Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Nothing Like the Sun	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 35148 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 9
- 10
- 11
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Ten—Caution
            “So, did you really confront Frank in a restaurant last night?”
            Harry kept yawning and stretching on purpose, because he knew it would annoy Ron. Then he finally rolled over on the couch and looked at the Floo. “Why are you asking?” he said. “Gossip travels faster than I thought. And if you heard it, it must be true.”
            Ron rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a berk. I know you would probably have told us, but we heard it first, from Hannah. Don’t even ask me where she got it.” He leaned forwards. “I just wanted to know the details from you.”
            Harry choked a little, and then laughed. “Of course. Not if it actually happened, because you were certain of that, but the details.”
            “Hey, I waited until ten to be sure you were up,” Ron said. “Hermione would have just called you at eight.”
            That was probably true, Harry had to admit. He rolled over until he was lying on his stomach on the couch, with his arm dangling down the side. “Yes, Draco and I confronted Frank in a restaurant last night. The Cloth of Gold. Draco paid,” he added, because he knew that even in the midst of his eagerness to find out quite different details, Ron would wonder about that once he heard the restaurant’s name.
            “He might have the makings of a good partner for you after all,” Ron said. Harry rolled his eyes in turn. “If you have someone rich to spoil you, you would be a fool not to take advantage of it.”
            “If I wanted to, I could have twice the amount of money Draco has by selling autographs and appearances at public events,” Harry said.
            “Yes, but you’re too noble to do that,” Ron said. “Therefore you don’t have the money, therefore you might as well enjoy someone who does have it and is focused on you.”
            Ron-logic was impervious to mere human logical argument, so Harry abandoned the attempt and said, “Yeah. Anyway, it was nice. The place is beautiful. I did see Frank in a mirror briefly near the start of the evening, but I didn’t think he would come up to me. He’s always approached me before when I’ve been alone.”
            “He can’t stand to see you happy,” Ron said, in the confident tone he used to talk about Dark wizards’ maps. “Of course he would come up.”
            “It was never as bad as that,” Harry said. “He wanted me to be happy when I was with him.”
            “Yes,” Ron said. “Because if you were unhappy, it might reflect poorly on him, since he was dating the Hero and should have glowing on his arm all the time. I know he got a few Howlers each time you went out and someone decided that you’d frowned during the meal or looked as if you’d bitten into a sour melon.”
            Harry flinched. He’d never known that. “No wonder he—”
            “Stop it,” Ron said. “I just told you that because I wanted you to know how utterly shallow he was, that he obsessed about the way you looked and acted when you were on dates with him as much as your crazier fans did. I didn’t mean to make you feel sorry for him.” He shifted a bit, and Harry thought he might have turned to look at someone beside him, but he went on talking directly to Harry. “You don’t need to feel sorry for him. He didn’t have the experience dating you that he wanted, and instead of breaking up with you or accepting that his dreams were unrealistic, he chose to shame you and make you feel as bad as possible.”
            Harry rubbed his face. He wanted to defend Frank, not so much because it was Frank, as because Harry knew what it was like to live with those kinds of Howlers, and he hadn’t even known that Frank was getting them, and what kind of bad lover did that make him?
            But he wanted to talk about last night more than he wanted to defend Frank, either, which might be a first. He decided to take advantage of it.
            Sitting up, Harry said, “Frank decided that I didn’t deserve a wizarding date, and he had to warn Draco about how I’d hurt him, in case I’d managed to lie to Draco so far.” Ron nodded, his fingers visibly drumming on the hearth next to him. Harry grinned. “Draco didn’t take that well. I mean, he doesn’t when it comes from me and I’m worried about how much I’ll hurt him. Can you imagine him caring what some random stranger thought of him?”
            “Especially a stranger that he’s already pissed at,” Ron said, nodding again, this time wisely.
            Harry blinked. “If he’s a stranger, that removes him from the equation. I think most of Draco’s animosities are personal. He doesn’t have a reason to be angry at someone he’s never met.”
            Ron heaved the kind of tremendous sigh that said it was his turn to educate Harry on something that should have been obvious, and he didn’t enjoy it. “Listen, Harry. Frank was one of the bastards who inflicted the damage on you that Draco hates. It doesn’t matter if he’s a stranger personally or not. Of course Draco’s going to hate him.”
            Blinking, stunned, Harry could only manage the rather weak retort of, “When did you start calling him Draco?”
            “Go on,” Ron said.
            Harry talked about Frank’s contradictions, how he said he wanted to save Harry but insulted him in front of a restaurant full of people, how he supposedly cared about Draco but then drew his wand on him. Ron cackled with delight the whole time, especially when Harry talked about Disarming Frank and driving him beyond the Privacy Dome.
            It was a good thing that Harry had lived the action over and over in his head last night before he went to sleep and didn’t need to concentrate to tell it, because his brain was somewhere else altogether.
            He hadn’t thought that Draco hated his past lovers. Disliked them, sure. Worried about them, maybe. Thought they had got to experience things with Harry that he hadn’t due to Harry’s lack of trust, of course.
            But he hadn’t anticipated Draco’s jealousy over the random Muggles Harry gave pleasure to, and he hadn’t anticipated this. Draco had enjoyed taking down Frank verbally last night; Harry knew he had. That wasn’t the same as the sheer viciousness he thought Draco could bring to bear on someone if he hated them.
            Harry bit his lip and decided that he needed to talk to Draco, as soon as possible. Accordingly, when Ron gave one last pleased chuckle and told him farewell, Harry threw Floo powder into the fire and called out, “Malfoy Manor!”
*
            Draco scowled as the potion in the cauldron yet again dissolved into smoke and chaos. Not harmful chaos, or he wouldn’t have been able to stand directly beside the cauldron lip and examine the remains, but one that meant all the liquid disappeared and drifted about the room as steam. He would have to start over, the way he didn’t always have to when he simply had a ruined base.
            A house-elf appeared in the doorway of the lab. Draco turned around. Perhaps it had been there for some time, but he had told the elves never to trouble him while he was brewing, after what they still referred to as ‘Helga’s Disappearing Footses.’
            “Yes?” he snapped.
            “Master Harry Potter is to be waiting in the fire!” the elf said, and kept bowing.
            Draco shook his head. Given the way house-elves spoke, there was no way to be sure whether Harry had firecalled only once and then promised to call back, or whether he was still there, unless he asked.
            And Draco didn’t want to waste the time. He broke through the door of the lab, took the narrow left staircase, and came out in the dining room where he and Harry had eaten dinner together. That was the Floo he had left open to shuttle unexpected firecalls into.
            And Harry’s face floated there, calm but serious. Draco didn’t think Frank had tried to contact him and harass him again, which was good in one way, but which would have afforded Draco the most amusement in trying to correct. “What is it?” he asked.
            Harry rolled his eyes. “Thank you for the wonderful dinner last night, I had a good time, good morning, how was your night?” he said.
            “You didn’t firecall me to ask any of those things.” Draco took a chair in front of the fireplace, then reconsidered and stood up again. He might need the room to pace. “What is it?”
            “Do you—do you hate Frank and the others?” Harry asked. “I know you were jealous of the Muggles and you think Frank is stupid, but if you hate them, then you might do something more to them than I want you to.”
            Draco shut his eyes for a minute. Several things flew around behind his eyes that he could have put into words, but decided were too cruel to do so.
            “Let me guess who told you that I hated them,” he murmured, opening his eyes. “Weasley?”
            “He was the one who put it like that,” Harry said, his eyes wide and clear as he studied Draco. “But I was the one who decided that I’d better ask you and see. Because if you’re going to take revenge on them, I’d prefer that you asked me first.”
            Draco relaxed a little. This was a better conversation than he had thought they would have, once they got onto the subject. “I’ve already been near Tobley, and although I despised her and did think that the majority of the things she said about you were foolish, I managed to avoid ripping her apart. It’s Frank I find most objectionable. He was the one who first convinced you that you were a rapist and all the rest of it?”
            “He’s the one who first told me what he thought,” Harry corrected, his face gone unreadable. “It was only later, through his words, that I thought back on some of the things my other lovers had said and done and realized they were probably thinking the same way.”
            “So you don’t even know, not for certain,” Draco said. “I think Frank fucked you up more than you’d acknowledge.”
            “Certainly according to you, he did.” Draco got another direct, steady glance. “But as for the exact content of their thoughts, no, I can’t know that. But horrified stares and flinches are pretty hard to miss. It was just that it took some time before I realized they were because of my scars and the way I’d hurt them.”
            Draco sighed. “Have you talked to any of the lovers before Frank since you broke up with them?”
            “Ginny.” Harry tilted his head back, as if meeting this like a personal challenge. “It’s kind of inevitable, since we still share the same family.”
            Draco blinked, then nodded. It made sense that Harry would think of the Weasleys as his family, strange as it was for Draco, who had been taught so early and so often that only blood mattered, to contemplate. Harry hardly had any blood Potters left to relate to. “And has she said that you horrified her? Hurt her? Raped her?”
            Harry’s face flamed, although it took a slight shifting and deepening of the green in the flames to tell Draco that. “No. But she’ll flinch when she sees my scars, and she gives me looks, sometimes, when we’re discussing and laughing about the latest rumor that I’m a wonderful lover. She’s telling me that we both know the truth is the complete opposite.”
            “Good God, you’re going to make me sound like Granger.”
            Harry gaped at him. “What? Just asking questions doesn’t make you sound like Hermione.”
            “No, it’s because of what I’m about to say,” Draco said, and shook his head. It was hardly the most unbelievable thing he’d done since he started dating Harry, but it was the current unbelievable thing, which made it feel harder to deal with. “I think the troubles between you and your previous lovers all started because of lack of communication. There. Is that Gryffindor enough for you?”
            Harry didn’t dismiss it at once, although his eyes flickered. Then he said, “I thought your problem with Frank was that he was too honest.”
            Draco snorted. “Having met the man? He’ll say whatever makes him feel like the nice person, the right person. He’ll pretend to care about your feelings and to care about rescuing people from you both in the same conversation, and not see the contradiction. He’ll say that he’s always nice, then say that he’s always honest. That you can’t be both escapes him, because his investment is in his image, not the feelings of others.”
            Harry shut his eyes for a long second. Draco wanted to say something, but again waited. Something about the way Harry’s forehead was furrowed…
            “So your real problem with him,” Harry muttered, “is that he didn’t talk about his feelings at all from the beginning. He just saved them up until the point where they could rush out and hurt me.”
            Draco couldn’t help grinning like a fool, although Harry had his eyes closed and missed the expression. On the other hand, maybe that was a good thing right now. “Exactly. If he thought those things, he should have said them. And the way that he kept talking about how fucking honest he was…I had no patience with him.”
            Harry opened his eyes and nodded again. “All right. So—what? You think I should walk up to Ginny and demand to know exactly how terrible I was in bed? And where? The Burrow? Ron and Hermione are the only ones who know any details about this. Ginny and I both kept silent for the sake of not embarrassing her parents.”
            “You don’t need to ask her,” Draco said. “Unless you want to. You told me that your relationship with her is years over, and that you didn’t part as badly from her as you did from some of the others, right?” Harry nodded, and Draco continued, with an inner sigh at having to voice truths that Harry should have come up with for himself. On the other hand, if he had, they wouldn’t be here. “Then you can let things lie. Unless she catches sight of one of your scars and flinches,” he had to add. Draco wasn’t sure that he believed that had really happened; Harry simply thought everyone found him ugly, as witness the way he had showed Draco his scars on their first date. “Then I think you’re within your rights to ask her what’s wrong and not to do that around you.”
            Harry gave him a strange look. “Just like that?”
            Draco tilted his head back, trying to imitate the strange look. “Just like what?”
            “Just—march up to her and ask that?”
            “Yes,” Draco said. Merlin, he would be glad when he could stop being the Gryffindor here. “Why not? She flinches, you want to know why, you ask her. I thought that was the direct method Gryffindors always favored.”
            “I’m still a Gryffindor, but a lot different from what I used to be,” Harry said, and took a deep breath. “Listen, can I come over?”
            Draco almost fell over. He steadied himself with a grip on the back of the chair he had considered sitting down in earlier, and nodded. “Of course. Although I anticipate a boring day, where I’m going to be brewing a few different combinations of ingredients in an attempt to get this potion right.”
            “That’s okay,” Harry said. “I just want to be near you.”
            Draco had to close his own eyes this time, for a different reason. It was long moments before he could make himself nod and whisper, “Sure.”
            And then he reached out and opened the Floo to receive visitors, just as Harry stepped through.
*
            Harry stumbled on the hearth, and flushed. He did that all the time. Frank would have made a cutting remark about it.
            But Draco wasn’t Frank, and Harry realized now how wrong he had been to assume he was—and how wrong it would be to start wallowing around and feeling guilty about that. Among other things, Draco wouldn’t like it.
            Draco didn’t seem inclined to blame him for his stumble. He was surveying Harry, up and down, as though Harry had done something different with his hair or face since Draco last saw him, although Harry was (painfully) aware that he looked the same as always. Harry pressed down his hair a little and flushed again.
            “You’re here,” Draco said. “Not somewhere else, making up excuses in your head as to why you have to leave.”
            Harry wouldn’t let himself understand the full import of that. He knew it would hurt more than he was prepared to deal with, right now. He let Draco press his hand, instead, and then gradually draw him closer. Harry met his eyes and waited.
            Draco kissed him.
            It was slower and gentler this time than even during their lesson, and Draco’s hand on his arm and arm around his shoulders restrained Harry when he would have plunged ahead out of sheer nervousness. He shut his eyes and let Draco guide the kiss instead, opening his mouth when Draco’s tongue tapped at his lips, moaning a little when Draco squeezed his shoulders as though he wanted to hear the noise. When Draco ended the kiss and stepped back, Harry followed him with his lips for only a few seconds before he cleared his throat and opened his eyes, embarrassed.
            Draco watched him intently, hands on his shoulders. Then he gave Harry the most intense smile he’d ever seen and turned to the far door out of the room. “Come, my lab awaits.”
            Harry moved after him, waving his hand in front of his eyes. Yes, his body still looked and felt solid. Yes, he was still in a place, in a world, where he could have a body and a kiss that tasted like that.
            And now he was about to go and watch a lover experiment with a potion, a position that he would have said only six months ago he could never be in. His lovers would never be wizards again.
            A thought crept into his mind that was small and soft and intertwined with some of the other ones there, until it sounded like someone whispering to him.
            I like this.
*
            Draco cursed and moved back, casting a spell to make sure the fumes from the exploding cinnabar puffed up and away from the cauldron. He heard a noise from the corner where Harry watched, and glanced over to see him promptly delving back into the book he’d taken from the Manor’s library.
            “Did you say something?” Draco asked, taking a step towards him.
            “Me? Say something?” Harry looked up at him and fluttered his eyes, placing one hand over his heart. “Of course not. I would never do that.”
            Draco snorted and turned towards the cauldron again. No matter how he thought about it, though, he couldn’t understand what he was doing wrong. He wanted a potion that would allow someone to skip most of the steps in the Animagus study process, becoming an animal easily and simply, and transforming back the same way as long as the potion stayed in their body. But every combination of ingredients he had tried relating to transformation was unstable and blew up in his face.
            “What are you trying to do?”
            Draco started and turned to Harry. “Trying to make it simpler to become an Animagus,” he said. “If you could drink a potion and transform, then you wouldn’t have to spend years studying Transfiguration.”
            Harry shut the book and blinked at him. “But those years of study have a purpose,” he said. “If anyone could become an Animagus on the first try, then it would mean that they could get trapped more easily as animals, and not understand how to change back.”
            “This potion would let them change back, too.” Draco folded his arms. “Unless you thought I was stupid enough not to consider that.”
            Harry gave him a level look. “And how long would the potion last?”
            “If I can get it to work the way I want it to,” Draco said, and let his voice intone the words carefully, since Harry didn’t seem to be listening, “then it would last two days. That ought to be enough to allow them to get used to the transformation, or escape from danger if they had changed into an animal just to do that.”
            “So they’re going to brew the potion, drink it, and escape from danger?” Harry surveyed him skeptically. “Or were you thinking that they would drink the potion and then learn how to change on their own without it, eventually?”
            Draco rolled his eyes. “They would carry the potion with them in a vial and drink it when they needed it, of course.”
            Harry sat up further. “And that would just restrict the potion to those who could afford it. Who would probably be criminals. And then we would have a bunch of criminal unregistered Animagi running around.”
            Draco had to laugh, and he had to sit down while he did it, especially because Harry was glaring at him and didn’t seem to understand why Draco was laughing so hard. “When did I become the optimist?” Draco asked finally, wiping tears from his eyes. “Yes, it’s possible that criminals would pay more for it and would use it more. But it’s just as possible, since I work for the Ministry, that I would make sure the Aurors had as much as they wanted of it. And they wouldn’t be normal Animagi, so I don’t see why they should have to register.”
            “That’s worse.”
            “Really?” Draco picked himself up and leaned forwards with interest. “And your friend Granger is fighting for werewolves to be allowed to skip registration, isn’t she? And they truly are violent monsters once a month, while an Animagus isn’t.”
            Harry raked his hand through his hair. “I’ve chased more Animagus criminals than you have,” he muttered. “Excuse me for thinking that potion would be a nightmare.”
            Draco grinned. “You still have to convince me how it would be. Unless you think skipping straight to the fantasy of criminals having money is supposed to convince me. Yes, some criminals do have money. But a lot of them are stupid, and spend it on whatever their passions are. Plus, I would hardly sell the secret to the potion when I could make money selling the potion instead. So they would have to come to me, and I could keep track of my customers, and give the names to the Ministry if I wanted to.”
            Harry eyed him from under one lock of dark hair. Draco calmed a little as he watched him. He was just starting to realize how much he enjoyed looking, at least when Harry didn’t strike up a calculated pose for effect or think Draco was staring at his scars. Harry was at his most alive and vital when least self-conscious.
            Harry finally sniffed and dropped back into his chair. “All right. But it’s a long process to become an Animagus, most of the time. You don’t think that length of time is there for a reason?”
            “Oh, of course,” Draco said, a little surprised that Harry would ask that. “It’s there because Transfiguration is one of the hardest branches of magic to master, and most wizards don’t have the concentration to do nothing else for six months but train to become one. If they spent more time on it and only it, they would achieve it faster.”
            “No, I mean,” Harry said, and raked his hand through his hair again. Draco grinned. This was becoming entertaining. “You don’t think there’s a reason for it? Not a—I don’t know the word I want.”
            “Ah,” Draco said, after thinking about it for a reason. “A moral dimension. Magic that’s convenient and wonderful should be harder to practice, just like the Dark Arts should make someone into an insane criminal for using them. Is that what you mean?”
            Harry nodded hard enough that that errant lock of hair flopped into his eyes. “I don’t think that just anyone should be able to become an Animagus. People should have to practice hard at it, and if they don’t practice hard enough or they’re not good at it, then they shouldn’t get rewarded for it anyway.”
            “I find myself on the opposite side of the argument than I would expect to be with you, again,” Draco murmured. “Who do you think has the most time and ability to study the Animagus transformation in the way you specified, Harry?”
            Harry frowned at him.
            Draco spread his hands, indicating the lab and the Manor. “Pure-bloods. I have a job because I wanted to prove to society that I was different now, and I lost a lot of money. But I still have sufficient money to experiment with potions and buy ingredients and invent new potions because I want to. I could study the Animagus transformation a lot more easily than someone with many children or working constantly could.”
            Harry frowned harder and rolled over. “I just think of the way that it could be used wrong because I think of the way that everything can be used wrong,” he muttered. “You have to, when you’re an Auror.”
            Draco waited until Harry grew impatient with the silence and rolled back to look at him. He was now hanging over the chair with his arms almost dangling to the floor, and Draco had to smile again. He thought he knew why the couch in Harry’s home looked well-used, the chairs less so.
            He stood up and came to kneel beside Harry, rubbing his fingers through his hair. Other than wincing a little when Draco’s hand got near the lightning bolt scar, Harry let him do it, and didn’t flinch, and didn’t take his eyes from Draco, either.
            “You’re pessimistic,” Draco whispered. “That’s understandable, for the reason you just gave me and other ones. But I want to teach you something about the joy of life again.” He held out his hand. “What would you like to go and do?”
            “I wanted to come and be with you,” Harry said, accepting Draco’s hand and letting himself be hauled to his feet. “I told you that. And even having arguments with you is better than sitting at home by myself.”
            Draco considered him, then said, “How long has it been since you flew?”
            Harry blinked, stared, then said, “I have no idea. Unless you count the times I’ve had to snatch up a broom to get after a fleeing criminal.”
            “I don’t,” Draco said shortly, and walked towards the far door from the lab, the one that led out into a corridor that faced the gardens. “Come on. I think you need some fun in your life, and since no one else will provide it for you, it’s up to me.”
            “Ron and Hermione would go flying with me if I said I wanted to!” Harry followed him, a frown set on his features that rendered them a little less attractive than they could be. Draco decided it was his job to make sure the frown didn’t stay there permanently. “Okay, Ron would. Hermione’s never liked the fact that she can’t learn everything about flying a broom from books.”
            Draco rolled his eyes over that. “She would.” He turned around to face Harry. “And you should stop thinking that I’m out to harm your friends or your former lovers. If I was, I would tell you.”
            Harry sucked on his lip once, his gaze so steady that Draco wondered if this discussion mattered to him on some other level. Why, though? Draco was being as literal as he knew how, and it wasn’t like an argument about a potion that could obviate the Animagus training process was a common topic between them in school.
            “What did you do to Frank?” Harry asked softly.
            Draco froze. Harry nodded. “That’s what I thought,” he said. “I saw your wand move, you know. It can’t be anything too terrible, since he was fine when he left. But you didn’t tell me about it.”
            “I thought you would insist on taking the spell off if you knew,” Draco said. “Oh, fine. I put the Voiceless Voice Charm on him.”
            “The one that makes it sound like your conscience is talking to you all the time?”
            Draco nodded. “In this case, it’ll make him question his motives for some of the things he was doing and saying. It’ll wear off in a month. That was the longest I could make it last, with my level of magical strength.”
            Harry considered him for so long that Draco felt as though ants had got beneath his skin. Then Harry abruptly grinned, and stepped around him. “So I assume you have your own Quidditch pitch, if you talked about flying,” he said. “Does that include your own brooms? And are they good ones? I haven’t been on a Firebolt in forever.”
            “The Firebolt is reserved for the owner of the house,” Draco said, following him, his heart so light that it felt as if he might float off his feet. “You can have one of the Nimbuses that I keep for guests.”
            Harry spun around to face him, and Draco had to stop, teetering on his toes, they were that close. Harry reached out and took Draco’s jaw in one hand, bringing his face gently nearer while he beamed at him.
            “Will you let me have the Firebolt for a kiss?” he asked.
            Draco licked his lips. He didn’t know where his voice had gone, but his hand rose and touched Harry’s face, as shakily as Harry had touched his. There was at least that to be proud of, he thought. He leaned in and opened his mouth, prepared to kiss Harry.
            But Harry stepped back, and smiled again, and said, “The look on your face was worth more than a Firebolt. I’ll take a Nimbus.” And he jogged down the corridor, looking out for the windows that opened into the gardens, and opening the right door.
            Draco touched his face. His own lips felt as swollen as though they had been kissing for a long time, and he had to swallow again before he could follow.
            It was probably a good thing that Harry had held back. Draco didn’t want the first real kiss Harry gave him to be a joke, or out of a sense of obligation.
            But he would have been willing, he could admit, if only to himself, to take the risk and find out.
*
            To have a broom beneath him again was the richest thing Harry had ever experienced, better than the food they’d had at the Cloth of Gold last night.
            The Malfoy Quidditch pitch was a small space of tended grass between high hedges, with a single Keeper’s hoop off to the left side, in front of a bank of flowers so blue that they were hard to look at. Harry thought the pitch’s grass was a darker green than usual, too, as though some Malfoy ancestor had been trying to make a sculpture of emerald and sapphire here.
            But what mattered more than the looks of the place was how happy it made him, and the conjured breezes, rocking from one side of the place to the other, that made him twist as he flew.
            Draco was behind him on the Firebolt, and Harry had reason to know that was a good broom, but he couldn’t keep up with Harry. The minute Harry’s feet had left the ground this time, it was like being eleven years old all over again. He knew what to do. He knew how to fly. And no older broom or unfamiliar pitch or magic wind was going to prevent him from flying rings around Draco.
            And no past pain, either.
            Harry zoomed down towards the ground, up to the sky again, around the Keeper’s hoop, and back to the center of the pitch, while Draco was still going up in a single, controlled hop. Draco gaped at him. Harry hung upside-down simply to stick his tongue out at Draco, and then up he went again, so long a sweep that his lungs pounded inside his chest and he opened his mouth and whooped. That made him lose his breath, but who cared when he could swing around again, pointing at the earth, and chase it back down?
            “Harry! You can’t do that on a Nimbus!”
            Harry turned right-side up, smiled at Draco, corrected him gently, “No, you can’t do that on a Nimbus,” and went back to chasing the wind.
            Draco began to follow him, but it was a long time before he got close. Harry wasn’t racing him on purpose, though. It was just so exhilarating to kick into the wind and feel it kick back, not because it was Dark or hated him or was concerned about him but because it was there, and that was its nature.
            I need to fly more often. Harry couldn’t even remember the last time he had seen his own broom. It had grown less and less important, next to his job and his time spent with his friends, and, when he was angry or stressed, running or going to the Muggle clubs.
            But the Muggle clubs were no longer an option, as long as he had Draco. Flying seemed like a wonderful substitute, at least for the moment.
            Harry got the broom going parallel to the ground, crouched on it, and then hurled himself into the air. He came down sideways, the opposite to the way he’d been sitting before, did a complicated scramble with his hands, and was seated backwards before Draco could finish his scolding yell. Harry laughed and lay down on the broom, then rotated around it again and was seated upright and forwards again at the end of a process that he couldn’t even remember.
            He knew he could fall, contrary to what Draco was currently yelling at him. That was part of it. But he also knew that he had the skills necessary not to fall, and that was the other part of it.
            If he wasn’t good at kissing, if even his relationship with Draco never went anywhere, this was at least one thing he was still good at. He breathed, and the air shot in and out of his lungs like arrows tipped with honey.
            It was time to remember that there were things he was good at, he thought.
*
            Draco had stopped trying to keep up with Harry. He could only do it by risking his life, as good as he was. When they were chasing the Snitch, they were more equal. Draco had a goal to focus on, and Harry didn’t do every crazy move that came into his head, because he had to keep his eyes out and search.
            But this…
            Draco shook his head and set his broom to bobbing a few inches off the ground, watching as Harry played tag with his shadow, dodged and climbed and spun, and did what would have been a perfect Wronski Feint if he’d had anyone to deceive. Draco did wince a little when he heard Harry gasping as he pulled out of that last move, but then relaxed when he caught a glimpse of Harry’s face. It was obviously a gasp of joy, and Draco couldn’t resent that, not when Harry had so little joy in his life most of the time.
            Although I hope to provide more, as he learns to trust me.
            Harry finally stretched out on the broom and let one leg dangle off it, the way he’d let his arms dangle off the chair when he was in Draco’s lab. He turned his head towards Draco, and his face was open and soft, his smile sleepy and content.
            Draco cast his voice so that Harry could hear him, but it wouldn’t sound like he was yelling. The acoustic charms on the pitch helped with that, of course. “Are you ready to go and have something to eat?”
            Harry nodded. “Could your house-elves cook for us again? I really enjoyed it, the last time they did that.” He sat up and kicked the Nimbus back towards Draco. Draco couldn’t help but reach out and feel the wood as he went past.
            Harry laughed at him over his shoulder. “No, I didn’t crack it, if that’s what you’re wondering. That’s just what it’s capable of with a competent rider on the shaft.”
            Draco couldn’t help himself. “I’m sure you’re right,” he said, with a gracious nod. “And someday, I hope that you can surprise me with your competency on other shafts.”
            Harry’s emotions shifted across his face like clouds across the sky. Draco didn’t know how to read all of them, but when the changeable pattern ended, Harry was smiling politely enough, his eyes still open.
            “Maybe someday,” he said.
            And he doesn’t take offense to everything I say, Draco thought, as he followed Harry inside and began to call out orders to the house-elves, knowing he would be heard once he was within the walls of the Manor. That’s another step.
*
            “Are you ready for another lesson?”
            Harry cracked an eye open. They’d had a spectacular dinner, one that filled Harry up with more varieties of bread and cheese and fish than he knew existed, all of them delicious. Since then, they’d been sitting in Draco’s drawing room, Draco reading and Harry pretending to read. He couldn’t even get focused enough to focus his eyes on the words of the book he’d been reading in Draco’s lab, which was pretty interesting. He’d dozed, with the book on his stomach, and Draco in the chair across from him.
            Now, of course, Draco was leaning forwards with his book on his knee. Harry turned around and pulled his legs up. “In what?”
            “I think,” Draco said, “that I’d really like to see the way you look with your shirt off. I never have, you know.”
            Harry blinked at that, thrown, but he didn’t know why. A second later, he identified the feeling of wrongness. “But you did,” he said. “I cast that charm the first night that showed you all my scars.”
            “Scars,” Draco said, his voice so low that Harry couldn’t have heard him if the fire was a little louder, “aren’t all of you.”
            Harry licked his lips. That was true. And Draco had been saying the same kind of thing for a while now, and Harry had accepted that it was most likely true.
            But his hands still shook when he reached down and began to pull his shirt over his head. He wasn’t sure that he could do anything about that. It might always happen, whether or not he wanted it to.
            He glanced up. Draco was watching him, his lips parted and his eyes wide and pale. He gave Harry a smile when he caught his gaze, but didn’t turn away.
            Harry nodded, swallowed again, and pulled his shirt off. He kept his eyes on the floor, trying not to think, all the while, of how he was still stained with sweat from the flying, and how his ribs showed, and how pale his skin was, and the scars that curved and danced across his chest, and the way that Jacquelyn had touched the skin above his heart and then looked away in embarrassment, and the way that Ginny had flinched the first time she saw him naked, with the burn-scar from the locket—
            He reached for his shirt.
            Draco took it away from him. Harry started and looked up. He hadn’t even realized that Draco had come across the room and was now kneeling in front of him. His steps had been that silent, that quick.
            Draco slid his hand up Harry’s arm. “The scars aren’t all of you,” he said. “I want to look at you. Please?” He held up Harry’s shirt. “The next time you reach for it, you can have it back. But I just want to try for a little while. Please?”
            Harry nodded and closed his eyes, telling himself that the sweat would have dried by now, and that he wasn’t as skinny as he’d been when he was in Hogwarts and under the Dursleys’ care. He leaned back on the couch, trying to let Draco look.
            Draco reached up and slowly moved Harry’s hands away from the center of his chest. He hadn’t realized that he’d folded them above the scars there, either.
            Harry let his hands drop on either side of his head and shut his eyes so firmly that little sparks of color danced across the darkness behind them. He was breathing like the Hogwarts Express. It was probably unattractive.
            A second later, he wanted to laugh hysterically. Probably? Of course it was unattractive. But he already knew that. It was the truth he had already tried to show Draco.
            And predictably, it hadn’t scared him away. Draco was the one who had asked for this, Harry reminded himself. Harry hadn’t forced him into it, into contact with skin or sights that would traumatize him.
            But Harry couldn’t keep facing the same direction while Draco was looking at him, even if he wasn’t looking back. He turned and buried his face in the pillow, shutting his eyes. He dug his fingers into the pillow, too, so that they couldn’t come back down and shield any of his chest from view.
            He only hoped that Draco would understand.
*
            Draco took Harry’s arm and squeezed it, once. That just made him burrow deeper into the pillow, though, so Draco whispered a few words of reassurance and went back to looking. Harry didn’t need to meet his eyes right now. There was no reason.
            Yes, he had scars. It was impossible not to acknowledge them, the sweeping claw-cuts and the round burn and the parallel lines that looked as if they went straight into his ribs. Draco touched them, and Harry flinched and bounced beneath him. His chest flushed, the color sweeping so smoothly and fast down his skin that Draco had to smile.
            But scars weren’t all he was.
            He was also skinnier than Draco had imagined he would be. Part of that was almost certainly all the running and fighting he did as an Auror, but Draco couldn’t help thinking some of it was more than that. That no one would need to be this lean, that no one got this lean without special practice. He traced one finger along Harry’s ribs. Harry flinched and breathed, and Draco let his hand rest where it had gone for long seconds before he moved it again.
            There was the fact that Harry was a little more self-confident than he seemed. He hadn’t covered the scars with glamours as long as they were under clothing. It was only the scars on his hands and other visible places that he wanted to keep hidden. Not exactly encouraging, but Draco could read some hope into it.
            And Harry was alive. The little dark hairs on his chest stirred towards Draco’s palm every time he moved his hand. They yearned for his skin. Draco smiled and pressed his hand down flat, and Harry jolted again, one of his own hands flying up.
            “It’s okay,” Draco said, and Harry wavered, hesitated, and let his hand fall back on the pillow again.
            Harry shone, laid out against Draco’s dark green couch the way he was. He was handsome, and endlessly intriguing, and Draco shuddered a little to imagine his chest pressed to that chest, his hands exploring those shoulders, his lips kissing that collarbone.
            Not right now. It was too soon. But he sat back on his heels and said, “Thank you,” draping Harry’s shirt over his chest to let him know that he really was done.
            Harry sat up, seized the shirt, and dressed in silence. He kept his eyes averted from Draco’s. Draco waited until he looked back of his own accord, and said softly, “You are handsome, you know.”
            Harry flinched and balled the bottom of his shirt up in his fists as though he was going to roll it up and over his head again. “Stop lying.”
            Draco sneered at him and got to his feet, crowding in on the couch beside Harry and forcing him to move his feet. “Why would I need to lie? I meant it.”
            “I’m not sculptured,” Harry said, staring at his feet.
            “Sculptured?” Draco couldn’t keep the contempt from his voice, not when it sounded like something Frank would say. “What do you mean?”
            “I mean, I don’t have muscles.” Harry was frowning at his feet now, as if they were the source of everything he hated about his body—rather than Frank being the source of most of it, as Draco thought now. “I don’t have a tan. And I have scars.”
            “Not everyone agrees on you having to have muscles and a tan and no scars to be attractive,” Draco said. “Not everyone agrees that the same thing is attractive.”
            “But wouldn’t you find someone who looked like that more interesting than me?” Harry leaned towards him.
            “No.” Draco caught his hand. “Not unless that person also wanted to protect me and argue with me and was happy just to spend time with me, and who could fly like he has Veela blood.”
            Harry sighed. “I should have phrased it differently. I mean, isn’t that the kind of person that you would rather have sex with? Even if you don’t mind looking at my chest because I’m lying on the couch, you might feel differently if you had to see it in bed.”
            Draco rolled his eyes. “It really isn’t as separate for me as you want to make it. I’m attracted to the person who does all those things I told you about, and I think you’re attractive. Not perfect, no. Maybe I would flinch if I was out in one of those Muggle clubs you told me about and the only thing I knew about you was that you were dancing bare-chested and had those scars. But I can’t chop someone into their scars and their skills in bed and their desire to be with me. It doesn’t work like that.”
            Harry swallowed. “I thought it did. That’s why I thought that a relationship with you would be perfect. Because, that way, you could be as casual as you wanted, and casual the way I liked.”
            “You would really have gone on giving me blowjobs and asking nothing in return?” Draco felt a little sick at the thought. It made sense for Harry to ask for just that from Muggles, with his combination of complexes and not knowing the Muggles and not being able to tell them the truth about him being a wizard. But it was disheartening, in a way, that Harry would accept so little for himself from someone like Draco.
            “I thought it was the ideal solution.” Harry looked at him, tilting his head further when Draco just stared. “I could be with someone who knew I could do magic, someone I had a kind of history with, even. There wouldn’t be any nasty surprises on that end. And I would get the pleasure of spending time with you, and conversation. That mattered more to me than the blowjobs or having you never return them.”
            Draco, despite himself, began to smile. “We want the exact same thing, really,” he said. “We’ve just been approaching it from different ends.”
            Harry sat up, raising his eyebrows. “I’m afraid you’ll have to explain that, since I don’t understand,” he said.
            Draco rolled his eyes, but kept from snapping out some of the words that came to mind. “We both want a partner who cares for us,” he said. “We both want someone who matters to us in more ways than just sex. And there you are, and there I am, but our methods for getting that are different. You would be willing to always consider your partner’s pleasure and never your own, if you had your way. I wouldn’t be willing to do that, because my partner’s pleasure is part of mine. But both of us actually put sex for ourselves and without having to do anything at the bottom of the list.”
            Harry sat tense for so long that Draco wasn’t sure Harry would listen to him. Then, reluctantly, Harry also began to grin. “Fine,” he said, raking a hand through his hair. “And you’re still willing to keep trying? Even as fucked-up as I am?”
            “I don’t think you’re fucked-up,” Draco told him quietly. “All right, not as deeply as your partners made you feel it.” Because Harry’s eyebrows had gone up, and Draco had to admit that he could think of some things about Harry that fit that definition. “You came here today, and had fun. You’re capable of asking for some things you want, as long as you know that the person isn’t going to turn around and snap at you just for having desires. You said that you wanted to go on dates and talk to me even when you thought our relationship would be completely casual and one-sided. All of those are good signs.”
            Harry smiled, slowly, cautiously, but he did. Draco reached out and picked up his hand, playing casually with his fingers. Harry swallowed and leaned towards him.
            “Can I ask you something?” he whispered, his mouth only a few inches from Draco’s.
            “You are,” Draco said dryly. “And you can speak up. It’s not like there’s anyone else here right now.”
            Harry flushed, but didn’t raise his voice. “Can I stay here tonight?”
            Draco exhaled slowly. “In the same bedroom, or a different one?”
            Harry jerked a little, as though Draco granting his request was so far out of the realm of consideration that he hadn’t anticipated that particular question. He pulled back, studying Draco with one wary eye.
            Draco nodded in response to his stare. “I meant it,” he said. “Which do you want?”
*
            Harry shivered. He felt as though someone had just dumped him out in the middle of a winter wind, and he didn’t know where to go for shelter.
            But at the same time, as he had remembered when he flew earlier that day, the wind could be exhilarating.
            He licked his lips and answered. “I—I want to be in the same bed with you.”
            Draco’s smile was grave and quick and deep, but it lit up every corner of his eyes. “Just to sleep,” he said. “Not to do anything else.”
            He made it a statement and not a question, which meant Harry could nod authoritatively. “Yes. That’s what I want, I mean,” he added, when Draco considered him thoughtfully. “Not to do anything else for tonight, just to sleep. Unless you don’t want to.” The last words spilled out although he didn’t intend them to. His muscles were tightening as he began to reflect that Draco might not want to, that he might feel constrained to offer now that Harry had expressed some interest in it—
            But Draco drew him near and wrapped his arms around Harry. Being pressed against him was as warm as though they were both naked from the waist up, and Harry shivered and, finally, began to relax.
            “I would be honored,” Draco whispered, and kissed his earlobe, the one with the new acid scar on it, without flinching at all.
*
            polka dot: Harry would be much less receptive to that.
            BAFan: Thank you!
            No, Frank doesn’t know about the Muggles.
            CareLessLover: Harry thinks so, too.
            delia cerrano: Draco won’t seek them out, but he won’t hold back with any except Ginny, because going after her would distress Harry.
            moodysavage: Draco did take revenge, and luckily Harry approved of it.
            I think you’re right about the way Harry was humoring Draco. He basically assumed Draco would get tired of him soon, and would let him down more or less gently.
            Jan: Thank you for reviewing!
            SP777: Well, Harry and Draco still ended up having fun.
            j: Sorry to lose you as a reader for this story. I hope that you find others more to your taste.
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