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A Determined Frame of Mind	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 16811 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Thank you again for all the reviews!

And maybe this is the chapter that the most people have been waiting for.

Chapter Eleven—Come Back Again

            Harry watched Draco warily. He did not—quite—want to draw his wand. Still, Draco’s sudden fixed stare, and the way he was stepping towards Harry, as if he were a cat stalking a bird, didn’t inspire confidence.

            “If it’s a complicated answer,” Harry said, to fill the silence, which had grown too long for him, “then I’m happy to accept only part of it now, or wait until you have the words, or—“ He began to edge towards the door that led to his own wing of the Manor. Draco’s eyes had taken on that same sky-color that they had before Lila interrupted their strange angry conversation.

            “Harry,” Draco said softly.

            The voice held Harry. It was like one of the touches Draco had given him in St. Mungo’s put into audible form. It promised answers, and it promised something—else. Deeper. Harry didn’t know what it was, but he knew that he wanted to know. He stood still, and allowed Draco to come up beside him, and lay his hand along his cheek.

            “I told you, once,” Draco said, “that a straight man would turn bent to keep you. And you know that I’m curved.”

            Harry licked his lips, and wondered if he should make a remark at this point about how strange he still found Draco’s description of himself. Even as most of him yearned for answers, part of him wanted to snap the tension. That way, it wouldn’t be so disappointing later when Draco reversed himself and abandoned Harry just like everyone else had done so far.

            But in the end he stayed silent, and Draco went on, his hand wandering restlessly up and down in the air next to Harry’s face, never touching it, but coming so close that his fingertips made the hairs on Harry’s cheek buzz.

            “I didn’t quite know what I wanted with you myself, at first. You frustrated me, in hospital. You intrigued me. You made it impossible for me to know what you were about to do next. I hated the fact that I couldn’t see into your soul, and that you kept me out with no effort.

            “I know now that wasn’t your fault—“

            “Doesn’t that dim your fascination with me?” Harry interrupted, because he couldn’t help himself. Draco’s answer was turning out to be stranger than he had anticipated. The feeling settling over him was too much like the hypnosis on the day they’d discovered Scrimgeour was to blame for the Cassandra Curse. He just wanted to stand there and listen to Draco’s voice, no matter what happened. He knew now what charmed snakes in a basket must feel like.

            It wasn’t to be borne. He had to walk free of this, somehow. No matter what happened between them, Draco couldn’t be allowed to control him so completely.

            Draco turned a slow look on him, one that shut his mouth so hard Harry’s teeth clipped his own tongue. Then the hand that had hovered above his cheek drifted and touched him in the hollow of his throat where his pulse beat.

            Harry’s breathing sped up, but a haze of tingling calmness had settled over his mind. He had a simultaneous vision of all the ways Draco could hurt him, and the conviction that he never would.

            “Not at all,” Draco whispered, angling his mouth so that his breath brushed Harry’s ear. “Not. At. All.”

            Emphasizing words as separate sentences was a trick that Harry had heard before, had used before as an Auror when he wanted to intimidate suspects. And yet he still shivered, and swayed towards Draco, whose fingers were stroking up and down in an absent-minded way along the cords of Harry’s neck, as if he knew he could touch the skin any time he wanted and was only touching it at the moment because it was in front of him. Harry shuddered, trying to control the rapidly accelerating urge to touch in turn.

            “I saw what you had become under the curse,” Draco continued, and his other hand came into play now, dipping around the back of Harry’s neck and toying first with the hair, then with a gathered pinch of skin. “I saw what you could become, again, if you were free of it. I admired the strength you’d had to have to survive at all. I saw all the possibilities for you, and I knew that I wanted to savor them. I never could have done that if I’d let you escape.”

            “I don’t understand.” Harry’s voice was too hoarse; he’d been breathing through his mouth, and that had dried his lips. He licked them cautiously and tried again. “I know I’m not very social or friendly now. I spent enormous amounts of time distrusting you when I shouldn’t. I tried to reject the shard of soul that you gave me. Why would you put up with all that, for the sake of what I might be in the future?”

            And never will be if I don’t get out from under your control over me, said one part of his brain.

            And can become only with you, said another. Harry thought it came from rather lower down the evolutionary scale.

            Draco’s eyes sharpened, and Harry didn’t know how he stood the gaze. It was like suddenly having the sun take personal notice of him, of all the small creatures that ran around beneath it every day.

            “Because I savor it all,” he replied calmly. The calm was only a burned surface, though, Harry knew; the voice beneath that still flowed like lava. “The man you are now, just starting to wake up. The man you became through the medium of the Curse. The man I think you’ll become after a short time more as my guest, and my partner.”

            Harry blinked, letting out a tiny breath. He might have mistaken Draco’s meaning. He might have stepped past a door he thought he was entering into another room entirely. “Your partner in hunting Scrimgeour, you mean.”

            Draco’s gaze sharpened still more, and now the sun had not only looked at Harry, but descended.

            “No, Harry,” he said simply. “My partner in all senses of the term.”

            And then he leaned in and kissed him.

*

            Draco had barely held himself in check while he was reassuring Harry. The temptation was spread out in front of him, and he had to fight to keep from taking. The touches on Harry’s cheek and nape and neck hadn’t been enough; they were the absolute stopgap measures to soothe his own desperate desire while he was talking to Harry and still didn’t want to frighten him off.

            But now—now he couldn’t hold back.

            He had thought his need would ease, a little, when Harry gasped beneath him and his tongue entered Harry’s mouth for the first time. It didn’t. It grew fiercer, and Draco clung to Harry’s shoulders, suddenly knowing what he must feel. The sheer anticipation of what would come once they reached the bedroom was shuddering, impatient, massive, and Draco didn’t think he would be able to stop once he started.

            For now, though—

            Harry was darting his tongue in startled directions, as if he couldn’t decide whether to engage with Draco’s tongue or escape, as if he didn’t know what the other tongue was for and what it was doing in his mouth. Draco slowed it with a single soothing stroke that showed Harry just how good this could feel, and then dug his fingers into Harry’s hair and dragged them up across his scalp, remembering how that had drugged him in the dining room a few days ago.

            Harry moaned and trembled.

            The sound and the motion both inspired Draco and fed his hunger. He didn’t think he could be blamed for what he did next. Their limited contact wasn’t enough.

            He anchored his left hand in Harry’s hair, stroking and scraping and curling his fingers, keeping Harry anchored as he reached down with his right and started to unbutton the other man’s robes. He was literally trembling himself at the thought of touching more than just Harry’s hands and neck. He had never seen Harry undressed more than that except when he’d taken the wound at the Ministry and Draco had healed his back. Part of that was certainly Harry’s reluctance to make himself vulnerable in front of someone else, but he wouldn’t need that right now, would he? Draco wanted to touch and take and taste. He’d made a declaration of his good intentions, and Harry had accepted them. It was all very simple now. Even if Harry had never had sex with a man before, he had certainly had sex. He would know what to do.

            And then Harry’s hand caught his right wrist, and held it in such a crushing grip that Draco had no choice but to relent.

            He pulled his head away from the kiss, gasping in air, but less because he had not been able to breathe than because he was so close, so close, and was being denied yet again.

            “What more can I tell you?” he panted at Harry. Harry’s eyes were glazed, but with caution as well as desire. Draco envied him his superhuman control for a moment—and then reminded himself in what kind of school that control had been learned, and retracted his envy. “I want you in all the ways there are.”

*

            Harry’s head was whirling. His body felt more alive than it had in a year. That was silly. He’d certainly been able to wank when he was under the Cassandra Curse, and sometimes he’d been lonely enough to close his eyes and imagine that it was Ginny’s hands touching him, instead of his own.

            But now he was hard, and eager, and it was just—

            It just didn’t make sense.

            “You can tell me—“ That isn’t my voice. That doesn’t sound like my voice. The only time I ever sounded like that was when—

            And Harry cut the images of oral sex with Ginny out of his memory, because the way he was now, poised on the edge, they would probably make him come.

            Draco’s fingers curled into his hair, and Harry cried out. He wanted to do this, there was no question of that. But there was still so much he didn’t understand. Draco’s declaration probably made sense to him, and in one way it explained the mystery Harry hadn’t been able to understand: why Draco was still bothering with him when fame was a long distance and a long danger away, and when Harry couldn’t make him any immediate return.

            But in another way, it didn’t explain anything. Harry had to stop Draco before he made a horrible mistake. His desire for Harry was founded on an illusion. If he found that out later, he would leave in a fury, and Harry knew that would destroy him more thoroughly than stopping right now would.

            His body disagreed with that conclusion, violently. Harry closed his eyes and clawed for the tight restraint he’d developed under the Cassandra Curse, when he’d sometimes felt just as helpless as this before the onslaught of fear or terror.

            He found it. He drew in a choked breath, and laid knowledge of reality like a knife against his throat.

            “I can’t be what you want me to be,” he whispered, eyes closed, because he really didn’t want to see Draco’s face when he realized the truth. “I’m no match for someone like you, Draco. You’re beautiful—“

            Damn it, I didn’t mean to say that. But it was true, and if there was any moment when Harry’s curse of truth-speaking should be a gift to him, it was now.

            “And braver than I’ve been all my life, to break off a piece of your soul like that, and more clever and creative than I ever could have been, too, to create a profession like Psyche-Diving out of nothing. You’re more comfortable with your sexuality. You said it earlier; mine’s been turned inside out and upside down by the curse.” He tried to laugh. It was like trying to laugh with a throat full of cinders.”You think I’m strong, but I’m weak, or I wouldn’t go all faint around you like this.” Why bother trying to hide that, either? He’s already seen it. “I just want—I wouldn’t want you to sleep with me, convinced that I’m this strong and shining creature, and then wake up and realize your mistake. For your sake, but for mine, too. I’ll never be what I was. I’ll always be scarred. Please, just realize that.” He drew one more choked breath. “For my sake, but for yours, too.”

            Silence. Draco’s hands hadn’t moved, and his breathing had slowed down.

            Deciding that he could bear to look on Draco’s face now, which would be filled with mingled disgust and gratitude for his escape, Harry opened his eyes.

*

            Draco leaned in and took Harry’s mouth in another kiss.

            He made this one slow and determined and so persuasive that it would have lit fires under the feet of Muggle saints. He stroked his tongue across Harry’s, and then took a grand tour, laving his palate, his teeth, his gums, getting used to the taste of him, soaking it in like medicinal water. Harry gathered breath for a protest at one point, but Draco stroked it out of his mouth, and then leaned back to see the effects of that.

            Harry’s cheeks were flushed, and his eyes were bright and confused. Draco smiled.

            “Such confusion, love,” he said, and his voice was a match for his kiss. He had done that on purpose, so that his words wouldn’t give Harry the chance to think any more than his touches did. His fingers tugged on Harry’s hair, and Harry’s eyes rolled back, his neck dropping boneless against Draco’s fingers. Draco dipped his head and ran a lazy tongue across Harry’s neck. He couldn’t stop smiling.

            “And that’s because you can’t see yourself the way you are.” He spoke to Harry’s robes, nuzzling along his collarbone, but made sure that his mouth was clear of the skin so that Harry didn’t have a chance to mishear him. “I thank you for the warning; it shows that you do care about me. But it’s also made the extent of your blindness oh so very clear. I can’t quite trust anything you say about yourself until I’ve cleared your mind.”

            “Draco, I’m not—“



            “You’re still brave,” Draco said quietly, and began to unbutton Harry’s robes. They fell away, revealing a shirt that Draco quickly slit; these were clothes he had lent to Harry, and he’d spent years learning the quickest ways in and out of them. And then there was bare chest, and Draco laid his palm against it. The skin shuddered with the racing of Harry’s heart.

            “No one else I know—not me, not any of the other vaunted heroes of the war, not your friends—could have survived under the Cassandra Curse. And you achieved the impossible. Not easily, but you achieved it. You did what no other victim of this curse in history has done, and survived until you got the help you needed.”

            “I didn’t know—“

            “You’re clever.” Draco pushed Harry’s robes off his shoulders and revealed an expanse of his skin that was a brilliant red, as if with sunburn. Draco couldn’t tell which emotion, arousal or embarrassment, made it glow like that. From the feel of the erection against his hip, of course, he had a few guesses. He soothed the skin with his hand, and then leaned down and followed the path of his palm with his mouth. Harry was trembling, and when Draco glanced up at him, he could see the tendons in his neck standing out so starkly it looked as if they hurt.

            “You made a plan to survive in the Muggle world, and one to get free of the Ministry,” Draco whispered. “You knew they wouldn’t let you go willingly when your solve rate was so high—a consideration that most other people wouldn’t have had the presence of mind to make. Your fear didn’t overthrow your reason. I can’t say how much I admire you for that, Harry.”

            He continued to unbutton the robes, which had bunched around Harry’s groin and legs. Harry mumbled something, but made no attempt to stop him, even though Draco courteously paused and waited in case he’d changed his mind. In fact, his hips surged restlessly upwards, once, as if to tell him to get on with it. Draco kept his chuckle silent as he pulled the robes and trousers free, and then the pants. He knew how important every small sound and motion was at the moment.

            Harry’s cock was just as beautiful as he had thought it would be, though the extraordinary purple-red color told Draco that Harry was more viciously balanced on the edge than he’d expected. He slipped his hand around it.

            “Draco!” Harry cried, half-strangled, his hand flying out but halting short of Draco’s fingers. “I don’t—I’ll come—I can’t—“

            “I know that,” Draco said, and began to stroke. Harry shook his hair out of his eyes and stared at Draco as if he was some strange creature descended from heaven and Harry couldn’t comprehend why he was standing here in the same room.

            “As for the rest of what you said,” Draco said, watching not the motion of his hand—he could feel what he was doing, after all—but Harry’s slowly relaxing face in which pleasure dawned like surprise, “your sexuality is a challenge to me, along with everything else. And you’re beautiful.” Harry started to shake his head, but Draco moved his other hand back into his hair and tugged, and then Harry had better things to think about, caught between two sources of stimulation he obviously enjoyed a great deal. “Yes, you are. You haven’t had enough people around you who tell you that, evidently. I want to fuck you until you can’t breathe. I want to touch you until you’re squirming away from me because you’re too sensitive to handle it anymore, and then I still couldn’t help myself. You’re gorgeous, Harry. That’s it.” Harry’s hips were bucking under him, pushing into his hand with all the force Draco had hoped to feel, wild and needy. “Come on, come for me, now, forget about all the ridiculous blocks and obstructions that you’ve built up in your mind, come for me now.”

*

            Harry did.

            He felt it attack him like a sweeping bolt of light, like a purifying fire that burned out so much of the anxiety and hurt and fear he’d been carrying that he couldn’t help himself. He thought he was laughing as the pleasure raced through him, but he felt tears on his face, and then he heard the sounds he was making, and he supposed they were indistinguishable from either true sobs or true laughter.

            Hope had come back again.

            And it was all right for him to feel it.

            He fell forwards, and Draco was there to catch him, hooking an arm around his back and supporting him. Then he continued to stroke Harry’s spent cock and belly, while he covered his face with light, relentless kisses. His smile and his eyes were alight, and he had no more secrets in either of them.

            That, more than anything, convinced Harry that what he had said was true.

            The distrust of Draco had vanished, and suddenly he was freefalling through a haze of sun and sky. It wasn’t necessarily safe, and he might feel scattered and confused and bashful when he came back to himself, but for right now he was incapable of doubt.

            And wordless, but that was all right. He moved his own hands at last, reaching out and putting one on Draco’s groin to show him what he wanted. Euphoria blazed across his skin as Draco’s look of surprise melted into lazy contentment.

            Never taking his eyes from Harry’s, he unbuttoned his robes and unzipped his trousers with a few economical movements. And then he was holding his own erection, and Harry was gazing at it with a need like starvation.

            “May I?” he whispered.

            Draco tried to speak, but his voice was high and strained, as though he was struggling against a lack of breath in his lungs. “Harry, for this you never need to ask permission.”

            And he guided Harry’s hand to his cock, and they gripped it and stroked it together.

            It was one of the most sensual experiences Harry had ever had, probably because the physical sensations without were complemented by intense emotions within. Warm skin under his fingers joined romping relief in his head. His blunt nails caught on soft ridges, and he felt something better than laughter bubble up in his throat. He leaned forwards to kiss Draco, and he knew that things had changed, that he had someone to trust, that he—

            That he wasn’t alone any more.

            Draco came, and Harry thought it wasn’t because of the kiss, or even the stroking, but from the fact that Harry drew back and smiled at him just before he did it. Of course, Harry considered, looking down as warm liquid absolutely soaked his fingers, the stroking probably had something to do with it.

            He leaned in again after that and kissed Draco again, just because he longed to find out what his mouth tasted like when he wasn’t distracted by touching another man’s cock for the first time.

            There won’t be a first time ever again. But there will be a second time, and a third time, and…

            Harry’s thoughts faltered there. He didn’t think he could quite understand the magnitude of the gift that had been given him. In some ways, it was greater than the shard of soul.

            “Thank you,” he whispered against Draco’s lips. “I don’t know how I can ever mean as much to you as you mean to me right now, but I’ll try.”

*

            Draco turned his head to the side, deepening the kiss and lifting his free hand to cradle Harry’s face. His fingers were shaking—and not with sexual frustration anymore, since what just happened had damped that rather effectively. What filled him instead was the deep longing not to mess this up, not to frighten Harry off or disappoint him or let him slip away out of carelessness. Draco wanted to mark him, clasp him close and hold him there, do anything to show other people that Harry Potter was his and they weren’t to interfere.

            Harry pulled out of the kiss and leaned his head against Draco’s shoulder for a moment, awkward because of the position they were in, he naked and Draco half-naked and both of them wet, but utterly trusting.

            Draco closed his eyes. This happiness was pure, and complete, and though he knew part of it was the result of an orgasm-infused brain—and Harry would probably also shy back a little once the endorphins wore off—he couldn’t care.

            The whole of his life from the time he could remember it had been a war: struggling to learn the lessons his parents set him, struggling to best Potter in school, struggling to survive when Voldemort set him an impossible task, struggling to develop Psyche-Diving and then earn the useless respect of his peers, and, lately, fighting his way through the Cassandra Curse and the frustration it engendered wherever it went.

            He hadn’t realized that Harry Potter could bring him peace.

*

            McAbacus: As you can see, Draco was persuaded of some things himself. ;)

            Darthkripple: Well, and Draco can convince a very stubborn Harry. That’s pretty good, I think.

            Myra, LadyKatie, riddlestar: Thank you for reviewing!
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A Determined Frame of Mind