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Virgin Revelry	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 8119 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Virgin Revelry
- 1
Title: Virgin Revelry

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

Warnings: Fluff (oh the fluffy fluff), profanity, magic, first time sex. This is an AU that takes off after the fifth book and assumes HBP and DH never happened, and that there were no Horcruxes.

Pairing: Harry/Draco

Rating: NC-17

Summary: AU. After Hermione finds a ritual that will make Voldemort disappear forever as long as Harry agrees to remain a virgin for the rest of his life, she and Harry perform it, and it works exactly as advertised. Now Harry’s major problem seems to be how to remain a virgin in a world that is obsessed with the Boy-Who-Lived. But then Draco Malfoy reveals a tiny complication…

Wordcount: 27,500

Author’s Notes: I had such fun writing this fic! I hope everyone enjoys it.

Virgin Revelry

            “Are you sure this is necessary?”

            Hermione paused, the tip of her wand dripping with blood, and gave Harry a single stern look. That look told Harry everything. Hermione never would have begun this ritual unless she thought it was necessary. He nodded, sighed, and lay face-down on the floor, grimacing at the feel of blood drying on his skin.

            He heard Hermione chant something. Her voice moved too fast, and he’d never been good at Latin even when she tried to force him to become good at it, so he didn’t bother listening. Instead, he shut his eyes and tried not to think about the lines that she was painting on him now, which radiated out from the small of his back and down to his arse as well as up to his shoulders. It was cold lying starkers on the floor of the Hogwarts dungeons, and Harry shivered as they waited for the blood to dry.

            Finally, Hermione tapped him on the shoulder, the signal to roll over. Harry did, glad that the chill had at least prevented him from having any uncomfortable reactions that he wouldn’t want Hermione to see. He was embarrassed enough just being naked in front of her, but Ron would have been worse.

            Hermione, to her credit, never stopped her steady chanting as she traced the lines up from the center of his chest to his mouth. Harry nearly jumped as she circled his nipples with more lines, and then told himself not to be stupid. Jumping would ruin the ritual because it would disrupt the lines, and then they would have to start everything all over again. That would be the worst fate imaginable.

            No, Voldemort killing you and everyone else would be the worst fate imaginable, Harry thought, and tried to hold onto that as Hermione delicately trailed blood through the curls of hair at his groin. That really was worse. It had to be.

            No matter how his skin burned right now with embarrassment, having Voldemort win would be worse.

            He thought.

            Hermione had finished the circle around his cock. She connected it to the lines in the center of his chest, and then circled the lines around his hips. Harry could feel the moment in which those drawings joined with the ones sketched on his back.

            In fact, he didn’t have to feel it; he could bloody well see it. A thunderclap of white light exploded from his body and flipped itself over and over in the air above them. Squinting, Harry thought he could make out a central body of some sort in the light, something that was small and round and busily turning. His irreverent thought was that it looked sort of like one of the Weasley twins’ fireworks.

            “Harry!” Hermione shrieked. “This is the time that you have to say the promise!”

            Oh. Right. Harry blinked, and, for just a moment, all the careful words that Hermione had made him rehearse fled his mind. But his mouth seemed more faithful than his brain, or maybe something about the magic of the ritual compelled the words, because he opened his mouth and they spilled out.

            “I promise to remain a virgin for the rest of my life. By sacrifice of blood and purity and power, I may make an appeal to the old powers of magic. By the blood on my skin, you know my promise for the truth.”

            The small white thing stopped turning over and over. Then it shot towards him, hovering right above his nose. Harry crossed his eyes to see it, hoping desperately that he didn’t look ridiculous.

            Then he decided that he might as well give that up as a lost cause and continue with his promise. Again, Hermione had told him exactly what to say. She had told him that she didn’t trust him not to fuck it up if he was left to himself, and Harry had to agree. She had told him to speak only when he had the wild magic’s attention, but Harry didn’t think there could be any doubt on that score.

            “My appeal is for the banishment of the one who calls himself the Dark Lord Voldemort from the world.” Harry was amazed at how steady his voice sounded, how he could stare at the thing spitting with power less than an inch from his face and not wet himself. “I wish that he may have no way to return as long as I keep my promise and remain a virgin. Nor may his evil linger after him in the form of doubles, Dark Marks, or Dark artifacts.” Harry still thought he should have said something about the Death Eaters, but Hermione had argued that he couldn’t banish people, and that getting rid of the Dark Marks on their arms ought to take care of it.

            The small, plump thing at the center of the magic appeared to bow to Harry, and for a moment he had an impression of thick arms and a bulging waist, as if the thing was a dwarf or a gnome. Then it shot up further.

            All the blood painted across Harry’s body began to burn.

            Harry bit his tongue so he didn’t scream. It wasn’t really painful, he reassured himself frantically several times when he thought he might forget. Just uncomfortable. The flames were as white as the one that surrounded the small being of the wild magic, and they thrummed against his skin as though he were a harp someone was playing. The tapping increased as flames raced up and down all the trails of blood, and Harry carefully avoided looking down. Painless or not, he didn’t need the sight of his groin on fire right now, thank you very much.

            The glow increased until Harry had to shut his eyes. Then he realized the fire was speaking, whispering the words he had spoken back to him in a low, buzzing voice, and he was doubly glad that he wasn’t looking.

            Finally, a second thunderclap answered him, followed by the death of the flames.

            And Harry gasped and jerked a hand up. Something had happened to his face, but he didn’t know what it was. It felt as though someone had pulled a scab off, or something. Gingerly, he traced the lines of his eyes and nose. Hermione had warned him that the wild magic might claim a bigger price than his sex life if it thought that his promise wasn’t sincere. Was he blind now?

            “Harry.” He’d never heard Hermione’s voice sound so subdued. “Your scar. It’s gone.”

            Harry’s eyes flew open, and he groped about. He remembered that there’d been a mirror there, somewhere, when Hermione first began doing the ritual. It had fallen on the floor, or should have, after they were finished with it.

            Hermione had it, and she held it out for him. Harry took it, noting with idle wonder that his arms were free of blood now.

            And that he was still naked in front of Hermione. He tried discreetly to curl away from her as he examined himself in the mirror.

            His face was pale and startled, his eyes wider than he had known they could go. The bridge of his nose looked sharper, but Harry was mostly sure that was his imagination. It was a minute before he could make himself brush his fringe aside and look at his forehead.

            Smooth. Scarless. Harry licked his lips and let his fingers explore, but he couldn’t even find a trace or a ridge where the scar would have been.

            Then Hermione knocked him over, laughing and hugging him and stepping on his chest as she tried to hug him even more than she was already doing, which Harry thought was impossible. He grabbed her and held her still. He didn’t know until he heard his voice that he was laughing, too.

            “Oh, Harry, we did it, we did it!” Hermione’s words were shrill, but Harry didn’t care. He stood up and danced her around the middle of the room, tripping over the stacks of parchment and the books and the ropes and the other tools that she’d thought they might need. His foot got tangled up in a bucket, and he fell over on top of Hermione. Hermione giggled and blushed, and Harry rolled away, stretching his arms over his head.

            It was done. He’d made the promise, and he was free. The world was free of Voldemort.

            And all it had meant was the sacrifice of any chance that he had for love and romance.

            Harry sighed. He wasn’t happy about that, but it was the best alternative they’d found when searching among all the rituals, and the safest. Certainly safer than dueling with Voldemort in front of an audience, or waiting until the Death Eaters came raiding into Hogwarts and forced the issue.

            Better than giving up his life for the wizarding world, the way that Harry knew everyone, even Dumbledore, had expected him to do. Most people thought of it in vague terms, but Dumbledore had known about the prophecy. He had spoken kindly, but Harry could see the steel in the back of his eyes. He had feared that only Harry’s death could stop the worst Dark Lord the wizarding world had ever known.

            If it had to be something like this, something that Harry hadn’t really got to know yet, instead of giving up his friends or magic or life…

            I’ll take it.

*

            “There’s no doubt about it, sir?” Harry yawned and slumped in his chair in Dumbledore’s office, and then wondered why he felt so exhausted. There was no rhyme or reason to it. Hermione had done all the hard work of the ritual—collecting his blood over the months leading up to it, slowly enough that he wouldn’t die from the amount required, and looking up the ritual and which words to use, and then teaching it to him. All he’d had to do was lie there and speak.

            “No doubt at all.” Dumbledore’s voice was thick with satisfaction, the closest Harry had ever heard him come to gloating. “We had spies watching him, you know. Remus had managed to gain the trust of some of the werewolves who were his servants, and had an excellent seat to see Voldemort grow smaller and thinner, and fade from the world. And there were wizards there who would have known, even better than Remus, what the smell of thunder and the white light of the wild magic meant. They can search for a way to bring him back, but the only thing that truly could is if they managed to convince you to break your promise.” He paused and eyed Harry.

            “I won’t do that, sir.” Harry tried to sit up and speak with more confidence than he felt. It would have been easier if not for the bloody tiredness wrapping him around and around like rope. “I promise. There’s—I mean, it’s not easy, but Hermione and I have been discussing this since September.” It was April now, and Harry looked out the window of Dumbledore’s office at the sunlight, wondering if this was one spring he would manage to enjoy. “I’m used to the idea by now.”

            Dumbledore softened and reached across the desk to pat his shoulder. “I know, Harry. And you have always kept your promises.” He sighed wistfully. “If anything, I simply wish that we could have done something that would have spared you this particular vow. You have given up too much already.”

            Harry smiled and shook his head, staring at the floor. “The vow isn’t as restrictive as it probably sounds, sir.” At least it still lets me wank. Harry had been insistent about Hermione finding one that would work like that. It was one thing to go celibate for the rest of his life, and another to explode from unreleased sexual tension. “I mean,” he added hastily, realizing that Dumbledore might be thinking along the same lines as he was and not wanting the Headmaster to have that much insight into his mind, “it’s not as though I had a girlfriend right now. I want kids, and that’s hard to give up, but at least I do have Teddy to spoil.” He found a new reason to smile then. Tonks and Remus would both be happier, now that Remus didn’t have to spy anymore and they could raise their son openly instead of in hiding.

            “Yes, that is true.” Dumbledore patted his arm this time. “I congratulate you, my boy. The world owes you a great debt.”

            Harry smiled at him, and then found his eyes sliding shut. He made a small noise of irritation and forced them open once more. “Headmaster,” he asked, his words slurring, “do you know why this is happening to me?”

            Dumbledore chuckled. “Close contact with the wild magic does that to many wizards, Harry. You touched nothing less than the raw force of creation. It is only its small, tame cousin that we channel through our wands, you know.”

            “Oh.” Harry was impressed for a minute as he thought of the wild magic shaping planets and breeds of creatures and creating the first wizards in the dawn of time. Then he yawned again.

            This time, Dumbledore laughed outright. “Do go to bed, Harry. You’ll want to be up in time for your celebration party, won’t you?”

            Harry mumbled something that he thought contained the word, “Yes,” and stepped out of the Headmaster’s office. He had to ride the moving staircase down by leaning against the wall. His yawns were so constant that he paused near the gargoyle to catch his breath and force his eyes open.

            “Well, well. So the conquering hero comes.”

            At least that voice made Harry start up with an instinctive need to defend himself. Malfoy leaned on the wall on the other side of the gargoyle, staring at Harry with an intensity that Harry thought was probably caused by jealousy. Or fear, maybe. Harry’s eyes flickered to Malfoy’s left arm. He’d never been sure whether Malfoy had the Dark Mark or not. The last two years, he’d mostly dedicated himself to keeping out of the way, and his spats with the Gryffindors had become occasional rather than constant.

            “You heard about that, huh?” Harry yawned again, and gave up. He’d make sure Malfoy couldn’t cast any sneaky Slytherin curses on him, but he simply wasn’t up to a duel right now. “Yeah, he’s gone. Took a lot to do it, but there you go.” He shrugged and started to step around Malfoy in the direction of Gryffindor Tower.

            Malfoy moved with him, a hungry expression on his face, and Harry groaned. “Look,” he said crossly, “I think a lot of people would notice if I ended up dead on the floor a mere few hours after I defeated Voldemort.” He noticed with a visceral satisfaction that the name still made Malfoy flinch. “Save it, all right? I’ll duel with people after I’ve had some sleep. That will probably make it better for you anyway.”

            Malfoy licked his lips. “Is that the only way it will be better for you?”

            Harry stared at him. “What are you talking about? Of course it will be better when I’m not tripping over my feet and you can say that you defeated me without an unfair advantage. Not that you’ll defeat me anyway,” he added, because he had to. He couldn’t bear himself if he didn’t at least say that to Malfoy.

            Malfoy moved closer. He actually looked around for spectators before he did, which Harry thought was weird. Malfoy liked to have an audience. Maybe he thought he should fight Harry now when he was weak and tired and didn’t want any professors interfering. Harry gripped his wand and set his back against the wall. He wouldn’t be moving fast no matter what happened, but at least this way, Malfoy couldn’t sneak up on him.

            “I saw,” Malfoy breathed. “I saw you traipsing through the dungeons with ritual equipment, and I followed you.”

            Harry stared at him, breath cold in his lungs. His first thought was that Malfoy had done something to interfere in the ritual and make it useless, and he lunged forwards, grabbing Malfoy’s shirt and slamming him into the wall so hard that Malfoy groaned shakily. “If you made it so that the ritual didn’t work—”

            “What nasty suspicious minds Gryffindors have, I must say.” Malfoy didn’t sound angry as he murmured the words. Instead, there was a sleepy tone in his voice that made Harry wonder if he was the only one affected by contact with the wild magic. “No, I mean that I saw.” His fingers curled around Harry’s wrist, and he leaned near enough that his voice was the merest rasp of a whisper of a breath in Harry’s ear. “I thought those stories in the Daily Prophet and the chatter I sometimes heard from your teammates was exaggeration. I reckon not.”

            It took Harry more than a minute to understand what he meant, and he didn’t know if he could blame that on his tiredness or some strange working of his vow, which meant that he wasn’t thinking as much about sex as he would have ordinarily. When he did, he shoved Malfoy away from him again. How could he know whether the magic would count even that as a breaking of his promise?

            Then he remembered what Hermione had said before they began the ritual, and relaxed slightly. The wild magic works with what you think of as the loss of virginity, Harry. Other people brushing against you or kissing or touching you against your will isn’t going to harm anything.

            Malfoy cradled his wrist in one hand as though it was his hand and not his head Harry had hurt by pushing him away. His eyes never moved from Harry’s face and chest, and Harry wondered if he could move them right now. “I saw,” he whispered. His voice had sunk, muffling the taunting tone.

            “Yeah, good for you,” Harry snapped, stepping around him this time. “I’m sure you’ll sell it to the Prophet for an excellent price. Too bad that you didn’t bring a camera with you, huh?”

            Malfoy’s eyes flared with the feral anger Harry was more used to seeing, and he smiled. But Malfoy shook his head, mouth distended in a snarl, and Harry realized that the anger wasn’t directed at him.

            “I saw,” Malfoy whispered again. “It’s mine. They can’t have it.”

            Harry raised an eyebrow. “So you’re even more of a pervert than I expected. Well. Enjoy.” He walked up the corridor with firm steps, telling himself that he couldn’t do anything about Malfoy and his strange little fetish for seeing naked people with stripes of blood on their bodies right now. He would think better for some sleep.

            His bed was the most wonderful thing he had ever felt, much better than cold dungeon floors. Harry closed his eyes and sighed.

            For a single moment he wondered where Malfoy had been standing so that both Harry and Hermione couldn’t see him, and pictured him peering into the room, his hands curled around the edge of the stones, his breath coming faster—

            There was the beginning of what could have been an uncomfortable stirring from his groin, and then Harry dropped headlong into sleep, leaving all the possible confusions behind.

*

            The next few weeks were mad, but Harry had known they would be.

            The wizarding world decided they loved their hero again—there had been a burst of coldness that had lasted almost a year as the war escalated and people demanded to know why Voldemort was still alive—and they showered him with attention. Harry received so many packages from strangers that he gave up on opening them all and devised a series of simple spells that would show him whether they contained sweets, clothing, exotic pets, potions brewed in gratitude, magical objects like the glass birds that sang his name in descending notes, or poison. After a few adventures with the clothing, he refined the spells so that they would tell him whether the garments inside were meant for him or had come from someone else. He didn’t want to find himself hand-deep in used knickers again.

            Then there were the letters. The proposals of marriage, the proposals for sex, the proposals to be his friend, the demands to contribute to this or that mad cause (Harry’s favorite was the Home for Kneazles Deranged by Magical Mange), and the invitations from people who wanted to hire him or have him at their parties or introduce him to their friends poured in. Harry had to spend a large portion of every evening consigning things to the fire, and also more time than he had expected trying to avoid the naked photographs and used knickers there.

            When he went outside the castle, even when it was just for the Quidditch game with Ravenclaw, the lights of cameras burned and burst in his face, and he had to wrap his arms around his head and run for shelter. Sometimes, when he was in a good enough mood, he would stand still and talk to and shake hands with people, but that wasn’t often, especially when he found out how many people tried to fling themselves on him, or rip hairs from his head for “good luck,” or kiss him.

            The madness reigned in the world outside the school and would have reigned inside Hogwarts too if the professors weren’t sterner than that. After Snape took fifty points from Ravenclaw in the NEWT Potions class because Luna snapped a picture of him for the Quibbler, most people tried to avoid taking that much notice of Harry in their classes.

            Harry was glad for it. He was working hard on studying for the NEWTs, trying his best to make sure that he would actually get a reasonable amount of them. He would go into the Auror training program in the autumn, and they wouldn’t necessarily make any exceptions for a “hero” who’d spent the last few years apparently standing about and then defeated Voldemort no one knew how, except that it wasn’t with fighting.

            That was the only part about his new peak of fame that Harry enjoyed: the speculation as to what exactly he had done to get rid of Voldemort. The whispers ranged from demon summoning to turning Voldemort to a shadow that the sun had burned away. Then again, some people preferred to ignore the accounts of eyewitnesses, including tried Death Eaters, that had circulated. They simply claimed that Harry had Apparated into Voldemort’s stronghold in a flash of blue lightning and dueled him to the death, complete with an appearance by Merlin.

            Some people did talk about wild magic, but only as one possibility among many. No one came close to the truth, because no one except Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore, and McGonagall knew the truth.

            Except for Malfoy.

*

            “Malfoy’s staring at you, mate.”

            Harry didn’t look up from the long in-class essay they were supposed to be writing for NEWT Transfigurations. McGonagall had said that it was a chance for them to prepare for the NEWT practical section, and Harry was finding the questions much more difficult than he had expected. “Yeah, I know, Ron,” he muttered back. “And you know that, during the real practical, you wouldn’t be able to talk to me, right?”

            “But it’s not the first time he’s done it,” Ron insisted in a whisper. That was one of the good things about the research all three of them had done on the wild magic. It could have been deadly if anyone had found out about what they were doing; they could have taken away Harry’s virginity in a fairly simple way and foiled all their plans. So Ron had learned to discuss things in a low voice no matter how startled or disgusted he was.

            “I know.” Harry finally untangled the last sentence of the question to his own satisfaction in his mind and began scratching away industriously at it. “But we’ll talk about it later, all right?”

            Ron sighed, but returned to his own paper. Harry breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk to Ron—

            No, wait, that was exactly it. He wasn’t looking forward to explaining to Ron and Hermione that Malfoy had managed to spy on the ritual.

            He wasn’t going to tell them about what Malfoy had said afterwards, in the corridor outside Dumbledore’s office. That was the business of no one but him and Malfoy and Malfoy’s perverted imagination.

            McGonagall called for them to give her the essays just as Harry scribbled his last tormented sentence. He sat back, sighing, and felt his hair sticking to his forehead with the sweat. Hermione sat with her hands folded and the smug, cool expression of someone who had been done for twenty minutes. Ron tried to shield his final scribble with the back of his hand.

            “Essays, Mr. Weasley.” McGonagall hadn’t lost her keenness of eyesight at all in the last two troublesome years, though she seemed to have developed a permanent squint. Ron sighed mournfully and handed his in along with Harry’s and Hermione’s.

            “You can’t have done that badly,” Harry said, nudging his shoulder into Ron’s to cheer him up as they left the classroom. “You got into this class in the first place.”

            “Yes, but if the class kills me, that’s not much of an accomplishment,” Ron said, and tried to bury his head in his hands.

            “You’ll do fine,” Hermione said, with a smile on her face for Ron that Harry hadn’t expected to see there, even if they were practically dating by now. “Harry was the one I was worried about, with all the things he’s had to distract him.” And she turned a knowing eye on Harry, as if she thought that he was about to melt away.

            Harry rolled his eyes. “I’m fine,” he said. Sexually frustrated, of course, but I expected to feel that way. “It helps that I can laugh at all those marriage proposals, and no one will ever know why.”

            Ron turned to face him, fists clenched. “I wish you hadn’t had to do that,” he whispered. “Couldn’t you find something else to give up?”

            Harry blinked, surprised. He knew Ron had opposed this plan—apparently because he couldn’t imagine going without sex the rest of his life, either—but he’d stopped protesting several weeks ago. Harry had thought he was over it.

            “Not something else that was as powerful and symbolic,” he said, “except my magic or my life. And I like those more.”

            Ron gave another mournful sigh, this one seeming to start with his toenails and travel through every part of his body before it emerged from his mouth. “All right,” he said. “But it seems hard.”

            “It has to be, Ron,” Hermione said, moving into lecture tone and causing Ron to make a horrible face at Harry behind her head. “It was a sacrifice. The ritual wouldn’t have any power if it wasn’t for the price, and the price has to be something you wouldn’t give up willingly…”

            Off they went, with Ron pantomiming drowning and strangling and dying of boredom at Harry. Harry grinned and shook his head. Ron loved Hermione, he even loved her lectures, and he didn’t need rescuing.

            “Alone at last, Potter.”

            Harry was annoyed at how quickly his body responded to that voice, not only tensing but shivering as though Malfoy had promised him a beating and had come to deliver it. Harry turned around, hand on his wand, and shook his head. “Hardly alone,” he said, with a tiny flick of his head to indicate the people coming in and out of the Transfiguration classroom, many of whom were sneaking glances at him.

            “None of them know anything about it,” Malfoy whispered, coming a step or two closer. He knew how to whisper in a different way from Ron. His words really did make it seem they stood in a bubble of silence, and Harry wasn’t surprised about the hand he reached out as if he would lay it on Harry’s shoulder. Harry sucked in his breath and avoided the touch. Malfoy let his hand drop, but stood there still staring at him, his words sounding like the rustle of autumn leaves. “None of them know about the price, like I do. No one shares this. You haven’t even told your friends that I spied or that I confronted you, did you?”

            “So what if I haven’t?” Harry snapped. “Do you enjoy being a thin, flat cake of flesh so much that you want Ron to pound you into one?”

            “You wouldn’t let that happen.” Malfoy moved a few steps closer, his eyes enormous, his mouth wet and gleaming. Harry wondered when that had happened, and pictured Malfoy’s tongue licking his lips, and then told himself Malfoy had probably done it out of sheer nervousness while he was writing his Transfiguration essay.

            “Why not?” Harry shook his head when Malfoy stared at him with a hungry expression on his face. “Look, what you’re doing makes no sense. You’re all very proud of this secret knowledge, but you’re not the only one who has it, and there’s nothing you can do to blackmail me, even if you tell everyone. Hermione made sure of that vow. I would have to break it willingly for Voldemort to come back.”

            Ha, Harry thought smugly a moment later. He still flinches at the name.

            “It’s not about the knowledge,” Malfoy said. “It’s about what I want.”

            “I’m not going to pay you Galleons or anything like that,” Harry said.

            Malfoy abruptly rushed closer to him, and suddenly Harry found himself pressed against the wall again, the way he had been outside Dumbledore’s office, with Malfoy’s hand around his wrist and Malfoy’s mouth against his ear. He was breathing rapidly. Harry thought, Out of shape, and braced his hands against Malfoy’s shoulders to push him away.

            His words froze Harry before that could happen.

            “You’re very stupid,” Malfoy breathed. “What I saw was you. What I want is you. I want to touch what no one else gets to touch. I want to have what no one else has had. Everyone in Britain, wanting you, and I want to be the one who gets to touch.” His hand clamped down so hard that the bones of Harry’s wrist ached. “I want to fuck you.”

            Harry stared at Malfoy some more. His lips were wet, and parted as if he wanted to allow something, or someone, to crawl between them. His face was flushed in a way that Harry had never seen. When Malfoy was angry, it seemed that his pale skin broke out in hectic blotches, as if he had a fever. This was a smooth swell of pink, and it seemed to add its heat to his breath, which Harry had never felt stroke his face with this urgency, even when they’d stood so close before.

            Harry waited. But Malfoy didn’t change or move, and didn’t speak again. He seemed to think he’d said enough and Harry should answer now.

            His hands were still in place, so Harry could shove and send Malfoy staggering away from him, and he did. He winced as Malfoy’s fingers ripped free of his wrist. It hurt. He’d probably have a fine bruise, and have to make up some story for Ron and Hermione. Luckily, they should accept that he’d been fighting with Malfoy.

            Which is really no less than the truth, he thought grimly as he stood up and stared at Malfoy, who had shut his lips into a thin line.

            “Why?” Malfoy whispered.

            “Are you mad?” Harry demanded. “Yeah, I can understand all the people who don’t know about it wanting to fuck me, but you’re one of the only people in the school to know I can’t. I don’t—this makes no sense, Malfoy. Sure, dream about it if you really want to, or get someone to take Polyjuice and turn into me—”

            Malfoy was already shaking his head. “I would know it wasn’t real,” he said.

            “How? How in the world would you know, and why would you care if you did?” Harry put his hand over his eyes. “This makes no sense, I’m telling you. Someone who was Polyjuiced would look and smell and taste just like me.”

            He had to work hard to keep speaking instead of breaking down into hysterical giggles. I’m standing in a corridor with Draco Malfoy and trying to persuade him to fuck my look-alike. I have no words for this. I barely have emotions.

            “I would know,” Malfoy said stubbornly. “And that’s enough.”

            “Then you’ll have to try something else,” Harry snapped, turning away. “Because having Voldemort come back isn’t worth the pathetic little groping I’m sure would be the only thing you could manage.”

            He could practically feel Malfoy gaping behind him. He counted to three before he heard the sharp trotting sounds of Malfoy’s feet that indicated he was coming after Harry.

            “Pathetic, am I?” Malfoy snarled, grabbing his wrist and swinging him around again as Harry stopped with the pain of it. “At least I’m not a virgin.”

            Harry found himself relaxing and laughing openly into Malfoy’s face. Malfoy blinked at him and retreated, stupefied. Harry followed him this time, making sure he wore a small smirk. Other people who looked at this row had to think it was an ordinary one, and that would include the sight of Harry either angry or not affected at all by Malfoy’s words.

            “That’s the whole point, that I am,” Harry whispered. “It doesn’t matter what you say to me. That won’t change what I did, or my determination to keep on doing it, because saving the world matters more to me than your poor little insults or your poor little hurt feelings. I’ve been coming to terms with this for months, Malfoy. I don’t care what you think, what you say, what you do. In a month we’ll both leave Hogwarts forever and I’ll never see you again. Why should I care about what you like or want?”

            And he turned his back with a fine flourish that he heard a few people watching them cheer for. He thought he could feel Malfoy’s eyes on his arse, but so what? Every word he had spoken was true. Malfoy could change nothing.

            And if Harry could torture him a little by showing off what Malfoy could never have, well, that was just fine.

*

            “I can’t believe it, mate!”

            Harry laughed and grabbed Ron, joining him in prancing around the middle of the Gryffindor common room as the seventh-years around them laughed and whooped, too. Neville was half-drunk already, and kept explaining that he had got more NEWTs in Herbology than the exam proctor had ever seen. Dean and Seamus were toasting each other with Firewhisky, and probably well on their way to join Neville by now. Lavender was celebrating with a sixth-year boy by sticking her tongue down his throat. Parvati was holding a parchment of some sort that contained a job offer and sitting in a chair in the corner with quiet happiness in her eyes. Hermione watched the rest of them and smiled indulgently.

            It was the final night they would spend at Hogwarts, and the news was good. They’d received it unusually early because of the Ministry’s recognition that most of them had contributed in some way to the war effort, and their desire to ease those anxieties.

            And, Harry thought though he couldn’t prove it, they had also received it early because Hermione had made certain threats by letter, and no one in the Ministry wanted those threats to come true.

            They had their NEWTs, and while not everyone had done as brilliantly as they wanted, they all had enough to take their places in the outside world. Harry was trying to think about entering Auror training and leaving school behind, but the image didn’t seem real right now.

            What was real was dancing with Ron’s hands on his shoulders, and the thump of their feet on the carpet, and the drunken laughter echoing around them, and the smell of burning paper from the fireplace where Harry had thrown the latest bunch of mad post that contained marriage proposals and invitations he wouldn’t be able to accept. He made an absent note to himself to live in a house that had a larger fireplace. He and Ron had talked about getting a flat together, but Harry didn’t expect that plan to last for very long. Ron and Hermione would start living together as soon as they had admitted some things.

            Ron fell over at last, and Harry hopped backwards so that he wasn’t dragged down with him, shaking his head dizzily. Ron was laughing, and the laughter seemed to work itself down Harry’s ears and into his veins, bubbling and fizzing in his blood like champagne.

            He was free. Finally. It had taken years of toil and torment and struggle, but he was free.

            And he knew the toil and torment and struggle would begin all over again when he entered the Auror program. He would have to study harder than he ever had at Hogwarts. He would be facing more dangerous training. Because he hadn’t killed Voldemort in battle, a lot of people had doubts about his fighting ability. He would have to prove himself over and over again, and deal with the same disgusting amount of fawning that he did here. Maybe even worse, because at least here some of the professors wouldn’t allow it in their classes.

            But for right now, he was going to enjoy this feeling of freedom.

            The common room was too tight, too hot, too enclosed. Harry grabbed a bottle of Firewhisky and slipped out the portrait hole when most people were daring Lavender to kiss Seamus. Hermione noticed his going, but all she did was smile and wave a hand, and Harry thought he could count that as approval if anything was.

            The corridor was dark and cool and quiet; a lot of people were at the Leaving Feast still, or the impromptu end-of-the-year parties that spilled out of many rooms on the lower floors. Harry turned towards the Astronomy Tower, scratching his chin as he walked. He was starting to get a ragged beard, which he hadn’t done anything about during the mad days of taking NEWTs. He’d have to shave.

            He leaned against the wall for a minute and closed his eyes, then laughed quietly. He could think about things like shaving.

            I’m free.

            If he’d felt a whit less joyful he would have gone and got his Firebolt and ridden circles above the pitch until he collapsed from dizziness, but this wasn’t like that. It was a quiet joy. The only thing Harry could really compare it to was how he’d felt lying in his cupboard the first night after he found out he was a wizard, with a warmth in his chest to keep him company—the first thing, other than spiders, that ever kept him company in the cupboard.

            I can feel things like this now. I can have a quiet life if I want, and no one is going to prevent me from having it, not fans and not enemies and not Malfoy.

            And not that stupid vow.

            That was what they didn’t understand, Harry thought as he wandered out onto the roof of the Astronomy Tower, not Ron and not Hermione—whom he’d caught giving him pitying looks sometimes—and certainly not Malfoy. They thought of the vow as a kind of death sentence. Harry couldn’t do something. That was horrible. He’d made the sacrifice against his will. That was awful. He would never be able to have sex. That was terrible.

            The only part Harry agreed with was the last one, and even that was less terrible than Voldemort. That was what they didn’t get. They thought that he couldn’t really be happy, at least the ones who knew about the vow, unless he had a wife and kids or some kind of grand and passionate romance like his parents had. The ones who didn’t know about the vow usually thought that one of them was necessary to complete his happiness.

            They weren’t. No one was. There were people he loved, but if they died, he would grieve for them, like Sirius, and then live on. He wasn’t going to cast himself off the roof of the Astronomy Tower over anybody or any promise he had to make. He knew what the alternative would have been.

            Harry leaned his elbows on the battlements, and sipped at his Firewhisky, and thought about the contrast between the burn in his throat and the bubbling tea-heat in his heart and tasted the night wind. If he could look into a series of mirrors, he thought, and see all the versions of Harry Potter that ever existed, he was sure he would be one of the happiest.

            “Potter.”

            Well, I was one of the happiest a minute ago, Harry thought, as he pivoted slowly to face Malfoy. He was determined that he wouldn’t let Malfoy hurry him. Nothing Malfoy said mattered now.

            “Hullo,” he said, with a nod and a little smile. “Come for one last spat before we go off tomorrow?”

            Malfoy said nothing, and didn’t smile back, or sneer, or smirk. He just stood at a little distance and stared at Harry with hot eyes. Harry shifted in place, uneasy despite himself. It was stupid, but Malfoy’s desperate hunger made him feel—

            What? Not obliged. I can’t oblige the stupid git by having sex with him, and he knows that.

            Burdened, maybe. Here’s one of the few people in the world who knows what I sacrificed, and the only one who doesn’t respect that.

            “Potter,” Malfoy said at last, and Harry knew he was trying to achieve the kind of voice that would make the hair on the back of Harry’s neck prickle. He refused to show the prat that he’d succeeded.

            “I know what you want,” Harry said. “You’ve told me several times. The answer is still no.” He turned away, took another drink, and determinedly scanned the view, telling himself that he should memorize it since he would probably never see it again.

            “What if I told you,” Malfoy whispered, stepping closer, “that your vow might actually have left the way open for the Dark Lord to return?”

            Harry couldn’t help it; he glanced over quickly, and Malfoy smiled in a superior way that said he was gratified he’d made Harry pay attention. Harry shook his head. “I’d say that this is some cleverer method than usual to get me to have sex with you,” he said, “and also that it’s still not going to work.”

            Malfoy came a few steps nearer yet. Harry backed up, turning so that he could see Malfoy, as well as the entrance he’d come out of, and so that he couldn’t be thrown over the battlements. He’d suddenly thought of a different explanation for Malfoy’s strange behavior, one that made a lot more sense. Maybe he wanted revenge for Voldemort’s disappearance and had decided to come up with a way to get rid of Harry.

            “Haven’t you ever felt what I’m feeling, Potter?” Malfoy said, his voice hoarse. Harry frowned and wished he could see his face better. The moon wasn’t full tonight, and the starlight was dim. Harry would have cast a Lumos, but he still didn’t do well with non-verbal magic, and he didn’t want to take his attention away from Malfoy for as long as the casting of the spell would require. “Simple lust? Or are you above that, and that was why it was so easy for you to make that vow?”

            “You know nothing about me at all,” Harry responded, with a quiet force that finally seemed to impress Malfoy. At least, he stopped and stood tracing his tongue over his teeth in quiet contemplation for a moment before he nodded.

            “I’m willing to grant that,” he said. “Except for one thing. By staying a virgin, you’ve opened up a path for the people who want to see the Dark Lord to come back to use you as a virgin sacrifice.”

            Harry stared at him. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to demand that Malfoy tell him more. He wanted to accuse him of working for the enemy, but then he decided that Malfoy would hardly tell him about this supremely evil plan the Slytherins, or someone else, had if he was working with them.

            Unless he’s trying to throw me off the trail.

            Harry shook his head and stood up straighter. He liked to think that he’d grown up a little in the last two years, since he had started thinking about an actual, workable plan to defeat Voldemort instead of charging onto the battlefield and hoping for the best. He wouldn’t get trapped in overthinking and double-thinking himself.

            “Say that I believe you,” Harry said. “Who are we talking about? Give me names.”

            “Theodore Nott’s father,” Malfoy said promptly. “He’s trying to gather support among the other former Death Eaters. My father won’t go for it; he thinks that you command some kind of powerful magic and would just defeat them if they tried.” His voice held a sneer. Harry smiled in relief. Back on ground that I understand, now. “But Vince and Greg’s fathers might listen, and I know there are others.”

            Harry leaned slowly back against the wall, his arms folded, and studied Malfoy until he was shifting uneasily. “That sounds reasonable,” Harry said. “Except for one thing. How would they know that I’d made that vow in the first place? Someone must have told them.” He lifted his wand so it pointed directly at Malfoy’s heart. “Someone like you.”

            Infuriatingly when Harry was trying to be serious and threatening, Malfoy only smiled. “No. I want to fuck you, not kill you.”

            Harry rolled his eyes. “It’s still the simplest solution, that you told them about this.”

            Malfoy shook his head. “I don’t expect you to believe me now, but you can put me under Veritaserum later, if you want.” The casual offer made Harry’s mouth drop open, and Malfoy rushed on with his argument before Harry could recover. “There are two ways. Someone could have cast a detection spell at you, seen that you were still a virgin, and simply decided to use that fact. In which case, they’ll want to move quickly, because they have no way of knowing that you won’t decide to cure that little disease tomorrow.” Malfoy was smiling in delight now, and Harry glared at him and waited for him to finish.

            “Or someone could have performed a ritual and made a sacrifice of his own, and then asked the wild magic how you defeated the Dark Lord,” Malfoy finished. “The wild magic is neutral, you know, that old power. It doesn’t care if someone does something that could kill someone else who’s vowed to it. If the proper price was paid, it would answer the question.”

            Harry kept his wand and his eyes on Malfoy, but he had to admit that made sense. Of course, since Malfoy wanted to fuck him anyway, the simplest solution was that he had made this up so Harry would jump at him in panic and beg him to get rid of his dreaded virginity.

            The thought made Harry snort, because he was sure that Malfoy really would see it as a disease, and that made Malfoy’s confident expression falter for the first time.

            “I’ve heard them talking about it,” he insisted in a heated whisper. He inched forwards a step, but stopped when Harry’s wand swung at him like the hand of a clock. “You’ll never be allowed to live a normal life. You’ll have to deal with them somehow. And isn’t it better to know about it so that you can pick the time for dealing with it?”

            “Yes, it is,” Harry said. He had made up his mind. There would be no harm in asking Hermione to cast some of the spying spells they’d become expert in during the months before the ritual because they had to make sure that no one suspected what they were doing. “Thanks for the information, Malfoy.” He slipped around him, heading for the stairs down from the Astronomy Tower. Already his stride felt more powerful, his breaths deeper.

            He had loved the peace, but it wasn’t what he was used to. In fact, it was sort of a relief to have the danger back again.

            Malfoy caught his arm. Harry punched back with his elbow; Mad-Eye Moody had taught him techniques like this when they had still thought that he’d have to fight Voldemort face-to-face. Malfoy gave a little wheezing moan and tumbled over.

            “Don’t touch me,” Harry said sweetly, and then began to clatter down the stairs, his mind busy with the paradox.

            How could he stay a virgin so that Voldemort would stay vanished, and yet avoid being a virgin so that his enemies, or anyone else who thought to ask the wild magic—and there were plenty of people who were curious—wouldn’t be able to use his vow against him?

*

            “Yes, I’m afraid he’s right, Harry.” Hermione held up what looked like a mirror made of frosted glass. “I’ve been using those spells to spy on the Slytherin common room, and people there are whispering about a vow of virginity and plans to try and eliminate it.”

            Harry sighed. “Well, maybe I was foolish to think it would stay a secret,” he said, wrapping his arms around his knees. All three of them were sitting in Ron’s room at the Burrow, and there wasn’t much space. “After all, everyone’s always been too curious about me for their own good.”

            Hermione patted his shoulder and gave him a look of sympathy, but she’d already said all the words she had to say on the subject, and Harry didn’t ask for more. Ron did mutter, “Why did Malfoy tell us about it? You’d think it would be his perfect world if You-Know-Who came back.”

            Hermione regarded her boyfriend levelly. “Ron. He’s gone.”

            Ron hid his mouth behind his arm and glared at her.

            Hermione leaned forwards and touched Ron’s shoulder the way she did sometimes when she was encouraging him to do well in a difficult Quidditch match. “Come on. You can say the name.”

            Ron dropped his arm and slowly opened his mouth. Hermione nodded encouragingly and beamed the way Harry had seen Mrs. Weasley beam when one of her children said something particularly smart.

            “Old Snake-Face,” Ron said, with exactly as much flourish and drama as he’d probably bring to actually saying Voldemort’s name.

            Harry started laughing. Ron gave him a triumphant look. Hermione pouted and tried to look seriously displeased, but she’d never been that good an actress.

            “I don’t know why Malfoy told me about it,” Harry said, “to answer your original question, Ron.” He’d been forced to tell his friends about Malfoy getting a glimpse of the ritual in order to make sense of where the information came from, and he’d got a scolding from Hermione in return for keeping such dangerous information to himself. “Perhaps he doesn’t like the people who are talking about it. Perhaps he wants to gain our trust and betray us somehow. I don’t know. But the important thing is that we know now, and we can come up with a way to counter them.” He looked hopefully at Hermione.

            Hermione frowned for the first time since they’d started discussing their enemies’ tactics. “I can try, Harry. And there’s some magic that thrives on paradoxes. But…” She turned her palms up. “I have to admit, right now I don’t know how you can be a virgin and not be a virgin at the same time.”

            Ron cleared his throat, his face so red that it looked painful. “Does he have to—I mean, the vow depends on what Harry thinks of as virginity, right? So he could still wank?” Harry nodded, feeling sure his face was a mirror of Ron’s as far as the embarrassment went. “Well, then, can’t he get someone to—to have sex with him, just not all the way? That way, he could be sort of half a virgin?” He was mumbling by now, staring at the quilt and tracing a finger over it so that he didn’t have to catch Harry’s eye.

            “It’s worth trying,” Harry started, but Hermione shook her head firmly.

            “The vow depends on that,” she said, in the gentle way she had first explained her idea to banish Voldemort to Harry, “but also on what the wild magic thinks. And the wild magic has a tradition, with vows like this, of defining the loss of virginity as focused on the penis.” Harry was impressed how she managed to maintain her clinical, detached tone, though her face had turned as red as both of theirs. “So the only way Harry could keep safe from his enemies completely would be to have sex ‘fully,’ to lose his virginity—”

            “And that would mean Voldemort came back,” Harry finished.

            Hermione nodded, then abruptly flung her arms around him and wailed, “It’s not fair that this is all so focused on you!”

            Harry patted her back and looked up helplessly at Ron. After all, Hermione was his girlfriend, and Harry had always felt helpless when Hermione started crying. Ron got the hint and hugged Hermione from behind, drawing her gently away and into his embrace.

            “It’s all right,” he whispered. “Magic thrives on paradoxes, you said. And no one would have noticed that except you. No one else could give us this much hope. Harry’s going to be fine, I promise.” Harry nodded and tried to look as fine as he could. In fact, he felt a lot less threatened than Hermione seemed to think. He’d had years of being a target. And no matter how evil the remaining Death Eaters were, they weren’t as powerful as Voldemort.

            Hermione sniffled and dried her tears with the back of her hand, straightening up with a little gasp. “Right,” she said. “And the first thing I think we should do is ask Malfoy to help us.”

            Harry opened his mouth to say something, but then found he couldn’t say a word, so dumb with surprise was he. Ron stared in a similar gape-mouthed condition from the other side of Hermione.

            Ron recovered faster. “What?” he spluttered. “The little ferret?”

            “Right,” Hermione said without missing a beat, pulling herself away from Ron and pawing through the book that she’d brought with her. She didn’t look up, and Harry thought she was even more embarrassed about her tears. “Ferrets are good at getting into places where no one notices them. He can be our spy among the Slytherins—former Slytherins,” she corrected herself. “He knows them, and we don’t. We can have the spying spells through the mirrors follow them, of course, but we can’t stay awake and attend the mirrors all the time. The chances that we’ll miss something are high. Malfoy knows the right questions to ask and the right places to be.”

            “He’ll never do it,” Ron proclaimed. “Why should he? We don’t have anything he wants.”

            “He must have had some motive for telling Harry in the first place,” Hermione said briskly. “We’ll find out what he wants and give it to him.”

            Harry groaned and put his hand over his eyes.

            There was silence, and then Hermione asked, in a suspicious voice, “Harry, is there something you’re not telling us?”

*

            Harry stood outside the gates of Malfoy Manor, scowling at his hands. Here he was at Malfoy’s big, expensive house, to beg for the help of someone who had tormented him all through school and had already made it clear that he wanted Harry in the worst possible way. Harry hated his life.

            Then he remembered there were worse moments to live through—such as the moment when he’d had to explain to Hermione and Ron what Malfoy wanted—and buried his feelings in a knock on the broad, round plate in the middle of the iron gates.

            The plate began to glow a soft gold. A sexless, cheerful voice said a moment later, “Who shall I say is calling, please?”

            “Harry Potter,” Harry said, and managed not to make it a moan of despair by insane amounts of sheer effort.

There was a long pause, and the golden glow vanished from the plate. Harry lifted his head hopefully. Had the Manor decided not to let him in? Would he not have to deal with Malfoy after all?

            Then he saw a slender figure hurrying down the long path that led beyond the gates to the house, and sighed. He slouched against the fence and watched Malfoy come in stormy gloom.

            A shock suddenly hit his shoulder, running through the bars of the fence like a tame bolt of lightning. Harry straightened up with a yelp. The same cheerful voice said, “Please maintain proper posture at all times.”

            Harry hadn’t finished rubbing his shoulder and glaring at the fence when the gates parted and Malfoy stepped through. He looked almost exactly as he used to do in school, except, Harry thought, that his robes were finer, and a brilliant sky-blue instead of the student black. His hair was disordered, too. Harry hoped he had pulled the git out of bed, or away from a good shag. That would at least make up a bit for what he had to ask of him.

            “Harry Potter,” Malfoy breathed. His eyes raked Harry up and down with a lust that caused Harry to shake his head in annoyance. The only thing that separated Malfoy from some of the hero-worshipping students who had chased Harry through Hogwarts was that at least he wasn’t screaming. “At last.”

            He stepped forwards, grabbed Harry’s chin, and drew him into a savage kiss.

            Harry punched him in the ribs.

            While Malfoy wheezed and stumbled and gasped in circles, Harry said, in what he hoped was a firm and frosty voice, “That is going to stop right this minute, you idiot. I came to ask for your help, not to get molested.”

            Astonishingly, his words pulled Malfoy back upright, his mouth set in a haughty line and his nose up so high that Harry was surprised he could see over it. “Malfoys never molest,” he said. “I would have ravished you.”

            “Well, anyway,” Harry said. He folded his arms and leaned away from the idiot. “We have to find a way to solve the paradox between my vow and the sacrifice it makes me into.”

            “You haven’t considered the simplest solution?” Malfoy already looked sleek and superior again, as though Harry’s punch had never ruffled him. Harry rolled his eyes.

            “What’s that?”

            “Letting someone rav—er, sleep with you,” Malfoy said hopefully. “And then dealing with the Dark Lord when he reappears. There must be other ways of dealing with him.”

            Harry sneered at him. “I meant the promise I made, Malfoy, and it’s still the best way to get rid of him, since it doesn’t endanger anyone’s life. Besides, if I was going to sleep with you, you’d have to be a lot different.”

            Malfoy drew himself up as if Harry had challenged him to a duel. “List the ways I’d have to be different.”

            Harry scowled, but then reminded himself that they needed the git’s help. He sighed. “Calmer, for one thing,” he said. “Kinder. More concerned with me and not just sleeping with me because you think I’m fit.” He had to roll his eyes again after that statement, it was so ridiculous. People don’t get one glimpse of me naked and start drooling all over themselves. It didn’t happen to Hermione or the blokes I played Quidditch with. “Less inclined to run away afterwards and brag to all their friends that they slept with the great Harry Potter.” He gave Malfoy a pointed glance that he hoped the git would feel.

            Malfoy looked offended, though he spoiled it a bit by clutching at the place in his side where Harry had hit him. “You think I would tell other people the details? Of course not. Those details are mine. Besides,” he added, with a complacent smile, “talking about it probably means we couldn’t do it again.”

            This time, when Harry rolled his eyes, it was in despair. “Whatever,” he said. “The person I’d want to sleep with, assuming it was possible for me, which it’s not, is not you.”

            “I notice,” Malfoy said, drawing himself up with a little flourish, “that he’s not female, either.”

            Harry blinked, and was silent. He’d learned in the past few years that it was a lot easier not to say anything when he was confused. That way, even though he might look like a fool, at least he didn’t both look and sound like one.

            “The list of qualities you mentioned,” Malfoy said. “Nowhere in there did you say that the person you would want to sleep with would have to be female.”

            Harry shrugged. “So what? It doesn’t matter, because either way you’re not going to be sleeping with me.”

            “Hmmm,” Malfoy said. “If you didn’t come here to have me relieve you of your sad condition, what did you want?”

            “We need someone who can spy on the people who are plotting to return Voldemort to the world and report back,” Harry said reluctantly. His only comfort was that the name still made Malfoy look apprehensively at the sky, as if he thought Voldemort would descend in a dragon-drawn chariot or something. “I mean, you’re the only one we know who can learn those things and might be willing to help us,” he added hastily. “We wouldn’t have come to you if we had a choice.”

            Malfoy stood there looking at him in silence for a little while, letting the wind toss the hair out of his eyes. It was too bad he was such a git, Harry thought, because he could be handsome when his mouth was shut. His face had more color than it had ever seemed to have in Hogwarts, and his eyes were strong and clear when he wasn’t squinting them up in outrage or disgust.

            “I’ll want payment,” Malfoy said then, and his voice was softer and more dangerous than it had been. Harry had the impression that he could speak the name “Voldemort” now and Malfoy wouldn’t cower. “And you know what sort of payment I want.”

            “I also told you that I couldn’t give it to you,” Harry retorted.

            “For each report,” Malfoy continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “a kiss.”

            Harry paused and eyed him skeptically. That was a much less outrageous price than he had thought Malfoy prepared to demand. “That’s all?” he asked. “You won’t try to go further?”

            Malfoy shook his head.

            “You won’t try to slip me a mouthful of poison?” Harry asked. “Or stick a spike under your tongue and try to stab me to death? Or give me a kiss that would enslave me to your will?”

            Malfoy blinked, looking somewhere between horrified and impressed. “That’s a nasty imagination you have there, Potter,” he said, almost reverently. “You would have made a good Slytherin.”

            If only you knew, Harry thought, and the secret made it easier to smile at Malfoy. “Fine. The bargain’s off if it turns out that you’re reporting the wrong information, of course, or lying to protect your mates. And I think that you don’t deserve anything until after the first one, since you already claimed a kiss today.”

            Malfoy laughed, his face relaxing into more pleasant lines than Harry had ever seen it assume. “You’re all right with this,” he said, and his voice was thick with glee. “You’re really all right.”

            Harry shrugged. “I gave up the notion of having sex with people months ago. Or put my sex life at the service of the wizarding world, take your pick. I reckon I could be outraged about this, but it’s really only a variation of what I’ve been doing all along and of my own free will.”

            For some reason, that made Malfoy go quiet, his eyes narrowed. Then he said, “You wouldn’t have chosen this if you really had a choice, then?”

            “Of course not,” Harry said. “We’ll be waiting for your report. Send them care of owls to Hermione. People aren’t so eager to intercept her post.” He nodded to Malfoy and strode off in the direction of the Apparition point he’d used before.

            “Certain things I do might make you change your mind!” Malfoy yelled after him.

            Harry waved a hand at him and kept moving. This wasn’t as bad as he had thought it would be. He kept repeating that to himself as he Apparated back to the Burrow.

*

            “God, I’m glad to get here, mate,” Ron said, shuddering theatrically as he walked through the entrance of the training room where Harry was already doing push-ups. Harry pulled himself up and stared at Ron curiously. Ron spent most of his nights either at the Burrow or with Hermione, who had had a Floo connection put into her parents’ house, and always groaned about having to attend Auror training at all.

            “Did you have a row with Hermione?” Harry nodded in thanks as Ron flung him a towel from the bar on the wall and he began to mop the sweat from his face. Ron stripped off his robes and shirt and flung them into a corner, then dropped down and began to exercise as if his life depended on it. Harry rolled his eyes. Ron always went too fast at first.

            “No,” Ron panted, his face already turning red. “Mum caught Ginny…sneaking out to…her boyfriend’s house. With more than enough, um, things to show exactly what she was going to do.” His flush got even deeper. “The yelling was enough to almost shake the house down.”

            Harry snorted. He loved Mrs. Weasley, he really did, but she seemed unable to accept that her children were growing up, and that Ginny, who was almost seventeen, would have to be able to make her own decisions soon. “Well, there’s going to be yelling here, too, you know. Just a different kind.”

            Ron shuddered and stood up, catching the fresh towel Harry tossed to him in turn. “Still better than thinking about my little sister having sex.”

            Harry smiled at him. “You’ve been awfully good about this whole virginity vow thing,” he said. “Since it means that you have to think about me having sex.”

            Ron grinned from under the towel, which he had draped over his head so that he could wipe at his hair. “Yeah, but the vow means that I don’t ever have to think about you having sex,” he said. “If you know what I mean.”

            “Unless Hermione decides that’s the solution,” Harry said.

            Ron nodded. Hermione had received several job offers, but was putting them off for the moment until she could decide which one she wanted to accept. She spent most of her time researching furiously to find a way that Harry could either get out of the virginity vow without bringing Voldemort back or somehow resist any attempt to make him into a virgin sacrifice. She’d been researching for a fortnight now and hadn’t had much luck. All the paradoxes she investigated turned out to dissolve because, while they might be acceptable in the minds of humans, they weren’t acceptable to the wild magic, which was not human and had its own standards.

            Harry knew she’d received one report from Malfoy, which apparently contained little more than confirmation that Nott and others continued to talk about making Harry into a sacrifice to bring Voldemort back. But they hadn’t moved so far, and Harry was starting to feel a bit more confident. At least he would have warning before they did.

            Ron started to say something else, and then the lights in the training room went out.

            “Back-to-back,” Harry said at once, and he knew Ron nodded even though he couldn’t see it. They easily fell together, planting their shoulders against each other, and Harry tried not to squint. Instead, he concentrated on the solid pressure of Ron’s spine and the readiness he could feel coiled through his muscles. Ron had been through the same training under Mad-Eye Moody that Harry had, and he could react at least as well if not as fast.

            For long moments, Harry heard nothing. He wondered if someone was creeping up on them with Silencing Charms. And then someone laughed, and he knew that laugh. His grip on his wand tightened.

            “Bellatrix,” he breathed, in the whisper Moody had taught them that didn’t carry beyond the immediate vicinity. Ron shifted a little in a way that showed he’d heard Harry.

            The darkness around them started to hum. Harry knew that sound, too. He wrapped an arm around Ron’s waist and threw him to the floor in the moment before a lightning bolt struck the place where Ron had been standing.

            Which meant that it hit Harry instead.

            He found all the breath in him frozen, his limbs jerking and twisting in weird contortions. He felt his fingers loosen, and his wand flew away. He watched it with despair, and then realized that he could see again. He would have turned his head, but the lightning paralyzing his muscles meant that he could only watch what was directly in front of him, in a pool of light cast from both wands.

            Ron dueling with Bellatrix.

            She was alone, but that was the only thing that was good about the fight. Her hair flew wildly around her head, and she moved like she was dancing, and her mouth was stretched in a wide, crazed smile. She cackled. Harry had heard her laughing like that when Sirius fell through the veil.

            She hurled several spells that Ron was barely able to deflect, and paused to whisper something Harry couldn’t hear, but which turned Ron’s face red. Then she laughed again and moved in for the kill.

Suddenly, her face changed, and she paused for long moments, twitching, in a way that made Harry wonder if someone had hit her with an invisible lightning bolt. When she opened her mouth to speak, a liquid mess poured out instead, green and black and shimmering. She fell face-down into it, and didn’t move again.

            Ron staggered backwards, mouth open in a way that clearly said that had been none of his doing. Harry felt the spell end, and he managed to stagger to his feet . He stepped towards Ron, ready to catch him if he fell.

            Malfoy stepped over Bellatrix’s body and nodded coolly to both of them. “Hullo.” He wiped his foot on the floor; he must have stepped in some of the mess that Bellatrix had caused, Harry thought, part of him amused that his mind kept on working that way. “You really need to step up the security on the training rooms. Anyone could walk in.” His glance seemed to take in both Ron and Bellatrix.

            Ron opened his mouth to bellow, but Harry spoke before he could. “And why didn’t you warn us of this planned assault, Malfoy?” He needed to take control of the conversation. He needed to think about anything but the fact that Malfoy had just saved his life and the life-debt that that incurred between them. “Did you think we would notice if it happened and you left it out of your report?”

            “That’s a fine thanks for rescuing you,” Malfoy said, his voice nothing but quiet.

            Harry had to turn away from his eyes. Ron didn’t have that problem, and spoke on. “Harry asked a good question. You claim to be a spy, but what good are you if you can’t even tell us when something major happens?”

            “Bellatrix was acting on her own, and none of the other Death Eaters had spoken to her since the vanishing of the Dark Lord,” Malfoy answered promptly. Why will he take a question like that from Ron but not from me? Harry thought, scrubbing at his eyes. He used to like tampering with Ron’s feelings more than he liked affecting mine. “They think it drove her a little mad. She probably attacked to get revenge, and not because of the plan that we’ve discussed.” He lowered his voice, because Harry could hear outraged shouts from the corridor and supposed that he didn’t want to talk too openly in front of the Aurors. “The spell I used on her isn’t Dark, by the way. It simply acted on an allergy that I knew she had, that all of the Black women had. My mother nearly died of it once.”

            “What allergy?” Ron demanded.

            Harry could perfectly picture the freezing cold look that Malfoy turned on Ron, even though he wasn’t looking at him. “As if I would tell you, Weasel,” Malfoy whispered.

            “I need you to speak for me,” Malfoy added. “They’ll want to blame someone for the security breach and for her death, and if she killed anyone on the way, they’ll be displeased to find that she’s beyond their vengeance.”

            “How did you know she was here?” Harry asked, staring at the far wall. For some reason, he felt inadequate to face Malfoy right now, and he hated it.

            “I was spying on her,” Malfoy said. “I have a crystal ball tuned to her—”

            “Those things don’t work,” Ron scoffed.

            “They do if you try to use them for the farsight they were originally adapted for, and not stupid maneuvers like trying to see the future,” Malfoy said. Harry had to admit that Malfoy sounded much calmer and more mature and in control of himself than either he or Ron did right now. “I saw her Apparating, and saw her appear outside the Ministry. And then I moved.”

            He glanced at Harry, and Harry didn’t turn away this time, although it still felt like he was spitted on silver nails as far as Malfoy’s eyes went. “Are you all right? She struck you with a lightning bolt, I know. That’s odd,” he added, with a small frown. “Usually, Bellatrix liked to kill someone her victims cared about first, to demoralize them.”

            “She was aiming for Ron,” Harry said. “I threw him out of the way, and it hit me instead.” He swallowed experimentally. The surge of adrenaline and the odd, conflicting feelings that came from talking to Malfoy had prevented him from noticing it before now, but his muscles still trembled with jelly-like aches and pains. And it would probably be a good idea if he sat down—

            He was already dropping before the thought finished, but Malfoy conjured a chair that caught him. Harry nodded his thanks and leaned over to put his head between his knees, helped by Ron’s hand on his neck.

            The room filled with the noise and shouts of Aurors demanding to know how someone had got through the wards then, but Harry still heard Malfoy’s voice through the noise as clearly as if they had been in a silent dungeon together.

            “You’ll speak for me, remember.” And then, more softly, “I’ll want two kisses for this.”

            Ron said something back, but Harry didn’t hear it. The words had cast him into a mental whirlwind from which it was hard enough to rise when he needed to talk to the Aurors who wanted witnesses.

*

            In the end, of course, Malfoy was cleared. Harry wasn’t going to lie—though Ron whispered a few sweet, tempting words about how much easier it would be if Malfoy was at least hampered by the need to report to the Ministry for a while every day—and there had been witnesses who had seen Bellatrix storm the wards, ignoring the way they broke around her. She’d killed two Aurors, and left one for dead, who was perfectly sure his killer was a tall, dark-haired woman and not a short, pointed-face, white-haired boy.

            Harry went to St. Mungo’s because everybody insisted (except Malfoy, who stood off at a distance with his arms folded and his eyes bored as if he had nothing to do with any of this). The Healers kept him overnight for observation, but admitted in the morning that they had found nothing wrong with him and he could go home. They did caution him not to attend Auror training classes for a few days.



            Harry would have left at once, except that Malfoy had sent him an owl soon after the examination. So now he sat on the edge of the bed in St. Mungo’s, swinging his heels and staring at the floor.

            He was unaccountably nervous about this, and he shouldn’t be. He had wanked plenty of times. He’d kissed Cho, and even Ginny a few times in sixth year before they realized there wasn’t enough passion to be going on with. He didn’t think Malfoy would be a bad kisser or press too much; he knew what he was up against with the vow of virginity.

            Maybe it’s just that I don’t know what to do with him, he thought, rubbing the back of his neck. He saved my life, he killed his own aunt, and he’s only asked a small price. But, on the other hand, it’s the kind of price that could make me feel dirty if it was higher. I don’t know what to do.

            He had to laugh at himself. Malfoy wasn’t even in the room and Harry was already working himself into a fine froth over him, something Malfoy would probably like.

            “What’s so funny? I always like to know about the things that make you laugh.”

            Harry looked up sharply. Malfoy had stepped into the room, and shut the door behind him as if this was a private conference. Harry swallowed and sat up. He wouldn’t allow Malfoy to make him nervous. He wouldn’t.

            “I was thinking that I react like an idiot around you, and I don’t know why,” Harry said honestly. “You’ve done good things for me, at least since you told me about this plot you discovered. And you could have asked me to have sex with you in return for the life-debt. I know you could have. I looked up how they work.”

            Malfoy snorted and took off his cloak, hanging it on the peg for visitors by the door. “Has it occurred to you that I don’t want the Dark Lord back any more than you do? Of course I wouldn’t ask for that.”

            “Then why were you saying that you want to fuck me and so on when we were in Hogwarts?” Harry had to ask. “It sounded then as if you wanted me to break the vow.”

            Malfoy licked his lips. “I was hoping that the idea would be so attractive to you that you would manage to work out some compromise with the wild magic, something that would allow you to keep the vow and yet share a bed with me. I admit, it wasn’t the best worked-out of my ideas.” He was easing towards the bed now, his eyes bright, and Harry realized his breathing was faster. Well, his own breathing was faster, too. He couldn’t really blame Malfoy for that.

            “And now,” Malfoy said, his voice gone husky, “I think I’d like to claim my price.”

            He put his hands out, and held them there. Harry’s face heated when he realized that Malfoy was waiting for him to stand up and move into his embrace.

            “This makes me feel stupid,” he whispered, even as he did it.

            “Kissing makes most people feel at least awkward, if not stupid,” Malfoy answered. “The best thing is just to ignore it and get to the part that feels good.” He wrapped one arm around Harry’s waist, one around his neck, and leaned in.

            Harry met him halfway, sticking out his tongue in a way that he told himself was pathetic.

            And then Malfoy’s tongue met his and curled around it, and it no longer seemed pathetic.

            They swayed back and forth, now with one of them supporting their joined weight, now the other. Harry felt Malfoy’s tongue scrape and stroke his gums like the shock of another lightning bolt fired into his mouth. He shivered and moaned, and Malfoy picked up the moan and echoed it back to him, which was so fucking good that Harry shivered again. Malfoy chuckled, but it sounded like a laugh shared with Harry, not against him, and he rubbed his knuckles on the back of Harry’s neck.

            The motion cleared enough of the haze in Harry’s mind to make him recognize that he could do the same thing if he wanted to and touch Malfoy other places than in the mouth. He ran one hand down his back. Malfoy froze, then moaned in turn, the first time Harry had heard him make that sound.

            Harry liked it.

            He swirled his tongue in circles that he hoped would distract Malfoy and then pulled his shirt up. He was glad Malfoy wasn’t wearing robes; it made it easier to touch warm skin, fever-hot skin that felt intriguingly smooth and then rough beneath Harry’s fingertips. He wondered if Malfoy had scars there or something, to make the area of his spine feel so much different than the rest.

            Malfoy broke the kiss with a gasp, his head dropping back and his mouth falling open. His fingers worked open and then shut on Harry’s waist and neck, and sent unexpected little prickles of satisfaction through Harry. He smiled and increased the stroking pace of his hand, stepping closer.

            “Like that,” Malfoy whispered. “Oh, like that.”

            Their erections brushed against each other.

            Harry shuddered, half from delight at how good it felt, and half from fear that this might break the terms of his vow. Or go too far, and then what would happen? This was just supposed to be the price that Malfoy had demanded because he had to demand something in return for risking his life. Harry wasn’t supposed to be enjoying it.

            He stepped back. Malfoy lifted his head and stared at him, and Harry realized then that his hand was still in place. He retrieved it hastily, and coughed. His face was stinging from his blush.

            “Why did you stop?” Malfoy whispered. “It’s never been like that with anyone else, not for me. And I don’t think it has been for you, either.”

            “Because,” Harry said, and coughed to catch his breath, and realized how close he was still holding Malfoy, and shifted away, and nearly tripped over his own feet, and flushed, and had to look down at the floor, “I’m afraid that it might break the vow.”

            Malfoy hummed under his breath and traced his fingers around Harry’s nose and lips. Harry felt as though someone was stroking him with feathers where the fingertips touched, and wriggled. Malfoy smiled. “I’ll accept that for an answer,” he said. “For now. Remember that you owe me another kiss for having saved your life. And oh, dear, it will be two when the next report comes in, won’t it?” He turned around and sauntered to the door.

            Harry licked his lips, thinking he could still taste Malfoy on them. Then a question occurred to him, and he called after him. Malfoy halted and looked patiently at Harry, cocking his head as if he received inquiries like this all the time.

            “Would you have wanted me at all, if you hadn’t seen me naked?” Harry asked. “How much of this is about what you saw during the ritual?” And how much is about something else? But he didn’t have the courage to ask that question yet, both because he thought he’d be disappointed by the answer and because there was no bloody reason for him to be disappointed.

            Malfoy let his mouth curl up in half a smile. “The beginning of the ritual was everything,” he answered. “And this is a continuation.” Then he was gone from the room.

            And that answers precisely nothing, Harry thought, pressing firmly on the erection between his legs to will it down. He knew he’d probably have to wank later, to get rid of the feeling of frustration tightly coiled in his gut, but he was damned if he’d wank in the middle of St. Mungo’s.

*

            “I’m sorry, Harry. I just can’t find anything.”

            Harry reached out and squeezed Hermione’s wrist. She looked exhausted and as if she was about to cry, and he didn’t want her to. “You’ve already been amazing, Hermione. You found the ritual that let us win in the first place. We’ll ask for help, that’s all. Dumbledore might know something. And McGonagall. It’s easy to go to them for help, since they already know about the vow.”

            Hermione gulped and nodded. “It’ll be all right,” she said. “We’ll find some way to solve this problem. I don’t have to do it all by myself, do I?”

            “Of course not.” Harry patted her shoulder and leaned back in his chair. He and Hermione were in the drawing room in the small house Harry had decided to buy in Hogsmeade. The Burrow was too crowded to stay in for long, especially since Mrs. Weasley, who didn’t know about the vow, had started trying to push Harry and Ginny together, and being with Hermione’s parents made Harry feel as if they were always looking at him slightly askance, waiting for him to do something magical. This house was tiny, but snug, and there were rooms in it that were all his own. Harry had never asked for anything more.

            I never thought I would have this much, he reminded himself, and he smiled. Whenever he felt too cramped because of the vow, his choices determined for him, or too much under threat from the Death Eaters who wanted to capture him and use him as a sacrifice, he would remember that he still had freedom and living space and all these other things that he’d thought were impossible.

            “Yes, those are good ideas,” Hermione said, reassured, as Harry had thought she would be, by the mention of authority figures. Then she looked at him sharply and said, “How are you getting along with Malfoy?”

            “Er, fine,” Harry said, blinking. He hadn’t discussed the way Malfoy saved his life with Hermione, because she already seemed to know all about it by the time he mentioned a word. Ron had told her, and he was sure that she’d talked to the Healers at St. Mungo’s, too. And she hadn’t seemed to know about the two meetings Harry and Malfoy had had since then, each one full of a kiss that seemed to last much longer than the conversation.

            Harry felt himself blushing, and Hermione looked at him anxiously. “It’s just that I think you have a crush on him,” she said, lowering her voice as if that was a dirty word, “and I don’t want you to get hurt. He’s still a prat. Or I don’t want you to go too far and break the vow.”

            “Don’t worry,” Harry said. “Voldemort staying away will always be the most important thing. I never thought we could get rid of him without a lot of people dying. This was spectacular, Hermione. You don’t need to worry that I’ll undo your work.” He spoke in a firm tone that he hoped would quiet her anxiety once and for all.

            Hermione shook her head, face bright and kind and worried. “That’s not it, Harry, not at all. I know you’ll respect it. But I’m worried that Malfoy won’t, and in the meantime, you could get your heart broken. It would be horrible to be in love with someone and be bound by the vow.”

            Harry stared at her, aware his mouth was open, but unable to care. “Hermione,” he said finally. “A crush is a long way from being in love. And there was always the possibility that I would start liking someone even after the vow. I knew that before I agreed to it. I promise, it’s not some horrible deprivation I can’t live with. Why would the wild magic have accepted my vow as sincere if I saw it that way?”

            Hermione relaxed slightly. “Of course, Harry. You can’t fool the wild magic.”

            Harry nodded, glad she agreed with him. And if part of him wasn’t so sure, well, he still wouldn’t break his vow. He had made it with his eyes open. What happened after that was his problem, no one else’s.

*

            “I’ve heard that you’re going to the Hogwarts professors for help.”

            Harry glanced up sharply. Malfoy had made his latest report on what Nott and the others who wanted to kidnap him were discussing, and Harry had written down the most important facts so that he didn’t forget them, as he had a tendency to do. He’d written slowly. He was already hard, and had wanted to give his cock, or at least his pathetic eagerness, a chance to subside before the kissing started. Malfoy had lounged on Harry’s bed, not complaining. He insisted they hold their conversations in Harry’s bedroom.

            “Where did you hear that?” Harry snapped. What one person heard, others could hear.

            “Oh,” Malfoy said, rolling on his back and staring up at the ceiling that Harry had decorated with stars so that it somewhat resembled the ceiling of the Great Hall at night, “from my ears. I heard that Granger had been spotted going into Hogwarts and up to the Headmaster’s office. Most people don’t know what she could be doing there, but I do.” He shot Harry a glance from one eye only; the other was still busy with Harry’s imaginary constellations. “You know, if you wanted extra aid with the research on finding a way around both the virginity vow and the danger of sacrifice, you only had to ask me.”

            “What makes you think you’d be any good at it?” Harry asked flatly, and then turned back to write down the last thing Malfoy had said. Other people might draw the right conclusions, too, at least if they had asked the wild magic about the virginity vow.

            Malfoy crossed the floor between them so quickly that Harry didn’t have a chance to brace himself, and his hand scrawled a long line of ink across the parchment as he found himself borne back into the chair. Malfoy pressed his lips in, his hands holding Harry’s down. Harry tried to kick Malfoy off, and Malfoy stepped in between his spread legs and ground against him.

            Harry gasped, and Malfoy began a slow, steady rubbing that caused the building excitement Harry had already felt to turn gold and begin to burn.

            But this still might break the vow. Harry didn’t know, and he forced himself to think of something else than how much he wanted Malfoy to continue. He brought up his knees, which Malfoy had nudged aside to reach his cock, and slammed them into Malfoy’s chest. The air went out of Malfoy with a huff, and he staggered back and sat down next to the bed, rubbing his sternum.

            “The Auror training is benefiting you, Potter,” he said breathlessly.

            “Yeah,” Harry said, unwilling to talk about it, because for some reason the words had reminded him that Malfoy had seen him half-naked in the training room on the day he’d killed Bellatrix. “What was that for?”

            “The answer to your question,” Malfoy said with infuriating innocence. “I’d be good at it because I want to fuck you far more than anyone else wants to kidnap you. And knowing that someday I might be able to do that, at least if I can help you work around the vow to the wild magic’s satisfaction, is one strong inducement.”

            “I told you once before,” Harry said with a calmness he was very far from feeling as his hand brushed his erection, “I don’t want someone who just lusts after me.”

            Malfoy lifted his head, and the look on his face stole Harry’s indignation and amusement alike. “Tell me that what you feel when I kiss you is only lust,” Malfoy whispered.

            Harry swallowed. “I don’t think it is,” he said. “But that’s all you ever talk about. You want to sleep with me. Great. But as a driving reason for you to research lots of intricate and highly complex ancient magic, it sucks.” Malfoy’s eyes widened in astonishment, but Harry kept plowing ahead, not giving himself enough time to think about what that would mean. “What if you overlook something or rush through it because you think it might allow us to sleep together earlier?”

            Malfoy bowed his head and rose to his feet. “All right, I can see why you would be worried,” he said, as he brushed dust from the bed off his trouser legs. “And I’ll count that as the kiss you owed me for this report.” He looked pointedly between Harry’s legs, but Harry had spotted the bulge he carried, too, and settled for a glare in return. Malfoy looked away. “I’ll come back with at least two options next time,” he said. “And maybe then you’ll see the wisdom of listening to me.”

            “I always listen to you,” Harry snapped. “I just don’t always do what you want.”

            Malfoy glanced back at him with one of those flames in his eyes that could always make Harry feel as if he should simply stop moving and sit still when it fell on him. “And how glad I am,” Malfoy said lightly, and then turned and left the room.

            Harry leaned back against his chair and pressed down on his erection. I will not wank while Malfoy is still in the house, I will not wank while Malfoy is still in the house…

            He heard the door shut, or thought he did, and ripped open his trousers frantically, grumbling in relief as he took himself into hand. Fuck it.

            He stroked up towards the shaft, then down towards the tip, and smeared the liquid he could already feel dripping into his skin. He was gasping. He licked his left hand and lowered it to touch himself, jolting with how good it felt. He wondered what it would be like if Malfoy was touching him.

            And then he had to bend over in his chair and writhe from the strength of that imagery.

            It’s just a picture, he’s not even here, how can he affect me so powerfully?

            But he did, and Harry was desperately biting his fist so that he wouldn’t cry out. The sound of his hand stroking and his cock slapping against his palm grew so loud that he started panting partially to cover it. He was grateful that no one else was here—

            “I thought so.”

            Harry jerked his head up as Malfoy stepped back into his bedroom. He smirked at Harry and shut the door behind him. Harry stared at him, but he couldn’t stop touching himself. He was so close, and Malfoy was looking at him the way Harry had imagined he would look if he was with Harry when he began wanking, and it felt so good—

            “Don’t stop for me.” Malfoy’s voice was low and eager and dark. “This is what I wanted to see. Yeah, Potter, come on. Come—”

            Harry tilted his head back, bit savagely at the skin around his wrist, and did as Malfoy suggested.

            The orgasm made him shake and give low cries even though he tried desperately to muffle them. But then, said a hazy part of his brain that somehow made more sense than the rest, Malfoy had already seen the single most embarrassing thing he could, Harry masturbating over him, so why should he care about what else he saw?

            He’d barely caught his breath when Malfoy was on him, shoving him back into his chair, his panting so loud that Harry found it hard to listen to. Malfoy spread his legs wider than Harry was prepared to have them go, so wide his thighs ached, and settled himself between them. His trousers were already gaping. Harry felt a moment’s regret that he hadn’t got to see Malfoy open them.

            Malfoy gripped Harry’s thighs and started riding up and down between them, his cock touching Harry’s. Harry stared down at him, hypnotized. He would have reached down and helped, but Malfoy didn’t seem to want that. He was rising up and falling down entirely under his own power, his eyes locked on Harry’s penis, his breath coming in greedy gasps.

            He’s trying not to break the vow, Harry realized suddenly. Hermione told me. If someone touched me without my really consenting to it, then it can’t break the vow, no matter what they do. And rubbing against each other probably doesn’t count anyway, given what the wild magic thinks about virginity—

            He blinked and shook his head vigorously, because why in the world was he thinking about something that dry and abstract when he could think about something wet and physical happening right in front of him instead?

            Malfoy tilted his head back, shuddering. He winked at Harry right before his eyes flew shut and he moaned. A moment later, Harry felt himself soaked with come. It was a rush of warmth and stickiness that made his cock twitch.

            But unfortunately, his Boy-Who-Lived powers didn’t extend to such a quick recovery. Instead, he watched as Malfoy sagged forwards and leaned his head against him, panting. Malfoy opened an eye after a minute and surged up, grabbing Harry’s neck so that he could offer him a kiss.

            Harry returned the kiss with all the force in him, grinding into Malfoy again and feeling both smug and interested at the limpness of Malfoy’s cock. That was fun. It was unexpected and too fast and too hot but it was—fun.

            Maybe because it was unexpected and fast and hot.

            Malfoy pulled back from the kiss at last, though licking at Harry’s lips on the way, as though he wouldn’t be parted from them until the motion of their bodies forced them away. “I take it, from that,” he said, eyes heavy-lidded and smirk wider and warmer than it had ever been in Hogwarts, “that I’m not about to be clubbed over the head and handed to the authorities.”

            “If I club you over the head,” Harry said, almost jumping when he heard his own hoarse voice, “it will be to drag you into my bed so we can do that again.”

            Malfoy cocked his head. “What? No comments about the vow now?”

            Harry sighed. “At one point, Ron suggested that I could become a sort of half-virgin by having sex like—this—with someone.” It was ridiculous to be worried about saying the words in front of Malfoy, with all else they had discussed and what they’d just done, but he was. And at the moment, Harry’s wasn’t inclined to question his impulses. He would just indulge them and see what happened. “Hermione said it wouldn’t work. The wild magic considers penetrative sex something that takes your virginity, and nothing else.”

            Malfoy froze, staring at him. Then he said, in a low, dangerous voice, “You mean, we could have been doing this from the moment I saw you naked, and you didn’t tell me?”

            “I didn’t know then!” Harry snapped. “Ron only asked that question after you told me about this plan to kidnap and sacrifice me.” He shoved at Malfoy’s chest when he continued to glare. “Why the fuck am I trying to justify myself to you, anyway?”

            “Because we’ve fucked, now,” Malfoy said, seizing Harry’s wrists in one hand.

            “I hate to tell you, since you’ve led such a sheltered life,” Harry argued as Malfoy tilted him back in the chair, pulling his wrists over his head, “but that was not fucking.”

            “My life has been wide enough,” Malfoy said. “It’s your vocabulary that’s poor. When I said I would fuck you, I wasn’t picky about the definition. I simply wanted to do it.” He was considering Harry now with a critical, pleased gaze that at once made Harry feel defensive and happy. “Yes,” he murmured at last, “you’ll do. You meet my high standards.”

            Harry braced himself then and shoved, and Malfoy staggered off-balance as Harry wrenched his wrists free. “I told you once,” Harry said, standing up and brushing dust off his shoulders. “I didn’t care to be spoken to by someone who was only interested in fucking me. I want what I can never have, a family and a steady lover and someone who’s not interested in only being with me for sex.”

            “I can’t give you the family,” Malfoy said. He paused and looked thoughtful. “Unless you’d like me to apprise my parents that—”

            “Are you mad?” Harry pushed his hands through his hair and glared at Malfoy. “I don’t know what to make of you sometimes.”

            Malfoy gave him a bright smile that was still somehow fragile. “I don’t know what to make of myself. I’ve never felt this way, never acted this way. I’ve never wanted someone with the frankly frightening strength that I want you.” He reached out and curled his fingers in the collar of Harry’s shirt, drawing his head closer again. Harry allowed it, though he hardly knew if he should. Malfoy stared at him from a short distance away, panting, but didn’t try to kiss him again.

            “I want you so much,” he whispered. “I want to be near you even when we aren’t fucking. But it’s so tied up with the way I felt when I saw you naked, and the way I felt when I came into the room just now and saw you wanking, that I don’t know what else it is. You want something you can trust in. I don’t know if you can trust in this.”

            Harry narrowed his eyes. “Did someone tell you to say that?” he demanded.

            “If I had someone that good advising me, I would have been able to coax you into bed first thing.” Malfoy released his collar and moved a few feet away, eyeing him mistrustfully now. “What do you mean?”

            “I prefer honesty to almost anything else,” Harry said. He cast a Cleaning Charm and tucked his cock back into his pants. The way Malfoy’s eyes followed the motions of his hands made him feel ashamed and excited at once. “Why would you say that if you weren’t trying to get in good with me?”

            “If I didn’t mean it, it wouldn’t be honesty, would it?” Malfoy pointed out.

            Harry sighed and raked his hand through his hair. Everything was confusing. He probably shouldn’t want what Malfoy offered, especially since they hadn’t yet come up with a way to circumvent the virginity vow, but he wanted it anyway. He wanted to have sex with him again, and he wanted to talk with him, and he wanted his help researching a way to satisfy the wild magic on both conditions, that of being a virgin and that of being a non-virgin.

            Malfoy began to snicker.

            Harry looked up, annoyed. The sound had interrupted his serious thoughts and made him feel a bit stupid for having them. “What?’

            Malfoy pointed to his hair. “You cast the Cleaning Charm on your lap,” he said, “but not on the hand that held the wand.”

*

            Malfoy took to the research into the virginity vow and the wild magic like a hippogriff to courtesy. He shut himself up into the library at Hermione’s parents’ house with Hermione and sixteen books he’d brought from the Malfoy library the very next day.

            He also didn’t blow up the house, and no matter how long Harry listened to the library door, he only heard intense murmuring, not bickering. He shook his head. I wonder why they never got along this well before.

            Then again, it took the sight of my naked body to convert Malfoy to lusting after me. It probably takes the fate of the world to make him willingly cooperate with Hermione.

            When Malfoy came out at last, he looked dazed but smug. Harry sometimes thought that had been his permanent expression since they’d had sex. “She does have a mind,” he said, leaning against the doorway of the library and shaking his head. “The things she could have done in Slytherin, if she’d been wise enough to be born to pure-blood parents.”

            Harry bit his tongue until he could taste blood. “You said that you would have at least two options for keeping me a virgin and not a virgin,” he said. “Do you?”

            “Better,” Malfoy said, moving so that he was leaning more fully against the doorway. Harry tensed, thinking that Malfoy was heading towards him, and not sure what would happen if they touched right now, when his mind was full of images from yesterday. Then he realized that Malfoy was simply draping himself against the wall so that he showed to full advantage, and glared at him. From Malfoy’s smile, Harry was sure the glare held more heat than he had hoped it would. “I have a combination of two options, and Granger agrees that they’ll work.”

            That made Harry stare, and took his mind away from sex. From the way Malfoy pouted, he sensed that and was upset about it. But Harry didn’t give him a chance to voice his disappointment. “What are they?”

            “Well,” Malfoy said consideringly, pulling away from the doorway and taking a step closer, “what do you know about the theory of magical doubles?”

            “Assume that I’m as ignorant as you always thought I was,” Harry said. His hand reached out, and he frowned and pulled it back. He was sure that he hadn’t said it could do that. “Because of my unfortunate Muggle upbringing and Muggleborn mother and all.”

            Malfoy looked at him from under one drooping lid. He did that too often, Harry thought absently. His eyes were beautiful enough that he should have shown them fully all the time. “You’re not,” Malfoy said, voice curiously low and clear. “I know that you aren’t what I was trained to despise, and ready to despise from the moment you chose Weasley over me.”

            Harry shook his head. He didn’t want to think about this, about the tone in Malfoy’s voice or anything else that might touch the dangerous thing brewing between them. They were supposed to be thinking about ways to save the world right now, and that and sex didn’t mix. He stepped back and said, “The theory of magical doubles?”

            Malfoy paused, and sighed, and rolled his eyes as if he thought that Harry was being the ridiculous one. But he nodded obediently and said, “It says that two copies of a person actually are the same person, on the magical level. Not on the physical one. Of course there’s a difference between identical twins—” he sneered, and Harry was sure that he was thinking of Fred and George “—or between a real person and an illusion that’s been cast of him. But when the copy is good enough, there’s no difference between their magic.”

            Harry frowned at him. Malfoy rolled his eyes again. “Look, while I don’t think you’re completely stupid, your mind is a map with certain areas filled in and islands of knowledge floating around in huge seas of ignorance, all right? I’m explaining this as clearly as I can without explaining all the magical theory behind it, or expecting you to have read that theory.”

            Harry nodded and motioned for him to go on. Malfoy continued in a softer and more intense voice, now and then glancing back towards the library. Harry thought he was afraid Hermione might come out and steal his thunder by explaining it herself. “It’s the magic in you that the wild magic responds to, that the promise of your virginity vow rests on. And it’s the magic in you that a virgin sacrifice would depend on, too. Therefore, if we create a sort of magical copy of you and have that lose its virginity, then it should satisfy the conditions of the paradox. Harry Potter will stay a virgin, and Harry Potter won’t be one.”

            “But that’s not going to help if my physical body is still seized and sacrificed for the ritual to bring Voldemort back,” Harry said slowly. “After all, we can’t fool people the same way we can satisfy the wild magic. And they could use some other kind of ritual, one that didn’t depend on the wild magic, couldn’t they?”

            Malfoy nodded. “That’s why the solution has to go further, and be combined with the second one I thought of. Why not ask the wild magic to make you a virgin and not a virgin at once? You made one promise to it. You can make another. The wild magic is neutral and doesn’t care; Granger must have told you that. It’s perfectly willing to let one promise obviate another, as long as the promise is good enough, as long as the sacrifice is high enough. The burden of keeping the promise rests on you, not the wild magic. All it will do if you break it is reverse what it made happen.”

            Harry shook his head. He thought he was following this, but he wasn’t sure. “But what can be a good enough sacrifice to the wild magic? I can’t promise my life.” He paused and then swallowed. “Or I could,” he added slowly, “or maybe my power. I would do it if that meant that the world would be protected from Voldemort.”

            He became aware of a freezing silence in the corridor with him, and looked up to see Malfoy running his eyes up and down Harry’s body. Harry tried to manage a smile, but had the feeling he didn’t do a very good job. “I know you don’t want that to happen,” he said. “After all, I need to be alive so that you can fuck me.”

            “I have no idea how Weasley and Granger put up with you for so many years,” Malfoy said, speaking in a low, precise voice. “I was pitying you for being their friend, but now I see that my pity should have gone the other way.”

            Harry stared at him. “What?”

            Malfoy pressed closer to him, and even though he didn’t actually shove him into the wall, Harry felt trapped anyway. His eyes were small and his breath was harsh, and Harry felt more cowed than excited.

            Well, he thought he did, anyway. Perhaps not cowed by much more.

            “You’ll give up your life at a moment’s notice,” Malfoy whispered. “Or your magic. And then you’ll make stupid, joking statements about it. Is it so strange that I might want you alive for some reason beyond the fucking? I told you, I enjoy spending time with you even when we’re not doing that.”

            Harry tried to swallow. “You don’t understand,” he said. “I was only saying that because I didn’t know what else to offer. What is there? I don’t think the wild magic cares about money or my Firebolt or my wand, and there’s nothing else I have that’s precious. If you have something else I can promise, then say it.”

            Malfoy paused, his breath shallow. Then he sighed and actually rested his head on Harry’s shoulder. Harry stood there, blinking, unsure if he should touch him, and wondering what would happen if Hermione came out of the library.

            “I thought the clue was there, in my words,” Malfoy breathed. “But I can see how it might not have been. We’ll give the wild magic a show, Potter. Such a show that it can’t look away, such a show that it’ll be pleased. Where do you think magical rituals came from in the first place? Shows to please the wild magic, to make it more inclined to grant whatever the petitioner was asking for. If you want to get technical, the wild magic is formless most of the time. The rituals give it a place to manifest and show off. A new ritual, one that combines magical copies of yourself with the plea to the wild magic? One that’s beautiful and splendid? We’re going to charm the wild magic, Potter. We’ll sweep it off its feet.”

            Harry blinked. His mind was filled with dissolving images of gold and light and darkness and hope.

            “We can do that?” he asked. “And it’ll really—consent to be fooled like that?” He thought he should be able to call it something else, but he didn’t know what.

            Malfoy smiled up at him. “Yes. And it’ll be the best thing we could possibly do, because it combines those two options and because it’ll make the wild magic protect you and the wizarding world without any more sacrifices, and because it was my idea.” He paused, then added, “And because it’ll get rid of that stupid virginity vow. Perhaps I harp on that a bit much, but it’s important to me.”

            Harry laughed in spite of himself. I don’t know if I always like him, but he charms me in the same way that he’s arguing we should charm the wild magic.

            “I give you permission to put your arms around me,” Malfoy said grandly.

*

            Despite his skepticism, Harry quickly discovered that Hermione not only didn’t resent Malfoy for coming up with an idea that she hadn’t had, she was enthusiastic about it.

            “It’s really quite simple, Harry,” she explained as she spread out a piece of parchment in front of him. Harry’s eyes tried to cross. The parchment was covered with darting lines and scribbled notes and what looked like a replication of ritual circles. It reminded him of how Hermione had first tried to explain the virginity vow ritual in all its technical aspects to him. “We have to have magical doubles. It’s best if we have a lot of them, both to give the wild magic more of a show and because that means we can distribute any magical consequences or backlash among them and diminish the effect on you. I don’t think any of us are good enough illusionists to create that many illusions of you, though. And especially not illusions as perfect as they would have to be for the wild magic to think of them as you.”

            Harry nodded, and tried his best to listen by closing his eyes. Maybe he would do better if he didn’t have to see the overwhelming complexity of this ritual, but only listen to it.

            “Now,” Hermione was continuing, voice sliding and slicing past his ears in a blizzard of excitement, “there are other ways we could do this. By creating models of you—but that would take wizarding alchemy, a Potions master, and a lot of time. I think we should do this as soon as we possibly can.”

            Harry stared at her. Hermione sighed and said in a patient voice, “Because that way there’s less chance that the Death Eaters can kidnap you and use as a virgin sacrifice.”

            “Oh. Right.” Harry nodded several times. He hadn’t really thought she was as anxious as Malfoy to have him able to have sex, or for the same reason, but it was best to make sure. So many essential truths of the world had changed for him in the last few months, and “Malfoy is not sexy” was only the most profound of them.

            Hermione eyed him suspiciously, but didn’t seem to find enough in his manner to latch onto and lecture him about, so she continued. “By casting your shadow,” she said. “Multiple shadows are one way to create magical models. But that would involve a lot of light spells, and a lot of time to get right, the same as for the model plan. And you don’t have a twin that we can build off of.”

            “So how are we going to do it, then?” Harry propped his chin on his hand and stared gloomily at the figures on the parchment. It sounded as though all the best plans were impossible.

            “Mirrors,” Hermione said.

            Harry lifted his eyebrows and his head and stared at her again, but this time he couldn’t help smiling in excitement. Hermione noticed and smiled back, bouncing slightly on her heels. She reached out and drew her wand down the side of the parchment, and one of the complex dotted lines came to life. Peering closely at it now, Harry could see that it represented a line of what looked like different circles, connected to each other with arrows.

            “It’s the easiest way,” Hermione said. “Reflections are magical doubles, too. And we can set up mirrors so that they reflect each other—two lines of mirrors, or even more. And the reflections will have their own reflections inside them. That means that we can create a possible infinity of them, an infinity from one person. It’s another paradox. The wild magic likes paradoxes.”

            Harry nodded, really absorbed in this for the first time. “But I think I see a problem. Malfoy’s idea was that one magical double of me would stay a virgin and one wouldn’t. If the mirrors are all reflecting the same thing, then won’t all the magical doubles stay virgins or not-virgins?” Why isn’t there one single word for people who aren’t virgins? he wondered irrelevantly.

            “That’s why the ritual really folds two rituals into itself.” By now, Hermione was practically dancing in place, spinning around in circles, waving her wand as her words became faster and faster. “In the first part of it, you do something that will seemingly render you a virgin forever. The mirrors pick up and reflect that—and we cast a spell that will preserve that reflection in one set of them. Then you do something that takes away your virginity in front of the other line, and they reflect that. We allow that one to continue until your virginity is gone and the danger of your being used as a sacrifice is past.”

            But Harry had fastened on the most important part of all that, which he thought Hermione had unfairly skipped past. “I have to have sex as part of the ritual?”

            Hermione paused and glanced sideways at him. “Well, that is rather to be expected when you’re trying to avoid virginity,” she said slowly, as if she suspected him of joking. “And don’t you want to? You’ve been complaining about the vow more than usual lately, and now we know it’s dangerous, too.”

            “Well, all right, but—” Harry ran a hand through his hair. He had a hard time explaining to Hermione that sex in private was one thing, and sex in public quite another. Especially if there was someone hanging around like Malfoy had who managed to snap photographs.

            And there’s also a problem with the choice of partner, he thought, but that was less relevant, and he focused on the objection that Hermione seemed to want to hear. “I don’t like having sex in public,” he said.

            Hermione gave him a look of pity. “I’m sorry, Harry,” she said. “But we shouldn’t have to see the whole thing, just the part that will confirm to one set of reflections that you’ll stay a virgin and the beginning of the other. After all, you don’t have to cast a spell to keep the second set of reflections.” She paused, and Harry knew what her question would be before she spoke. “Who are you going to get to do this?”

            Harry licked his lips. “I don’t know.”

            He knew who he would like to have, but it was an open question whether his friends would accept Malfoy or if Malfoy would want to. No, scratch that, Harry knew he would want to. But Harry thought he would like it too much only because it was sex, and not enough because it was Harry.

            Then Harry told himself he was being ridiculous. This was only a little thing, only a ritual that he was undergoing because he had to, not something he wanted to choose. He would ask Malfoy, and Malfoy would laugh and agree, and they would have sex, and it would mean nothing.

            And that is exactly the problem, Harry thought, but he couldn’t tell Hermione, whose eyes were growing more and more curious, that. Harry added as casually as he could, “I’ll look around. There are a few people I would trust to do it; I just don’t know if they’d want to.”

            Hermione nodded and patted his hand, looking both sad and affectionate. “Of course, Harry. I’m sorry; I got so excited about solving the problem that I didn’t think much about what it would cost you.” Then she brightened and looked down again at her diagram. “But it’s a good solution, at least, isn’t it?”

            Harry smiled and kissed her on the forehead. It was something to know he had friends he could depend on, whether or not he ever had a lover. “Yes, it is. Thank you.”

*

            Harry closed his eyes to strengthen himself and then knocked hard on the iron gates of Malfoy Manor. He hadn’t pictured himself doing this when he first wanted to ask Malfoy if he would have sex with him in the ritual, but in the end, it seemed best. After all, an owl might sound too casual, and an abrupt request when Malfoy had come over for something else might seem too much like he’d planned it.

            Harry shook his head then. I think you’re giving this much more consideration than he ever would. You’re hesitating and fidgeting and humming the way you would if he really was your boyfriend.

            “Finally.”

            Harry looked up, and then stepped back as Malfoy practically popped out of the gates and onto the grass in front of him. His smile was hard, and there was something predatory in the back of his eyes that Harry couldn’t help regarding uneasily. Malfoy reached out, and then suddenly stopped, put his hands in his robe pockets in a casual gesture Harry had never seen from him, and leaned back against the gates.

            “I had a note from Granger yesterday saying that she’d figured out what to do, and explaining the ritual,” he said. “I’d been expecting to hear from you since, and didn’t. Why not?”

            Harry caught his breath and tried to explain, but Malfoy tilted his head, and his face was pale and handsome, and Harry gulped all the breath away again, and the explanation with it.

            “I think I deserve to know,” Malfoy said at last, in the dangerously smooth tone that Harry had heard from his mouth when he came back and found Harry wanking. “If anyone does.”

            Harry swore and put his head in his hands, and just hoped that Malfoy could hear what he was saying, because he didn’t want to have to repeat it all again. “I didn’t tell you because it mattered too much to me what you thought, all right? And it seemed you’d be willing to have sex with me if I just asked, but I didn’t want to treat you that way. God knows why, since you’ve talked more about fucking me than anything else. But even if you only see me as someone to lust after, I don’t see you that way. And I don’t know why. It doesn’t make sense.” He stood up straight again and took a few steps towards Malfoy. “Tell me why I should like you, when you’ve been lusty, and petty, and demanding, and horrid before that.”

            Malfoy reached out and clasped his wrists, hauling Harry closer than he had meant to come. His face had a new expression: his eyes sparkling, his lips pressed tight in a way that seemed meant to stifle a cry of intense delight. He ran his fingers up and down Harry’s wrists, and then leaned in to kiss him. Harry made a half-strangled sound and struggled, pulling back.

            “Why?” he repeated.

            “I don’t know why you like me, specifically,” Malfoy said, his voice low and sweet, like the sound of some instrument Harry had never heard before. “But I’ll tell you what I hope for, and then you can tell me whether it matches what you have in mind, all right? You only have to nod yes or shake your head no.”

            Baffled, staring at him, Harry nodded permission.

            “I hope that you like me because I’m a challenge,” Malfoy said. “Because I was honest from the beginning about how I wanted you and why. And because I’ve certainly shown, through my sense of humor and my willingness to help you and not press you except when you’d already begun what I hoped to join in with, that I regard you as more than a body to fuck. But I didn’t want to say so openly, because for all I knew you would laugh at me, or disbelieve me because I talked about fucking first.” He stroked Harry’s wrists again. “And I don’t want any more distrust between us. I’m sick of it.”

            Harry shut his eyes. It was what he had wanted Malfoy to say, though he hadn’t known it. It was like being hungry for a long time but only realizing it when you smelled the bread that someone was baking in the next room.

            “Well?” Malfoy whispered. “Is that what you were hoping for? Yes or no?”

            Harry nodded.

            Malfoy drew him into his arms and kissed him again. This time, though still warm and wet and exciting all the other adjectives that Harry had ever applied to Malfoy’s kisses, it was also sweet, drowning sweet. Harry put his arms around Malfoy’s neck and lost himself utterly in the kiss, gasping when it was done and resting his head against Malfoy’s chest.

            “And about the other thing that you came to ask me,” Malfoy said, playing with Harry’s hair, “of course the answer is yes. I would be delighted to fuck you.”

*

            “But Malfoy, mate?”

            Harry rolled his eyes. The hardest part of making his friends understand that he’d chosen Malfoy as his partner in the ritual was making them understand it was Malfoy. Or Ron, at least. Hermione had grasped it right away, and, after waving her wand over Harry’s head to make sure that he wasn’t under the influence of the Imperius Curse or a binding potion, had accepted his suggestion as given.

            Ron, though, still sat on his bed in the Burrow and looked at Harry with a piteous expression that begged him to make it untrue.

            “Yes,” Harry said. “I’ve been—well, I’ve been meeting with him for a while, you know, and giving him kisses as his price for giving us the reports on the Slytherins, and one thing led to another.” He shrugged helplessly.

            Ron rubbed his hand over his face as if he was hot and sought to cool himself with a soothing touch. Then he dropped the hand and looked at Harry and said again, “But Malfoy, mate?”

            “Yes, Malfoy,” Hermione said briskly. “Malfoy is going to join Harry in the ritual and fuck him, or be fucked. I don’t think that’s been decided yet. But when it is, it will happen with Malfoy.”

            Ron and Harry both stared at her. Harry blinked a few times and then decided, She must have thought it was better to be as shocking as possible, since easing Ron into the truth wasn’t working.

            Ron stood up slowly. Harry braced himself for a punch. He had always known that Ron wouldn’t take the news that Malfoy was his lover well, though he had hoped they would escape without too much unpleasantness.

            But instead of hitting Harry, Ron said in a low, hoarse voice, “This is not happening. Not at all. This is a bad dream. I’m going to wake up in a few minutes and find myself in my own bed, with the world all bright around me and no trace of those images in my head.”

            “Ron,” Hermione began, sounding as if she was struggling for sympathy amidst a welter of impatience.

            “No,” Ron interrupted suddenly. “No, it can’t be over yet, not until the ritual is over. So. I’ll walk through this bad dream, and help Harry. And then I can wake up in my own bed, and the sun will be shining. And the birds! The birds will be singing outside the window, and I can listen to them and forget this horrible thing ever happened.”

            He wandered out of the bedroom. Harry stared after him, then looked at Hermione, who lifted both hands and shoulders in a small shrug.

            “Whatever works,” she said.

*

            Harry closed his eyes. He wondered if that would allow him to be calm enough to bear what he knew was coming.

            It didn’t work.

            Harry opened his eyes and pulled his shirt over his head. He dropped it on the bed next to him and then took off his trousers. He could see his movements in the mirror he had placed on the wall across from his bed, so that he could get used to the reflection. But he didn’t look up, not yet.

            Another motion, so that he pulled off his pants, and then he couldn’t wait any longer. He stepped forwards and looked into the mirror.

            He was still scrawny, but not as skinny as he had been in his fifth year. He’d grown. He had black hair that would never be tamed, but did that really matter, when he was satisfied with it, and Malfoy seemed content enough to hold it and tug it when they kissed? He had had a scar on his forehead that had gone when he made the promise to the wild magic to keep his virginity, and he still had countless tiny scars on his body where he’d scraped his palms or fought Dudley or been wounded in the fights with Voldemort, and he had knees that he thought would always look knobby, despite everything.

            But this was the body he lived in. This was the body he had to accept, if he was going to accept anything about himself.

            This was the body he was going to give as a gift to Malfoy.

            Harry closed his eyes, then, and felt a strange swelling in himself, as if he was caught up in a wave that was of the heart more than of the body. Excitement and fear and wild joy; for some reason he wanted to laugh. He looked again, and this time his reflection looked back at him calmly, with only a gleam in its eyes to betray that it was feeling something more than absolute tranquility.

            I’m ready.

*

            Bright white sparks leaped into the air from the conjured bonfire. Banners snapped above them, purple and deep green and red and bright gold, so brilliant that they looked as if they were made of fire themselves. Horses, white horses made of illusion, pranced around the fires, tossing their manes and the next moment leaping and blending into the banners, or breaking into flights of magical white birds, skimming the ground and the poles of the banners with their wings.

            Harry caught his breath. Hermione had said they had to put on a show for the wild magic; what he hadn’t anticipated was that it would be a show for him, too. Or for anyone who wanted to watch, really.

            He glanced sideways at Hermione, who nodded and held up her wand. The grass sparked, and the sparks from the bonfire leaped down to meet it. Together, they grew up into a pillared hall that stretched out before Harry down a lane of grass, marking the path that he would have to walk. Harry swallowed and started forwards with his heart banging so strongly in his ears that he almost couldn’t hear the spitting sounds of the fire.

            He heard the noise of trumpets that wailed around him, though, and the flutes and drums that joined it a minute later. Harry jumped, but took a deep breath to keep himself steady and continued walking. He had known that Hermione was going to conjure the sounds of instruments; he hadn’t expected them to sound so much like the real thing.

            A show. Remember that this is a show, and it’s important and meaningful at the same time. We have to remember that.

            Already the air seemed hotter than it had, thicker, and shimmering with strange traces when Harry glanced at it out of the corners of his eyes that he didn’t think were all afterimages of the fire and the banners. The wild magic was taking an interest, drawing near and wondering what they were doing. That was a good beginning, but now they had to hold its attention.

            Harry, looking ahead to the mirrors that awaited him, and the flicker of a white robe beyond that, thought he could do that.

            The fiery path ran out where the lines of mirrors began. For a moment, as Hermione had told him he should do, Harry halted between the first pair of mirrors, looking down the line. Hermione had practiced conjuring and copying mirrors until she could do it in her sleep. These mirrors all looked identical: all large and oval, all made of the purest glass, all in large, golden, tilted frames covered with curlicues, and all perfectly placed so that they reflected each other.

            Harry reached into his robe pocket and took out a small box. Opening that, he produced two rings of gold.

            The wild magic’s attention sharpened. Harry couldn’t say why he knew that, since the only effect was that the air grew hotter and a few more sparks appeared—sparks that could easily have escaped from the fire—but he did. And now he was confident that he could do this.

            I thought you were before? he asked himself wryly as he held the rings up to the light and the air. Hermione wouldn’t have wanted you to go through with the ritual if you weren’t confident.

            Well, maybe it’s just that I’m more confident now.

            One ring held an emerald, and the other had a diamond. Harry started to slide the diamond ring onto his finger, as if it was a wedding ring, and then took it and threw it violently onto the ground. Holding out his wand, he pointed it at the ring and said, “Flamma aeterna.”

            The ring burst into a pinwheel of colored fire. The wild magic’s attention was so heavy on the air now that Harry found it a struggle to breathe. The ring rose up, sparking as it melted, the gold flowing, the diamond dropping free of the flames but lying lonely on the ground. Harry sniffed and turned his back on it.

            He could practically feel Hermione’s wand whistling through the air as she performed the incantations necessary to hold that reflection in one of the sets of mirrors. And he could feel the heated gaze of someone watching from the other end of the line.

            But the rejection of marriage wasn’t going to be enough to convince the wild magic, or at least Hermione had thought so. After all, someone could have still have sex even if he never intended to marry. They needed something else to give the illusion of perpetual virginity that one side of the ritual demanded.

            Harry drew another deep breath. He knew he was blushing, but he reached up nonetheless and began to unbutton his robes.

            The wild magic was hovering around him in darting trails of white light now, panting heavily as it watched. Harry lowered his eyes, mostly so that he wouldn’t have to watch himself undressing in the mirrors, as he shed his robes and then the clothes beneath. He was relieved that he had remained unaroused so far. That would render what he had to do next easier.

            He dropped his pants to the ground and wondered if he could really feel the way the regard from the other end of the row of mirrors was now heavier than the wild magic’s, or if that was delusion.

            He held up the emerald ring, turning in a slow circle, trying to think very hard about how this was for the ritual and not for showing off before Malfoy, or being embarrassed in front of Hermione. Then he touched the ring with his wand and whispered, “Numquam cupiditas.”

            The wild magic was literally breathing down his neck now. Harry lowered his hand and slipped the band of the ring over his cock.

            A strange giddy feeling filled him as he did. This was uncomfortable, and ridiculous, and a demonstration of something he wasn’t sure he wanted to demonstrate, and many other things besides. But it was also so different from anything he had done in his life before that it gave him a sense of power. He had the strength to get up and parade like this in front of the man who wanted to fuck him and in front of his best friend. It was something, wasn’t it, to turn circles with a ring that would supposedly charm him never to get an erection again around his cock, all the while knowing that he wouldn’t wear it forever?

            Hermione had said that the wild magic thrived on paradox. It was just occurring to Harry that maybe he did, too.

            He could hear her chanting now, strong and forceful, and he could see the wild magic clearly for the first time. Small white creatures, largely formless except that Harry thought he could make out folded wings and four legs on each one, scampered around the edge of the mirrors. They were all circling with eyes on him, and Harry lifted his head higher and waited, one arm arched so that he could show off his encircled cock in all its glory, until Hermione called to him.

            That was the signal that the first part of the ritual was completed, the reflection preserved, and the set of mirrors on the left would confirm that he had sworn himself to perpetual virginity. Harry felt the wild magic settle around his shoulders like a cloak of fire, purring drowsily in his ear with satisfaction.

            He took the ring off and cast it aside, not caring where it landed, as long as it didn’t smash any of the mirrors. The wild magic’s purring didn’t change when Harry turned to face the other end of the row of mirrors.

            And Malfoy, in a transparent white robe that showed off everything it was supposed to be hiding, came forwards at a slow stalk.

            Harry felt his mouth dry out. It was one thing to know that Malfoy was probably magnificent under all his clothes, another to see it. And another thing, even more, to see it an environment like this, with the mirrors multiplying his brilliant hair and his vivid pale skin to infinity.

            Malfoy paused halfway up the aisle of mirrors and cast off the white robe. Harry caught his breath in relief. Malfoy had been so intent on him that Harry half-feared he’d forgotten the instructions for the ritual that Hermione had been so careful to impress on both of them.

            Malfoy turned back and forth, arms lifted high, and his reflections turned with him on the right side of the aisle, reflecting back and forth forever, shining perfection that made Harry’s eyes water with pressure and his tongue seem two sizes too big for his mouth. Malfoy had a settled smile when he turned around again, a lazy smile that Harry liked. He cocked his head and advanced, and though he no longer had a robe to swing behind him, arrogance and beauty traveled behind him like his own train.

            Harry locked his hands into fists so that he couldn’t reach out and touch Malfoy too soon, and disrupt the ritual. The wild magic gathered on his shoulder into a white-hot dragon that stood up and looked at Malfoy with interest. Harry winced, wondering if perhaps it would take too much of an interest and burn or hurt Malfoy before he could get to Harry.

            But that didn’t happen. Malfoy came to a halt a few feet away and turned in another slow circle, though somehow he arched his neck back over his shoulder so that he never took his eyes off Harry. And then he stopped and spread his arms wide, tossing his head back like someone going to be a sacrifice.

            The message was clear: Come and take me.

            Harry groaned, and it was torture to force himself to walk towards Malfoy slowly enough to maintain the solemn pace the ritual demanded. Malfoy was erect, his penis poking towards Harry as if to offer an extra place for his hands to grip. Malfoy was flushed, his skin a delicate pink Harry would have found funny in other situations but didn’t in this one. Malfoy was clear-eyed, accepting what this meant and demanding a kind of courtship at the same time, which so far he had offered more to Harry than the other way around.

            Malfoy was irresistible.

            Harry didn’t know why it should be so, but he accepted it as of a piece with the strange sensation of wearing a ring on his cock, and reached out, and took Malfoy in his arms, and kissed him.

            The wild magic leaped into the kiss, filling their saliva with a buzz as if they’d swallowed too much Firewhisky at once, and stabbing down their throats and up to the palates of their mouths. Malfoy moaned and struggled a moment, as if he assumed that he would lose his teeth or his tongue if he continued to kiss Harry. Harry wrapped an arm around his neck and bound him more firmly into the embrace.

            Malfoy surrendered a moment later, and sucked on Harry’s tongue. The wild magic galloped around them in a soft bright ring.

            Harry slid slowly to a kneeling position, leaving Malfoy upright. Their mouths stayed joined as long as possible, and then Harry had to leave the kiss behind. He was kneeling at Malfoy’s feet, and Malfoy spread his legs and looked down at Harry with a supremely contented expression.

            His lips formed soundless words. You were born to kneel there.

            The wild magic rose to a sharp crooning pitch as if it agreed. Harry ducked his head in response and licked a long stripe up the inside of Malfoy’s left thigh.

            Malfoy stopped breathing.

            Harry decided smugly that that was a good response, and leaned forwards to suck the inside of Malfoy’s knee. Then he moved his mouth slowly around his leg, licking the front of his knee, and down his leg towards his toes, before he moved to the right leg and nuzzled gently at the skin.

            Malfoy had started a soundless chant, which Harry knew was happening because he could feel his body shaking from the effect of the words. Harry thought for a moment that this was a part of the ritual Malfoy had to perform that Hermione hadn’t told him about, but then realized he was whispering Harry’s name.

            Harry’s first name.

            Harry smiled and grasped Malfoy’s arse with both hands, driving his hips forwards. Malfoy’s gasp said that he hadn’t yet recovered from that when Harry sucked his cock into his mouth.

            That was harder than he had thought it would be, because Malfoy immediately began to writhe, forcing himself deeper and deeper into Harry’s throat, but that didn’t matter, because Harry wanted to do this. The desire had been there even before the ritual began. Harry had sneaked sideways glances at Malfoy’s erection many times during their rehearsal sessions. But the ritual had kindled it into burning.

            So he did something with his throat to make it deeper—he wasn’t sure that he would be able to describe it in words, really—and sucked even harder, and Malfoy uttered a trembling cry and stood there on his toes, poised, shivering, ready to come if Harry didn’t stop in a minute.

            Harry knew that, and reluctantly pulled back with a final stroke of his tongue to the head of Malfoy’s cock. Making him lose it down Harry’s throat wasn’t part of the ritual, however attractive it sounded.

            Malfoy caught his breath faster than Harry thought was flattering, and then fell to his knees in turn. He urged Harry to his back. Harry lay down and spread his legs wide.

            The wild magic had formed a blazing curtain around them by now, shining with eagerness and tiny flickers of blue that Harry hoped weren’t a sign of hotter fire that would consume them. That reassured him Hermione wouldn’t be able to see what was happening, and he could be as shameless as he wanted.

            He reached down and ran his fingers lightly along the top of Malfoy’s skull, teasing his hair. Malfoy looked up at him with eyes so dark with lust that Harry had to work to force the words out of his mouth.

            “Draco,” he whispered. “Draco.”

            The ritual they had designed was big on exchanges of all kinds, so that the wild magic couldn’t find a loophole to say Harry hadn’t lost his virginity yet and so that they could put on a better show, but Harry wasn’t speaking the name solely because Draco had earlier said his. Things were shifting. He wanted to acknowledge them, because after this, nothing between him and Draco could ever be the same again.

            Draco smiled at him and then ran a lazy finger up the bottom of Harry’s penis. His tongue joined it. Harry began to feel oddly constricted, which was what it took for him to realize he was holding his breath. He released it with a whoosh.

            Draco raised a smug eyebrow and bent to his task.

            Harry tossed his head back, accompanied by a line of reflections in the mirrors, and cried out. He’d dreamed about this, of course, and wanked to pictures of Draco (and other people before him) performing it, but the reality was on another plane altogether. It was soft and wet and dazzlingly warm, like lying in sunshine on a summer day, and it was—

            It was sucking.

            Harry whined and trembled and tensed his legs, but even that couldn’t keep him from bucking. Or thrusting. Or traveling embarrassingly close to the edge embarrassingly fast. Or chanting Draco’s name as solemnly as if Draco were a god he was worshipping.

            Draco pulled back just in time. Harry had to close his eyes anyway, in case Draco licked his lips and prompted an unfortunate kind of release.

            When he looked up, the wild magic was swirling above them, a cloudy corona that made a constant low rumbling noise, like the approach of the gentlest thunderstorm on earth. Harry held out his hand, and Draco drew him to his feet, and they stood there, embracing, under the blessing of the wild magic.

            “Now,” Draco whispered in Harry’s ear.

            Harry didn’t ask him if he was sure. The great thing about this ritual was the eagerness with which Draco had entered into it, so Harry could be sure that he was willing all the time. He kissed Draco and stepped back, drawing his wand to conjure a cushion beneath him.

            The wild magic sent a long white tendril down. Harry blinked when it became a fleecy pallet beneath Draco. Draco laughed breathlessly as he lay down and spread his legs. Harry’s eyes jerked down to his erection, and then he tried to look as hard as he could at Draco’s face, to drink his full draught of the excitement and sly appreciation there.

            “I assume it wants me to be as comfortable as possible,” Draco said. “Now, put your wand to a better purpose.”

            Harry fell to his knees, weakened by the lust in Draco’s voice. He aimed the wand at Draco’s hole, which looked small even though Draco was parting his cheeks with his hands and arching his legs wide above his head, and murmured the lubrication charm Hermione had taught them. Harry would never forget that moment, because it had turned her face redder than Ron’s hair.

            Draco gasped. His arse loosened and glistened in the more than adequate illumination of the wild magic. Harry dropped his wand, staring at it, and then began to crawl forwards on his hands and knees.

            He knew, dimly, that this wasn’t the confident stride that Hermione had recommended, but the magic rang like bells and seemed to like it well enough. Besides, Harry didn’t think he was capable of doing anything else right now.

            Harry lifted Draco’s legs over his shoulders, and then discovered that wasn’t the right angle. He shifted around and tried to line his cock up with Draco’s arse, and then discovered that Draco’s legs were in the way. He grabbed one ankle, and Draco got nervous and kicked out at him. Harry sat back on his heels and glared at him.

            “Sorry,” Draco said, having the gall to laugh. His hair was disordered, his face glistening like his arse, his mouth gaping wide. That made Harry forgive him at once. “Let’s try again.”

            Harry rose carefully to his heels, lifted Draco’s legs partway, shuffled forwards, went through some more awkward maneuvering, and finally managed to get Draco’s calves where they needed to go and his cock aimed where it needed to go. He glanced up at Draco to see if he had any opinion about this, but encountered only shut-eyed, open-mouthed bliss.

            “Yes,” Draco whispered.

            Harry took that as permission along with encouragement, and thrust forwards.

            If he had thought the sensation of having his cock sucked was amazing, it was nothing to this. In he went, and in, and in. There didn’t seem to be an end. Nor was there an end to the heat and tightness around him, so much that he sagged forwards, dizzy black spots bursting in front of his eyes.

            “Harry Potter,” Draco said gravely, “I will never forgive you if you faint on me. And I’ll laugh at you until the end of time.”

            Harry couldn’t have asked for a better spur. He lifted his head, snapped, “No, you won’t,” and shoved in again.

            Draco gasped as though someone was torturing him. Harry stopped at once, dread cutting through his pleasure.

            “Oh, honestly, you’re hopeless,” Draco said, and kicked him in the back with his heels that hung over Harry’s shoulders. “Don’t you recognize the sound of someone touching my prostate when you hear it?”

            “Forgive me for not having been privileged enough to listen in on any of your sessions with your other lovers,” Harry said, and shoved one more time. And that was really it, he thought. His groin rested flush against Draco’s arse. Both he and Draco were panting, so hard that it was difficult to speak, and Harry had to mentally edit out the little gasps and pauses between his own words so that he would sound vaguely dignified in his memory. “Ready?”

            “I was ready from the first moment I saw you naked,” Draco replied hoarsely.

            Harry rolled his eyes and began to thrust.

            It was—an education. When he moved, Draco moved, too, rocking more than Harry would have thought was possible, and traveling up the cushion that the wild magic had been thoughtful enough to provide for them. It was a much slicker procedure than Harry had thought it would be; sweat rained all around them, and at one point he had to shake his head so that some of the sweat flowing down into his eyes would migrate in other directions. His body seemed to take over at times, thrusting and shoving and even twisting and gripping Draco’s ankles without his permission.

            “Harry,” Draco said, the sound so rich with resonances that Harry couldn’t help but look into his eyes. He saw Draco clutching at his own hair, tearing up and down with his hands as if that would help him bear the pleasure better.

            “Oh, Harry,” Draco breathed, and looked up at him with dazed eyes in which Harry saw a new emotion. He started to bend down, wanting to kiss Draco or speak, to acknowledge it.

            In the end, that didn’t work, because his body had decided that now was the time to come.

            Harry felt the seizing begin in his groin, but it radiated through his body like the rays of a sunrise and then traveled back to the source before he felt the first rush of warmth and goodness and strength. Harry had often felt weak, wrung-out, exhausted, when he came, but not this time. The orgasm seemed to build him up, to add strength to his spirit and magic even as it weakened his body.

            He still fell forwards on top of Draco, but he didn’t think that should be taken as proof of weakness.

            Draco caressed his hair and whispered, “We need to move on, before the magic gets bored.”

            Harry groaned and pried himself up slowly. Long strings of sweat joined him to Draco, and, when he pulled out, long strings of semen. “You don’t believe much in letting people enjoy the afterglow, do you?” he muttered, as he half-turned in place, half let Draco turn him.

            “I will let you do whatever you want when there isn’t wild magic watching us and judging us on how well we do it,” Draco said into his ear, and then he was kissing Harry, bearing him forcefully down. Harry struggled weakly.

            “Oh, stop it,” Draco said, and bit his earlobe.

            Harry gave in at once, hazily wondering how Draco had known he liked that. They had discussed the plans for the ritual together, sure, but never the individual motions and, the way Hermione had insisted on phrasing it, “dance steps” in such detail. They had simply known that they needed to show the wild magic Harry had lost his virginity in every way possible.

            Harry looked up when he lay fully on his back, and saw Draco hovering above him, face soft and brilliant with excitement. Harry felt his spent cock try to stir. If he had ever seen Draco looking at him like this, he would have surrendered at once to anything he asked, whether it was friendship or a love affair.

            “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured.

            “Isn’t that my line?” Draco asked, with a smile that seemed to light his entire body. Then he picked up his wand and aimed it at Harry’s arse.

            Harry would have tensed when the strange sensation of lubrication flooded him, but he was incapable of tension right now. The whole world was bright. Draco’s face shone. The air above them had a hazy luminescence from the wild magic. Draco was flushed pink and white and dark and brown, and it was wonderful.

            “Mine,” Draco said in a tone of deep satisfaction, as he picked up Harry’s legs and began to move them into place. He was much more graceful about it than Harry had been, Harry noted absent-mindedly. “At least I know that no one else has ever done this to or with you.”

            “Someone’s jealous,” Harry said, laughing.

            “Of you? Always,” Draco said, and flashed a sharp smile that led Harry to wonder which sense he meant the words in before he got in the right position.

            The first push of Draco’s cock into him made Harry moan. He had wondered if he would like this. He expected to enjoy being inside Draco, of course, but this was an entirely new sensation, one he hadn’t at all pictured when he thought about the consequences of giving up his virginity.

            He did like it, though. There was too much about it to like, from the way he writhed with his shoulders against the blanket to the fullness that he automatically bore down against, trying to expel.

            To the expression on Draco’s face, as he paused above Harry, gasping with wonder and exhaustion.

            “So tight,” Draco whispered to him. “Anyone could tell that you were a virgin.” Already he was rocking, trying to thrust, which Harry knew he hadn’t done until he was all the way inside Draco.

            “Stop being a pervert in your mind and start being a pervert in more productive ways,” Harry whispered back to him.

            Draco took the challenge with a growl, and shoved so hard that Harry actually did arch his back in pain. But then he was fully inside, and he was hitting something that had to be the prostate, and it was so wonderful Harry would have clawed Draco’s back to get more, if he had been able to reach up that far.

            The wild magic was swirling very close to them now, constantly traveling, filling the air with the shapes of galloping horses and running cheetahs, all white. Then it became a pale bird that landed on Harry’s shoulder and sang a song sweet enough to bring tears to his eyes before dissolving into a puff of smoke with a scent like rose petals.

            Or maybe the tears came from the expression of intense concentration on Draco’s face as he took Harry, rocking in him, pursuing both their pleasures with a familiar intensity. This was the way Draco played during Quidditch, Harry thought, only this time he was striving for sensation for the both of them rather than a simple golden Snitch for one of them.

            It’s official, Harry thought. Sex is more complicated than Quidditch. And more satisfying.

            Draco pushed into him suddenly, and gasped, and held still. Harry looked up at him as he watched Draco release, the orgasm pushing out of his body, making him flex, making him cry out and bounce, making him come.

            Harry found that he couldn’t wait until he could watch that orgasm happen from the outside. He was greedy about it, and though the splash and the warmth were nice, they weren’t enough.

            Which at least settled any questions about their doing these things again.

            Draco dropped onto his chest, moaning. Harry hooked an arm over his back and then looked up at the wild magic.

            It danced above them, tossing small plumed dissolving heads, scraping the air with white cloven hooves, and then settled in front of them. Harry caught a glimpse, or thought he did, of the same intense eyes that had watched over his virginity vow.

            Then the wild magic bowed its head to him, a head that looked almost antlered, and blazed into the air, kicking out once. Harry felt the world around them shiver. That was the only word for it. It was as if all the mirrors had shattered at once, and he looked instinctively at them to make sure they hadn’t.

            The next moment, they were gone. A wind wafted the mirrors and the fires and the banners and, for all Harry knew, the illusion spells that had produced the music, into the air from around them, leaving only the cushion that Harry and Draco lay on. The wild magic swirled up all the trappings of their ritual and took them away with it, perhaps as a memorial.

            And perhaps so it can watch us having sex whenever it wants, Harry thought, having to close his eyes due to his own relief. It had worked. Voldemort was gone, and there was no sensation in his forehead that showed the scar or pain coming back.

            And he wasn’t condemned to being a virgin for the rest of his life, either.

            Harry heard Hermione laughing and running towards them. “It worked!” she was babbling. “It worked! I felt the clash as the wild magic changed things, the clash between the original vow that it preserved, in a way, and the new condition so that no one can use you as a virgin sacrifice. It worked—”

            Then she stopped running, and cleared her throat. Harry opened one eye to study her.

            Hermione stood there with her cheeks so red that she looked as if she’d used all the blood of her body there. She looked at them, and Harry raised one eyebrow and gave her a lazy smile.

            “Oh, put some clothes on!” she snapped, and conjured a cloak that snapped out in the air above them before it fell on them. Harry moved to unfold it, and embrace both himself and Draco within the soft folds.

            “We can’t help that we needed nakedness for the ritual to work,” Harry said. Draco stirred on his chest, nodding in agreement.

            “Yes, but—” Hermione stood there, struggling to explain what she meant, and growing more and more frustrated. Harry watched her, entertained. He heard Draco snicker, distantly.

            Hermione finally stamped her foot, said, “I’d better tell Ron,” and then turned and ran off.

            Harry and Draco laughed so hard that Draco rolled off his chest and lay on the cushion beside him. Then Draco lifted a hand and stroked Harry’s hair back from his ear.

            “Where do we go from here?” he asked.

            Harry’s breath caught. After all the ways he’d imagined this could go, Draco was the one who had the courage to say it, after all.

            He promptly grabbed Draco and tugged him into a deep kiss. Draco went with it, but pulled back before Harry would have thought he could, shaking his head and cradling Harry’s chin.

            “I know where I want this to go, and kisses aren’t a substitute for words,” he said. “If you don’t want the same thing, you’d better tell me now.”

            “I want you,” Harry said, deciding graciously not to point out that he couldn’t tell whether he agreed with Draco because Draco hadn’t actually said what he wanted yet. “I want to date you, and sleep with you, and be seen in public with you and have obscene remarks made about us. I want that to last for as long as we both want it.”

            Draco stared at him, face locked silent, and Harry had a moment to wonder if he had said the wrong thing, if Draco didn’t want this at all—

            Then he broke into a smile that looked half-helpless, and wrapped his arms around Harry, and kissed him again. Harry was the one to draw back this time and look a demand for answers at Draco.

            “I want that, too,” Draco whispered. “Just—wasn’t sure you’d agree.” His hand played with the hair behind Harry’s ear. “Just because I’ve been your only lover doesn’t mean you’d feel loyal to me, after all.”

            Harry kissed his chin and said, “I feel loyal to you and a lot more than that. I think I’m probably in love with you, as inconvenient as that is.” He made sure to sound grumpy.

            Draco looked at him with abject gratitude. That’s it, Harry thought. Treat this lightly, the way it’s been between us so far. We can always get serious later, when we see if this works.

            “I have the same complaint,” Draco said. “It leads to a lot of heart trouble, I can tell you.” He kissed Harry’s chin in return and said, “At some point we should probably take Granger’s suggestion. We are lying in an open field, after all, on a cushion of wild magic and with only a conjured cloak for cover.” They had chosen a field outside Ottery St. Catchpole, some distance from the Burrow, to conduct the ritual.

            “We’ll take it,” Harry agreed, and drew Draco back down to him. “But not yet.”

            A moment later, Draco was exploring his body with eager hands and more eager kisses, and Harry opened his arms in triumph to welcome his future in.

            The End.
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Virgin Revelry