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Underneath the Underneath	By : dirtydarella Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 2753 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: all Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is made.

Chapter List
- 1-Underneath the Underneath
- 1
This was orriginally my fic to Heathen–arcade for the hd_holidays fest last year. : )

Thanks to tari_sue and thesamanthahope for the beta jobs!

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“No one can get into the Room of Requirement.”

Harry and Ron shared matching annoyed looks before turning their attention back to their assignments. Leave it to Hermione to find a way to get them to want to do homework. They’d learned she tended to become silent once they at least pretended to be working.

“Are you even listening to me?” Hermione said, her whispered voice taking on a hissing quality.

Ron groaned, turning his attention to her. “We heard you the first hundred times. What do you want us to do about it?”

The bushy haired girl straightened her back, pulled her robe up to her knees, and drew up her legs so they were resting fully on the windowsill upon which she sat. Harry didn’t miss the way Ron’s eyes shifted to her newly exposed skin. “It’s troubling.”

“I think we should be more worried about the Azkaban breakout,” Ron mumbled, tucking his nose back into his book. Harry thought it might have more to do with the sudden blush across the redhead’s fair cheeks than wanting to become immersed – or at least pretend to – than in the text.

On the first day of their second month into the summer before sixth year, the newspapers had brought the news that the dementors had abandoned Azkaban, leaving every prisoner – most importantly, the Death Eaters – to run free. When a young owl trying to deliver a copy Hermione had sent him appeared, it got chased out of Harry’s room by Hedwig. Needless to say, his Muggle relatives hadn’t been particularly understanding when the newspaper with moving pictures had said they were all in grave danger. By the next day, his panicked aunt had convinced Dumbledore to let him come to Hogwarts early.

“Harry?” Hermione said.

“Hmm?” He was currently skimming through Ron’s potion’s book. He hadn’t dared bring his own for their study session. Despite the Prince’s book having a lot more useful notes, it was still too much of a hotspot with Hermione. He was getting enough of her lecturing without including that, thanks.

“Why don’t you try asking Dumbledore again during your next private lesson?”

The brunette glanced at her over the book. “He made it clear last time not to worry. Maybe it’s time to let it go for now.”

She huffed and crossed her arms, remaining quiet as a high-strung looking Theodore Nott crossed the aisle into a possible hearing range. Apparently the break out in Azkaban had all the Slytherins looking equal parts smug and nervous. It was undoubtedly a sign for the trouble to come.

***

“Petrificus Totalus!”

Shit, Harry had heard the hex too late to do anything. The spell hit with an instantaneous paralyzing effect, leaving Harry’s body to stumble forward in mid step. He couldn’t even close his eyes as his face approached the hard ground, thoughts of a cracked skull flashing through his head.

He felt a tug on the back of his robes, and at the last second he was being pulled up while his attacker grunted in strain. As he was turned around, his stiff legs dragged awkwardly against the stone ground. When the bright hair of Malfoy was revealed, Harry found himself wanting to growl. It figured the bastard would ambush him when he was on his way to a Quidditch practice. He was dropped on his back, one leg sticking up and his head would surely feel bruised tomorrow.

Malfoy hovered over him with a sadistic smirk on his face and a malicious glint in his eyes. He stared at Harry for a moment, probably squealing like a girl in his head about Harry being so helpless and vulnerable in front of him.

“Because I don’t want to miss this opportunity...”

The sole of Malfoy’s boot flashed in his vision a moment before Harry heard the breaking of bones in his nose. A warm liquid trickled down into his mouth, followed a moment later by the overwhelming taste of iron.

Harry could only lie there as Malfoy smirked down at him, the shadows of the nearby torches flickering across those pointed pale features like he was some sort of madman. Plans on how to get him back for this were already starting to run through Harry’s agitated mind.

“Now, rest assured Potter, you will be spending the night here, but depending on how you answer my question, I may feel like telling someone in the morning.” Malfoy took a few steps back, both his and Harry’s wands now in hand. A moment later he used Harry’s wand to cast Incarcerous and release the paralyzing spell.

As soon as Harry could move again, he thrashed his body, jerking his arms and legs against the bonds, only managing to tighten them further. The fibrous weave against his skin dug in, friction burning at every scrape against skin. Once the coward seemed satisfied that Harry was indeed, completely trapped, he approached him again.

“What I want to know,” he said, pausing to roll his shoulder, “is how a moron like you could suddenly become a potions genius.”

Harry paused in his struggle. That’s what this was all about? If Malfoy didn’t have such a painful grip on Harry’s hair, the brunette would have turned his head and bitten any part of Malfoy’s face that he could reach. As it was, he laughed instead; a slow, bouncy laugh that inappropriately bubbled up from somewhere dark inside his chest.

“What’s so funny?” Malfoy said, sneering down. Harry continued to laugh, feeling blood from his probably broken nose pour into his open mouth, gurgling back in his throat. He only laughed harder when he felt Malfoy’s tight grip on his hair. As soon as the laugh had started, it disappeared and Harry went limp against the ground. He blinked, a chill running down his spine.

“Fine.” Malfoy said from somewhere on Harry’s left. When he came back into view, there was a wand in his hand – Harry couldn’t tell which one – digging sharply into the brunette’s temple. For the first time, real fear coursed through his trembling body. Malfoy had him completely powerless and at his will. He could do anything he wanted, absolutely anything.

“Since you’re refusing to fill me in of your own accord, I suppose I’ll just have to fish around your mind until I find the answer myself.” The wand pressed harder. “Tell me, Potter, how good are you at Occlumency? Because I was taught by a master.”

Harry’s stomach began to tighten. He turned his head to the side as much as he could to relieve the pressure of Malfoy’s wand digging into his sensitive skin. Feeling fingers gripping his chin, his face was jerked back, forcing him to look at Malfoy.

God, the blond was about to learn everything – the prophecy, the memory Dumbledore had showed him about Tom, the Order headquarters.

“Wait,” Harry said, self-loathing building inside his body. “I’ll tell you...”

Malfoy smiled slowly.

“Oh Potter, I definitely like you like this. So submissive,” he purred, actually being sick enough to stroke Harry’s head like he was some sort of pet. “But I’ve already made up my mind. Legi-”

“Expelliarmus!”

The weight of Malfoy suddenly disappeared as the blond went flying, both his and Harry’s wands shooting off in different directions to his body. He’d barely landed with an oomph before Harry’s savior was paralyzing the jerk.

“Hermione,” Harry shouted as his friend ran to his side, relief washing over him like a heavy summer rain. He’d never felt so incredibly happy in his entire life to see the brilliant witch.

“Oh Harry, your nose!” she said as she flicked her wand and vanished the ropes around him. “Hold still.”

Her soft fingers were a lot more gentle on his chin than Malfoy’s had been, hardly gripping him at all. She pointed her wand at his nose and said, “Episkey.”

He felt his nose burn, then an instant later feel as if it had suddenly been blasted with ice.

“What happened?” she said, looking over to the blond who was still sprawled out on the ground in an awkward angle of limbs.

Harry ignored her for the moment, getting to his feet slowly and going to retrieve his wand. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Hermione going for Malfoy’s as well. He walked over to where the Slytherin lay as thoughts of instant revenge danced through his head. He grunted with the effort it took to lift the petrified boy off the ground.

“What are you doing?” Hermione said from behind him. He could just image her anxiously fingering the tip of her wand.

“Payback,” Harry said, balling his hands into a fist and punching Malfoy with as much force as he could manage. He heard a very satisfying crunch, followed by an intense burn in his knuckles. Oh, but it was definitely a good pain, knowing that Malfoy had felt it so much worse than him.

“Harry,” Hermione said in a scolding tone, although it didn’t seem as stern as it could have been. “Now we should take him to Madam Pomfrey.”

Harry shook out the pain in his hand. Malfoy’s nose was starting to pour blood in a steady stream, running down his mouth and dripping off his cheeks onto the white collar of his shirt. Good.

“Why? We could just leave him outside Snape's office. Or better yet, in the middle of the Slytherin table in the great hall.”

“Harry,” She said, actually tutting at him. He offered up a somewhat sheepish smile.

“I’m only kidding.” If it were Ron with him, he would have helped Harry string Malfoy up in the middle of the Quidditch pitch, completely naked, for everyone to see during the Gryffindor practice.

“Just leave him, Hermione. I’m late enough at it is.”

Hermione twisted her wand a few more times before nodding.

“Wait a minute,” Harry paused as something occurred to him. He knelt down on the right side of Malfoy, and he could almost swear he heard a whimper come from the blond’s throat. Making no effort to be gentle about it, he began to pull up the sleeve of Malfoy’s robe. The button on the cuff popped off as he tugged it up, revealing a surprisingly bare stretch of pale skin on his forearm.

“He’s unmarked,” Hermione said, sounding mildly surprised.

“For now,” Harry said. He looked down at the blond’s pathetic face, his eyes trailing over the smeared blood. Against pale skin the red looked so dark. It streaked down his nose and across each cheek where the gold-blond hair soaked it up like a white rag. Not really knowing why, Harry pulled the collar of Malfoy’s robe up and wiped away the blood that was pooling in his slightly parted lips.

Feeling suddenly… he didn’t know, embarrassed he supposed, he stood up and turned back to his friend. When he and Hermione reached the end of the hallway, she left Malfoy’s wand on the top step and released the spell. Ignoring the cry of outrage that sounded behind them, the pair made their way down towards the Quidditch pitch.

***

“I’ve started a potion,” Hermione said, smiling brightly. Ron and Harry looked up for the couch they had been studying on.

“Er- that’s great,” Harry said, sounding somewhat unsure.

“It is. I used the Half Blood Prince’s book to do so.

“Oh Hermione!” Ron said, standing so that he could rush over and hug her. “You’ve seen the light!”

As soon as he seemed to realize just who he was squishing against his chest, however, the tips of his ears turned pink as a blush spread to the roots of his hair. He pulled away as if burned, revealing an equally flushed-looking Hermione.

“Don’t you even want to know what it does?” She pushed her hair over her shoulder, a small smile on her face.

“Makes you want to study for tests?” Ron supplied with a guffaw. At her glare, he shut up.

“It gives the drinker the ability to see through walls,” she said, tilting her head up and jutting her chin out. Harry shuddered at the thought that the action reminded him a bit of Malfoy.

“Hermione, that’s... that’s brilliant!” Ron’s eyes had suddenly taken on a very dreamy look as he turned to Harry. “Which girls changing room should we check out first? The Quidditch one?”

Smack.

He got slapped. Harry wasn’t surprised.

“Ow, what was that for?” his friend whined while rubbing his red hand printed cheek.

“It’s not for watching girls changing,” she said harshly. “What if Ginny was in there when you were spying?”

Ron’s face fell, taking on a look as if he’d just seen a large, hairy spider. “Gross.”

Hermione huffed in an annoyed tone and sat down on the other side of Harry. “At least I have one friend who isn’t a pervert,” she mumbled.

He decided not to say he didn’t think Ron’s idea was all that bad. He liked his cheeks handprint free, thanks.

“Alright then,” Ron leaned over Harry so he could see Hermione as he spoke, “What were you planning to use it for?”

“What else?” she said, also leaning over. Harry slouched back on the couch as much as possible, feeling extreme discomfort crawling all over his body. “To see into the Room of Requirement.”

Both boys’ heads turned to her. Actually, Harry thought, that did sound like a pretty smart idea, given that it really worked.

“It’ll be done by next week, but...” She trailed off as her eyebrows creased.

“But what?”

“Well, there’s a little bit of a complication.”

“When isn’t there?” Ron said, shifting on the sofa so that he was sitting higher.

“The last ingredient to be added, the Devil's Snare, must be added fresh.”

“Wait a second,” the redhead said, with wide growing eyes. “Did you just say Devil's Snare? As in the plant that almost killed us when we were eleven?”

“Yes,” she said, looking determinately at him. “I’m sure we’ll be able to handle just a clipping from it. We can cast a severing charm, then accio it straight into the potion.”

Ron blinked, opened his mouth, blinked again, closed his mouth, then finally said, “You’ve gone completely barmy.”

Harry agreed with his friend on this one.

Waving her hand dismissively, Hermione continued. “It must be added to the potion immediately after being clipped. Which would mean there will be a window of about two hours on Thursday night to sneak the cauldron down to the Forbidden Forest, make the clippings, and add it.”

Ron snorted.

“Don’t you want to know what’s inside the Room of Requirement?” she said, crossing her arms.

“Who’s to say just because we can see through walls we’ll be able to see into it? That room changes all the time,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her.

“If it’s in use, we’ll be able to see who’s using it.”

Harry shifted uncomfortably on his seat as his friends continued to glare at each other. Lately, their constant bickering was starting to really unnerve him. He was already sure that they would eventually be going through with this. Besides, he could admit at least in theory, it sounded like a good way of solving the mystery of the Room of Requirement. And it wasn’t like they’d never done something dangerous like this before; the whole thing seemed fairly tame compared to some of the previous tasks they’d accomplished.

“And where do you expect to find Devil's Snare?” Ron looked as if he was about to stick his tongue out at her. “Planning to see if it’s still in the room that once helped guard the Sorcerer's stone?”

“When I asked, Hagrid warned me where Devil's Snare is in the Forbidden Forest, so we’ll know just where to go. It’ll be easy.”

Harry kept quiet, although he had his doubts.

***

The cauldron was heavy, sloshing dangerously as Harry maneuvered down the stairs. He was a mix between irritated that he was even doing this in the first place, and worried that he’d accidentally screw it all up somehow. Although, as much as he grumbled, he did feel a little cheered up at the look of absolute horror Hermione had on her face when she’d been given detention.

Breakfast had been going perfectly normal that morning, what with Hermione scanning her paper while Ron shoved every piece of food he could fit into his mouth. It had been so normal that when Lavender had suddenly popped into Ron’s lap, it had taken Harry so much by surprise that he’d almost choked to death on his biscuit. If he’d thought that was surprising, however, he was wrong. The real surprise had come when Lavender Brown had gone screaming down the hall, covered in boils as a raging Hermione still held her wand in hand.

He chuckled as he thought about it. Although it hadn’t been at the time, now the whole thing was hilarious. Hermione had stopped by before detention to wish him luck – which actually meant to lecture him. The potion was at the what’s-it-called stage where the properties are so-and-so. Basically, if anything got in it other than the intended ingredient, the potion would be useless. He was most nervous about his clothes accidentally dragging in, especially his sleeves, which he hadn’t been smart enough to roll back before he started this trip down to the Forbidden Forest.

As he reached the bottom of the staircase, he began to shuffle his feet so as to not accidentally trip on the liquid-like fabric of his invisibility cloak. He grunted as he felt the tight pull of his back and shoulder muscles start to make them quiver, the palms gripping the textured metal becoming more and more sweaty. Dammit but he wished he could just levitate the fucking thing without worrying about the magic messing it up. If he had been thinking, he would have asked Hermione if he could at least have levitated something like a small table and used that for transportation.

He began to huff in exertion and decided to take a ten second rest. Leaning his back against the stone wall and bringing up his knee under the bottom of the cauldron for balance, he tried to roll his shoulders enough to loosen the stiff muscles. His fingers crawled a few inches around the sides of the metal in an attempt to gain a better hold. As soon as he felt better, he straightened his back and pushed off the wall to continued on his way. The faster he got down there, the sooner all this would be over.

As much as he tried to deny it, he really was angry with his friends. If they didn’t work out their problems with each other soon, he – well, he didn’t know what he would do, but he would do something. Probably. Maybe.

The sudden yanking of his invisibility cloak caught Harry so off guard he – very nearly – dropped the damn cauldron. To his great horror, when he looked up it only took one glimpse of white-blond hair for this whole situation to go from really bad to so much fucking worse.

At least it wasn’t Snape.

“I’ve got you now,” Malfoy said with unrestrained glee in his voice. Harry could do nothing but stand there as Malfoy shoved his wand inches from the brunette’s nose. He frowned as the reality of his current position crashed over him. Here he was with an illegal potion in his arms, his unreachable wand in his back pocket, and the very nemesis who probably dreamed of nothing more every night than finding Harry in a similar scenario.

“This certainly is nice,” Malfoy said, running his snobby I’ve-never-worked-a-proper-day-in-my-life hands all over his father’s cloak. “So this is how you’ve been prancing around all these years.”

“Get your fucking hands off it,” Harry said, stepping forward until his nose bumped against the tip of Malfoy’s wand. A distant voice in the back of his head was alarmed by the fact that the fabric had just gone slack enough to breach the surface of the potion in his arms, but larger, more surfaced thoughts were all laced in a hot rage.

“Careful you brute,” Malfoy said, pulling at the fabric until it slipped completely off Harry. In that moment, a defensive, territorial part of Harry seemed to kick in as he threw the cauldron, catching the bastard in front of him square in the stomach, and the humph that he let out caused the brunette to believe he’d lost his breath. The metal of the cauldron rang out like a gong as it hit and rolled onto the floor, but Harry was heeding it no mind as he launched himself at Malfoy, his father’s invisibility cloak still being touched by those goddamn hands. The blond landed on his back, his wand clattering off in one direction as the cloth slipped from his grip.

Harry reached for his own wand, pulling it out and halfway through a Stupefy before a strong impact to his jaw, sent a buzz of pain into his face. He felt the edge of his tooth cutting into the soft tissue that was forcefully smashed into it, and a second later he was lying on his back, spitting out blood. Cold liquid – it must have been the potion – was soaking through his cloths as his hand reached out and searched for where his wand could have fallen. He could see through his skewed glasses that Malfoy was getting to his feet, holding his knuckles and scowling. Halfway to getting to his knees, a heavy shoe caught Harry in the side, the kick powerful enough for him to cry out in pain.

He rolled over with every intent of kneeing the bastard in his ribs when suddenly there was an intense burning sensation in the back of his eyes. It felt as if a hot iron rod was digging into his sockets, and no matter how much he blinked or rubbed, the burning wasn’t stopping. Had Malfoy somehow managed to cast a hex on him? Whatever the reason, the burning was unbearable and he needed to find a bathroom now to wash out his eyes.

He stumbled to his feet, pushing his glasses up as he pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes in a desperate attempt to relieve some of the pain. Opening them, he tried to see Malfoy, and more importantly whether or not the git had found his wand yet, fully prepared to do whatever dire fighting would get him away from the other wizard and to a source of fresh cold water. The only problem was, when he opened his eyes he found everything had gone a very worrisome grey while a dark fog rolled into his peripheral vision. Fucking hell, he was going blind.

“What is this damn potion?” Malfoy cried out, drawing Harry’s attention to the blurred figure kneeling on the ground. By the jerking movements of the muddied image of a body, Harry could just barely make out that Malfoy was scrubbing at his own eyes. It was the potion?

A sudden jolt of pain shot down the brunette’s entire spine, leaving in its wake a feeling of weakness so great that his kneels buckled and he fell forward. The dark fog in his vision rolled completely over his sight, then shoved into his skull. The last thing he heard before losing consciousness was the solid thump of Malfoy’s body hitting the ground.

***

“But if we take them, we’ll all be expelled.”

Harry drifted on the edge of consciousness, his body feeling heavy as if someone had laid a blanket of lead over it. He heard the voice of Hermione dancing through the fog and wondered if he had just been dreaming about her. Slowly, he attempted to open his eyes, but soon found they must have been turned to lead, for they were far too heavy to lift.

“Speak for yourself,” a deeper voice said, its rumbling and husky tone made it sound as if whoever was speaking had just woken up from a long sleep.

“What’s that?” That voice was definitely Ron’s, low with just a little bit of a condescending whine to the tone.

“I’m only a victim in all this, I won’t be expelled.”

A beat of silence.

“Shut the fuck up,” Ron’s voice growled, pulling Harry further out of the dark fog. “This is all your fault to begin with.”

“How did I have anything to do with Potter carrying a potion around at night? And I assure you, he was the one to spill the potion all over himself, without my assistance.”

There was another pause of silence in which Harry assumed Ron and Malfoy were glaring daggers at each other. He could hear someone shuffling his or her feet and wondered if that could have been Hermione anxiously pacing around.

“We should have gone straight to Madam Pomfrey,” she whispered. Whether it was spoken to herself or Ron, he didn’t know.

“I still need to see Pomfrey,” Malfoy's voice rang out, sounding more sulky than anything else.

“Shut up already, you’re fine,” Ron said.

Gradually, Harry’s eyelids started to feel a bit lighter. He did his best to open them once more, but found the best he could manage was to flutter them a bit. The rest of his body still felt as heavy as ever – so he refrained from even trying to move anything else.

“I told you, I am not well,” Malfoy snapped. “I’m seeing colored lights.”

Harry realized he could lift his arm. Unfortunately, it still felt unaccountably heavy, and he let out a groan of annoyance when it fell limply back down to his side. This, of course, caused him to be suddenly confronted with the weight of a very female feeling body crushing him.

“Harry! Thank heaven you’re alright,” Hermione said as she grabbed his sides. His eyes, having found enough motivation to try and open again, did so.

His first thought was, “Too bright.”

“See!” he heard Malfoy's voice, sounding just the littlest bit smug, along with an undercurrent of worry.

“But,” Hermione said, sounding a lot more openly panicked. “Anything other than Devil’s Snare touching the potion would have nullified the magical ingredients in it. Not much else should have been able to react to it.”

“Well it did. Now I demand you take me straight to Pomfrey or my fa-” he stopped himself before finishing the statement. Harry was a little surprise for the lapse and wondered if that slip was as good as a confession that Malfoy had been in contact with his father since the break out in Azkaban. Not that Mr. Malfoy had any power in the Government anymore. Hopefully.

“Wait,” Harry mumbled, opening his eyes once again. It took a moment, but slowly they adjusted to the fierce light. It was then that he realized the light wasn’t coming from any normal source, like candles, but rather the whole ceiling of whatever room he was in. In fact, he only saw three, white candles above him, probably the only real light source in the entire room. He turned his head and found that the walls, too, had a luminescent quality as if they were glowing. His gaze fell onto the body still leaning uncomfortably close to him. Blinking a few times, he realized the same strange light was around Hermione’s figure – only this on had an amber tint to it. “What the fuck?”

“What is it?” Ron said, stepping into view. Around him was a blue glow. Or no – it wasn’t as if Hermione and Ron were glowing per say, it was hard for Harry to put his finger on it. Once, when he was younger, he’d watched one of those old 3-D movies in his Muggle class. He remembered taking his cardboard and plastic glasses off for a moment and seeing a line of blue and red bordering the edges of the people on the screen. It was like that now, some sort of aura was bordering them, only thankfully they were still in color.

“Wicked,” he mumbled as his eyes traveled around what he could see of the room in his current, limited position. Actually, everything seemed to be covered in faint, translucent colors and the effect was like looking through a crystal and seeing a bunch of rainbows.

“What is it, what do you see?” Hermione asked.

“Malfoy’s right; there’s a bunch of these lights everywhere.” He blinked his eyes a few times and realized two things. His eyes had adjusted so that the colored lights weren’t as unbearably bright as they had first been, and unlike normal lights, when he closed his eyes they didn’t appear to leave imprints on his sight.

Hermione whimpered and – to Harry’s great surprise – Ron came up behind her to wrap his arm around her shoulder. Neither one blushed or tried to break the contact. Odd.

“I guess we have no choice,” he said, “we’ll have to take them to Pomfrey. What will we say?”

After a little experiment with lifting his arms, Harry found to his great delight that his strength had returned enough to sit up on his own. From his new perspective, he was able to see in the dim, normal light a messy row of old, dusty looking desks. He pushed his glasses up and took in the very soft object he was laying on. A mattress? Where the hell were they, some sort of storage room? It looked too big for that, plus there was a black board to his left that caused him to think perhaps it was an old abandoned classroom. Although the desks weren’t actually surrounded by an aura, and neither was the mattress, both appeared to have lines of the faint lights on them. The way they appeared to be underneath the surface reminded him of gouges in wood, or scars on a body.

“There’s definitely something strange, but I think I’m fine,” he said. “Let’s put off going to the infirmary unless that changes.” Harry had spent enough of his time at Hogwarts in the hospital ward and he didn’t particularly feel like going there unless his life was truly in danger. He glanced over to his friends’ worried faces and knew that if it did come down to that, he’d take all the blame upon his shoulders. It had been hard enough for Hermione to get by with why she had accidentally been Polyjuiced as a cat in second year; add Malfoy to the equation and he didn’t think there would be any way of walking away from this unscathed. He could also admit, albeit somewhat guiltily, that he felt Dumbledore might go easier on him in a situation like this if for no other reason, because he claimed to have more to show him about Voldemort’s past.

“You may be fine, Potter, but I am not,” Malfoy said, bringing Harry’s attention for the first time fully on him. Not surprisingly, the blond had an aura of light around him as well, white like the castle walls and ceiling, only not quite the same color. In fact, it looked almost silver, like the same color of his eyes. Just like Ron’s had been blue, and Hermione's amber.

“Then I must be green,” he said, looking down at his own hands, which were indeed bordered in a shockingly deep green. Malfoy, who Harry now realized was bound to an armchair with ropes washed in a faint yellow light, jerked his head to the side in order to look over to where Ron and Hermione were still standing.

“Weasley!” He shouted, causing all the Gryffindors to start. “Let me see your damn eyes for a moment.”

With eyebrows drawn together in a confused expression, Ron glanced over to him.

“I see,” Malfoy said, looking away.

“Er- Mate?” the redhead said, directing his question to Harry. “Wanna fill us in on what’s going on?”

“I’ll tell you what’s happened,” Malfoy snapped. “You’ve gone and turned me into a freak. Just wait until I tell Professor Snape about this, you’ll be –”

“Silencio,” Ron cast with a lazy flick of his wrist and a roll of his eyes. In that instant, the tip of his wand burst into a blinding orange light, brighter and more solid than any light Harry had ever seen. He closed his eyes, fearing that the intense radiance would burn out his retinas, but in the next instant it was gone, leaving only a hazy collar of transparent orange wrapped around the blond’s pale throat.

“Whoa,” Harry and Malfoy said in unison – or rather, Malfoy mouthed since he was currently under the spell. They stared wide-eyed at each other for a brief moment before Hermione broke the silence.

“What is it?”

“That was... odd” Harry said, blinking. He didn’t know how to word it exactly. He’d always been able to see a light, at least most of the time, when a powerful spell was cast, but this was something entirely different. He’d never been able to see a silencing spell before. “I think I can see magic.”

Harry barely noticed the worried looks Hermione and Ron shared, too distracted by the faint orange on Malfoy’s neck. Was it pulsing?

“Er- Harry, you’ve always been able to see magic,” Ron said very slowly, as if talking to a young child.

“No, not like this,” he said. “It’s different. Just now, there was a bright orange jet of light that shot out of your wand, and now I can still see a translucent orange on him.”

Hermione gasped, sounding disturbingly excited. Of course she would find something like this exciting. He wondered if he’d just signed himself up as her next research project.

“Think back,” she said. “We assumed when the potion was spilled on the ground it was nullified, but did anything else come into contact with it before then?

Frowning thoughtfully, Harry remembered being ambushed by Malfoy, then... “My invisibility cloak, where is it?” If it was ruined, he was going to kill the blond bastard.

“It’s as I thought!” Hermione said elatedly. “The magic of the invisibility cloak must have reacted to the potion, am I right?”

Something twitched anxiously inside Harry’s gut. “Why would you think that? Is it ruined?”

“No, no, it’s fine,” she reassured. “We used it to sneak you into this old Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. But it touched the potion before anything else, didn’t it?”

“Er, it might have, yeah.”

“Since it was originally intended to see through the walls of the Room of Requirement, maybe it-”

“Hermione!” Ron said, the warning much too late. She clasped her hands over her mouth as her eyes grew wide. Harry jerked his head over towards Malfoy, watching as gray eyes widened, then narrowed in to thin slits. Great, like the blond didn’t have enough on them already. He thought Ron’s reaction had probably just made it all the worse, Malfoy would think it was a bigger deal now.

“Let’s just cast an Obliviate and be done with it.”

“No!” Hermione said, stepping in front of Ron with arms spread wide, regardless of the fact the redhead wasn’t even holding his wand anymore. “Do you want him to end up like Lockhart did?”

He mumbled something under his breath Harry thought sounded a lot like ‘wouldn’t be a loss,’ but sat down to placate Hermione all the same and Harry was grateful. He glanced back over to see gray eyes staring intensely at him and there was a funny jolt in his gut. Although having Malfoy’s eyes on him was nothing knew – Harry and the other teen tended to keep an eye on each other, being rivals and all – but for some reason, having his gaze openly fixed upon him was a strange sensation indeed. He almost wanted to say he kind of liked it, as absurd as that was, but at the same time it felt very uncomfortable.

“I think he wants to say something,” Harry said, somehow unable to break the eye contact with those swirling silver orbs. With the faint glow of silver light surrounding his body, the other teen looked almost ethereal. Out of Harry’s peripheral vision, he saw a pale blue light streak across to Malfoy’s neck, breaking up the faint orange lingering there like shattering glass. The eye contact was finally broken, allowing Harry to drag his mind out of the odd haze he’d let it slip into.

“I have a proposition for you,” Malfoy said, his voice taking on a sudden coldness. “We can make a binding wizard contract, where as long as you all do something for me, I won’t tell about this little mishap.”

It didn’t pass Harry’s notice that the Slytherin was only speaking to Hermione at this point. He felt his guard slip up, wanting to somehow defend his friend, even though she wasn’t even being attacked. One could never be too careful around Slytherins, though.

“Absolutely not,” Ron cut in before she could even say anything. “He’s probably going to make it something horrible, like never being able to have sex or – oh! What if he makes us lose the Quidditch Cup? Hermione, think about it.”

“Relax, Weasley,” he drawled. “The first is completely unnecessary, as I’m sure you’re all going to die virgins, and as tempting as the second sounds, I have something else in mind.”

Hermione looked from Ron, to Harry, then back to Malfoy. “Alright, let’s hear it.”

***

Harry sat in his room with the curtains drawn. Of course, he was not brooding or anything. The fact that he’d had a scowl on his face for the past three days had nothing to do with his mood. He’d just felt like scowling.

Another thing Harry most certainly was not doing was obsessively checking his Marauder's Map. Just because he had been pulling it out and watching the dot labeled ‘Malfoy’ most – okay all – weekend, didn’t make him obsessed. It merely meant he was curious. The fact that Ron and Hermione hadn’t spent any time with him at all didn’t help his situation much. Turns out something had happened during their detention, and now they were suddenly the happy new couple that felt the need to gross out their friend by locking lips in front of him.

It’s not like he could do anything if he saw Malfoy go up to the Room of Requirement, but somehow he was almost eager to catch the blond in the act. He knew now that the mystery of that room had to have something to do with the bastard.

After taking what was probably two hours to work out the precise wording, Hermione, Ron, and Harry had agreed to Malfoy’s suggested wizard contract. The deal was that Malfoy would keep his big mouth shut about their little potions accident, as long as none of them tried to get in or find out what was inside the Room of Requirement, except for in emergency situations where people’s lives were in danger, of course. Which made Harry’s mild curiosity of the room’s secret shoot to a positively engrossing interest in it.

Truth be told, Harry really hadn’t spent every waking moment watching the Map, though. He’d spent a fair amount of time trying to learn about his new abilities. He’d found that his eyes were adjusting to a point where when he cast spells or saw them cast, the light wasn’t quite so blinding. He also discovered that if he, in a sense, ignored the traces of magic, then their physical manifestation dulled to a very faint glow. At times like those, it was like nothing had happened, and as long as no horrible symptoms suddenly showed up from the potion, he was fairly confident his life would go on as if nothing at all had occurred.

Except for him not obsessively watching Malfoy’s dot on the Marauder's map. What the hell was the bastard doing anyway; he’d been in his room all day Saturday and most of today, not even moving around. When he thought the blond was probably upset about something, he snickered at the image of him just sitting on his bed with his curtains drawn.

Er- but that was totally different from what Harry was doing. On an unrelated note, maybe it would be a good time to talk a walk. He was sure Hagrid could use some company after all.

He threw on one of his warmer cloaks and started his way down the long trek of Gryffindor Tower stairs. In truth, he could admit that in some ways, the recent incidents had served the purpose of helping Harry forget about the more troubling anxieties in his life. The things he’d seen in Dumbledore’s pensive weighed heavily on his thoughts most of the time. Most worrisome to him, perhaps, was the image of his headmaster’s blackened hand. He didn’t know what Dumbledore had gone through to wear such a horrid scar, but if that’s what it was going to take, Harry had no doubt he’d go through just as much danger if it meant ridding the world of Voldemort for good.

A sudden grip on his shoulder had Harry nearly jumping out of his skin as he jerked around. A pale face was smirking down – damn him for being taller – at Harry, lips curled into their usual twisted form. As he looked around at his surroundings, he realized that although he couldn’t remember it, he must have walked all the way down to the outside grounds of Hogwarts already.

“What do you want?” Harry said, trying to sound as natural about the situation as he could while looking around to see if there was anyone nearby. He’d already figured that it was probably best to at least try and pretend to have civil interactions with the Slytherin. However, he also knew his patience would only stretch so far when it came to playing nice. Watching Malfoy’s dot on a map while almost the whole height of the castle separated them was one thing, but to have Malfoy walking by his side was entirely different. Too many years of animosity circled through his blood, and they couldn’t be ignored forever.

“Have you noticed, the more you concentrate on a certain magical residue, the brighter and more defined they are?” Malfoy said, almost cheerfully. The bastard must be up to something.

Harry had in fact noticed that, along with how some seemed to have specific patterns or textures, but he didn’t want to sit down and talk to Malfoy about it. He turned left and headed away from Hagrid’s hut. Visiting him while Malfoy was playing shadow probably wasn’t the best idea. The blond would just end up insulting him, and Harry would be responsible for his friend getting hurt. Perhaps a trip to the Owlery would be okay, Hedwig would be just as happy for the company.

He looked up to the castle, seeing for the first time the impressive white aura surrounding the whole thing. It was a little strange to think about him and Malfoy sharing this esoteric ability. He looked over at the teen by his side, concentrating on his core where the silver was brightest. The way the individual strands of light branched out like a spider web so fluidly, it made his magic look rather delicate. From what Harry could see of his own magic in his body – he’d disappointingly found that mirrors did not reflect magic, so had to rely on what he could glance down and spot – his own spider web of green looked bulky and awkward. He thought it matched their bodies well; Malfoy had a lithe frame and his movements were almost always eloquent, while as Harry’s body was shorter and more bulky, and he always felt like he was tripping over himself.

“You know what?”

Harry shot Malfoy an irritated ‘what?’ look.

“Your scar looks really weird.”

He walked on, ignoring the git. That was certainly no surprise; it had been a pretty powerful spell that had caused it after all. “Would you piss off already?”

“Don’t be so rude, Potter. Is that anyway to treat a friend?”

“You are not my friend,” Harry said, fighting the urge to push the git up against the wall and punch the daylights out of him. At this point, he’d reached the steps of the Owlery and began to clime as fast as he could, hoping to lose Malfoy in the process.

“Of course we are,” the blond said, keeping an unfortunately matching pace with Harry. “You know, because friends share stuff with each other. Like invisibility cloaks.”

The evenness of Harry’s steps faltered. His invisibility cloak? The only thing he had from his father, and Malfoy wanted to borrow or even take it? His hands clenched into fists. Over his dead body.

In the next instant, Harry threw the git against the cold stonewall, the rage that boiled inside his chest giving him the strength to lift the blond by the front of his robes until just the tips of his toes were dragging against the ground.

“Understand this,” Harry growled. “You will never ever lay a single finger on my invisibility cloak. Is that clear?”

To his further irritation, Malfoy was actually smirking as he looked down, those gray eyes gleaming maliciously. The bastard had some nerve.

“My, my, aren’t you touchy?” A low growl rumbled out of Harry’s throat as he shoved Malfoy even harder against the unyielding wall, using all his weight to crush the slimmer body beneath his own as much as possible. “But that’s okay, I’d rather have something else from you anyway.”

Harry narrowed his eyes, waiting for Malfoy to continue.

“Your potions book. Let me see it.”

That caught the brunette completely off guard, causing his grip to loosen enough for the blond to slide back down to the balls of his feet. How in the hell had Malfoy found out about the Prince’s book?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said after a beat, trying to mix just the right amount of nonchalance and confusion in his voice.

Malfoy’s smirk only stretched further across his face. “It’s got to be the book – don’t think I haven’t seen all those scribbles in the margins. Did Dumbledore fill it out for his golden boy?”

Harry fully released his hold on Malfoy's robes and rolled his eyes. “Dumbledore has better things to do than help a student cheat like a Slytherin.” He turned to continue up the stairs, but a tug on his wrist halted him.

“If there isn’t anything special about it, then let me see your book.”

Harry shook the grip off, starting up the stairs again without acknowledging him. He wondered if he could get Ron to switch with him just long enough for Malfoy to think he was mistaken. When it came to Malfoy, he was pretty sure he could always count on Ron to back him up.

A few steps later and the blond was once again by his side, following so close their shoulders kept accidentally brushing. Harry tried to ignore the strange awareness it seemed to awaken in his body at every touch.

“When are you going to stop running from me already?” Malfoy actually sounded a little winded. Good. Harry increased his speed up the stairs.

“I’m not running, I’m merely trying to get away from you.”

“That’s the same thing,” the blond said snobbishly. Harry only shrugged.

They entered the main chamber and immediately were surrounded by echoing sound of hundreds of owls hooting and shifting around on their perches. There was a strong smell of – well Harry really didn’t even want to evaluate what the scent might be. Who knew how often the house elves cleaned out all the carcasses of the bird’s meals. Not a second passed before two owls were flying towards him.

Hedwig landed on his shoulder, hooting gently as she puffed up her feathers. The other turned out to be Malfoy’s Eagle owl, perching itself regally on the teen’s out stretched forearm. Harry turned away from them and brought his sole attention to his snow-colored ball of fluff.

“Hello girl,” he whispered softly, rubbing her chest with his knuckles and enjoying the silky texture he encountered. Forgetting for a moment why he had come in the first place, he found himself wishing he had a scrap of food to give her. As his fingers got lost in the pleasant warmth of feathers he thought about how he really should make more time to visit her up here once in a while. She’d always been such a loyal pet.

His thoughts were interrupted when Malfoy’s quiet words floated over to him. His ears twitched as he picked up on the high pitch and bubbly quality of the words. What the hell – was Malfoy baby-talking to his bird?

He glanced over his unoccupied shoulder to see the blond’s pale face nuzzling the chest and wing of his eagle owl. He blinked in surprise as he took in the most genuine smile he’d ever seen on that spoiled pointy face before. Wow, he never thought Malfoy could look so… human.

“Who’s my good boy? Yes you are! You’re my very good boy, aren’t you?”

Had Harry just stepped into an alternate universe or something? Or perhaps this was some plan of Voldemort’s? He could believe that, it was certainly more effective than a Confundus charm.

Harry was brought back to himself when Hedwig’s talons briefly dug into his shoulder as the bird took flight, soon followed by Malfoy's and every other bird in the place. It was an uncomfortable experience to have that many large birds flying around him at once, the sheer noise from the flapping of their wings almost deafening him as they flew around and out of a large square in the wall, into another section of the Owlery. It must have been feeding time.

“What are you looking at?” Malfoy snapped, and Harry nearly jumped out of his shoes. He hadn’t even realized he had been staring at the blond. Really, though, who wouldn’t have been in a daze after seeing Malfoy like that, followed by being swarmed by hungry owls? Come to think of it, this was probably the longest he’d ever spent with Malfoy without hexing him or being hexed, which was daze-inducing in itself.

Shrugging his shoulders, Harry turned his head and tried not to look as awkward as he felt. In the other room he could hear what he assumed to be the birds eating as beaks clacked and hoots drifted to where he stood. He wondered how much longer before Malfoy would lose interest in him and he could go back to Gryffindor tower without worrying about the password being overheard.

“What was that?” Malfoy said suddenly, taking a few steps to his left and turning his ear out.

“Er- the owls?” Harry said with the best what-the-hell-did-you-think-it-was expression he could manage.

“Shh you idiot,” he hissed, standing absolutely still.

Harry rolled his eyes and was just about to go ahead and make his break for it when he did in fact hear something – a faint, drawn out groan, sounding as if someone was in agonizing pain. He stilled for a moment and listened, hearing another not long after the first. Was someone in trouble?

Both teens shared a confused look before moving simultaneously towards the source of the noise. They walked around the arch of perches, coming to a small door that maybe looked like it could have been for house elves, except for it being just a hair too big. Harry jumped as he heard a hiss coming from behind it, followed closely by a swear.

Malfoy, being the incredible coward he was, pulled out his wand and took a few steps back so that he could take cover behind the curved wall. Harry pulled out his own wand and pointed it wearily at the door while taking a fortifying breath. He kneeled down and slowly, as quietly as possible, turned the round handle, careful to keep his wand ready to shoot off any spells.

Inch by inch the door was opened, revealing to Harry’s cautious gaze first a pair of raised legs, followed by – oh god. He froze in shock as the door continued to swing open, exposing the sight of two naked bodies moving against each other. Two very male bodies, and what they were doing was quite clear as he watched one set of hips slam into the other.

“What, what is it?” A voice hissed from his side, but Harry was too gobsmacked to do anything but just kneel there, as still as a statue, and stare at what was happening before his own eyes. He wasn’t even thinking about the fact that if one of them turned their heads they’d see him hunching over in the doorway.

While not as easy to see at first glance, he now recognized the faces under sweaty fringes to be those of Terry Boot and Michael Corner – two former members of the D.A. Boot was the one doing the er- penetrating, his arse flexing with each quick thrust. He was doing it so hard, but the way Corner’s thrown back head and what Harry now realized were sounds of pleasure, it didn’t appear as if he minded one bit. Quite the opposite, in fact.

“What’s going on?” Malfoy’s voice was suddenly right in his ear and Harry’s body jerk away as if dodging a blow. The blond just gave him a startled look, before shoving him by the shoulder so that he could peer into the small door. Somewhat distantly, Harry thought that maybe he should try and protect this private moment that he had stumbled across, but his body was still too stunned to move.

Malfoy gasped as his eyes grew wide first in shock, then in what appeared to be malicious glee. It was only then that Harry realized he did not want to be here – very much so. Malfoy was a prefect and there was no doubt that he was just about to bust these two teens in a very private moment – a moment he would have never seen had it not been for Harry. Most of all, the brunette really didn’t want it to be discovered that he was- that his- the reason why he suddenly fastened the clasp to his robes so they would cover his front.

In a bout of nervous panic, Harry reached out and grabbed Malfoy’s upper arm in the tightest grip he could and yanked. The other wizard let out an indignant squeak as he was lugged around the bend of owl perches, clear to the entrance of the Owlery. Harry didn’t let up on his grip once, even as he moved so fast that Malfoy’s feet dragged and scraped against the floor in an attempt to keep up, and he continued even as they reached the stairs, forcing the blond down a good fifteen steps before he felt the threat of a wand being dug into his side.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Potter? I have to bust them.” Malfoy was panting, and all of a sudden the noise sounded nothing like it should. Harry really had to get out of there and find somewhere that he could... take care of his little problem.

“You don’t have to,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Just leave it.”

Malfoy narrowed his eyes as he studied Harry and it was all the brunette could do not to constantly fidget under that gaze. He took a step back to give himself a little more distance and turned his head away.

“What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?” Malfoy said, “You’re all jumpy.”

Yes, brilliant deduction, bastard – Harry wanted to say, but instead he tried for a shrug. Who wouldn’t be a little fazed after encountering two of their classmates going at it like porn stars?

In the blink of an eye, Malfoy pressed Harry against the wall in a reversal of their positions from their trip up here. It took all of his will power not to yelp like a frightened puppy, and instead he concentrated all his efforts on keeping his hips as far away from the blond’s as possible. His arms felt weak as he pushed back against Malfoy’s chest, hoping to dislodge the tight grip on his upper arms.

“What’s wrong?” Malfoy said, his face so close to Harry’s that the brunette could feel his breath puffing against the hypersensitive skin of his cheek. “Is Prude Potter scandalized by seeing two people fucking? Or perhaps it was just because they were men?”

Harry struggled a little harder, twisting his body away the best he could while shoving against Malfoy’s chest. The bastard had the nerve to laugh at him, making an already heated blush blaze down his face and neck. As the desperation to just get the hell away from him gripped his mind like a hot iron fist, Harry’s movements became wilder, jerking savagely to buck Malfoy’s body off.

“Calm down, Potter,” Malfoy said, sounding just a little worried. Harry wasn’t prepared, however, when the grip on his shoulders abruptly disappeared, leaving his twisting body completely unanchored. Having no support, his heels tilted off the step, causing his body to tip back, while one arm waved around as the other tried to find purchase on the wall next to him.

Just as he was sure he was about to tumble down the stone steps and break his neck, a pale hand grabbed him by his collar and pulled. His body fell forward, to his humiliation landing in a bizarre, almost embrace from Malfoy, and his thoughts were screaming that the bastard had just fucking saved his goddamn life. If that all wasn’t bad enough, Harry’s horror grew to exponential levels as he realized that his groin was now pressing quite firmly into Malfoy’s hip – the evidence of his arousal completely exposed.

Malfoy looked at him with wide eyes and slightly parted lips, obviously beyond the ability to even disguise how incredibly shocked he was to find Harry in such a state. Now the falling to his death didn’t seem like such a bad fate. Harry wondered if that was still an option. Especially when Malfoy’s face slowly transformed into one of glee – looking like a child that had just been thrown into the largest candy story in existence.

“Let go of me,” he said, pulling his hips back. He knew it was too late, but damn if he was going to just stand here being tormented. In fact, he was seriously considering using an Obliviate spell, consequences be damned.

“Well, well, well, what have we here? Looks like I was a bit off the mark, hmm?” Malfoy’s grip on Harry’s shoulders tightened as he pulled the smaller boy forward, slipping his thigh in between Harry’s legs. Despite himself, the slow drag against his erection sent a wave of pleasure throughout his entire body.

“Get the fuck off of me,” he snarled, hoping his voice didn’t sound as strained as it had felt. In the next instance he found himself being pushed against the wall once more, that damn thigh still just pressing in between his legs as Malfoy leaned in until his hair was brushing against Harry’s cheek.

“Shh, it’s okay. This’ll just be between the two of us.” His voice was unnervingly tender, almost like a different version of the one he had used earlier with his owl. “It feels good, doesn’t it?”

Harry bucked as the pressure increased, teasingly sending out jolts of pleasure up his spine. The resistance of his body melted slowly as the leg pulled back, only to be replaced by a pale hand cupping him. As the fingers skillful rubbed and pressed the bulging fabric, a fog rolled into his mind, covering any panicking thoughts with the blanket of pleasure.

Somehow, Harry’s grip on the blond changed from pushing away to pulling closer, his body trying it’s very best to keep the source of stimulation as near as it could. He was pretty sure, on some level, that everything had changed much too fast for his comfort. Not to mention the fact that they were in a completely public area and anyone could come waltzing up these steps – or down – at any moment. Little whimpering sounds rumbled in the back of his throat when Malfoy squeezed the head of his cock, sending sparks up his spine and in front of his eyes. He couldn’t remember ever being this aroused before – it was frightening and thrilling all at once.

“That’s right,” Malfoy whispered in his ear. “I’ll make you feel really good.”

It may have just been his imagination, but Harry thought he heard a little bit of desperation lacing Malfoy's voice. Although, when he felt his robes being pulled apart and heard the teeth of his zipper separating, he realized thought was completely overrated. He closed his eyes tightly as he felt the first warm brush of skin against skin. Maybe he should be protesting more – in fact he was almost sure of it – but it was hard to protest when another bloke was pulling your prick and stroking in the most erotic of ways.

“I-I...” Harry didn’t know what he was going to say, but all the air rushed out of his lungs a moment later anyway as a thumb dug into the tip of his cock. His head lolled forward, finding rest on the blond’s shoulder.

“Shh, it’ll be our little secret,” Malfoy said. When his hand began to pump and squeeze, Harry was completely lost, his body crumpling forward as something hard began to coil his gut. He panted against the expensive fabric of Malfoy’s robe, his hands holding onto the body in front of him for fear of toppling over and crashing down the stairs.

There was something awkward about it all, Malfoy didn’t seem to be all that experienced in wanking off another man, his rhythm kept slowing, and his grip was inconsistent, but hell if it wasn’t the best thing Harry had ever felt. He’d never had someone else do anything like this to him before, and although he didn’t particularly like the fact that it was Malfoy, there was still an exciting and arousing aspect to having this done.

He was in no position to protest at the first wet touch to his neck, and in fact, the licks and bites that followed only added to the building pleasure within his body. He rocked his hips into the deliciously tight grip of Malfoy’s hand, no longer trying to hold back his moans as they only seemed to spur the other on. Despite how very wrong he knew this was – on multiple levels – he found himself wanting it so furiously that he gripped Malfoy’s body closer.

The other teen began thrusting against his thigh, and Harry tried not to think about the hardness as the blond began to pant against his neck. The pulls and squeezes to his cock became faster, harder, and bloody hell Harry’s whole body was arching off the wall he was coming and coming hard, his cock pumping out spurt after spurt of his orgasm into that pale hand.

When Harry was completely and utterly spent, his body sagged forward, only to be caught by Malfoy. A moment later, the blond’s thrusts against him became erratic until he was tensing too, and Harry felt the cock twitching against his leg, even through the fabric. As he shut his eyes tightly, wishing he could shut his ears as well from the orgasmic cry, Harry felt his own cock squirt out one last drop.

He waited until both their breath had evened out before pushing the blond off of himself, a panicked energy creeping into his body. He avoided looking at Malfoy as he tucked himself in and did up his pants. Then, without another word, he bolted down the stairs, running so fast he didn’t know what burned more – his legs, or his lungs.

The worst part was that it scared him, yes, positively terrified him, but he knew he wanted to do it again.

***

Two weeks later, after religiously avoiding the blond, Harry got a note that apparently meant he was going to get that chance.

***

Walking down to the abandoned classroom, thanks to his invisibility cloak, was extremely easy. The Marauder's Map made it possible to keep a good distance from Filch or his cat Mrs. Norris, and therefore the only person he’d had to creep around was Nott, who had been mumbling angrily to himself as he paced two hallways down from Dumbledore’s office.

He thought it must be easier for him to sneak out at night than it was for Malfoy, although the other had his prefect badge. Harry couldn’t deny he was worried that this was still some twisted way for Malfoy to ‘catch him out after hours’ and report it to Snape. He really hoped the hook-nosed git wasn’t in that room instead.

When he entered the room, however, there was no Snape in sight. Only a very erotic display of Malfoy sitting on the newly sheeted mattress – green, of course – with a satin bathrobe dangling off one shoulder. His wand remained pointed in one hand until Harry had shut the door and removed the cloak, hoping he didn’t look as nervous as he felt. A blue spell shot past him, followed by a metallic clicking he realized meant a locking charm had been cast on the door.

“No need to draw this out,” Malfoy said, his voice low and throaty. “Come over here and we can begin.”

Harry stumbled forward like a brainless goon, his eyes fixed on the shapely shoulder revealed by the half fallen robe while a faint voice whispered somewhere in the back of his mind how bad an idea this whole thing was. For the past three days, he’d been alternatively adamantly agreeing with it, and completely ignoring it when he remembered the intense feeling of his best fucking orgasm of his life. Now, seeing the miles of milky skin teasingly hidden behind the satin robe – also green, he might add – he decided he was going to completely ignore it.

As he kneeled on the slick fabric of the sheets, Harry’s hand shakily reached out. Malfoy did nothing to stop him from pulling the robe open further, letting his eyes devour all that delicious skin stretched across lithe muscles in his stomach. Harry never knew he could ever feel so attracted to the Slytherin. Maybe he was under a love spell?

“We’ll go slow,” Malfoy announced, suddenly sounding a lot less confident then he looked. “We can start with kissing.”

Harry frowned right before a pair of pink lips attached themselves to his. If Malfoy thought he was going to narrate this whole bloody thing, then maybe the brunette should rethink this. As a tongue slipped between his lips however, and licked against the roof of his mouth, he figured he might as well give this a little longer.

Surprisingly, although the kiss was good – very good, he amended as he moaned – it was far from perfect. Neither boy seemed to know how to angle the mouths just right, or how to apply the perfect pressure so that their lips weren’t being squished, but were also receiving a tantalizing press. Harry started to wonder if, despite Malfoy’s suggestive appearance, maybe the other wizard only had about as much experience doing this sort of thing as Harry. Not that he was complaining. Far from it, he was moaning every time their tongues found one another to slide against, enjoying the different textures and slickness.

As the kiss continued, Malfoy’s hands slowly began working their way through Harry’s clothes, starting with his button down shirt. Every new inch of exposed skin was teased with attention, smooth hands sliding over the different ridges and dips of Harry’s muscles. When they playfully, if just a tad too hard, pinched at his nipples, Harry whimpered and pressed his body further into the touches.

The blond seemed satisfied with just leaving Harry’s shirt mostly unbuttoned as his hands traveled downwards, grazing over the fabric of Harry’s pajama bottoms, causing him to break the kiss and arch his body into that wonderful touch. He whimpered as Malfoy cupped him firmly, squeezing as he rubbed up and down. His other pale hand trailed teasingly down his chest, leaving a path of heated skin in its wake.

Harry fell back, his arms resting above him as he tried to control the way his breath was coming in desperate pants. He could feel the one hand still working on his swollen erection, the other now dragging itself up his trembling thigh. When he felt it cup his balls, the erotic sensations washed over his body, causing him to moan a lot louder than he ever would have liked. Although at the moment he couldn’t have cared less.

“You’re really going to like this,” Malfoy whispered huskily.

Well that’s a big duh, Harry thought as he felt his pants being pulled down. Shivers ran down his spine at the thought of a warm hand touching him directly. From his knowledge of how wonderful the skin against skin had felt last time, he worried he wasn’t going to last long.

He waited, somewhat impatiently as Malfoy shuffled around, then felt something entirely different than what he was expecting: a hot breath against his member. His gaze shot down, shocked as he saw Malfoy’s blond head inches from his jutting cock. At the first swipe of tongue, Harry groaned as he fell back, jolts of pleasure shooting through every nerve ending of his body.

That wet tongue continued to tease him, flicking back and forth over the tip of his erection before licking a slow swipe down to the root and back again. He felt it running over the vein at the base of his cock while a thumb dug itself into his slit and his eyes rolled helplessly back into his skull.

As lips wrapped around the head, Harry’s hand automatically shot down to weave itself into blond locks, pushing down. A moment later, Malfoy obliged him, but as his mouth sank it wasn’t quite what Harry was expecting.

“Ouch,” he said, closing his eyes at the slight twinge of pain from the other’s teeth scrapping accidentally. Malfoy pulled up and drew in a quick breath and Harry gripped his hair tighter. “Do you know what the hell you’re doing?”

“Shut up, Potter. I can do this,” he said, sounding more unsure than defensive.

Harry kept his eyes closed as his fingers ran over the smoothness of the sheets underneath. Malfoy had completely pulled off him, and his cock was really starting to ache from need of release. He realized he shouldn’t have said that, and wondered what he had to do to get the blond to continue what that amazing mouth had been doing a moment before.

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “It was really good, keep going.”

There was an agonizingly long pause, before he once again felt a timid hand on his hot member. Then, finally that wet tongue was back, swirling around his head and digging into the slit. He did nothing to hold back his moans as he was engulfed in wet heat, a hand working up and down his shaft at any parts the mouth and tongue couldn’t reach.

He felt something wet and cold brush against his entrance, but when it did nothing more than start to swirl around it, he found he didn’t particularly care. Instead he concentrated on the brilliant, blinding pleasure shooting up his spine as Malfoy’s mouth sucked his stiff member. However, an instant later his attention was brought back to that finger as it slipped inside him. It was an odd feeling, slightly uncomfortable as his insides were rubbed gently.

Really, he didn’t know what the hell Malfoy was doing, but it sure was distracting from the good stuff. Just as Harry was about to demand he stop, that slender digit touched something inside that sent the most intense wave of pleasure he’d ever felt surging through his body. His hips bucked forward as he whimpered, and Malfoy must have known he’d found something, because then he attacked that spot fiercely, pressing into it again and again. Blond strands of hair were being tugged as Harry arched his body, and he never wanted to hear himself make the noises he currently was ever again, but at the moment he wasn’t going to complain.

Harry couldn’t even pinpoint the start of his orgasm, but he was throwing his head back and crying out as his cock pulsed, emptying itself inside the warmth of Malfoy’s mouth as that pale finger kept mercilessly attacking that spot again and again.

As soon as the tremors calmed, Harry’s weak body fell back onto the mattress as his desperate lungs sucked in as much air as they could. Damn, but his orgasms were so incredibly powerful when it came to doing stuff with Malfoy. He didn’t feel like he had any energy left and decided the other teen must be a goddamn incubus or something.

He was too exhausted to move away when he felt something wet on his neck. For the moment, he allowed Malfoy to trail kisses along any exposed skin, even going so far as to hum contentedly when that talented mouth sucked on the sensitive spot right behind his ear. In some bizarre way, the tender kisses were almost like those of a lover, though Harry knew that even thinking that was a waste of time. Malfoy was just having a little bit of fun with him, he was sure of it.

A moment later it was Malfoy who was whimpering as he pressed his hips into Harry’s thigh. The wet hardness showed that he hadn’t dealt with his own arousal.

Before he lost his nerve, Harry slowly moved his hand down until just the tips of his fingers graced over Malfoy’s hard cock. The effect was instantaneous, causing Malfoy to gasp and push into that touch, all the while his mouth never straying too far from its work on Harry’s skin. As his tan hand palmed the hardness underneath it, he found himself thinking that this really wasn’t so bad. Actually, he really liked how much power he found himself having over Malfoy. His fingers went up to squeeze the tip before sliding down to lightly fondle the balls. The Slytherin’s whole body was trembling as he began to rub more vigorously.

It was a surprisingly short amount of time before he felt a hot liquid splashing in the palm of his hand. Had Malfoy really been that aroused from giving Harry head? The blond leaned in and captured Harry’s mouth in a searing kiss as he road out the length of his orgasm.

Their rough kiss continued long after Malfoy’s body stopped shuddering – tongues sliding against one another while hands threaded through hair and gripped almost desperately at shoulders and arms. A distant part of Harry realized he should probably be more careful than this, he was letting his feelings develop and grow into something they had no right to, but for the moment, he allowed himself to enjoy this.

***

Malfoy never told anyone about what they did. No articles in The Daily Prophet, no snickering Slytherins in the great hall, seemingly nothing. Although Harry didn’t exactly sleep easy during the night when he thought of the fact Malfoy could run off and tell the world at the drop of a hat, he had shown that up until this point, he was somewhat trustworthy. It was for this reason that Harry thought it would be okay to reward the blond by showing him the Half Blood Prince’s book.

“This- it has- look at all this!” Malfoy proclaimed excitedly.

It might have been worth it for the amusement he got out of the whole deal. He’d never seen the Slytherin so completely flustered – well, okay, maybe he had, but those were for completely different reasons. Malfoy was acting like a kid at Christmas, getting his very first broom after dreaming about it all year.

Instead of what he was already thinking of as their classroom, today they had met in the back of the library. He was a little surprised the Slytherin had agreed to meet with him in the first place, for the past week he had been giving Harry the cold shoulder after Gryffindors had won the Quidditch match. The last he’d seen of the blond was when he’d been down on his knees in front of Malfoy, getting his mouth fucked. They’d parted that night with Malfoy dominating a bruising but passionate kiss, but he started avoiding Harry the next day.

The school was mostly empty anyway, being that the upperclassmen had all gone off to Hogsmeade, including Ron and Hermione. Harry didn’t think he could stomach being around their newfound, open attraction for each other. When they showed affection, it was manageable, but the other day in the common room, he was pretty sure his friend was being felt up on the couch while he was still with them. After that he decided to let them burn out some of the excitement from their new relationship on their own, or at least until they stopped not so secretively groping each other in his presence.

“It’s got spells, too,” Harry said, leaning closer Malfoy so that he could flip a few pages back. The blond’s smell was really becoming something familiar to his senses, and he couldn’t help but allow himself to turn just a little into the crook of his pale neck. He pointed to the scribble that read Sectumsempra. “I’ve tried out a few, like Muffliato, and they’re all brilliant.”

After getting a good whiff, Harry looked up and was surprised to see Malfoy’s joyous smile turned into a very deep frown. For a moment cold liquid trailed down his throat and chest as he thought he’d crossed the line.

“You shouldn’t use them without knowing for sure what they do.” Malfoy said, and to Harry’s secret joy tilted his shoulder down enough for the brunette to rest closer to his body more comfortably.

“Now you sound like Hermione,” he mumbled.

“Well, it’s true,” Malfoy said, continuing to flip through the pages. “Maybe we could try them out on something else first. I wish I knew a way into the kitchens.”

Harry’s whole body tensed up. Was he thinking about testing them on house elves?

As if reading his mind, Malfoy rolled his eyes and said, “That’s not what I meant. I was thinking we could steal a bunch of gourds to practise things on. How much of a monster do you think I am, Potter?”

Harry refrained from mentioning how abusive he’d witnessed Lucius Malfoy had been to Dobby and simply shrugged. “If that’s the case, I might be able to get my hands on some.”

Narrowing his gray eyes, Malfoy tilted his head to the side. “You know how to get into the kitchen, don’t you?”

“I’m not telling you all of my secrets, Malfoy.” That was a sobering thought. How much had the Slytherin found out about him? How much could he use against Harry? His thoughts were distracted a moment later, however, at how cute – yes, he was actually thinking cute – Malfoy looked with a newly formed pout on his lips. He couldn’t help himself as a small chuckle rumbled in his chest.

“Fine. You can get the gourds all by yourself then. Next week we can go behind one of the green houses and practise the spells out this book. After we’ve done our Potions homework, of course.”

Harry glanced over to him. They certainly were starting to spend a lot of time together. Although lately he had been thinking about what their strange relationship could be termed as, it was the first time he’d actually thought the word ‘friends’. Was that only a delusion of his?

Startled as something warm touched his thigh, he looked down to see Malfoy’s pale hand spreading closer to his lap. The blond continued to idly flip through the book as if nothing was happening, but Harry thought he could see a playful gleam in his silver eyes. The fingers began rubbing sensuously into his inner thigh, creeping closer to the quickly hardening bulge in his pants.

“Malfoy,” Harry hissed warningly, but the blond remained apparently engrossed in the textbook. This was entirely the wrong place to do something like this. It would be bad enough if someone came in and saw them sitting peacefully together at the same table in the library, but to actually be seen doing this would surely make any intruder die of shock. “Stop it.”

“Relax, no one’s around.” Despite his apparent focus remaining on the book, the corner of Malfoy’s lips twisted into an evil smirk. Just as Harry was getting ready to reach under the table and stop this foolishness, the warm hand had reached the bulge and started to squeeze teasingly.

“Nnuh...” Harry grunted as his weight sank to be supported by his elbows on the table, his head falling down until his chin touched his chest. How the hell Malfoy always reduced him so quickly to a quivering sack of sensitized nerves with barely a touch, Harry would never know. His cock jumped and swelled as that hand continued to work over the fabric, pulling up and down in firm, quick strokes.

“M-malfoy,” he whispered. It had meant to be a chiding, but it came out more of a moan.

“That’s right, good boy,” the Slytherin said smugly. Harry’s fingers dug into the wood surface beneath, turning the knuckles white. Unconsciously, his legs spread farther apart as his hips began twitching into the firm rubs. All the while, Malfoy continued to lazily flip pages, the sadistic bastard.

Just as Harry felt something start to coil at the base of his spine, the most horrifying sounds of footsteps had both boys freezing. Hermione’s curly head of hair popped out from behind a bookshelf, smiling cheerful as she spotted them.

“He’s over here,” she whispered rather loudly, and Harry thought he heard Madam Pince hushing them somewhere in the distance. To make his situation worse, it wasn’t long before Ron was coming into view, wrapping his arms around Hermione as he looked first from Harry, to Malfoy, then down to the Half Blood Prince’s book.

“Er-” Harry said, feeling a blush creeping onto his cheeks, “You guys are back early.”

“It just didn’t feel right being there without you,” Hermione said quietly.

Harry expected Ron to get angry, or at least complain about him showing the book to Malfoy, but the other wizard surprised him by merely raising a questioning eyebrow and leaving it at that, for which he was very grateful. He didn’t think he could handle a fight between his friend and... that indefinable ‘whatever’ Malfoy was to him.

“So you stayed here too?” Ron said, looking now to the blond who had, if possible, gotten even closer to Harry in the past moment. Their shoulders were beyond touching at this point, leaving their entire side in contact with each other. Not to mention, Malfoy’s goddamn hand was still on his cock.

“I would think that was rather obvious,” Malfoy said, his voice not quite as nasty as it might have been.

“But now you’ve been left out over the latest Slytherin craze,” Ron said, rather smugly. The body next to Harry’s tensed briefly, but his face remained an expressionless mask as he elegantly shrugged his shoulders.

“I am never the drooling idiot that does something just because everyone else is.”

“Uh,” Harry said, wondering if it was possible to sneak his own hand under the table and break Malfoy’s arm. He turned to Hermione who had a pensive look on her face as she gazed at their touching shoulders. He’d rather not know what she was thinking. “What is the latest craze, anyway?”

“There was a new store that opened up last weekend,” Ron said. “It sells exotic pets, and almost all the Slytherins, even first years, bought one.”

Harry raised an eyebrow while secretively trying to jab Malfoy’s side with his elbow. “Exotic pets? Like African lizards?”

“I don’t really know,” he said. “I heard Pansy Parkinson bought an antelope and Nott bought a bobcat. At least, that’s what Seamus has been saying. Who the hell buys an antelope as a pet?”

Hermione huffed. “I just know all the responsibilities will be pushed over onto their poor house elves, too. It’s not like they can care for them here at school.”

The elbow jab failed horribly, only ending in Malfoy feeling the need to get revenge by trailing his fingers down and cupping Harry’s sensitive balls. Green eyes widened as the blush on his cheeks spread to his whole face.

There was a pause of deafening silence, and Harry really hoped they hadn’t noticed anything.

“Anyway, we can talk about all this later,” Ron said finally, pulling at Hermione’s shoulder.

“Y-yeah,” Hermione mumbled.

Fuck. Harry could just tell from their averted eyes that... just fuck, this was not happening. He turned his head to give Malfoy a withering glare, but was met with a completely emotionless face. The other teen looked almost challengingly at him, as if daring Harry to deny what was happening between them.

“Er- you guys don’t seem very surprised,” Harry mumbled, his beet-red face turning down. He heard the heavier body of Ron shifting on the spot, followed by Hermione clearing her throat.

“Well, um,” she said. “He tends to leave a lot of marks on your neck. It wasn’t hard to figure out.”

Oh Holy Fuck. Harry was pretty sure it was entirety possible to die of embarrassment, because he was only seconds away from doing so. He hadn’t even thought about all the damn marks Malfoy must have been leaving on his neck. Why hadn’t anyone said something to him? Was that why the girls had been giggling more than usual around him lately?

“We’ll just, uh, go see what Hagrid is up to,” Hermione said. He could hear their footfalls getting softer in the distance, but he didn’t dare look up until a few more seconds past.

“That certainly was funny,” Malfoy said, his hand starting to rub again. Harry growled low in his throat as he pushed the other away by his shoulders.

“Bastard,” he mumbled, reaching to grab the book and using it to cover his bulge in his pants as he stood.

“Oh come off it, Potter. Don’t you have a sense of humor?”

“Fuck off,” Harry hissed, turning around and storming out.

“Potter,” Malfoy called after him, and this time he was sure he heard Pince shushing them in the distance. “Harry!”

The brunette practically ran all the way to Gryffindor tower, feelings of humiliation quickly filtering into anger towards Malfoy. No matter how much he heard the other wizard calling his name, he didn’t look back once the entire way to the Gryffindor dorms.

Whatever he and Malfoy were, they certainly were not friends.

***

It was the sixth, no maybe seventh time they had met up like this, on a Thursday night in the abandoned classroom. Every time thus far Harry had certainly been nervous, but nothing could compare to how he was feeling now. Inside his chest, his heart beat to the rhythm of a galloping horse and his lunges felt as if a large snake had coiled around them and was currently squeezing. He wasn’t sure, since Malfoy was always so bloody confusing whenever he spoke – how could Harry ever truly take anything he said seriously when he still felt like this was one big prank? – but he thought they were going to try going farther than they had. At least, the blond had casually mentioned he had ordered something from Hogsmeade, and when Harry had first heard that, he’d just shrugged and said to bring it along. In his defense, though, his mind had been in a hazy post-orgasm state, so the word ‘lube’ hadn’t even triggered any thoughts at the time. It was only after Malfoy was practically skipping out of the room with a malicious grin that he realized what he had just agreed to.

Having spent so much time with the blond in recent days, Harry felt he was qualified to guess as to how Malfoy’s thought process would be. With his stubborn pride, he’d no doubt expect it to be Harry who did the, er- receiving during the act, at least for this first time. Harry had resigned himself to that because the last thing he wanted to do before having a bloke up his arse was for them to be all worked up and angry after a fight.

On his way here, he hadn’t even bothered with trying to bust the Slytherins who were all gathered in an abandoned hallway, apparently in the middle of planning to sneak in a bunch of their new, exotic pets. Harry had briefly thought about going to Ron or Hermione, so they could use their prefect authority to get the lot of them in trouble, but he was just too nervous right now to think about anything other than Malfoy. Besides, according to rumor some of those pets were huge, so he didn’t see how they could hide them anyway. Bunch of snobs.

Harry pushed the door open slowly, his eyes going straight to the figure lying on the mattress. As usual, Malfoy put his wand away once Harry shut the door and removed his invisibility cloak. After casting a locking spell, Harry didn’t waste any time in walking over to join the other wizard on the floor. The moment his knees touched the soft fabric of the mattress, pale hands were already picking their way through his clothes, finding the skin underneath for further exploration.

Although most of the time there were no longer any shy hesitations when it came to touching each other, the nerves jumping around in Harry’s stomach caused him to believe tonight might be different. They worked apart each other’s clothes until they were naked, mouths unashamedly tasting any body part they wished. Harry had learned a long time ago that Malfoy was partial for his neck, and that he loved to explore any and all milky skin he could get his mouth on.

Panting, he lay back as Malfoy’s hands spread his legs apart, every nerve jumping anxiously in his body. After stroking the hard member a few times, the blond leaned down and took Harry in his mouth. He’d really gotten good at this since the first time, knowing how to work his tongue against the underside of Harry’s cock while simultaneously sucking the brunette’s brains out.

It wasn’t long before two lubed fingers were pumping inside of him, skillfully stretching while at the same time heightening his pleasure. He moaned every time one of them teasingly brushed against his prostrate, shooting sparks off in front of his eyes. He felt his gut tightening as his orgasm approached, and stopped the blond with a warning tug of his hair.

“Ready?” Malfoy asked, his cock glistening as he rubbed lube over it. Harry realized with an arousing shock that he’d never seen him touch himself like that, and found the sight of that pale hand rubbing his red, swollen cock extremely erotic. He made a mental note to make sure and have Malfoy give him a private show sometime in the near future. Now wasn’t the time, though, so he nodded his head instead.

Despite everything that they had done together in the past, it was extremely intimate to have Malfoy leaning over him, slowly pushing his cock inside. Harry had known it was going to be painful, but he didn’t have much chance to think about it as Malfoy continued to pump his cock with one hand. The other teen paused when he was rooted all the way inside, staring down at Harry with an expression close to awe.

“Feel good?” Harry said a bit smugly, squeezing playfully.

“D-don’t.” Malfoy moaned, giving his cock an equally tight squeeze. Harry’s eyes fluttered shut as he moaned. When he felt lips on his own, he returned the kiss, trying to ignore the uncomfortable fullness he was currently feeling.

“I’m gonna move now,” Malfoy whispered against his mouth. Harry nodded his head and prepared himself.

Malfoy withdrew slowly, then just as slowly pushed back in. Each time he repeated the process, Harry started to feel better. By the time Malfoy had established a little bit of a faster pace, he was moaning continuously.

He fought to keep his eyes open, enjoying the view of the body moving above him. Every part of Malfoy’s pale skin was flushed – his cheeks, neck, shoulders, the tips of his ears. It was both very sexy, and just the smallest bit cute.

“Nn, you’re really tight,” Malfoy said huskily.

“Wait a moment,” Harry said. He had an idea but he wasn’t feeling brave enough to try it while the other wizard was thrusting into to him. He was still a little tender down there, regardless of whether it was feeling good or not, and he knew shifting into the wrong angle would probably be very painful. Malfoy glanced down at him with a ‘you’ve-got-to-be-out-of-your-damn-mind’ look, but never the less did pause.

“You’re changing your mind now?” he said, sounding almost panicked.

Carefully, Harry lifted his legs and locked them behind the blond’s back, obviously surprising Malfoy in a good way who looked extremely relieved as he bent down to nibble at his bottom lip.

“Good.” He pulled out, and Harry felt the hot slide of Malfoy’s cock dragging against his inner walls before it was shoved back, touching gold.

“Yes,” Harry hissed, all feeling of pain or soreness quickly replaced by pleasure as Malfoy started pounding into him, hitting that spot with deadly accuracy. Harry threw his head back, arching his body off the mattress as he greedily shoved back into Malfoy’s thrusts. Jolts of exquisite pleasure shot up his spine and shattered off into the rest of his body, sparking his nerve endings to life. The hard coiling in his gut began to tighten, signifying he really wasn’t going to last long, but his hands were gripping the sheets too tightly to let go.

Malfoy was moaning at every inward thrust, mumbling something incoherent underneath his breath that Harry was much too busy to care about. He could feel the muscles in his body tensing along with his balls drawing up, and when Malfoy’s sweaty hand wrapped itself around his desperately twitching cock, it only took one sofuckinggood stroke before a fog of ecstasy rolled through his mind and his world exploded.

“Shit,” Malfoy said as Harry’s cock emptied itself between their stomachs, pumping out his pleasure in high arches of white fluid. Through his orgasmic haze, the brunette could feel Malfoy coming inside of him, and somehow it was the most intimate thing he’d ever felt in his entire life.

He found that he really liked a sense of connection with another human, even if it was just Malfoy. Or maybe, because it was Malfoy. He didn’t know.

It had been an embarrassingly short time, but at least it had been an embarrassingly short time for both of them. The blond collapsed on his chest, his panting breath teasing the flushed skin on Harry’s neck. They lay there for a while, waiting for their natural body rhythms to even out, and not until Harry came back to his senses did he realize he was gripping Malfoy’s shoulders tightly. He couldn’t bring himself to let go.

“Same time next week, right?” Harry asked, tucking his face into the blond hair that was tickling his nose. Malfoy waited a moment before answering.

“What do you think we’re doing?”

Harry blinked. Where had that come from? And what the hell did Malfoy mean, what they were doing? The Slytherin was just using him, right? “We’re just having a little bit of fun,” he said, sounding a bit unsure.

He winced when Malfoy lifted his head to show narrowed silver eyes, realizing that it hadn’t been the best thing to say.

“You only think me as a little bit of fun?”

No, it was the opposite, wasn’t it? Closing his eyes, Harry tried to think of what he should say. It wasn’t easy when his brain was still all mushy. “Of course not.”

“Save it, Potter,” Malfoy said, as he stood up and threw his robe around his shoulders. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Malfoy,” Harry said, getting to his feet – despite the twinge of pain in his lower back – and searching for wherever the hell his boxers had gone. “You’re overreacting.”

“I don’t think so,” a disembodied voice said. Harry growled low in his throat.

“Give that back!”

His plea went unheeded as the door appeared to open itself. He tried to get there in time, but it slammed before he could grab at the Slytherin. He cursed as his fist pounded against the door, fully aware that he couldn’t run after an invisible Malfoy while he was butt-naked.

Shit, how the fuck had everything gone so bad so quickly?

***

It had been a whole week since Harry had royally fucked things up with the blond. Even though he’d been ignored the whole time, on Thursday night Harry still made his way down to their classroom, a small glimmer of hope dancing through him.

Thanks to the Slytherin still having his invisibility cloak – and wasn’t that just the slightest bit frightening – Harry had to be extra cautious as he walked his path. He was weary of any noises, nervously looking over his shoulder from time to time as a paranoid feeling of being followed bubbled inside. He was glad when he reached the door to the classroom, slipping inside quickly and shutting the door behind him.

The first thing that caught his attention was the empty mattress on the floor, but he glanced away immediately after as something cold gripped his heart. Not feeling any desire to be near that right now, he instead chose to sit on the old teacher’s desk pushed against the north wall of the room. He sat on the edge facing away from the wall and crossed his arms in front of him, waiting.

When almost an instant later he heard the clicking of the door, his heart nearly leaped out of his chest. An anxious energy buzzed through his body as his brain seemingly chose that exact moment to leak all useful thoughts straight out of his ears. He tensed, not even daring to turn around in fear that he would somehow blow it even more than he already had.

“Expelliarmus!”

He felt his wand ripped from his robe pocket, followed by the sound of clattering wood against stone. Just like that, any nervousness was replaced by aggravation.

“I’m not in the mood, Malfoy,” he said, doing nothing to hide the annoyance rumbling in the base of his words.

“Wrong Slytherin,” a very non-Malfoy voice said.

Harry only caught a glimpse of dark hair before a spell hit dead in the chest.

***

It’s a loathsome experience, being tied up and helpless in the face of a Death Eater – and there was no doubt that Theodore Nott was in fact just that; Harry had seen the mark when the bastard had rolled up his sleeves earlier. Harry had certainly faced death in his life before – on multiple occasions – but never had it seemed so utterly hopeless. The dark spell that was cast on his wrists and ankles hadn’t hurt at all, leaving behind just a small thread of red he could barely see, blurred as if underneath his skin. When he had been released from Nott’s paralyzing spell, thus gaining back movement, he quickly found himself no longer able to control his hands. He couldn’t make a fist, no matter how hard he tried, all he could manage was a sloppy swing of his arm, feeling somehow a lot heaver than it should. Now he couldn’t even do that, thanks to the ropes binding him to the classroom's desk.

Harry assumed since he couldn’t – just couldn’t, he was inexplicably unable to – curl his toes that his feet would be in a similar condition, thus he couldn’t even run. There was a numbness in his hands and feet that was so much more frightening than pain could ever be.

Nott sat on the corner of the desk, looking everywhere and anywhere other than Harry himself, while in his hands he held Harry’s wand, twirling it every once and a while with a contemplative frown on his face. He hadn’t said a word, save for the horrible spell times four plus a silencing charm on the room, and Harry hadn’t known what to say either. He doubted begging for Nott to let him go would do anything. He’d never pleaded for his life before, he wasn’t going to start now.

He started to think about all the people he was letting down. What would Ron and the rest of the Weasleys do? Would Hermione be smart enough to escape from it all? Something in his gut twisted when he thought Malfoy might go running off to Voldemort now, although there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t have been like that regardless. God dammit, it figured that even when lying helpless and waiting for his impending death, the blond would worm his way into Harry’s thoughts. Small wires wrapped around his heart and squeezed at the thought of dying while being on such bad terms. It was positively ridiculous, he’d hated the bastard for nearly six years of his life, and Malfoy probably didn’t give a damn what happened to him, but somehow that all felt so insignificant to him now.

He tried to shift his shoulders, just to be able to do something, but the ropes across his collarbone were too tight and wouldn’t give at all. The only way he was able to move was back and forth underneath the scratchy rope. Even if by some miracle, he managed to make it out of this situation, he didn’t even know if the deceptively thin threads of red magic across his wrists meant he’d never be able to cast magic with a wand again. Through all the panic, fear, and worries, there was a detachment that he felt, bringing with it a false sense of calmness. Harry assumed that was what it felt like to give up all hope.

“So this wand is like the Lords,” Nott said, speaking for the first time. “I wonder if he’ll let me keep it as a trophy.”

Harry snorted. The first thing Voldemort would do is destroy it, or if he was going to keep the wand, he’d probably turn it into a horcrux and bury it a thousand miles underground. The last thing he’d do was give it to someone whom he probably looked on as nothing but a worthless little follower.

“What’s so funny?” Nott said in a slightly higher pitched tone, still keeping his eyes averted from Harry’s body.

“The Dark Lord will reward me handsomely for this,” he said defensively. “You weren’t even my mission, and yet here you are. I’ll be his number one after this.”

“Maybe,” Harry said, glad the talk was starting to distract him from his downward spiraling thoughts. “But once he’s done with you, he’ll throw you away.”

Nott stilled and stayed silent for a beat before continuing to swirl his wand. “Shut up, you don’t know anything.”

“I know more about Voldemort,” Nott flinched horribly, “than you do.”

He received a sideways glance from the other wizard, whose eyes were quickly averted to the door. “It won’t be long now. My father will be here soon to help me sneak you out.”

Harry’s head jerked so that he was looking more directly at his captor. “You think an escaped prisoner of Azkaban is just going to walk in here?”

Nott shrugged. “It’ll be easier with all the chaos from the other Death Eaters.”

There were more Death Eaters? A heavy stone seemed to slide painfully down his throat.

“What did you do to me?” Harry said, hoping his voice wasn’t as strained as it felt.

Nott remained silent, watching from beneath his dark fringe as Harry’s wand twirled in his hands. The quietness in the room was so heavy that Harry’s heartbeat and breathing were deafening in their panicked rhythm. He shifted his head to look over at his captor, noticing that although the other teen’s magical aura had a similar hue to Hermione’s amber one, his was much muddier. When Harry concentrated hard enough to see the core and network of magic running through his body, noticing how incredibly dull it was, he found for the first time that he thought someone's magic actually looked very ugly.

“Stop staring at me,” Not snapped, tucking his head in and curling his shoulders like he was a turtle retreating into his shell.

“What did you do to me?” Harry repeated, his tone just as harsh.

There was a loud clack as Nott slammed both wands onto the surface of the desk. “I severed the tendons in your wrists and ankles.

Harry’s breath hitched. Severed? As in fucking cut his tendons all the way through?

“It’s...” Nott mumbled, “It won’t be long now anyway. It’ll be over soon.”

As if on cue, a metallic click of the doorknob rang out, signifying the arrival of someone new. Harry’s heart quivered rapidly against his ribcage as Nott sprang to his feet, anxiously pointing his wand. From Harry’s limited ability to turn his neck, all he could see was the top of a head, draped in the hood of a dark robe. Something unpleasant twisted in his gut as his eyes fell upon the sliver of visible forehead, adorned with a Death Eater mask.

What Nott had said about the Death Eaters must have been true. Did that mean the staff members were fighting them off? How the fuck did they get in the school in the first place? He really hoped that Ron, Hermione, and all his other friends were safe somewhere. And, he could admit to himself, he was equally as worried for Malfoy.

“Father,” Nott said in an almost panicked voice. “What are you doing, shut the door already.”

Another beat of silence passed, however, before Harry finally heard the door close with a snap. Seven weighty thumps – footfalls from heavy boots – echoed before the wide figure came fully into Harry’s view. Slowly, a scarred hand came up to tug the black hood down and pull off the white and silver mask. The face that was revealed was an almost exact replica of his son’s, only having a noticeable differentiating feature in the obvious passage of time. The jaw was harder and covered in coarse stubble, while the hair stood sprinkled with gray. There weren’t any laugh lines around his mouth, but the worry lines on his forehead and in the corner of his eyes told more about the kind of life he lived than any words ever could. Harry noticed the magical aura was just as dull and ugly as his son’s. He looked up into the eyes that loomed over him and thought they seemed especially lifeless.

“We should hurry,” Nott said, rushing over to his dad’s side. Harry just barely caught the small movement of his hand slipping something into his robe pocket. It wasn't hard to figure out what it was when he only held up one wand afterwards. “I’ve cast your spell, but we should take every precaution. Potter’s shown how lucky he can be in the past.”

Nott Sr. nodded his head, again his movement excruciatingly slow, even slightly jerky as if it was somehow against his instinct. As his head turned, however, Harry’s eyes caught something reflective on his forehead and, after careful focus, Harry realized there was a trace of navy-blue magic hovering over his left temple. A memory spell?

“Father?” Nott took a step closer until he was able to lay a hand on a broad shoulder.

The man had gone completely still, as if on a Muggle movie screen that had been paused. Harry concentrated more attention on that one spot of dark blue magic. It must have been some sort of memory charm because there were a series of thin spikes piercing into the mind, getting fainter the deeper they penetrated the brain.

When a spell suddenly flashed across his eyes, because Harry had opened up his vision so much to magic, it was so intensely bright he felt he’d go blind. A second later, Nott’s stunned body was collapsing on the floor with a thump, and his father was still standing there with a distant look in his eyes, completely unmoved.

What the fuck?

A shimmer in the air was quickly followed by the materialization of Malfoy’s body, and maybe Harry would be pissed that he was touching his cloak later, but for now he didn’t feel anything but the most exquisite happiness to see the blond.

“Malfoy?” he said, partially wondering if this was all a hallucination. Was the Slytherin actually saving him? If he thought his heart had been beating fast before, it was nothing like it was at seeing Malfoy here in front of him. Everything snapped into place – the door being help open longer than necessary, Nott Sr.’s glossy eyed appearance, the blue spikes in his mind.

“You cast imperious on him.”

“Here,” Malfoy said, vanishing Harry’s bonds.

“Er- thanks.”

“Where’s your wand? Malfoy said, his eyes burning with a jarring amount of emotion. Harry shook his head.

“Nott’s pocket.”

A moment later, what sounded like Malfoy kicking the limp body of Nott – possibly his method of turning the unconscious teen over – was followed by the sound of fabric tearing. Harry managed to sit up on his own using the muscles in his abs only, but made the mistake of trying to support his weight on a wrist, ending in his slack hand bending out unwillingly while the fingers curled lifelessly underneath his palm. His body toppled foreword, rolling dangerously close to the edge.

Even though Harry knew it wasn’t his fault, his

s still flamed in the embarrassment of his weakened state. His humiliation only grew worse when Malfoy rolled his body onto his back – thankfully in a gentler manner than kicking him – and his pale face loomed over with wide, concerned eyes. The blond righted Harry’s glasses with one hand and gripped his shoulder with the other.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

Was it bad that Harry wanted nothing more in this one instant in time to be able to reach up and pull the blond into a kiss? The intensity of worry in Malfoy’s face and body language was completely justified – let’s face it, Harry knew they were fucked – but somehow the only thing he could think about was how very flattering it was. He averted his eyes to the side as an entirely different reasoned blush tried to bridge itself across his nose.

“How did you know I was in trouble?”

Malfoy huffed, probably annoyed at the fact that his question had just been ignored. “This whole place is in trouble. From under your cloak, I picked a Death Eater at random and read their mind. It was pure luck it happened to be Nott’s father, or that I’d seen his plans involving you. Now that we’re all caught up on time-wasting current events, will you tell me what the fuck is wrong?”

Harry kept his eyes averted. Somehow, he had still been secretively hoping that there really weren’t any Death Eaters in the school. “He cast some sort of dark spell on me. Said it severed my tendons.”

Grey eyes widened as he grabbed Harry’s wrist and held it up for close examination. Pale fingers curled around his forearm so tightly it hurt. When Malfoy didn’t speak again, Harry chose to instead.

“There’s a really thin line of red,” he mumbled. He’d never felt so utterly useless in his entire life. “Can it be reversed?”

“Thin is an understatement,” Malfoy hissed. “A hair is thicker than that.”

“Do you know how to reverse it or not?”

Malfoy looked as if he was on the verge of tears as he shook his head no. Harry never thought he’d see such an expression.

“I- ha- I have to get you help, but...” he combed his fingers through his hair, gripping the strands tightly.

“Malfoy,” Harry said, the name sounding unsure. The blond turned to him angrily.

“You’re supposed to be the invincible hero in all this!”

Feeling startled at the sudden outburst, Harry blinked.

“You’re not suppose to get hurt or,” his breath hitched and he finished with a whisper, “die.”

Great. Just Harry’s luck, Malfoy was starting to lose it. He was screwed enough as it was, he didn’t know what he would do if the other wizard became completely unhinged.

In a blur Malfoy disappeared from his sight, ducking behind the side of the desk. He heard an ominous snap of wood, and for one horrifying moment feared Malfoy had just snapped his own wand, but a moment later he emerged with two pieces of a less familiar one. No matter how horrible he thought Nott was, there was still the smallest twinge of sympathy – it was really grim for one’s wand to be snapped. Nott’s father, still under Malfoy’s spell, took care of his own, but Harry didn’t feel the same sympathy for him.

“You can still use your arms, right?” Malfoy said, helping him to sit up again.

“I think so,” he replied, lifting his heavy feeling arms to prove the point.

“Good, I’ll carry you on my back to somewhere safer.” Without waiting, he flicked his wand and Harry felt suddenly as if he were floating; it must have been some sort of lightening charm. Bending down briefly to gather the fabric of Harry’s invisibility cloak, Malfoy was quick to turn around and lean over. Harry found it very odd to move his arms around the blond’s shoulders without the use of his hands. He clamped his legs around narrow hips, clinging as hard as he could manage. Without the strength of his hands and feet, he knew he was going to have to rely on Malfoy’s strength.

It took some maneuvering, but Malfoy was able to throw the invisibility cloak until it completely covered them. Harry leaned in close, his cheek pressing against the surprisingly smooth one of the other teen. A testing step, more like a shuffle really, was taken, then another, and another until finally they stood before the door.

“Hey Potter?” Malfoy said quietly, bouncing Harry up to get a better grip so that he could use one hand to reach for the door handle.

“What?” The brunette felt Malfoy’s cheek rise, as if he was smiling.

“Just so you know, this will be the only time that you will ride me.”

Harry was so taken aback that he almost slipped clear off the Slytherin's shoulders. Somehow, the jab had ebbed away at the tension and worry that had been plaguing him. Feeling suddenly fortified, he turned his face into Malfoy’s, just enough so that his lips touched skin. If Malfoy took that as a kiss, so be it.

“We’ll see,” Harry mumbled teasingly, just as the door swung over.

***

It wasn’t as bad as Harry expected – and at the same time, it was somehow worse. He’d thought maybe it would be like a battleground. He had feared there would be spells flying through the air and bodies lying all over the floor. Maybe there was somewhere, but not where they were. He could hear shouts in the distance, cures and screams echoing off the castle walls in a nauseating phantom-like way. Inside his mind, dark images of his friends in trouble invaded his thoughts.

He could tell, despite the spell to make him lighter, Malfoy’s muscles were quivering under the strain of carrying him. On top of that, there was a constant worry that the invisibility cloak would slip off them, or a body part would end up peaking out, but as long as they were seemingly alone, he supposed they’d be okay.

The trip up the stairs was incredibly slow. Harry remained silent as the blond struggled to hold in his grunts of exhaustion. He knew that now would not be a good time to be discovered in his helpless state, but his muscles too were starting to get tired, and he feared he would slip if they had much further. Originally, he thought Malfoy would take him straight to the infirmary, but now he wished he'd asked because it didn’t seem to be the case as they continued to climb stairs.

Eventually, they ended up on the seventh floor hallway as Malfoy paced them both back and forth in a very familiar location and as the large doors appeared, Harry was so shocked he almost lost his grip on the blond. Without any sort of explanation, he was dragged into a very nice looking room that looked a mix of a bedroom and a living room.

“Mum!” Draco said, turning and dropping Harry onto a white sofa.

Mum?! Harry tried to sit up and see the pale hand that was currently opening a set of curtains around a rather large bed. Mrs. Malfoy stepped out a moment later and began to walk – no, her footsteps were so precise and fluid she floated out and for a moment he thought he was looking at her ghost. Although her fair complexion and light hair were pale enough to pass for one, the fact that she was in fact very solid told him that she was very alive.

“Why have you brought him here?” A very deep voice said, a second later revealing itself to that of Lucius Malfoy, also stepping out from behind the bed. What the hell was going on here? It seemed as if Harry had escaped the frying pan only to land into the fire.

“That’s what I would like to know,” he said, trying not to let the panic and feeling of betrayal lace into his words.

Malfoy looked over his shoulder at him with an annoyed look. “Relax. Snape’s the one who convinced Dumbledore to let my family stay here. They were locked in this room before the school year started.”

A lot of information had just entered Harry’s shocked little brain, and he was feeling quite dizzy all of a sudden. It was a good thing he was already lying down. Wait a minute; he did a double take as he realized something odd about what Mr. Malfoy was wearing. Where those snake print pajamas? Yes, definitely a good thing he was lying down.

“Mother,” Malfoy said, sounding more composed. “Please get the dark magic book with the counter curse to the tendon severing spell.”

The woman hesitated for a moment as her eyes fixed themselves to Harry, but then she did as her son had asked and glided – although hurriedly – over to what Harry had originally thought was a wall, but was in fact completely covered in bookshelves. She must have known what she was looking for, however, because she went directly to a green-spined book and pulled it off, flipping through until she stopped towards the middle.

“There is no counter-curse,” she said, and just like that Harry’s heart sank low into his stomach. Funny thing was, out of all the thoughts that could have gone through his head, there was only one, and it was focused around Malfoy.

Harry knew, with out a doubt, Malfoy was more than just a little bit of fun to him, but what was Harry, really, to the other teen? Did Malfoy only look at him as a savior for him and his family? The thought cut him deeply, especially now that he might not be able to use magic ever again. He was distracted by a whimper, and realized it had just come from the teen standing next to him.

“However, the book has a spell to reattach the tendons.”

Malfoy groaned and grabbed for the book. “Give me that.”

“You’re planning to do this yourself?” she asked calmly as it was snatched from her hands. “If the aim is off, then you will cause greater damage.”

Letting out a shuttering breath, Malfoy raised his wand towards his mother. “Maybe you could...”

She took a hasty step back, shaking her head. “You know I am still under the headmaster’s spell. I cannot touch a wand.”

Harry closed his eyes as panic and fear gripped at him. This was an absolute nightmare, and as much as he wished Madam Pomfrey was here, he didn’t have that luxury. Hell, he thought with a saddened frown, she could even be dead right now. He wanted to get out there as soon as possible to help his friends.

“You do it,” he said, opening his eyes and turning to a very pale-faced Malfoy.

“I- if I miss...”

“You’ll do fine. You can probably see the location of where the spell needs to go better than anyone else in the world.”

“What, you mean that small little hair of residual magic? Are you completely insane?”

“You can do it, I know you can.”

“What are you talking about?” Mrs. Malfoy asked with narrowed eyes.

“Not now,” Malfoy said with a growl. Harry was surprised to see her actually pout. Now he knew where his blond got it. “Even if I’m somehow able to miraculously pull off the aim, there’s still the little issue about me never casting this spell in my life. I could mess it up.”

Shaking his head, Harry tried – and failed quite miserably – to give a reassuring smile. “You’re one of the most brilliant wizards I know. I have complete faith in you.”

“Potter, still-”

“And if it doesn’t work, then I’ll...” his voice cracked at the last, and yes he couldn’t help it because he was scared as fuck, but he felt this really needed to happen. For a moment, Malfoy just looked at him in silence, but then he was being dragged into the most comforting embrace of his bloody life. He could have fucking cried.

“Harry,” Malfoy whispered in his ear, arms tightening around his shoulders. “You’ll be okay. No matter what happens, I’ll take care of you.”

Harry’s heartbeat tripled as the words washed over him. A loaded word towards how he felt about Malfoy danced through his head, a word he’d probably be too afraid to say out loud any time soon, but internally it sent a surge of energy throughout his body. He realized Malfoy was just as scared about doing this as Harry was having it done. The blond genuinely cared for him. He didn’t need anymore said to know that.

“It’s okay Draco, I trust you.”

Malfoy nodded, then finally released his grip on the brunette’s shoulders. Harry sank back and offered up his right wrist, only to have it pushed away and replaced in pale hands by his left one. Malfoy started to roll up the sleeve.

“I should start with this one.” The ‘just in case’ was left unsaid, but still understood. The firm tip of Malfoy’s wand pressed into his wrist as the blond carefully shifted it up and down, his eyes opened wide and Harry knew he’d be focusing all his ability on bringing up the sliver of red magic that marked where he needed to aim. Shaking his head, Malfoy lessened his grip while he laid the wrist on the ground, and although Harry wanted to know what he was thinking, he didn’t say anything in fear of distracting.

Again the wand was shifted, digging into the skin just slightly as it slipped hardly a millimeter up or down. Blond eyebrows were drawn in, and the drying sweat from his earlier exertion was renewing on Malfoy’s forehead. Strands of golden hair fell over his face, leaving just the smallest glimpses of silver eyes peaking through.

“Iunctio reparo,” Malfoy said, his voice quivering slightly. The reaction was instantaneous, like a blade slicing into his wrist, sending sparks of agonizing pain burning up every nerve ending. Harry arched his back as his arm shook, hurting worse than he’d ever felt before, and he didn’t even realize he was screaming until Malfoy was pressing him into his chest, muffling the cries.

Gradually, the jolts of pain became less, dulling to a strong ache before only buzzing as if his arm had fallen asleep. Harry could hear a voice above him cursing fuck over and over again, as Malfoy’s bruising grip on him pulled at the fabric so tightly Harry worried it would rip.

“I’m okay,” Harry mumbled, his voice dampened in the cloth of Malfoy’s robe. “It’s not so bad now.”

Malfoy pulled away and looked down at him with eyes equal parts hopeful, and terrified. “Did it work?”

Harry tried to move his fingers, demanding in his head for them to wiggle. Nothing. “Uh...”

“Shit, shit, shit. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have even- I should have taken- I’m sorry.”

Out of the corner of Harry’s eye, he could see Mrs. Malfoy shift as if to come over, but Lucius placed his hand on her shoulder, stopping her. It was the first time Harry found himself feeling grateful towards the man; this situation was bad enough, he didn’t want them interfering.

And then, his index finger twitched.

He looked over, as if not believing it. Had it just been an accident? He tried again, and again it twitched.

“Draco, look,” Harry whispered, his voice harsh. He could move them all. Just a little wiggle up and down, and the movement felt awkward and sluggish, but he could move his fingers again.

“Are you doing that?”

“Of course I’m bloody doing that, you idiot.”

Malfoy grinned. “It worked then.”

“Yeah, I think so.”

The wiggling was getting easier now, faster and smoother. He was even able to curl his fingers into a fist, although it wasn’t exactly a tight fist. Malfoy’s hand found the back of his head and pulled him into a kiss fueled by adrenaline and euphoric emotions.

Then Harry remembered that they were, in fact, not alone at the moment and a blush crept up his neck. He kindly removed his tongue from its curved position around Draco’s and looked away. The blond must have remembered as well, because he glanced nervously over his shoulder before sheepishly smiling down at Harry.

“Now only,” Harry’s heart sank at the realization that it wasn’t over. He’d have to endure that pain again. “Only three more to go.”

Malfoy’s face fell and mirrored Harry’s frown.

***

He lay panting on the ground, the midnight black hair sweaty as it fell over his closed eyes. There was a raw burn in his throat from the screaming, but compared to what he had just endured, it wasn’t too horrible. Opening his eyes, he tilted his head up too see Malfoy’s head still resting on his chest, worried eyes fixed on his face. Even though he hadn’t gone through nearly what Harry had, his pale face still looked very drained. Every nerve in Harry’s body seemed to be buzzing, although at least it was no longer in a painful way.

His head fell back again as his eyes drifted shut, only to open again a moment later when he felt something wet and cold touch his forehead. He looked up into the beautiful face of Narcissa Malfoy, her emotions locked safely behind it.

“To help cool you down,” she said, her voice sounding surprisingly gentle. Harry turned his head to look over and see Lucius still against the wall with his arms crossed and glaring. Although, he didn’t look as upset as he might have.

“You did well,” Narcissa told her son, placing a delicate hand onto his shoulder. Draco never once took his eyes off Harry, not even when she walked back to stand with her husband.

“How do you feel?” he asked, coming into Harry’s view as he leaned over. His hand reached out to adjust the cold – Harry assumed it was some sort of flannel – on his forehead.

“I’m fine. I can wiggle everything.”

Malfoy nodded, then sat back. “Then you should rest for awhile.”

Harry shook his head. “I should get back out there to check-”

“No, Potter. You can’t even walk,” Malfoy growled. “Now you’re either going to rest willingly, or I’ll stun you to sleep.”

Despite his desire to see if his friends were alright, after a heavy pause, Harry nodded in agreement. Just because he could wiggle his fingers and toes, didn’t necessarily mean he’d be making a full recovery – although he was entirely hopeful. He’d been slowly working his left hand, and he found that even though it felt a bit weaker than normal, he seemed to have gained full mobility back.

“Do you know how the Death Eaters got into the school?” he asked.

“Yes,” Malfoy said. “If I’d known about it earlier... but they haven’t trusted me since my family’s disappearance, so...”

“Are you going to tell me how they did it?”

“Oh, you know the latest thing in Slytherin?”

Harry blinked. A shiver of dread rolled down his spine. Oh god.

“Yes,” Malfoy continued. “Apparently it’s all the rage to buy your unregistered animagus parents and sneak them into school.”

Oh fucking hell. Harry had even overheard the Slytherins talking about it last week and hadn’t done anything. If he had told anyone, this might not have even happened. All this was partly his fault.

“If I had known, I could have told Snape,” Malfoy muttered. Harry looked over, seeing guilt ridden silver eyes glancing down. He reached his left hand out and placed it on the blond’s shoulder, squeezing as hard as he could, which didn’t turn out to be much. Malfoy looked both pleased and worried at the gesture.

***

An hour later, sitting quietly, Harry was fuming on the sofa. He’d gained most the mobility back into his hands, but trying to walk was a little shaky. Thus, when Malfoy had said he’d go out and scout the area in the invisibility cloak to try and find out what was going on, Harry had been left behind. Alone in the room with just the man who had tried to kill him, and his wife. Great.

Being left alone with Malfoy’s parents was bad enough, but Harry was even more worried about his blond going out there when it could still be dangerous.

Okay, and being left with the Malfoys was worse than ‘bad enough’, it was down right horrible.

Mrs. Malfoy had got it into her pretty little blonde head that she should play the good hostess and serve him tea. Only, Harry didn’t exactly feel confident in his ability to hold a scalding hot cuppa in his newly restored hands for fear of spilling it all over himself like an idiot. Although, he was quite certain Lucius would enjoy the show.

They all sat in tangibly awkward silence, avoiding each other’s eyes. He knew they were probably just as worried about Draco, but neither of them were shifting anxiously in their seat. It wasn’t just him, though, that Harry worried about, he wanted to know if Ron and Hermione were safe too, along with all the rest of the Gryffindors and staff. It was a torture not knowing.

The only noise in the room was the crackling of the distant fire. He listened to the pops and hisses of the wood as it slowly burned to ash. Every once in a while, Mrs. Malfoy would raise her tea to quietly sip from it, then lay the cup back down with the barest clink against the saucer.

Thankfully for his sanity, and probably Mr. Malfoy’s as well considering his eye had started to twitch over ten minutes ago, there was a click at the front of the room, and a second later the door seemingly opened on its own. Draco pulled off the invisibility cloak, to show off his frowning face.

“Bloody wankers,” he mumbled under his breath.

“Language, Draco,” Mrs. Malfoy said quietly.

“What’s happened, is everyone okay?” Harry asked, sitting up straight on his seat.

Malfoy looked over, doing a perfect imitation of his father at the moment with his icy glare. “Yes, your stupid friends are fine. The Death Eaters all ran off. There’s a few people in the hospital, but I don’t think anyone’s seriously injured.”

“You saw Ron and Hermione?”

“Yes, yes,” Malfoy said, coming over and sitting down next to the brunette. He grabbed Harry’s tea and took a gulp before leaning over and throwing his arm around Harry’s shoulders. The Gryffindor tried not to glance over embarrassedly when Malfoy pressed his face into his tan neck and kissed it.

“Everyone’s in a frenzy looking for you. I suppose I should take you down there,” he said. “Too bad, I wanted to keep you to myself a little longer.”

Just as Malfoy was leaning in for a proper kiss, they were interrupted by the delicate sound of a throat clearing. Draco turned to his mother and pouted. “You couldn’t even pretend to give us a moment alone, could you?”

Mr. Malfoy raised an eyebrow. “What would you have us do, wait in the bathroom?”

At Draco’s hopeful, pleading look, Mr. Malfoy scowled. “No.”

The teen’s pout only grew more. “Fine, we’ll just be going then.”

Malfoy stood, and before Harry was ready for it, he was being pulled up by his arms. His feet, not being prepared for the sudden weight placed upon them, stumbled forward, and Harry ended up landing in the Slytherin’s arms. Malfoy smirked down at him.

“You can lean on me as much as you need,” he said smugly. Harry rolled his eyes, and put his arm around the blond’s shoulder while doing nothing to protest the arm that went around his waist.

“The invisibility cloak,” Harry said, pointing to it as they slowly made their way towards the door. He was pleased to find that he could walk again, probably on his own even, but he made no attempt to find out for sure.

“It’s fine, they actually know I’m in here, I just wanted to use the invisibility cloak to piss them off.”

“Them?” Harry said.

“Mudblood and her Weasel,” he said, ignoring Harry’s threatening ‘don’t call them that’ and continued. “I thought I should tell them you were okay before they had a heart attack. Granger looks pretty ugly when she cries.”

“They’re outside the door?”

“No. They’d better be down the hallway, where I told them to wait. I don’t want them finding out what’s in hear, got it?” He glanced over to Harry. “They came up here after I had to explain everything that had happened to you. Twice.”

Malfoy frowned. “At one point I was worried Weasel was going to hex off my,” his eyes shot over to where his parents were sitting on the couch, “boy bits, he was so mad.”

They had reached the door, but Malfoy hesitated.

“Look Harry, I’m giving you back to them, but you’re mine. Understand?”

Shocked, Harry glanced up to see a very serious looking Malfoy. His pulse soared as three words, what his mind apparently wanted to supply for a response, rang through his head. Although he remained silent, he did minutely nod his head and give Malfoy’s shoulders a squeeze. It seemed to be enough of a response, because a pale hand reached out to turn the lock. The door slowly swung open.

And revealed two, very curious looking Gryffindors.

“The Malfoys?!” Ron bellowed, shamelessly standing on tiptoe so that he could peek in the doorway. “That’s the big mystery?”

Hermione stood beside him, being a little bit more discreet in her peeking, but still doing it all the same.

Feeling the body tense next to him as the pale arm not around his waist went straight for the wand in Malfoy’s pocket, Harry did the first thing that came to mind in order to stop a massacre. He dragged Malfoy’s lips to his and snogged him silly.

A second later, as the blond’s tongue slipped in to his mouth, it seemed to be working, and hopefully his friends would figure out that for now, they should probably get the hell out of there. An enraged Draco was no easy thing to deal with.

Actually, an enraged Draco seemed to kiss really really well. Harry was going to have to remember that for the future.

-Fin
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Underneath the Underneath