now snoring.

“Have a nice evening, gentlemen,” he says and walks away.

 

THE HALLWAY OUTSIDE DRACO’S NEW FLAT

 

Someone’s tracked dog shit into the building and used the edges of the stairs to scrape it off their shoes. Draco barely makes it through the obstacle course with his arms full of groceries. The hallway to his door stinks of moulding carpet, and yet again his eyes are unwillingly drawn to his neighbours’ doormat. It’s orange, and painted in the middle of it is a pool of vomit to make it look like someone has barfed on their threshold. It’s very classy as are the spray painted words on the wall: “Suck my Cock!” helpfully illustrated with a giant dick and balls.

This hallway had very nearly made him give up on life. Here he is, the former heir to millions with a proud ancestral name, living in a tiny flat in a Muggle housing estate that can only be accessed by piss-stained stairs and this hallway. This long, dank, poorly lit hallway covered with spray-painted bits of human anatomy, some of them more lifelike than others. Goyle had helped him move in and had mistaken a giant hairy vagina for an exotic species of starfish.

Draco sets down his groceries in front of his door and fumbles around in his pocket for his key. To his right, he can’t help noticing that someone has left what looks like a bloody handprint on the wall and beneath it wrote “Call me, you fucking bastard, or I’ll kill your fucking dog!” Lovely. It must’ve been addressed to his flat’s former tenant because he has neither a dog nor someone desperate enough to kill it.

It’s a sign that he’s lost his last thread of dignity when he realises he’s envious.

 

THE HALLWAY CONNECTING THE LIFTS TO THE MINISTER OF COMMERCE’S DOOR

 

Draco has no idea who’s with him in the lift. He doesn’t look at any of the people who step in or out on each level. He doesn’t want to see their expressions when they realise they’re breathing the same air as a Malfoy. He’s seen such expressions before. He doesn’t need to see them again. He keeps his eyes fixed on a blackened blob of chewing gum stuck to the floor and counts the levels as they pass with a ping.

He gets out on the tenth floor and lifts his head for the first time. Before him is one of the longest hallways he’s ever seen. It’s lit with humming electric lights and covered with a rust-coloured carpet with a dirty swath down its middle where hundreds of dirty shoes have walked over the years. He takes a deep breath and lets it out shakily. It’d taken months and repeated requests for this fifteen-minute meeting with the Commerce Minister. Unsurprisingly, no one seems keen on giving the child of Death Eaters a business licence, no matter how far away said business is from Diagon Alley.

He has all his papers together. He knows because he and Pansy went over them a dozen times that morning. He’s wearing a well-cut but unremarkable charcoal-grey robe with a well-cut unremarkable suit beneath it. The only hint of colour is his green tie. Pansy had chosen it for him with a mischievous wink.

His armpits and back are sweaty by the time he reaches the large wooden door and rings the bell. He shifts his papers from one hand to the other and back again as he waits to be admitted and tries not to think what his father would say if he could see the Malfoy heir at that moment creeping on his knees hoping for a few scraps and crusts.

The door opens to a familiar face. The Girl Weasel’s smile slackens when she recognises him.

“Good morning,” she says stiffly. “I’m the Minister’s assistant. Can I get you a cup of tea while you wait?”

She’s probably very grateful for her scripted lines. He is too.

He shrugs, and her bland look turns into a glare.

“So much for the ‘famed’ manners of the upper class,” she says. “Have a seat.”

She points to a number of upholstered but nonetheless uncomfortable looking chairs placed around a coffee table on which lay magazines of various kinds. He sits down and pretends to be engrossed in a copy of Magical Makeovers when the Weasel Slut returns and hands him a cup. He takes it, but she doesn’t leave. At last he looks up from “Halloween’s Hottest New Hues.”

“Why are you here?” she asks suspiciously.

Draco curls his lip. “Is that how you treat everyone who comes looking for a business licence or just me?”

“Just you.”

“I’m so very touched.”

“Give me your papers. I’ll give them to the Minister so she can review them while you wait.”

Reluctantly, he hands them to her and tries to remember that she has no idea about him and Potter. He hasn’t even talked to her since school. There’s nothing more than his mere existence that would make her hate him. It wasn’t really anything personal. Blaise or Pansy would probably receive the same surly treatment. The Weaselette had never been one to sugar-coat her sentiments. It was one of the few things he respected about her.

“Don’t worry,” she says rolling her eyes. “I’m not going to take them to the loo and flush them down the toilet.”

“That’s so very kind of you,” he replies.

He’s able to read five magazines cover to cover before the Girl Weasel returns and tells him in bland tones that the Minister will see him now. He stands and nervously straightens his clothes. She catches him doing it and smirks a smirk even he could admire. He follows her through a maze of cubicles until they reach the Minister’s huge glass door.

“Good luck,” says the Weaselette insincerely.

“Why, thank you,” he replies with a gracious nod of his head. “Perhaps you’ll have the opportunity to visit my shop when it opens.”

“Doubtful,” she says and holds the door for him.

The Minister’s last name is Beers. An ugly name, clearly of Muggle origins. Draco’s heart sinks to his shoes. She looks up from his papers and gestures with her chin that he should take a seat.

“Malfoy, is it?”

Shit.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he replies. “Draco.”

“Did you take the Mark?”

Wow, why not get straight down to business. He tugs up his left sleeve.

“Humph,” says the Minister and returns her attention to his papers. He seems to have cleared the first hurdle. He has to bite his cheek when he imagines what the scene would’ve looked like if Voldemort had marked his followers’ arses instead of their arms.

“I hope you realise that, if licenced, your premises will be searched twice a month for any teeny-tiny hint of the Dark Arts.”

Draco inhales deeply and nods. Pansy had spent hours coaching him not to respond to such inevitable jabs.

“That will not be an issue, I can assure you,” he replies. “All of the magic I use is approved by the Ministry.”

She sniffs without bothering to lift her gaze.

“We already have quill and parchment shops.”

“My shop will offer a wider variety of quills.”

“It’s in an…odd location.”

He could tell that “suspicious” is the word she really wants to use. She peruses his papers and then peruses them again and again…

“Ah ha!” she says sounding very pleased. “You failed to get an Auror inspection.”

She looks up abruptly and returns his papers to him.

He’s confused. Where had there been mention of an Auror inspection? There’d been fire, water, sewer and Muggle-Magical converter inspections…

“Where does it say I need an Auror inspection?” he asks, trying to keep his temper under control.

“It doesn’t,” she says, already returning to her other tasks. “You filled out these papers two months ago. New laws regarding Death Eaters have passed since then…”

“I am not a Death Eater,” he grinds out through clenched teeth. “I wasn’t even tried…”

“I fail to see a distinction between a Death Eater and a Want-to-be-Death-Eater. Now, please, I have a lot of work to accomplish this morning.”

“But…I…How was I supposed to know about these ‘new laws’?”

“Ignorance is not an excuse.”

“But…I’ll have to start the whole process over again.”

“I’m afraid that’s not my problem, sir.”

“You’re discriminating against me for things I’ve never done!”

The Minister pushes a bell without looking up.

“Ginerva? Will you please escort Mr. Malfoy to the lifts?”

“I am not a Death Eater! Why can’t you people figure out how to distinguish between Death Eaters and their non-Death Eater children? Ah, I know where to start! Why not with the fact that every Death Eater was caught and imprisoned or executed…”

The Minister looks up at last and tears off her glasses. Her voice when she answers is shaking with emotion.

“Don’t even begin to try to tell me a sob story about your parents. Mine are dead too. My mother was killed by your father, and killing her hadn’t been enough. He’d felt the need to disfigure her face beyond recognition….Ginerva, where are you?!”

The Weaslette comes running through the door with her wand drawn.

And Harry Potter by her side.

Potter takes advantage of Draco’s shock to seize his wand with a calmly cast Expelliarmus.

“Minister, are you okay?” the Weaselette asks, running around the desk to place a solicitous arm around her. The Minister is shaking. There are tears pooling in her eyes. Draco just wants to take his papers and go. Potter can keep his bloody wand (again) if he wants to.

“What happened here?” Potter asks glancing from one face to the next. “Ginny said there was an emergency…”

“You sounded so upset,” says the Girl Weasel. “I thought he’d…” she pointed at Draco “…attacked you or something.”

Potter turns to Draco. Their eyes meet. Draco feels the will to fight drain from his body. It’s all he can do to keep himself from slumping back down in his chair.

“Please,” says the Minister, pulling herself free from the Weaslette’s embrace and settling her glasses back on her nose. “Just remove him from my office. I’ll be fine.” She turns to Draco. “You people think that now the War is over, you can just go back to living your privileged lives. Well, you’re wrong. The wounds you caused are too deep and too fresh. Don’t come here again. I will not give you a licence, and if you start operating without one, I will have you arrested. Thank you, Auror Potter, for your timely assistance. I am sorry to have troubled you.”

Draco swallows and then, sick of playing the part of a kicked dog in front of the man who’d once begged him to fuck him, he throws his papers on the floor and Incendios them wandlessly.

Potter groans.

“For Merlin’s sake, Malfoy,” he says. “Why did you have to do that? You know you’re not supposed to do wandless magic. Now I have to arrest you.”

Draco turns toward him with his wrists held out. “Go right ahead,” he says in his most snotty arrogant Pure-Blood tone. Potter sighs and cuffs him.

The hallway leading back to the lifts seems even longer this time. Potter walks two steps ahead of him, and Draco watches his shoulders move under his scarlet robe. Neither of them speaks. It’s excruciating. Potter’s hair falls past his nape where it sweeps into one of his trademark cow licks. He remembers how Potter used to shiver when Draco grazed his neck with his teeth. He remembers the smell of Potter’s hair and the way its strands felt between his fingers.

The hallway goes on and on and on.

“Why are you here?” Potter asks without turning.

Draco considers giving him a snotty answer, but the will to joust just isn’t there.

“I was applying for a business licence.”

Potter turns to look over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow.

“You’re going into business? Doing what?”

“You mean, I was going into business. I’m pretty sure I’ve burned that bridge.”

“What was your business going to be?”

Draco shrugs. “Nothing,” he says around the sudden lump in his throat. “Just some stupid quills.”

Potter doesn’t reply until they’re almost to the lifts.

“Pretending for a second you didn’t just burn your application, why was the Minister rejecting it?”

Draco snorts. “Would you believe it was for failing to get an Auror inspection?”

They stop at the lifts, and Potter turns to face him. “Don’t be an arsehole and go to your shop and destroy everything...” Draco opens his mouth, but Potter holds up his hand. “Don’t even try to tell me you weren’t planning to do just that.”

“I can’t destroy anything from a holding cell,” Draco replies with a smirk.

“I’m not taking you to a holding cell,” says Potter. “I’m taking you to this lift with the understanding you’ll leave the Ministry building. Now where is this shop of yours?”

Draco reaches into the pocket of his suit jacket and pulls out a plain white business card with silver letters. He feels sick remembering how Pansy had them made for the “Grand Opening.” He hands it to Potter even though he knows Potter will never come – and if he does, that the shop will be vacant and the door locked anyway. He has every intention of clearing out everything and breaking his lease.

Potter examines the card. “Briar Thicket between Paracelsus and Crowley Streets.”

“Do you know where that is?”

“I know where everything is.”

Draco doesn’t doubt it. He well knows Potter’s obsession with maps.

Potter takes the cuffs off. Draco knows he could do it wandlessly but instead he does it with his hands. His fingertips brush Draco’s wrists. He must feel Draco’s wildly beating pulse.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Potter says and hands Draco his wand. He presses the up button and turns to walk back down the hall.

Draco suddenly panics. He realises he’d expected Potter to do something or at least say something more consequential than “don’t do anything stupid.”

“Where are you going?” he calls after Potter’s retreating back.

Potter stops.

“I’m meeting Ginny for lunch,” he says without turning around.

The filthy carpet seems like a conveyor belt pulling Potter away from him.

“Why?” he yells. “Why wasn’t I enough?”

Potter stops and bows his head. His bare neck looks too pale under the flickering white lights. Draco waits breathlessly for his answer. But it never comes. Instead Potter starts walking again, slowly at first but then quicker to the point where Draco would’ve sworn he was almost running. Behind him, the door of the lift opens with a ping that echoes down the hallway.

 

THE HALLWAY IN ST. MUNGO’S EMERGENCY WING

 

Draco’s never been to St. Mungo’s before. First, there’d been the family Healer who’d made house calls, and then there’d been Hogwarts and Madam Pomfrey. Its interior is whiter than whiter. Whiter than teeth and bone and full of painfully bright light. A healer runs pass with blood on her shoes, but the footprints quickly fade like a breath in cold air. A dozen spells crackle in the air: cleaning, protecting, sanitising, freshening, muffling screams and sobs and curses. The hallways hum with whispered orders and rubber-soled footsteps.

This is definitely the stupidest thing he’s done in a long time.

He’s glad he decided against wearing colour and chose the white shirt and faded jeans instead. In the bleaching light, every blond looks like an albino, so even his hair doesn’t stand out. He may as well be a ghost of someone newly dead. Nobody notices him as he winds his way past rooms clustered like chambers in honey comb and interspersed by featureless hallways.

He knows he won’t even get close. He’s seen the Aurors pacing about with their wands drawn and their robes as violent looking in the whiteness as blood on a sheet. So far no one’s asked him who he is and where he’s going. He moves fluidly and silently. No one even looks at him; they’re all running around in a frenzy. White bowls full of pink water and bloody rags float past him. Scalpels and clamps and retractors fly as fast as sparrows, dodging people’s heads only at the last second. Occasionally, there’re clusters of friends and family members of the wounded or killed. Their faces are as white as the walls, and they lean on each other. In the surreal environment, they seem like schools of garishly coloured exotic fish. He slips past them.

He’d seen the morning Prophet. A hostage situation. Aurors had finally entered in a last ditch effort to save the victims. Four dead and a dozen wounded. Harry Potter among them. Critical condition. St. Mungo’s.

He’d had to come. Not coming wasn’t an option.

He turns a corner only to encounter another long bleached-out hallway. Down at the far end is a group of nurses and healers running alongside a Levitated stretcher. Draco presses himself against the wall.

Black hair, red robes, green eyes. As the group passes by, Potter’s gaze catches his. There is fear and pain in his eyes and then a fleeting moment of amazed, grateful recognition.

And then he’s gone. When Draco is finally noticed and asked to leave, he goes without argument.

 

THE ATTIC IN THE HOUSE ON SAINT WENCESLAUS’S STREET

It looks just as it had, but the mattress when he sits on it emits a musty smell and a cloud of dust. He closes his eyes and remembers all the times they’d made love here in this room. He’d eased his cock into Potter’s body, holding his breath the whole time until he’d gone as deep as he could. They wouldn’t move. At first, Potter’s eyes were always squeezed shut with what looked like pain, and Draco would be too close to coming to move. They’d lie like that until Potter opened his eyes and Draco had been able to calm himself enough to move without coming completely undone.

He’d never before felt anything like how it felt to be inside Potter. It always brought tears to his eyes. When he’d start to thrust and Potter moaned and spread his legs as wide as he could, Draco often thought for an instant that he was seeing God. His orgasms devastated him.

Draco draws his wand and blasts apart the chair in the corner. He brands the foulest words he can think of in black lines on the wall. It’s like spitting on an altar.

It feels good for about fifteen minutes.

He will not be coming back here.

When he reaches the top of the stairs, he casts one more spell -- Sectum Sempra – and slashes apart the mattress until it’s nothing more than stuffing and coils.

 

THE ROOM WHERE “THE QUILLERY” WOULD’VE BEEN

 

He’d been set up and ready to open for business, waiting for his licence. He’d swept up all the dust and scrubbed the windows and weeded the garden and built display shelves. He’d even laid down a large Oriental rug and set up tables that patrons could sit at while they tried out the quills. The room was still a tad too dimly lit, but he’d planned on ordering some display candles after he’d earned enough money.

Nearly everything is gone now. He’d blasted the windows and burned the garden and hacked apart the tables and shelves.

“Subtle,” says Zabini when he sees the destruction. “As usual. When do you plan to grow up, Malfoy?”

“Shut up, Blaise,” Pansy says. “Draco, baby. Why’d you do this?”

Draco shrugs. “Why not? It was good target practice.”

“All that hard work wasted,” says Goyle. “At least we got scones and coffee out of it.”

Zabini kicks a broken board. “You shouldn’t let the fucking Mudbloods and Half-Breeds push you around. Grow a spine.”

“Blaise, that is so unhelpful,” says Pansy.

Draco draws his wand; he’d forgotten to ruin the rug. But before he can cast the spell, he hears the front door open. He wheels around to find Potter on the threshold.

“Fuck off, Potter,” says Zabini. “Don’t you have a kitten to save?”

“Or autographs to sign,” says Goyle.

Potter ignores them and comes inside. His Auror robe is open to expose the jeans and t-shirt underneath. He looks around.

“Do you mind giving us some privacy?” he asks gesturing with his chin in Draco’s direction.

His friends turn to look at him, but Draco shrugs and nods.

“We’ll be at the pub waiting for you, Goyle says menacingly, but he leaves all the same.

Potter turns to face Draco.

“Did I see you at St. Mungo’s?” he asks.

Draco feels his face grow hot with shame.

“I was visiting a friend,” he says.

The corner of Potter’s mouth turns up in a half smile. “Liar.”

Draco glares at him. “Why are you here? To check up on me and ensure I’m not open without a licence?”

“I’m not here as an Auror,” Potter says. He shrugs off his robe and drapes it over a broken chair.

“You’re in a rather destructive mood of late,” he says. “I saw you’ve done some remodelling at Number 12 St. Wenceslaus’s Street.”

Draco inhales a startled breath.

“Yeah, I go there now and then,” Harry says. “I didn’t think you did. I’ve never seen you there.”

Draco clears his throat. This conversation is completely surreal.

“I only went there that one time,” he says.

Potter walks around with his hands behind his back.

“So this was going to be your shop.”

Draco doesn’t reply.

“I love the arched windows. Too bad there’s no glass in them.”

“What are you doing here, Potter?”

Potter is silent. The only sound in the room is debris creaking in the wind.

“I was hoping to buy some quills as Christmas gifts.”

“You know I didn’t get a licence.”

“All you were missing was an Auror inspection. I was going to do that for you. If you hadn’t turned into a lunatic, you would’ve been able to open by the Solstice.”

Draco kicks a broken table leg. “How charming,” he says with a sneer. “You were coming here to buy presents for your little ginger fan club. Tell me, how is the lovely Ginerva these days? Shouldn’t you have bought her an engagement ring by now? After all, you two have been fucking, pardon me, dating a long time . . .”

“More than two years,” Harry says.

Draco sits down, feeling defeated and suddenly tired. He looks down at his hands where they rest on his thighs.

“Maybe I haven’t given her a ring because I have doubts.”

Draco doesn’t look up.

“So sorry about that,” he says. “But shouldn’t you talk about this with the Mudblood or someone who actually cares?”

“I remember what . . . what it feels like kissing you,” Potter stammers. “I can’t get it out of my head.”

Draco doesn’t answer. His heart pounds painfully against his ribs.

“I’ve never felt like that before . . . or since.”

Draco lifts his head but looks past Potter’s shoulder.

“Are you looking for some kind of absolution so you can rid yourself of guilt, marry the Girl Weasel, and start making ginger babies?”

“I don’t know what I’m looking for. . . . I guess I was hoping to find your shop open and you looking . . . I don’t know . . . happy, maybe.”

Draco swallows and closes his eyes. He wishes Potter would just leave.

“I don’t know why I did it,” Potter says. “It was stupid and cruel. I should’ve told you about Ginny . . . that’d she come home again. . . . I guess I thought . . . well, I guess I thought that you and I weren’t a big deal. That we’d both understood we’d get on with our lives when . . . when the opportunity presented itself.”

Draco tilts his head back. He’s pretty sure he’s going to throw up.

“It’s . . . it’s not like we were in love, right? We were just experimenting . . .”

Answering, though it was unappealing, seems like a much better option than throwing up. Draco looks Potter straight in the face.

“So,” he drawls. “I guess you thought I was playing around all those times I told you I love you . . .”

“We were fucking, Draco!” Potter says, the frustration clear in his voice. “It wasn’t like we were in some kind of . . . love affair or something. We were just fucking.”

“‘Just fucking.’”

“Yeah, just fucking.”

Draco’s breathing is so shallow that he starts to feel light-headed.

“Even though you can’t forget kissing me,” he replies in a monotone.

“I don’t know what I think!” Potter almost shouts. “All I know is that I want you to be happy.”

“So you can feel guilt free . . .”

“No! Because I care for you!”

Before Draco can back away, Potter’s suddenly there, pressed against him, kissing him. Draco kisses him back because he cannot not kiss him back. Potter’s hands come up to cup his chin and hold him steady as their kiss deepens. Draco tries not to whimper like a dog finally thrown a scrap of food.

Potter pulls away too soon and rests his forehead against Draco’s.

“I want to help,” he says breathlessly. “I want you to have something.”

He hasn’t let go of Draco’s face. Before he can, Draco catches his mouth again with his own and kisses him with everything he has. Potter’s tongue is shy, and Draco has to coax it with his own. Potter moans faintly, and Draco can feel him start to shake.

“I . . . I can’t,” Potter says pulling away. “I swear this isn’t what I came here for.”

“Don’t go yet,” Draco hears himself plead.

Potter swallows visibly. “I’m not going to,” he replies and draws his wand. Before Draco can ask him what the hell he’s doing, he points his wand at something behind Draco and shouts Reparo!

“I don’t want your fucking pity,” Draco says, his voice low and threatening. “Go home to your girlfriend.”

“This isn’t pity,” Potter says, casting another repairing charm. “It’s saving you from yourself. Are you going to help me or not? Reparo!”

Reluctantly, Draco draws his wand.

 

DRACO’S BEDROOM

 

He flops onto his bed without even removing his cloak. Every muscle aches. He would never have imagined retail could be so exhausting. He’d sold twenty quills at ten Galleons each. Two of them had been spelled to write eloquent love letters; three had been spelled to write secrets in ink only visible to the writer; then there’d been the obvious ones that changed black ink into any colour under the sun. One of them wrote unbreakable contracts.

Potter had come in around teatime carrying an armful of orange roses that clashed horribly with his red robe.

“Orange,” Draco said as nonchalantly as he could. “You’re proud of me.”

Potter blushed. “How did you know that?”

“My mother. She had the most beautiful rose garden in Wiltshire. I learned the meanings of rose colours as soon as I was old enough to talk.”

Potter nodded solemnly in recognition of the intimacy of his remark.

“I saw Goyle with a sign in Candle Makers Square.”

Draco smiled. He wasn’t able not to. “Yeah, I had to make all kinds of culinary promises to get him to do it.”

There’d been an awkward silence.

“Well, I should get back to work,” Potter finally said. “I’m glad business is good.”

Draco was just about to say something unspeakably stupid like “Do you want to get a pint later?” when a customer bearing three quills came to the counter. When he was finished helping her and wrapping her gifts, Potter was gone.

Draco rolls onto his back and unbuckles his belt. He knows he shouldn’t wank over Potter, but he can’t help himself.

Potter had come in from the cold, and his cheeks were pink. His glasses had fogged up almost immediately, and he’d had to cast a de-fogging charm. He wasn’t wearing gloves, and his hands were as pink as his face. His hair was swept back, exposing the ragged purple scar, and there’d been a hint of a five o’clock shadow on his chin.

Draco pulls his cock free and begins stroking it lightly, his palm barely grazing the shaft, until his foreskin retracts and he rubs the sensitive head with his cupped hand. Less innocent images begin to enter his mind . . . Potter on his knees with his face in the pillow, holding his arse cheeks open and exposing himself completely for Draco’s tongue. Potter riding his cock hard, his head thrown back and sweat glistening on his throat. Potter sucking Draco wetly and nosily . . .

He’s gripping himself tightly now, stopping every few strokes to cup and fondle his balls. He remembers Potter’s unfettered cries and the way he pushed back with every one of Draco’s forward thrusts, driving Draco’s cock all the way inside him. He spreads his legs as far as his trousers will let him and starts pumping into his hand as though he was pumping into Potter’s swollen loosened hole. The orgasm builds slowly, and Draco whimpers, desperate for release. When it happens, he arches his back with one hard final stroke and calls out Potter’s name as he comes all over himself.

The ceiling of his bedroom slowly re-materialises as his breathing slows. He casts Tergeo, strips off his clothes and crawls under the duvet. His limbs still shake with the intensity of his release as he slips toward sleep.

 

DRACO’S LOO

 

He’s sitting on the toilet reading the morning’s Prophet when he sees the headline.

HARRY POTTER AND GINNY WEASLEY: THE TRUE STORY BEHIND THE GOLDEN COUPLE’S MESSY BREAK-UP!

His mind goes completely blank and remains blank as he continues reading.

Inside sources tell this reporter that the Boy Who Lived and The Girl Who Everybody Knows Is Going To Marry Him have been fighting for weeks. It seems a quill given to Mr. Potter by Miss Weasley herself caused him to reveal his deepest secrets and among them were doubts he’s apparently having about the why-the-hell-hasn’t-it-happened-yet engagement. It seems Potter’s heart burns more brightly for a former lover than it does for his Miss Weasley. Sadly for his adoring (and curious) public, Mr. Potter stopped writing after that secret was revealed, so we are unlikely to learn the identity of the unknown woman who once upon a time stole the Saviour’s heart and now holds it captive for all eternity . . . .

So the Weaselette gave Potter that quill she’d bought.

She and Draco hadn’t spoken to each other beyond a curt “good afternoon” when she’d entered The Quillery. She’d gone straight to the glass cabinet displaying the Truth Quills and stood before it for a long time. At last she’d told him she wanted to buy the “Tell Me No Lies” Quill. It was the most expensive quill in the shop, and it was exceedingly difficult to make.

“How does it work?” she’d asked, turning it around in her hand and considering the quality of the feather (which was the highest Draco could procure).

“The person who uses it will unwillingly write his or her deepest secret,” he’d said. “So even if he or she had intended to do nothing more than write a grocery list, the quill will reveal the secret. You’ll see it comes with a ‘Liability Release’ form: I and my company are not responsible for any resulting harm.”

The Girl Weasel had snorted. “Of course, you’d have some kind of noxious contract. I’ll take it. And please wrap it. I want to give it for Christmas.”

He’d done as she’d asked. They hadn’t spoken again except to wish each other a brusque good evening . . .

Draco flushes the toilet and turns on the shower. His heart is pounding. Should he even bother hoping?

Did he even dare?

 

DRACO’S LIVING ROOM

 

He wakes to someone abusing the bell on his door. If it’s the neighbours from across the hall again, he didn’t want anything to do with them. He gets up and puts on a robe. Besides from the bell, everything is quiet in the way that suggests it’s either very late or very very early. He goes to the door ready for a drunken friend and opens it instead to a red-faced Potter.

“Why’d you do it?” he shouts. “I thought we were getting to be friends again, and now you’ve gone and pulled this little stunt!”

Draco doesn’t even have time to respond before Potter barges past him into the living room and turns to face Draco who is still holding the door open in astonishment.

“You’ve ruined everything!” Potter yells. “My relationship with Ginny, my relationship with her family! I thought I’d told you about them being my first real family and how important they are to me! How could you do this to me?”

Draco closes the door with determined calm and takes his time turning to face Potter.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says as composedly as he can. “I haven’t done anything.”

“It was one of YOUR quills! You, yourself, sold it to Ginny! You even gift-wrapped it!”

Suddenly, Draco understands.

“You think I designed a special quill to sell to Ginny that would tell her you’re in love with ‘someone else’?” He doesn’t need to feign his incredulity.

“Yes, I think that’s exactly what you did!”

Suddenly, Draco is angry – worst than angry – he is furious.

“I did no such thing,” he says icily. “She came to my shop and bought a quill I already had in stock . . .”

“Bollocks! After she stormed out of our house in tears, I kept writing, and do you know what the quill wrote? Of course you do! It was your name!”

Draco is speechless. Utterly speechless. He goes to the coat rack and fumbles around in various pockets until he finds his packet of cigarettes. He pulls one out and lights it with one hand cupped around the fragile flame. He takes a long deep inhale and releases it slowly, buying time to figure out how on earth to deal with this situation.

“For the last time, Malfoy: We.Were.Just.Fucking! Why is that so difficult to grasp? It’s not my fault that you’re clinging to an illusion!”

Draco walks over to the kitchen counter and taps ash from his cigarette into the sink. His hand is shaking. He takes another long drag and lets the smoke out through his nostrils.

“Get out of my flat,” he says evenly.

Potter sputters in an effort to find the perfect words to express his outrage. “You think I’m leaving now after tracking you down to this hell hole? Think again. You’ve ruined my life. I’m not leaving until I’m damn well ready to leave. Why? Do you really hate me so much?”

“Well, since you’re determined to stay, then why don’t you sit down?” Draco says nastily, gesturing to a chair and Levitating the magazines and newspapers off it. “Can I perhaps get you a cup of tea?” He stabs the burnt-out stub in an ashtray and starts to walk to kitchen.

But he doesn’t get there. Suddenly, Potter grabs him by the back of his robe and turns him around.

The kiss is not soft or sweet. It’s tinged with anger and desperation and tastes of whisky.

Draco pushes him away, and Potter falls backward onto the sofa, his glasses askew.

“What the fuck?” he asks. “I thought that’s what you want, Malfoy.”

Draco would’ve thought so too. But it’s wrong – all wrong. Everything about it is wrong. The cheap messy flat, the smell of stale cigarettes, and Potter raging over the loss of the woman he loved and wanted to spend his life with.

“What I want is for you to leave.”

They stare at each other, their chests heaving as if they’d just been duelling. Draco can’t help but notice the horseshoe in the V of Potter’s open collar. It glitters in the unflattering light.

Potter takes his glasses off and rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms. “I shouldn’t be here . . .” he mumbles to no one in particular.

Draco craves another cigarette but he’s determined to wait till Potter leaves. He goes into the kitchen and puts on the kettle. His bare feet stick slightly to the dirty lino with each step.

“I really am going to make tea,” he says wearily. “Do you want a cup?”

Potter nods. Draco notices for the first time that his hair is wet. It must be raining.

The water boils in the silence and cars swish by outside. Potter’s head is thrown back, and his eyes are closed.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” he says more to himself than Draco. “God! I’m pissed and horny and all I could think of was finding you and telling you what a complete arsehole you are.”

Draco pours the water into a pot and carries it out to the living room along with two mugs. One says “Good morning, baby!” in letters that change their hue every five seconds. It’s one of Pansy’s more annoying gifts. He gives it to Potter, who doesn’t seem to notice.

“I can’t answer that for you,” Draco says dispassionately. He sits down in a nearby chair and crosses his legs, primly pulling the hem of his robe over his knees.

“God, I love her,” Potter moans, running a hand through his hair and making the fringe stand up.

Draco breathes through his nose, counting to five on the inhales and seven on the exhales.

“In case you haven’t noticed,” he says at last. “I’m not one of your mates you can spill your guts to.”

Potter straightens and looks at him. “I used to be able to tell you anything,” he says. “Nobody knows as much about me as you do. No one except you knows how much I wanted a normal life. Friends, family, marriage, children. I even told you the names I wanted to give them. No one but you really understands what the War did to me. You were the only one who really understood.”

Draco’s heart is a knot that seems to tighten with every one of Potter’s words. He concentrates on breathing. One…two…three…

“Have you ever considered I was willing to listen to your whining and moaning so I could shove my cock up your arse after you’d unburdening your precious Potter heart?”

Potter’s eyes widen comically. “That’s not how it seemed at the time…”

“What do you mean ‘that’s not how it seemed at the time?’ We were just fucking. That’s it, right? I didn’t give a fuck about your sad little life. I just wanted you to suck my cock.”

Potter continues to stare at him, his mouth partway open.

“Now that we have that settled,” Draco says, standing up and taking his mug and Potter’s back to the kitchen, “I going to go back to bed. You can kip on the sofa if you want, just don’t throw up on it, okay?”

Potter yawns cavernously. Just like he used to do…

 

DRACO’S BEDROOM

 

Draco drags his hand along the wall as he goes to his bedroom and hopes it looks nonchalant and elegant instead of what it really is: a desperate attempt to help keep him upright. He closes his bedroom door and leans against it with his head tilted back. He has no way to understand or characterise what had just happened. His mind is completely blank.

He takes a deep breath, unties the sash of his robe and slips the silk off his shoulders and lets it drop to the floor. Slowly, as though he’s in a dream, he goes to his bed and gets in, pulling the bedclothes up to his chest. He doesn’t know if Potter’s still there or what he’d do with Draco’s invitation.

He rolls onto his side and curls around himself. He feels sick. He feels like he’ll never be able to catch his breath again. He feels empty and alone and awash in longing and betrayal.

He’s not completely surprised when he hears his bedroom door open and footsteps creak across the floor. But he is surprised to feel Potter lift the bedclothes and slide into bed along side him.

“I’m so confused,” Potter whispers. Draco doesn’t respond. “I thought after the War everything would start to make sense, but then...then you and I happened. When Ginny came back, I thought for sure that the feelings I had for you would go away because our relationship – yours and mine, I mean – was strictly physical...”

“…right. Just fucking.”

“Yeah, just fucking. But then I couldn’t...I couldn’t stop thinking...things between Ginny and me were weird…”

Draco wants to cover his head with his pillow.

“...I dream sometimes...she knows it’s about somebody else. She’s suspicious all the time. I can’t convince her that it’s her I want to be with...”

Draco feels Potter’s hand rest on his shoulder and then trace the outline of his body, past his waist, and then coming to rest on his hip.

“God, I shouldn’t be here…” Potter murmurs as he props himself on his elbow and moves aside Draco’s hair so he can kiss Draco’s neck.

Draco closes his eyes and squeezes them shut until he sees dancing spots behind his eyelids. Potters hand slips off his hip and cups his cock.

“I want you so much,” Potter whispers against his ear. “Why can’t I stop wanting you so much?”

Potter is still wearing his jeans and t-shirt, but nonetheless Draco can feel his erection. He sucks in a breath around a painful rush of longing.

“I’m not going to ‘just fuck’ you, Potter,” he says much louder than the whisper Potter has been using. It has the effect of a pail of cold water, and Potter moves away making Draco swallow a mouthful of regret. “You’ll just resent me even more than you do already. I didn’t charm that quill, and I won’t be your convenient scapegoat for your guilt or whatever it is that you feel.”

He senses Potter roll onto his back, away from him. “If I can’t tell her you charmed that quill, then what will I tell her?” He’s talking to himself more than he’s talking to Draco. “It confirmed all her suspicions. That’s probably why she bought it in the first place. It’s not good enough for her that I want to marry her; she wants to own my every breath, my every thought, my every memory. She’s suffocating me. Sometimes when I’m with her I feel like I can’t breathe.”

Draco wants to yell at him and push him out of bed, but he’s too tired to fight that battle against himself. Instead he says “I don’t want to play your confessor, Potter. Or your fuck toy. Tell her you love her with an undying passion and give her a ring with a giant diamond that she can parade around in public with.”

There’s a long silence.

“But I don’t think I really do love her passionately. I love her as my future wife and the mother of my children, but that’s different. She’s the sister of my best friend and the heart of her family, but I don’t...I can’t...”

“Go to sleep,” Draco says.

Potter sighs. “Yeah,” he says. “I probably should.”

Draco waits until Potter’s breathing evens before he turns over. Potter has rolled back onto his side and is facing him. He’s got his hand tucked under his chin just like Draco remembers from St. Wenceslaus’s Street. His black lashes rest against his cheeks. Draco has to bite the inside of his mouth before he can stop himself from brushing the hair back from Potter’s face and kissing his slightly parted lips.

When Potter wakes, Draco pretends he’s still asleep. He can feel Potter’s eyes on him and then his fingers combing through his hair. After several minutes, he feels Potter’s lips touch his own very gently, and then he feels Potter get up and hears him go into the living room. Only when the door shuts does Draco allow himself to breathe normally again.

 

THE CAFÉ ON THE CORNER

 

It’s cold in the way only February can be – cold and wet. He buys a cup of coffee and moves to the back of the shop where there’s a bit more privacy. Most of the other customers are sitting near the windows reading The Prophet or chatting quietly. The room smells of warm newly-made pastries, but he’s not hungry. He’s too nervous to be hungry.

He’d Owled the Weaselette at her family’s filthy hovel where apparently she’s living since she’d left Potter – reportedly on Christmas Eve, nonetheless. Not that he feels much pity for either of them. In the Owl he’d asked her to meet him at nine o’clock at the coffee shop at the end of Diagon Alley.

She’s late, probably on purpose to make him look stupid. But at last the bell over the door jingles, and she walks in. Despite looking wan and miserable, she gives him an imperious glare through pink and puffy eyes. She buys a cup of coffee before sitting in the chair across from him.

“I don’t know why you asked me to meet with you. What do you have to say to me?” she asks. “You probably want to gloat over the fact that Harry and I have broken up. You’ve never wanted to see him happy despite the fact he’d saved your sorry arse. You’re a toad of a human being creeping around in the sewers of life with nothing but malice in your heart.”

He rolls his eyes. “Spare me the histrionics. How long did it take you to memorise that little speech? I told you to meet me because I want to bring you and Potter back together.”

“I don’t see how you can,” she says, her eyes filling with tears. “He’s in love with someone else. How can I marry him if I’m nothing but his second choice? I’ve known forever that he wants to be with this...this other person, and he’s been lying to me when he denies it. Oh bloody hell, why am I even talking to you anyway?”

“Because I did it,” he says. “I charmed the quill you bought from me because I knew you were giving it to Potter.”

The Girl Weasel looks up from her cup of coffee. “What?” she asks incredulously.

“I just told you: I charmed the quill you bought as a Christmas gift for Potter to wreck your perfect little love nest.”

“What?” she asks again, but then the confusion drains from her face. “You fucking bastard!” she cries. “I should have known!”

People at the surrounding tables turn and look at them. The Weaselette doesn’t seem to notice, or, if she does, care.

“You’ve ruined my life!”

Draco is rapidly growing sick of that phrase. He rolls his eyes.

“I doubt that,” he drawls. “Just go tell your beloved Boy Wonder what I’ve done and he’ll...”

“...hopefully arrest you!”

“I was going to say ‘happily take you back.’”

The next thing he’s aware of is the Weaselette’s wand in his face.

“I suppose you think this is all a joke. What is wrong with you?” she hisses. “We’re not in school any longer, so let go of your pathetic…whatever it is. Leave me and Harry alone!”

Draco suddenly feels cold to the bones – cold and tired. He wraps his hands around his mug.

“If you’re going to have me arrested, just get on with it.”

“Oh you’re such a martyr aren’t you? Poor baby Death Eater begging for attention from Harry Potter. I’d hate you, except you’re not worth the effort!”

People are still staring at them. At the very least their conversation is providing everyone with some dramatic entertainment with which to start their otherwise drama-free Wednesday.

He’s beginning to feel very sorry that he’d got involved with this whole fucking mess. The Weaselette is right: he is playing the bloody martyr.

On the other side of the window, people are going about their daily lives looking carefree and fashionably bundled up against the cold. He should be at The Quillery, not here telling lies so he can be arrested and Potter can be reunited with his True Love.

“I bet it was Dark magic,” the Weaselette whispers. “You know where that will land you?...That’s right, in Azkaban with your parents.”

She’s crying now. “I’ve got to go,” she says. “I have to find Harry. Don’t even bother trying to flee; as soon as I leave here, I’m contacting the Aurors.” She stands and buttons the coat she’d never taken off.

“I suppose you want me to pick up the bill,” Draco says with a drawl.

“Fuck you, Malfoy,” she says. “I’ll see you at your trial.”

 

THE HOLDING CELL

 

He’d had just enough time to Owl Pansy and ask her to take over The Quillery before the Aurors arrived. Their brusque voices and rough handling gives the café’s patrons even more to stare at and whisper about. Lucky them.

One yanks him up out of his chair, and the other tears his coat in the process of searching for his wand.

“Is this really necessary?” Draco drawls. “I’m going willingly.”

The Aurors don’t bother responding and instead seize his arms, drag him out to the sidewalk and Apparate without a word.

The cell is the size of a lift with nothing but a narrow wooden bench to sit on. Draco is glad he used the loo at the café because he didn’t relish the idea of telling his guard he has to take a piss.

He sits down and waits. It’s only a matter of time before Potter comes stomping down the stairs. Draco leans his head back against the wall and closes his eyes.

 

“What are you most afraid of?”

They’d been in the middle of making love and just catching their breath and delaying their orgasms as long as they could. He was still inside Harry.

“That’s a sexy topic of conversation,” Draco replied.

Outside, the wind thrashed the trees, causing their branches to strike the sides of the house and scratch against the boarded-up windows. Everything was utterly dark. The wind must’ve broken the Muggles’ electric. Even the awful orange streetlamps were out.

“Seriously, Draco. What scares you the most?”

He didn’t need to think for longer than an instant.

“Snakes,” he said.

Harry chuckled, which made his whole body move. Draco groaned against his neck, still too close to coming to experience any little bit of friction without losing it.

“What’s so amusing,” he gasped.

“Just that you’re a Slytherin and all.”

Draco pulled Harry closer into his arms, and Harry tighten his legs around his waist

“Nagini.”

It was all he needed to say – all he could say.

“Move,” Harry said in reply. Draco knew it was his clumsy way of saying “it’s okay; it’s over; I’m here.”

He didn’t fuck Harry as hard as he’d been doing before they rested. Instead he moved in firm but deep, gentle strokes.

“Need you,” Harry moaned against his ear. “So much. Need you inside me.”

They rocked each other slowly to orgasm, paying attention to every breath, every heartbeat.

Harry came first, shuddering hard and holding Draco close. Draco licked the salt from his throat as he lengthened his strokes, sometimes pulling all the way out and then pushing slowly back in. His cock was so sensitive that he thought an orgasm might actually hurt, but of course it didn’t. He felt it grow and grow as he moved inside Harry…inside the man he loved.

Harry squeezed his cock tightly, but it was that realisation – the realisation that he loved Harry and couldn’t imagine living without him – that pushed him to orgasm and filled Harry till he was overflowing and the sheet beneath his arse was wet.

They lay there, holding each other and listening to the wind. When Draco moved to roll off him, Harry had clung to him.

“I’m afraid of the dark,” he whispered. “It’s all that I remember of my childhood. I used to cry, but no one ever came to me. I was alone, so alone.”

Later, after they’d made love again, Harry told him about the cupboard under the stairs, and Draco didn’t know what to say. He wove his fingers in Harry’s thick dark hair and held his head close against his shoulder until the Muggles’ electric came back.

He’d never felt so close to another human being as he had that night.

A week later he caught Harry and the Weaselette having sex in their bed, and for a very long time, all of the light in his life vanished. And he’d understood what Harry had meant about being alone in the dark.

 

“Malfoy, you bloody idiot!”

Draco jumps; as unlikely as it seems, he must’ve dozed off in the damp chilly cell. He looks at him dispassionately as Potter appears in the gloom, his red robe like a heatless fire.

“Nice to see you, too,” he says.

Potter is angry – blazingly angry.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Draco begins counting on his fingers. “Well, first I confessed my crime to your girlfriend who then contacted the Aurors who then arrested me and brought me here. As far as I’ve been informed, I’m going to be tried, found guilt and sent to Azkaban to rot.

Potter does not look like he’d received the answer he was looking for.

“No, you git. What I want to know – right now – is why you told Ginny that you’d cursed the Quill she gave me?”

Draco scowls at him. “Sometimes I think you really are stupid, Potter. Isn’t it obvious? I was throwing myself on my own sword so that you could win back your ginger bint.”

He can’t help but notice that Potter doesn’t chastise him for calling the Weaselette a bint. It feels like a victory – a small victory, yes, but a victory nonetheless.

“You are a bloody liar, Draco…”

Interesting. So it’s “Draco” again.

“…you didn’t specially design that quill to sell to Ginny and fuck up my life!”

“I did,” Draco says wearily. “Shut up, Potter, and go home to your girlfriend.”

“But you’re not guilty!”

“I am! You said so yourself last night!”

Potter blanches at the mention of last night.

“About that,” he says. “I was a right arsehole.”

“Well, at least you didn’t ruin my couch.”

Potter takes off his glasses and scrubs his face. “What in Merlin’s name are you doing?”

“I want you to believe the confession I made to your little girlfriend and leave me alone.”

“No, Draco, I mean what do you really want?”

Draco turns his face away. Fucking Potter. He takes a deep breath. “Maybe I want the same thing that you do...”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying...”

“That’s because you’re as thick-headed as a Troll. I want you be fucking happy, Harry. And if the Weaselette will make you happy then I want you to have her. Now, seriously, fuck off. I really don’t care to ever see your stupid face again.”

Potter looks like he’s been Stunned by three different wands at the same time. “You actually want me to be with Ginny?”

If he wasn’t in a cell, Draco would’ve broken his nose. “What about ‘fuck the hell off’ wasn’t clear to you? Because I’m not sure I can make myself any plainer.”

Potter comes closer and squats down so that his eyes are level with Draco’s.

“I bought a Quill, Draco,” he says quietly. At your store this morning. From Pansy. I had on a Glamour. There was no way she could’ve known who I was. The store was crowded, and she only had time to spend a minute of two with me...”

“...and your point is?”

“My point, you bastard, is that there is no way she could’ve cast a spell on my quill that would write ‘I’m in love with Draco Malfoy,’ but when I went to my office to use it, that’s exactly what it wrote. I tried not too, but it was impossible. The only words it would write were your name over and over again!”

Draco stares at him. He isn’t sure where all of this is going to end up. “So...?”

“So, you dim prat, you didn’t charm the quill Ginny bought.”

Draco stands up and brushes off his robe. “Well, lovely. Now that we’ve got that cleared up, I’d like to get out of here so I can go home, have a cup of tea, and take a nice hot bath...”

Potter points his wand at the lock, and the door creaks open, but before Draco can step out, Potter grabs him and pushes him against the wall and sucks his breath out of his lungs like a Dementor. He weaves his fingers in Draco’s hair and holds his head still while he deepens the kiss.

“Fuck,” Harry gasps. “You’re right. I really am the biggest fucking idiot ever.”

 

THE HOUSE ON ST. WENCESLAUS’S STREET

 

They’d had to end their kiss when the guard returned. It was hard; it’d felt as though their bodies had fussed together through their robes and were refusing to let them part.

After that there’d been a flurry of signing papers and getting his wand back and a thousand little everythings. He’d only seen Potter again for an instant.

“You’ll see me again as soon as I can manage it,” he whispers. “But it won’t be for a while. I’ve got to end things with Ginny properly. I’m not going to do to her what I did to you.”

Draco had had only enough time to nod before getting whisked away again.

It’d all happened so fast.

Draco closes his door behind him and leans against it, staring into the middle distance. Everything that had once been so inconsequential that he hardly noticed it now seems newly made – everything from his shapeless couch to the full ashtray on the table to the droopy plant he’d picked out of a skip.

He’s still too shocked to know whether he’s happy. If he goes to bed and sleeps will he awake to realise it was nothing but a dream?... It’s happened so many times; why is today different?

He’s so busy thinking it all through that he doesn’t even realise he’s grinning.

 

Potter hadn’t been joking when he’d said it would be awhile. The rest of February passed, then all of March. Draco tried to stay as busy as possible and not think about Potter. As his father had always liked to say: “there’s time for many a slip between the cup and the lip.” It wouldn’t surprise him if Potter Owled him to tell him that he and the Weaselette had decided to “work things out together” or whatever. As much as he loathed the Weasleys, he knew how hard it would be for Potter to sever those ties.

It’s an unremarkable and damp Friday morning when he turns the key in The Quillery’s lock and finds an owl sitting on the counter. He swallows around the sudden lump in his throat. He’d been right. What a bloody fool he’d been thinking there really was a second chance for him and Potter. He waits for the owl to lift its leg, but it doesn’t.

That’s when Draco sees the red rose in its beak. The owl drops it in Draco’s hands and flies out the still open door.

Pansy comes in just as it leaves and shrieks at the top of her lungs.

“What the hell was that?” she says, trying to smooth her hair and brush feathers off her cloak. “That bloody bird almost…”

She notices the rose in Draco’s hand, and a teasing grin spreads across her face.

“My, my,” she purrs. “Malfoy’s got an admirer. And it isn’t even Valentine’s Day.”

Draco blushes. “It’s just a stupid rose,” he says. “Here, find a vase for it. I’ve got to go to the bank to get change.”

Out on the street, everyone seems despairing and irritable. The only colours to be seen are varying shades of greys and browns, which is probably why the red rose stands out like a beacon where it lies on Gringotts’ marble steps. Suspecting it’s for him, Draco stoops and picks it up. This time there’s a note attached to the stem.

Roses are red, violets are blue
I lied when I said I didn’t love you

Merlin, Harry is a sap. Draco grins a stupid giddy grin. And he’s pants at writing poetry.

He finds the next rose in the café where he always stops for coffee.

Harry is obviously a stalker. Draco unfolds the note.

Come to me. You know where.
I’ll be waiting for you there.

Back at the shop, Draco informs Pansy he’s going to be away for an hour or two. She’s eating biscotti and reading The Prophet. She waves him off without even looking up.

“Tell whoever-he-is that if he breaks your heart, he’ll have me to answer to, and it won’t be pretty.” Still without looking at him, she takes a shoe off and puts it on the counter. It has spike-heels and looks menacing. “It’s patent leather so it cleans up easily,” she says cryptically.

 

They’d always met on the front steps of Number 12, St. Wenceslaus’s Street where they’d kiss chastely before slipping through the door. Draco is not surprised when he finds another rose resting on the worn welcome mat.

The note merely reads “Please.”

He moves as quietly as he can as though sound might break some kind of enchantment. When he reaches the bottom of the stairs leading up to the loft, he finds rose petals lying amidst the grit and dust. He follows them until he’s about halfway up.

He has no idea what to expect; after all he’d desecrated the attic and destroyed all it contained. Will the hate-filled words still be there? What if they are? It makes him nauseous just imagining it. Slowly, he keeps climbing…

…and finds Potter sitting on a new mattress with a rose in his hand and a goofy grin on his face. He’s blushing, and his face is the same hue as the flower he’s holding. The walls are smooth and clean and show no sign that they’d ever been touched.

“You found me,” Potter says.

“Obviously or I wouldn’t be here.”

“I’m assuming you know what red roses mean.”

“What idiot doesn’t know what red roses mean?”

“You look damp and cold.”

“That’s because I am.”

Potter stands and unbuttons his shirt. His intent gaze must mean that he’s looking for any fleeting hint of rejection in Draco’s eyes. Part of Draco would love to tell him to fuck off while he’s standing there in nothing but his pants with a stupid rose in his hand, but a bigger part of him craves the feel of Potter’s skin like his lungs crave air. Still watching him closely, Potter lays the rose on the pillow where Draco used to sleep and then slides under the duvet.

“Rather presumptuous, aren’t you?”

“We don’t have to have sex. I just want to hold you again.”

“Sap.”

“Yeah? So?”

Draco smiles and pulls off his robe and jumper and then steps out of his trousers. When he’s in nothing but his pants, he pushes those down too and kicks them off. Potter’s eyes widen comically.

“You’re naked,” he says.

“Brilliant observation, Auror Potter.”

“Now who’s being presumptuous?”

Draco walks over and slides into bed beside him. Potter’s body is warm, just like Draco remembers it. He closes his eyes against the tears that spring to them.

“Can I kiss you?” Potter murmurs.

Draco can only nod.

Potter’s lips are still wet and pillowy, and Draco’s cock still stirs at the feel of them. He rolls Potter onto his back and leans over to kiss Potter even deeper. Potter puts his arms around his neck, and Draco feels them tremble. He pulls back and looks into Potter’s eyes.

“What do you want?” he whispers. “Tell me.”

“You,” Potter replies. “I don’t care if it’s presumptuous. I want you to fuck me.”

Draco breathes in sharply.

“I’m not going to be gentle,” he says.

“I don’t want you to be gentle,” Potter replies. “I want you to take back what’s yours.”

Draco leans down and kisses him again before rising to his knees and tearing – literally – Potter’s pants off. Potter’s eyes widen. Draco knows the smile he’s wearing is predatory.

“It’s been so long,” he says, more to himself than to Potter. “Roll over.”

Potter complies, and Draco scratches Potter’s back from the nape of his neck to the tip of his tailbone. It doesn’t draw blood, but he does leave long red welts. Potter rises to his forearms and knees. His hair is raven wing black against the white pillow. Draco picks up the rose and plucks off its petals, sprinkling them on Potter’s head and back.

“God,” he murmurs. His head is spinning as his brain tries to grapple with where he is and what he’s doing. He grabs Potter’s arse and spreads his buttocks as wide as possible. It’s enough for awhile to just sit and stare at the tiny puckered hole between them.

“Has anyone been in your arse?”

Potter shakes his head.

“Has anything been in your arse?”

Potter nods but doesn’t elaborate.

“Did the Weasel . . . did Ginerva do it?”

Potter shakes his head.

“So you did it to yourself.”

Potter nods.

Draco runs a finger lightly from the end of his tailbone down and between his buttocks until the tip rests against Potter’s opening.

“Did you think of me?” he whispers. “Did you imagine me fucking you?”

Potter nods and then adds a muffled “yes.”

Draco spreads Potter’s arse open again and leans down to place a chaste kiss on his anus.

“Did you come?”

Potter’s starting to writhe. “Yes,” he replies hoarsely.

Draco licks Potter’s hole and feels it pulse open, inviting Draco’s tongue. Draco sits back on his heels again and watches Potter’s sphincter slowly relax until it’s no longer clenched shut. Draco grabs a pillow and puts it under Potter’s hips.

“Lie down,” he says, and Potter does. Draco spreads Potter’s legs and lies between them. He loved eating Potter out almost as much as he loved fucking him.

He takes his time, encouraging Potter to melt into the sensations he’s experiencing.

He’d thought he’d have endless patience – he’d wanted Potter under his tongue again so desperately – but it turned out his need to fuck Potter was even greater than he imagined. Trying to dissipate some of the need he’s feeling, Draco holds his cock and slides its head up and down Potter’s crack, smearing his arsehole with his pre-come. He’s shaking with the effort to keep himself from just plunging in. He needs to be inside Potter more than he needs anything. It’s more than desire – it’s necessity. It’s an instinct so primal that Draco is powerless in its grasp.

“I need to fuck you,” he says, his voice rough and low.

“How do you want me?” Potter asks breathlessly.

“On your back,” Draco replies, burying kisses against Potter’s neck and nipping his shoulder blades.

“It’s been a long time…”

Draco smiles ruefully. “You don’t need to tell me about it.”

Potter rolls his eyes. “I mean…it’s been a long time since…

“You had a real cock in your bum?”

“Yeah, that.”

“So, in other words, don’t plough into you and fuck you like a stallion in rutting season?”

Potter’s actually silent for a moment as he considers his options.

“How ‘bout we do that later?”

Draco crawls up between Potter’s legs and wriggles his hips between Potter’s thighs so that their cocks press against each other.

“I don’t know how I lived without this,” Potter murmurs as though he’s talking to himself.

Draco reaches down and finds Potter’s opening with his fingers. He’s wet from Draco’s tongue, but not wet enough to ease the initial pain of entry. He starts to whisper a lubrication charm, but Potter places his finger against his lips.

“No wandless spells, you git,” he says.

Draco stares at him. “Really? Potter, you’ve got to be joking.”

Potter laughs and shrugs. “Actually, I’m not,” he says. “The Aurors will know if you’ve done wandless magic and come here to arrest you, which wouldn’t be conducive to orgasm, I think.”

Actually, Potter might be wrong about that. The idea of a group of Aurors watching him fuck Potter rather turns him on. But now is definitely not the time to bring up his exhibitionist fantasies.

Draco sits back on his heels and watches as Potter’s hand suddenly gets slick and he circles his opening with the tip of his finger before pushing it slowly inside.
The sight is too much. Draco grabs his cock and starts stroking it. Potter helpfully casts another wandless charm, and Draco’s hand is suddenly slick and wet. He moans and begins to stroke himself harder while Potter fingers himself.

“Can’t...” Draco gasps. “Can’t stop.”

“Well, you’d better. You said you were going to fuck me.”

Potter draws his knees back and holds on to the backs of his thighs. Draco holds his cock steady and the next thing his lust soaked brain realises, he’s buried in tight wet heat to his balls. Potter throws his head back, exposing the expanse of his throat, and cries out in what sounds like a combination of pain and ecstasy.

He can’t believe he’s inside Potter again. It’s been nearly three years. He braces himself with his hands on either side of Potter’s head and fucks him as hard as he can. The hint of pain disappears from Potter’s cries – they’re now just the raw sound of animal need.

“Give in, Harry. Let go. Don’t lie to me anymore. Don’t lie to yourself anymore.”

Draco lowers his head and kisses him. He can feel Potter’s orgasm coming in the spasmodic clenching of his arse, and his short hoarse cries. He’s too incoherent to say more than Draco’s name, but his hands on Draco’s hips urge Draco to go even faster, even harder.

The feel of Potter coming – after all these years apart – is almost too much. He watches Potter squeeze his eyes shut as he reaches down to seize Draco’s hips and hold them still at the deepest point of his thrust. He slams his hips upward and stills as he shudders and comes on his belly and chest.

The sight carves Draco’s consciousness down to the bone and saws through his last thread of control. He feels Potter’s eyes watching his face intently. He feels their hunger for his surrender.

“Draco, you don’t need to hide anymore,” Potter gasps.

Draco hears his words but can’t absorb their meaning – not while his body holds his brain hostage. All he hears is his name spoken in Potter’s voice.

“I’m going to come,” he whimpers helplessly. “Harry, I’m going to come.”

He feels arms fold around him and he falls against Potter’s chest just as he falls into his orgasm. He fills Potter’s arse until his cock is so wet and slick with his own semen that he can’t feel friction any longer. He comes apart in Potter’s arms, and Potter holds him close and tight as they both ride Draco’s orgasm to its last spurt.

 

A year later...

 

THE HOUSE ON ST. WENCESLAUS’S STREET

 

It’s the most awkward dinner party ever in the history of the world. Not even Harry’s elaborate meal could fully dissipate the tension.

It wasn’t anything they hadn’t expected.

 

They’d finally completed all the thousands of touch-up jobs down to the last Victorian detail. It would never be wholly finished in Draco’s opinion, but Harry had finally run out of patience – both with the details and with him. They’d squabbled over every little thing, but they’d both agreed with no argument that their bedroom would be in the attic. The place where their bed is was really the only thing that truly mattered – considering they spent so much time there.

Draco didn’t want to brag, but their house was the most perfect house in London, if not in all of England. It’s spacious and full of light with wood floors and fireplaces in every room. There isn’t much furniture yet (mostly because they rarely agreed on anything), but what they had was beautifully crafted and self-Scourgifying (a must when you have two Crups, an unknown number of Pygmy Puffs, and a Kneazle frequently beset with hairballs – some of them multicoloured).

They’d been waiting to reach a negotiated agreement on the dining room table and chairs before having a dinner party. It’s taken months.

Pansy is the first to arrive. She kisses Draco on both cheeks and thrusts a gaudily wrapped gift into Harry’s hands.

“It’s for those times when Draco’s had too much to drink,” she says, and Draco knows immediately what it is. Their very own Mr. Sparkles.

“Watch out,” she says. “Sometimes it burns little holes in the sheets. Draco remembers, I’m sure.” She puts her arms around him and looks up “innocently” at his face. “Draco’s still bitter,” she says. “Once it almost singed off his eyebrows.”

“Right,” Draco says curtly. “Lovely. How about a drink, Pans? Possibly a glass of bitch brew?”

“Only if you’ll have a glass of arsehole ale . . .”

Thankfully their bantering is interrupted when Granger and the Weasel step out of the fireplace. Granger looks like she’s going give birth to her sprog at any second. This alarming possibility has the useful unintended consequence of preoccupying the Weasel.

Blaise and Gregory arrive at the same time causing ashes to fly out of the fireplace as though someone had just cast a Blasting Spell. Harry had chosen the hearth rug, and he is not amused by the destruction.

Thomas and the Weaselette are the last to arrive, and the whole room goes horribly quiet. The Girl Weasel looks like she’s had her arm twisted to the breaking point. She doesn’t say hello to Harry or Draco or any of his friends, but she does give Granger curt little air kisses. Harry goes into the kitchen and gestures with his head that Draco should follow him.

“It’s not going to get better than that,” he says. “But at least she’s here.”

Draco wants to shrug and say something like “well, fuck her then,” but wisely he keeps his mouth shut. Every conversation they have about the Weaselette results in someone sleeping on the couch. She isn’t worth a night without Harry in his arms.

 

Harry’s meal is fantastic. There’s soup and salad followed by the main course and treacle tart for dessert. By the end, everyone looks more or less content. Harry’s last flourish is homemade Limoncello, which earns him an admiring nod from Blaise.

The topics of conversation are boring beyond words – the weather, Quidditch, babies, and general polite questions about his and Harry’s further plans for the house. Draco is fine with that. He envisioned much worse and locked the crups in the basement. They’re very protective – especially of Harry (Draco had trained them well in that regard) – and Draco didn’t want them responding to raised voices and broken plates by ripping someone’s leg off.

Draco couldn’t help but notice that the Weaselette makes quite a show of holding Thomas’s hand on the table and giving him a peck on the cheek whenever Harry looks their way. After the salad course, Draco follows Harry into the kitchen where Harry is looking like the conductor of an orchestra as plates and bowls and silverware hover in the air waiting for his instructions.

“So far so good,” Draco says.

“Don’t jinx us. It’s still early.”

“You should let me do the washing up.”

“I don’t mind it. Ginny is making me feel guilty. She’s with Dean now, and it’s been nearly a year.”

Draco turns his head so that Harry can’t see the expression on his face. A year hadn’t been long enough for him to get over losing Harry. He feels a fleeting moment of sympathy for the Weaselette.

Back in the dining room, the conversation has taken an alarming turn to politics, and the Weasel’s ears are starting to turn purple.

“So,” Draco says. “I’ve heard that shagging induces labour.”

As he’d intended, the whole table goes silent, and then Harry begins serving the main course, and everyone becomes preoccupied with eating. Harry catches his eye and winks at him.

“Deftly done,” Harry says when they’re back in the haven of the kitchen.

Draco moves to stand behind him and puts his arms around him so that his hands rest on Harry’s belly. He gives Harry’s ear a playful nip.

“You forget I grew up a member of the aristocracy. Being able to divert the direction of a conversation is a survival skill one learns as soon as one can speak…or actually even sooner. My father used to give me a little pinch when a conversation had entered dangerous territory so I’d scream so loudly and for so long that everyone would forget what they’d been talking about.

Harry laughs and squirms out of Draco’s arms.

“Give me a hand and serve everyone their coffees…with your wand, Draco.”

Observant bastard.

Draco kisses him deeply, and for an instant dishes and towels and silverware freeze in the air.

“What’s wrong Potter?” Draco says into their kiss. “Can’t do more than one thing at a time?”

“Not when you’re kissing me,” Harry says, before Draco fills Harry’s mouth with his tongue.

Of course that’s the moment the Weaselette comes into the room and stops short, dropping her plate. Harry pulls away quickly. There are tears in the Weaselette’s eyes.

“Can you take over for a few minutes?” he asks Draco, and then he turns to the Girl Weasel. “How about a tour of the house, Ginny?”

They’re gone through desert, which is a tad awkward, but when they finally come back to the dining room, they’re smiling. Draco would’ve felt a twinge of jealousy if Harry didn’t immediately come over to him and rest his chin on the top of Draco’s head, diverting Draco’s attention long enough to steal a forkful of treacle tart.

It’s the first – and only moment – when everybody laughs.

 

At the end of the evening, there are no “let’s do this again”s, but everyone stays for the Limoncello and parts on friendly terms. Draco can tell by the little barbs the Weasel directs toward Harry all evening that there are still a lot of unresolved issues. But they shake hands as Granger and the Weasel are leaving, and the Weasel says they’d like to have him over for dinner some evening. Draco is relieved that the invitation doesn’t include him. Pansy gives Harry a kiss on the cheek and a whispered threat involving “bits” and “hexes.” Thomas is the only one who shakes both their hands warmly and thanks them for a lovely time.

 

Harry’s exhausted, so Draco does the washing up, careful to cast every stupid little spell with his wand.

“That wasn’t hell on earth,” Harry says with a yawn. “Which is more than I’d expected.”

Draco turns to him and leans against the counter while the scrub brushes clean the myriad pots and pans Harry had used to cook dinner.

“Did you and the Weas…Ginerva have a good conversation?”

Harry shrugs as he gnaws on a piece of dry toast. “She doesn’t hate me anymore, which seems like a step in the right direction. She also congratulated me on the house.”

“Well, that’s something.”

Harry yawns again, and Draco feels the weird protective-possessive thing that seems to be growing stronger every day.

Harry’s sitting on one of the dining room chairs, and Draco moves behind him so he can massage Harry’s neck and shoulders.

“Should go to bed,” Harry murmurs sleepily. “Raid on illegal potions ring tomorrow.”

Draco grits his teeth. “There’re dozens of Aurors; let them do it. Besides, I could use some help at the shop tomorrow. We’re having a sale on those special Howler Quills I made last week.”

“Gotta go,” Harry says. “I’ll be careful.”

Draco comes around to stand in front of Harry and begins unbuttoning his shirt. Harry smiles and tilts his head back.

“I’ve heard being shagged is good for digestion after a large meal.”

Harry arches an eyebrow at him. “Really?”

Draco nods earnestly.

“You’ll have to carry me up to bed,” Harry says.

“That’s what Levitation spells are for.”

“I’m too full; you’ll have to take me from behind.”

“My, that sounds horrible. Let’s forget it and just cuddle instead.”

“Cuddle?”

“Yes, cuddle.”

“Fuck that.”

Draco laughs and holds out his hand to pull Harry to his feet. Walking backward with Harry’s hand still in his, Draco leads him to the stairs. Above them is their loft and beyond that the night sky. Draco whispers nox.

“Damn it, Draco, use your wand.”

“Mmmmm, I love it when you talk dirty to me.”

“Oh my God, shut up.”

At the top of the stairs, Draco pulls Harry into his arms. On the table next to their bed is a vase with three red roses and his first rough sketches for the garden.

It may be February, but it no longer seems too soon to dream.

 

fin.