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A Year's Temptation	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 28515 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- 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.

Chapter List
- 1-A Year of Temptation
- 2-February
- 3-March
- 4-April
- 5-May
- 6-June
- 7-July
- 8-August
- 9-September
- 10-October
- 11-November
- 12-December
- 1
- 2
- 3
Thank you for the reviews!

Chapter Two—February

            “And does that mean that I get to go first into the deserted-looking house next time?”

            “Of course not,” Harry murmured, outwardly concentrating on his paperwork as much as he could, but in reality counting down the seconds to the time he would have to dodge. “It means that, next time, you get to cast the Silencing Charm on your shoes.”

            Quiet, in which he could feel Ralph staring at the back of his head.

            “You know,” Harry went on in a bright, helpful tone, as he signed his name on the bottom of the report in front of him. “Since you were the one whose noise warned Drawbridge so that he ran away from us.”

            He was ready when Ralph crumpled up a report and cast a jinx that sent it zooming at his head, because that was what he did every time Harry blamed him for a mistake on a case. Harry ducked and cast his own Shield Charm, which deflected the paper into a corner of the office littered with balls of parchment. There they would lie until someone got bored, or until they heard Shacklebolt was coming on an inspection and scrambled to clean up.

            “You wanker,” Ralph told him.

            “That’d be you, not me,” Harry told him as he turned around, even as he suppressed unwanted images of the time he’d spent with Malfoy. “Since I have a wife, and you don’t.”

            Ralph Hexwood folded his arms and pouted. Harry grinned at him. A casual listener would probably have thought they hated each other, or at least blamed each other for every small mishap in a Hermes Corps case, but in reality they’d been partners for two years and got along rather well.

            Besides, as Harry was quick to remind Ralph whenever he tried to complain too much, he really did commit most of the mistakes on their cases. And if he ever went to Shacklebolt or someone higher about it, who would they believe, the great Harry Potter or the poor Scottish wizard who’d had to work his way up through the ranks?

            It was usually about then that Ralph responded with an obscene gesture, something he seemed on the point of doing now. Harry watched with interest. Sometimes he didn’t know what they meant, and he was convinced that Ralph made half of them up, anyway.

            Before Ralph could do anything, they heard a sharp knock at the door. As one, they gave their wands expert flicks, and an illusion of a clean office hid the pile of paper in the corner, the empty cups scattered on both their desks, and the picture from Playwitch that Ralph kept over his desk when no one but Harry was there to see.

            “Come in!” Harry called officiously, while Ralph bent over his paperwork with a ferocious determination that wouldn’t fool anyone who knew him.

            Of all the people Harry was expecting to see walk through his office door, Malfoy was not one of them. Harry sat back, staring at him incredulously. If Malfoy needed him, wouldn’t he have sent a discreet owl? It wasn’t as though he would want to start rumors about the stupid magical accident he’d had, let alone his dependence on Harry.

            “Malfoy,” he said, keeping his voice cool. “Is there something we can do for you?”

            Ralph turned around in interest. Though he supported a different Quidditch team than Malfoy’s Falmouth Falcons, he still admired talent in the air, and even Harry had to admit that Malfoy had that in spades.

            Malfoy lingered in the door for a long moment. He acted as if Harry were the only one there, staring intently at him. Harry hoped he was the only one who noticed the way Malfoy’s nostrils flared and the muscles in his arms tensed, as if he were forcibly keeping himself where he stood.

            Then the signs of thwarted desire vanished, and Malfoy tilted his head, raising one cool eyebrow. “I’m visiting the Ministry, Potter. Thought I’d stop by and see whether the taxes I pay actually do support the Hermes Aurors to do nothing but sit on their arses all day, the way I’ve heard it.”

            Harry rolled his eyes. He wondered, now, how he could have risen to the bait so many times in Hogwarts. Or maybe Malfoy’s insults just weren’t what they used to be.

            Or maybe I find it easier to be sympathetic to him now because I know what he’s suffering under.

            “You didn’t catch us during one of our cases, unfortunately,” he said, keeping his voice light, aware of Ralph’s eyes on them all the time. “Then you could have had the fun of crouching in a dirty, smelly alley for hours, waiting for a target to make a move.”

            “I thought the Hermes Corps was famed for speed.” Malfoy turned his head slowly from one side to the other, watching Harry like a bird. Given the glitter in his eyes, which resembled the Veela shine, Harry thought that might not be far from the truth.

            “Quick captures,” Harry said, showing his teeth. “But that still means long stalks, sometimes.”

            “Ah,” said Malfoy. “Men with endurance. I see.”

            Harry came embarrassingly close to sitting up and demanding to know just what the fuck was happening. Did Malfoy want people to think that they were cheating on their wives together? Ralph wasn’t the most observant of wizards, but he flirted with witches shamelessly. Sooner or later, he’d recognize flirting when it was dangled in front of his nose like this.

            But perhaps Malfoy wouldn’t be that unhappy to make others think Harry was cheating on Ginny. The Daily Prophet had been bored lately. This would make a juicy scandal for them.

            Swallowing his anger, forcing himself to remember the Veela and the sort of stress Malfoy was dealing with lately, Harry said, “I’m sorry we can’t oblige you with a demonstration of our skills.” Then he winced, because he did keep handing Malfoy straight lines. He went on determinedly, though, when that sharp mouth started to open to deliver another insult. “But is there anything else that we can help you with?” He pasted on the bright, helpful smile that all members of the Hermes Corps learned to use when reporters swarmed them, demanding to know information too sensitive to be released publicly yet.

            “Actually, Potter, I did want to speak to you about that matter we discussed two weeks ago.” Malfoy’s face was blank, his eyes half-lidded. “I’m afraid a letter and a Floo call won’t do the trick this time. Could you come to the Manor this evening, at six?”

            Harry cursed inwardly. He’d already had a long day—it was noon and he’d been at the Ministry since seven—and he hadn’t wanted to do anything more than go home and lie on the couch beside Ginny while she stroked his hair. But he had agreed to do what he could to preserve both their marriages, so that he could have more evenings on the couch with Ginny while she stroked his hair, instead of winding up a Veela rape victim.

            He kept his voice friendly as he said, “Of course, Malfoy. I’ll see you then.” His eyes, he knew, conveyed something far different.

            Malfoy’s nostrils flared again, and he looked as though someone had just held up a piece of chocolate cake in front of him. “Good,” he said, and strode from the office, leaving the door open, probably because it was too plebeian for him to shut it. Harry rolled his eyes and did the honors with his wand.

            “What was that, Harry?” Ralph asked, sounding far too alert and interested. “What could Malfoy possibly want?”

            “You promise not to tell anyone?” Harry asked. He already had a lie prepared, of course.

            Ralph mimed moving his wand in the gesture that sealed an Unbreakable Vow.

            “Malfoy offered me free tickets to the next game the Falcons are playing if I gave my ‘unofficial’ support to them during the few weeks beforehand,” Harry said, leaning forwards and lowering his voice. He wasn’t a good liar even now, but much better when he knew beforehand what story he was going to tell. “They aren’t having a good season, you know.” Ralph nodded impatiently. “An interview here, an owl there…just a few hints that Harry Potter still thinks they can win. This meeting will be to work out the details of what I should say, and to whom.”

            Ralph bought it easily, leaning back with a grin. “So your fame will benefit someone more than Harry Potter for once?”

            Harry Summoned one of the crumpled parchments from the corner and threw it at him.

            Ralph laughed, and then they exchanged a few more friendly insults and got back to work. Harry had to shake his head briskly, once to clear it of regret—Ralph wasn’t Ron and never would be, but he reminded Harry a lot of Ron in that last year of the war, before both he and Hermione had died—and once to clear it of irritation. Malfoy had acted like a right git in their last two interactions, this one and the time before that, summoning the Veela when Harry tried to offer him a bit of sympathy.

            Hopefully this wank will be a quick one.

*

            Draco had tried to explain the sensation of missing Potter to Pansy. It hadn’t worked. He wasn’t sure anyone but another Veela would have understood—and he certainly wasn’t about to seek out the only one he knew, the eldest Weasel’s quarter-Veela wife, and ask. How could he explain missing a warmth that had never belonged to him, or waking up blind and longing for a world he’d never seen?

            Pansy had finally stopped his fumbling explanations, put a hand on his shoulder, looked into his eyes, and said, “I’ll arrange to be gone tomorrow evening, Draco.”

            So he’d visited the Ministry today, and now he was pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace, waiting for Potter. His hands itched; he would start picking at his own nails if he wasn’t careful. He could barely think, with all the thoughts he did try to form racing across his mind in disordered streaks of light.

            Finally, a house-elf appeared to tell him Potter had arrived and was walking up the stairs. Draco clenched his arms around his torso to keep himself from running towards him.

            He heard the door open, and swung around. He knew the Veela was rising up, leaking through his face, but he couldn’t force it back down. Memories had been enough for almost two weeks; he’d foolishly thought they might be enough for a month, and he wouldn’t have to see Potter again before the end of February.

            He’d been wrong.

            Now Potter let the door fall shut behind him, and even with the expression of resigned distaste on his face, he was still the best thing Draco had seen all day. That brief glimpse this afternoon hadn’t been enough, nowhere near it.

            He crossed the floor between them in four strides and wrapped his arms around Potter.

            The ache in his head and gut, more maddening than any pain—it was what Draco thought flea bites would be like, not that he had experience of them—melted.

            His nose smelled what it was supposed to be smelling. The warmth that belonged next to him was back again. He wished there wasn’t so much cloth between him and Potter’s bare skin, but that could be cured.

            “Malfoy,” he heard Potter say, in startlement. He kept still, not moving, as if he thought any sudden shift would cause Draco to attack. “What—“

            He lifted his head and kissed Potter, a light enough kiss; he just needed the contact of lips, tongue, teeth. His hands rose of their own free will and raked through Potter’s hair, latching deep and tugging.

            Potter made a noise of discomfort, and then broke away from him, catching and holding Draco with a hand in the center of his chest when he tried to move forwards. “Malfoy,” he said forcefully. “What do you want?”

            Draco caught his breath then, and realized just how much like an animal he was acting. He dropped his eyes, flushing dully. He had Potter near him, and he couldn’t stand the thought that his mind would cloud again when the other wizard left.

            But he also couldn’t stand the thought that he needed that closeness to function.

            “I need you to—get me off again,” he said, keeping his eyes averted. “It’s been too long.”

            “But it’ll be just once this month, right?”

            Potter’s voice had an intensely hopeful tone that made Draco snarl in spite of himself.

            “Yes,” he said. “It should be.” He lifted his head, and God, Potter’s face looked good to him in a way he couldn’t even describe even as he retained all his human contempt for him, and it was almost enough to make him cry with frustration. “Pansy’s not here.”



            Potter shrugged, as if Pansy’s presence or absence were a matter of pure indifference for him, and then started towards the bedroom they had always used.

            The Veela had other ideas.

            Draco felt himself pushed half-aside as the beast surged up in him; he could still watch what happened, and speak if he really needed to, but he no longer had complete control. The Veela reached out and caught Potter’s arm, and Draco had great satisfaction in watching him jump like a spooked horse.

            “No,” said the Veela. “I want to do it here. On the floor. And we’ll face each other, this time.”

*

            Harry felt the same slow burn as before start up his arm, and then the Veela said that ridiculous thing and flung the pleasure out of his head. They were in the room where Malfoy and Pansy had received them the first time, with the long table. He stared a moment, then shook his head.

            “I’d feel more comfortable—“

            “I wouldn’t,” said the Veela, and this time, it had a sly, teasing undertone to its voice that Harry hadn’t heard before but distrusted immensely. It pulled away from him and began to unbutton its robes, head tilted coyly to the side. Its blond hair half-shielded its eyes, which really did resemble molten silver. “And since I’ve been uncomfortable for days, I really think I should be able to choose this time. Harry.”

            Harry hated the way the sound of his name on the creature’s lips went to his groin. Deliberately filling his mind with images of Ginny, he decided that it was worth acceding to the—thing’s—demands so that he could get home to her more quickly. He nodded and sat down on the floor to wait.

            “I’d like it if you removed your robes, too,” the Veela said softly. “Or at least your shirt.”

            Harry shook his head stubbornly.

            The Veela looked disappointed, but unsurprised. Then it turned half-away from him, shrugging off the robes and languorously stripping itself of shirt and trousers, and Harry realized with a jolt that it was trying to arouse him.

            He set his teeth, didn’t move, and didn’t relax one disapproving muscle in his face, even when the Veela tossed back its hair and gave him a sly, melting glance over its shoulder.

            Too soon after that, the thing was naked and kneeling eagerly in front of Harry, legs spread, so he could take its cock in his hand.

            The skin felt hotter and smoother than last time—and it had always felt hotter than Ginny’s skin had. Harry ruthlessly shoved such comparisons out of his head and began to stroke.

            The Veela watched him the entire time. Its breathing inflated its chest and then relaxed it, over and over again. Its skin flushed a deep pink beneath the pallor; incredibly, considering he played Quidditch and was outside a good portion of the time, Malfoy was even whiter than Ginny. The blond hair on the chest and around the crotch was rougher than Ginny’s, too. Harry tried as hard as he could to avoid letting his fingers come into contact with it. They did anyway.

            And all the time, he could feel its eyes on him.

            A particularly loud moan broke from the Veela’s throat, and Harry looked up, hoping it was near the end.

            Their eyes locked.

            The same glitter was there, but under the alien light was an indescribable tenderness—just as alien in its way, because Harry thought the look too possessive, too overwhelming, for one human to direct to another. He stared as the Veela lifted one hand and laid the back along his cheek. The eyes went on staring, staring, and Harry couldn’t have looked away if he tried.

            Then the Veela came, and tossed its head back, growling in satisfaction. Harry’s hand became soaked, and the silver eyes shut, and he was free.

            He hastily stood up and stepped back, performing a cleaning charm and watching the Veela closely. It sat where it was, breathing heavily. The odd luster had faded from the blond hair, though, and its voice was Malfoy’s when it spoke.

            “Thanks, Potter. Just clean up the flecks from the carpet, won’t you?”

            Harry flicked his wand, removing the last of Malfoy’s waste without a word. Then he turned and walked from the room, ignoring Malfoy’s next taunt—something about a post-sex cuddle.

            All the way down the stairs, and then out through the front entrance to the point where he could Apparate, the touch of the hand on his cheek lingered in exactly the same way the kiss from last time had.

            And he remembered the way the Veela had looked at him, too.

            All of it combined to make him deeply unnerved.

*

            Draco smirked as he stretched his arms over his head and looked down his body at his own spent cock. He felt better than he had in weeks—and far better than he had the other times Potter had wanked him. It was true that he still succumbed to the same hopeless, helpless passion, and he had the Veela’s thoughts about fucking its mate and holding him forever to contend with. But he’d also been able to see Potter’s discomfort.

            It wasn’t just a mechanical task to him anymore. He can’t just ignore me.

            As he casually stood and fetched his robes, he wondered whether he was giving in too much to the Veela inside him. Did it make a difference whether Potter really saw him or not? After all, Potter wasn’t the one he wanted to have sex with, of his own free will. And he certainly wasn’t the one Draco loved.

            In the end, he decided it mattered. He had lost too much control in their last few sessions. He wanted some of that control back.

            The day Potter became aroused in his presence, Draco promised himself, he would call the contest finished and the scales balanced.

            The Veela relived its mate’s warmth and purred ecstatically. Draco was feeling pretty damn satisfied himself.

*

            “Harry?”

            Harry fought to keep his eyes open. He had arrived home late, but Ginny had been there, and she had risen without a word, caught his arms, and pulled him into the bedroom. It seemed she’d had a bad day, too—she worked as an alternate flying teacher at Hogwarts, preparing to take over from Madam Hooch—and the best way for them to take out their mutual frustrations had always been with sex. They were both energetic, young, fond of trying as many different bodily positions as they could get away with, and able to pour their emotions into physical passion. After sating himself with Ginny, Harry’s mind and body were both liquid, and wanted nothing more than to melt.

            “Hexwood owled us about a Falmouth Falcons game…?” Ginny’s voice was delicate, probing.

            “Oh, that.” Harry yawned and rolled closer to her; his head rested on her knee. “Yeah, I used the story we invented. Malfoy came to our office, and I told Ralph that he’d offered me free tickets for a game if I promised to support the Falcons in the press.”

            “Apparently, the tickets actually arrived,” said Ginny, sounding a bit bemused. “At your office, I mean. One for him, and one for you.”

            Harry’s eyes shot open at that. The first thought he had was that that was awfully decent of Malfoy, actually sending the tickets to keep up appearances.

            The second thought was: That’s awfully convenient, that Malfoy wants me and Ralph to attend the game, but not Ginny.

            Then he dismissed that. Malfoy didn’t want him, had no designs on him. This was a gesture from the Veela. Harry could hold the creature at bay, and he’d help Malfoy do the same thing, if it came to that.

            He rolled upright on his elbows, and shook his sweaty hair out of his eyes. Their bed was a four-poster, and the curtains were drawn, but enough firelight came through the cracks in them so that he could see Ginny’s face. She was trying to smile, but her lower lip was trembling.

            Harry reached up, curved a hand behind her neck, and pulled her down for a kiss. He made it as long, as slow, as deep, and as reassuring as he could. When he pulled back, she still had a troubled cast to the edges of her eyes, but her smile had returned.

            “I’ll attend the game, because it would look strange if I didn’t, now that he’s sent the tickets,” he said, and lay back down, leering slightly at her. “But I will only ever love you, Ginny. I promise. If he thinks he can seduce me by inviting me to see that second-rate team of his play, he should think again.”

            Ginny giggled, making his head and her lap and her breasts bounce. Harry breathed out gently across her stomach, and watched as gooseflesh immediately formed there.

            “Now, I think I should makeyou think about something else entirely,” he murmured, and moved his head forwards, his breath caressing her thighs.

            From Ginny’s squeal a moment later, she more than agreed with that.

*

            “Satisfied?” Draco inquired as airily as he could.

Branwen Gooseberry, coach and owner of the Falmouth Falcons, held up a hand without answering, watching the potion in the vial intently. Draco sighed and leaned back against the wall, his arms folded in front of him. They were in “that room” behind the Falcons’ showers, the one that everyone knew existed but no one mentioned in public—the room where Branwen took her players when she suspected them of deliberately poor performance or taking illegal potions.

            As Draco had known it would, the test potion in the vial glowed a clear, heavenly blue, a sure sign that he didn’t have anything strange in his blood. Branwen let out a breath.

            “Is that clear enough for you?” Draco asked. “Or would you like to exsanguinate another vein?”

            “Calm, Malfoy,” Branwen said, the way she always did, even when he was the furthest player on the team from angry. “You’ve been off your game lately, and then today you flew like you were possessed. Of course I would wonder if you’d decided to…help yourself a bit.”

            Draco snorted, but turned away instead of replying. She wouldn’t apologize.

            And she certainly wouldn’t understand if he tried to explain what had animated him today.

            “Just continue it!” Branwen yelled after him.

            Draco lifted a hand in acknowledgment without turning around.

            He stripped in the narrow room in front of the showers, and entered them with a wave of his wand that would keep his clothes from being stolen while he bathed. He took his wand with him inside. Perhaps it was paranoia, but it had protected him from the pranks of rival teams and jealous fellow players more than once.

            As he let the water cascade down between the strands of his hair and rubbed the soap over his chest, he thought of what had happened to him in the past few days. He had not only felt better than he had in the last two weeks, when all he’d had to feed on were the memories of his hurried encounters with Potter’s hand, but better than he’d felt in—years. His senses were clearer; his eyesight was like a falcon’s itself, and until Branwen yelled at him to stop, he’d caught the Snitch again and again and again, long before the rest of the players could score with the Quaffle.

            He walked with a lighter step, he snapped out the answers to questions almost before other people could ask them, and—he smirked to himself—he fucked Pansy more enthusiastically.

            As discreetly as he’d could, he’d written to some of the magical theorists he’d consulted after his accident, mentioned his symptoms, and asked what they were. Every single one had replied that this was a benefit of increased contact with his mate.

            Draco had already found himself craving more. Of course he wanted to do well when the Falcons played other teams, but it was more than that. He wanted to go on living like this. Even the normal life he’d had before the accident now seemed like walking through a bright, airy room while wrapped in cotton wool.

            And he didn’t mind having contact with Potter, if that was the only way to achieve it. The Falcons played another game in a week, and Draco had sent the tickets even before Potter visited the Manor, doing his part to maintain the false story Potter had laid down. Now he was eager to see the git accept the invitation for other reasons. Draco would play spectacularly, and then corner him after the match.

*

            “But, Harry, you love Quidditch.”

            Harry rolled his eyes at Ralph. “And I also love not being verbally flayed alive by Kingsley,” he said. “You go, Ralph. Escort Ginny. She deserves a chance to watch flyers who don’t scream for Mummy the moment their brooms are three feet off the ground.”

            Ralph gasped and put a hand to his heart. “Me, insignificant me, escort the beautiful Mrs. Harry Potter to a Quidditch game? You don’t want to give me the chance, mate. I’ll have persuaded her to leave the scarred fellow she’s married to and elope with me by the afternoon.”

            Harry flung a crumpled parchment at him without even looking up. “I have to finish this paperwork.”

            “She’ll be disappointed.”

            Harry made a sound of exasperation and looked up as he rolled his eyes. “She needs a bit of a holiday from me, too, Ralph. She told me so. We’ve either seen each other or our work colleagues every day this week—no time for anything else. Besides if she did choose to elope with you, you’d have to drop dead in the next second, because no mortal could endure that much good luck.”

            Ralph laughed at him, but took the tickets eagerly enough. “All right, then, Harry. Ginny and I will be thinking of you stuck underground while we watch the Harpies trounce the Falcons and discuss plans for our elopement.”

            Harry shot him a certain salute with one hand while he continued to write his report with the other.

*

            From the moment he circled into the sky over the pitch, Draco knew he owned this game.

            His mate’s presence was like a beacon in the crowd. Just knowing Potter was there, even if he couldn’t see him, filled him with a clear light, thicker and stronger than the sun. Draco could feel every movement before he made it, and he knew where the Bludgers were coming from and who they’d strike. Seeker reflexes combined with that made sure he was out of reach of every collision before it happened.

            The Snitch was laughably easy to find. He could have captured it in the first five minutes and won the game. Instead, he circled idly, making playful dashes now and then to convince the Harpies’ Seeker that he’d spotted it, and to thrill the crowd. Most of his imagination, since he didn’t need it for the match, was concentrated on what Potter would be feeling and thinking as he watched him.

            He wanted to laugh whenever he caught himself thinking those thoughts. Why should he care what Potter thought of him? He had more than that to worry about. He had the better games and the peaceful life with Pansy that, even if Potter had made them possible for him, were blessedly free of his presence.

            Perhaps the Veela had more to do with his behavior lately than he realized.

            Draco scowled and urged his broom into a dive. He didn’t feel driven to seek Potter out and hump his hand, which was enough evidence for him. What he really wanted were the side-effects of his presence. It was no different than tolerating the company of one of Pansy’s boring socialite friends for the sake of the good reputation she could give him in circles where the Malfoy name was still more mocked than revered. He didn’t need the Veela to show him what a good idea it could be, cultivating Potter’s acquaintance.

            But if you grow dependent on it, what will happen when the year is over?

            Draco pushed the thought away. He would tire of Potter long before then, he was sure. He would not have to worry about it. And he would find ways to subdue the Veela’s influence in his life.

            He dodged fellow teammates and the other Seeker’s dogged pursuit with an effortless grace that he knew had never been in him before, and once, when he performed a complex maneuver to escape a Bludger, he thought he glanced back and glimpsed the shadows of wings growing from his shoulders.

            But he was still himself, Draco Malfoy, and he still wanted to wring every advantage from anyone else that he could.

            That comforted him.

            At last, his own team had scored two hundred points with the Quaffle, and he thought it time to catch the Snitch and—

            Impress Potter—

            —show Branwen that she was wrong to be suspicious of him. He leaned off the broom, spun in a tight circle, held up a palm, and let the Snitch smack home in it. It was so neatly done that, for long moments, no one seemed to realize Draco had won the game.

            Then the announcer shouted frantically, and Draco’s teammates came up to hug him, nearly slamming him off his broom in the process, exclaiming and embracing his shoulders. Draco nodded in response to the compliments and offered clipped words when he absolutely had to. His eyes were scanning restlessly across the green grass of the Quidditch Pitch, seeking for eyes that were greener than that grass in the crowd. And if that last thought was a touch of the Veela sentiment, he didn’t care.

            Finally, he saw a flash of red that couldn’t be anything but the she-Weasel’s hair, and snorted. It would be like Potter to have bought a ticket for his wife so she could join him at the match, even though Draco’s invitation had excluded her as much as possible.

            And beside her, on his feet and cheering loudly, was Potter’s Auror partner.

            Potter wasn’t with them.

            Draco felt all his smug accomplishment turn to glass in his head and fall down in ringing shards. His hand sagged open limply, letting the Snitch fly away. Luckily, the Harpies’ Seeker grabbed it before it went far, as if the late catch were enough to make up for having lost the game.

            One of his teammates asked him what was wrong, one of the Chasers, but the face was little more than a smear of color, the voice only a bray across his senses. Draco shook his head and skimmed back across the Pitch towards the showers. He hoped the warm water would help clear his head.

            It didn’t. Even when he stood with the water beating down on him so hard that he nearly staggered under the fall, he felt betrayal burning in his throat, sour as acid. Pansy could have been on her knees in front of him at that moment, offering to deep-throat him, and it wouldn’t have helped.

            I wanted you to come, damn you! he raged in silence at Potter. Why didn’t you come?

            Of course, he’d still played well. That might prove he didn’t need to visit Potter often to experience the heightened senses and the mental clarity that came from just one touch—

            But Draco didn’t care. He wanted to force Potter to see him, because if he had to suffer through ages of humiliation because of this stupid accident, then Potter should have to suffer, too. And he’d given the tickets to his wife and partner because he couldn’t be bothered to see Draco.

            Where is he? Draco snarled to himself as he dried his hair with a few flickering spells and then cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself, so that he could pass out of the locker rooms without his teammates or a maddened fan catching a glimpse of him.

            There were two major possibilities: the house he owned with his wife, and his office at the Ministry. Draco suspected the wards on the house would keep him out, so he chose to believe Potter was at the one place he could access.

            Grimly, he walked until he was clear of the various protection spells placed around the Pitch to stop fans from interfering with the game, and then Apparated.

*

            Harry sat back with a sigh of satisfaction and rubbed the bridge of his nose under his glasses. That was the last report finished, and now Kingsley would have less reason ever to glare when he made his traditional Monday-morning inspection. Harry did regret having to give up a Saturday afternoon to do this, but it wasn’t as though he had anything more important planned.

            The door of his office vibrated with a pounding fist. Harry glanced up, surprised, one hand falling to the wand at his waist.

            The door burst open, and Malfoy stood revealed, snarling. He stalked towards Harry’s desk, his face melting and changing, an apparition of the Veela rising above his shoulders and head like the Aurora Borealis. Harry sought for something human in that expression, and didn’t find it. And Malfoy was crossing the floor between them awfully quickly.

            But Harry wasn’t in the Hermes Corps for nothing. He deflected the first hex Malfoy cast at him with an instinctive Shield Charm, and then coolly Body-Bound him to the far wall. The Body-Bind didn’t take as well as it would have normally, which Harry attributed to either his own surprise or the Veela manifesting in Malfoy. But it held his limbs and shoulders still, luckily, though he could twist his head and cry out in an inhuman voice. The shadow of a beak flitted about his face, though it vanished when Harry spoke.

            “What the fuck, Malfoy?”

            Malfoy’s eyes snapped open, and he ground his teeth together with an audible sound. “I sent you tickets for the Falcons’ game, Potter,” he said. “And then you weren’t there.” From the tone of his voice, this was a betrayal equal to Harry digging up his parents’ bodies and desecrating them.

            Harry stared for a few moments in perplexity, then stood and shook his head. The motion made Malfoy tense up again. His eyes shone, but with rage, not the Veela’s unnatural silver light. Harry was grateful for small favors. That might mean the prat would listen to him.

            “Since when does Draco Malfoy care if I do or do not watch his games?” he asked.

            No immediate response came; they both stared at each other in silence. Then, slowly, as if someone had attached a lead weight to the nape of his neck, Malfoy let his head sink backwards. It sagged against the wall, and he took a few deep, rasping breaths.

            “That’s right,” Harry said, as calmly as he could. “You don’t care. The Veela does, but that can be resisted. Remember, Malfoy, we’re doing this so we can keep our normal lives. And after this year, this part of you will fade away and not bother you again except in nightmares. That’s true, isn’t it?” He’d contacted a specialist in Veela in the Department of Mysteries, and she’d told him that, in those cases where Veela could, for some reason, resist bonding to their mates immediately, the animal urges would eventually leave them alone.

            Malfoy didn’t reply.

            “You have a strong will,” Harry said, reluctantly. “I know you. You—you didn’t want to do what you did sixth year, but you kept persisting, against impossible odds, until you fixed the Vanishing Cabinet.” He hated referring to anything that touched on Dumbledore’s death, but it was necessary, and he owed more obligations to the living than the dead. Besides, Dumbledore certainly wouldn’t have minded Harry using memories connected to him like this. He had wanted to save Malfoy, Harry remembered. “You can do this, too.” He turned around and strode to the bookshelf on the far side of the room, retrieving a few pamphlets that waited there. “I thought you might want these,” he added, taking them back and showing them to Malfoy. “They’re pamphlets on mind control and possession, and techniques for resisting them.”

            Malfoy laughed without sound, his eyes boring into Harry’s. “They’re Ministry literature. Which makes them worth less than the ink used to print them.”

            Harry shook his head patiently. “That’s what the pamphlets distributed to the general public are like, yes. But these are meant for Hermes Corps use. A lot of the criminals we hunt are proficient in the Imperius Curse.” He held them forwards. “I think these might help you.” Keeping a wary eye on Malfoy, he waved his wand to free his hands from the Body-Bind.

            Malfoy reached out and awkwardly accepted the pamphlets, studying them with only one eye. He kept the other on Harry.

            And there was a longing in it that made Harry sigh and take a step away. “Come on, Malfoy,” he said. “I know you’re strong-willed, but you have to use that will, remember? Use it now. Put the Veela away.”

            “I can’t,” said Malfoy, his voice cracking. “I tried. But in its view, you broke a promise. It needs—something from you.”

            Harry snorted and folded his arms. The skin of his cheek burned where the Veela had touched him. He didn’t want that to happen again. “If you think I’ll wank you off in the middle of my office, where anyone could walk in—“

            “Not that.” Malfoy shook his head. “It wouldn’t take sex as a return for a broken promise. Unless you’ll allow it to pleasure you?”

            Harry sneered a bit. “No.”

            “I didn’t think so.” Malfoy narrowed his eyes as if he were peering into strong sunlight. “It needs—words. Something you’ve never told anyone else. Something you haven’t even shared with your wife.”

            Harry stiffened. Something had immediately come to mind, but—“If I kept it from Ginny, why should I share it with that thing?”

            “Because it needs it,” said Malfoy, and his eyes were intense again, shimmering with light from another sun. “Please, Potter. Please.” He let his head fall back again. “You don’t know what this is like, having it in you, choking your will and turning your thoughts towards contemplation of someone you hate.”

            Reluctantly, Harry had to acknowledge that was true. “I don’t suppose it can be something trivial?” he asked.

            “No,” Malfoy said, voice breathy, but not the way Harry had heard it when he was gasping to recover from a powerful orgasm. He sounded as if he were trying to climb a hill with stones tethered to his ankles. “Please. Just—something emotionally significant, something you didn’t tell her. It needs to know part of you belongs to it that belongs to no one else. Please, Potter!”

            It was the last cry that did it. Harry swallowed several times, then nodded. “All right. But you’ll swear to secrecy, Malfoy. If I see a hint of this in the Daily Prophet, I’ll put a curse on you that lasts longer than a year.” He clutched his wand, feeling his palm sweat. “You won’t have a night of sleep again without bad dreams.”

*

            The rising tide of compulsion that had drowned his will reversed itself. Draco gasped, his head sagging forwards, and raised his eyes to Potter’s face. “I promise,” he said. “How would I explain how I learned it, anyway? We’re hardly supposed to entertain a friendly regard for one another.”

            Potter only shrugged, as if to say that he was sure Draco would find some way to explain his perfidy. He clenched his hands in front of him, and then said, “I’ll tell you about the way Ron and Hermione died.”

            Draco snapped to startled attention. He only knew that Weasley and Granger had died, not how. Potter hadn’t wanted to speak about it, and though Draco had assumed the story was more common among Potter’s friends, the rumors he caught made it clear that none of them knew the exact details, either.

            He licked his lips and arranged himself against the wall in his strange position, half-Body-Bound, as comfortably as he could. “So talk, Potter.”

            Potter stared at him closely, then Summoned his chair around the desk and sat down in it. He looked at a point just above Draco’s left shoulder and began, his voice flat and devoid of emotion.

            “Voldemort captured Ron, Hermione, and me a few weeks before the final battle. Or, at least, the Lestrange brothers did.” He flicked Draco a look of resentment, as though he couldn’t forgive him for having an aunt who had married a Lestrange. Draco gave as much of a shrug as he could with his shoulders still frozen. It was not his fault, what his mother’s family had done before he was even born.

            “I don’t know if they ever told Voldemort we were there, or if he told them to torture us as they liked until he had time for a grand spectacle.” Potter ran a hand down his face. “They used the Cruciatus Curse and a few other pain spells for a while, but they tired of that.”

            He closed his eyes and shuddered. “At last one of them had the bright idea to kill Ron and Hermione; they didn’t really need me alive, but I think Voldemort wanted to kill me in front of as many of his Death Eaters as he could manage, not in private. There would always be doubts about whether I was really dead.”

            “Yes,” Draco said, unwillingly. He had spent most of the war under Snape’s care in his isolated home at Spinner’s End, but he’d heard that, over and over, at the rare Death Eater meetings he attended: the Dark Lord wanted Potter. He would be satisfied with nothing less than a messy torture and execution in front of everyone who could possibly be assembled, including innocent bystanders. The wizards and witches who saw the death would then be released to spread the word and deprive the masses of their hope.

            If Draco had ever doubted the Dark Lord was mad, and cruel with it, he would have doubted no longer, after hearing him gleefully plot the death of a boy Draco had known from the time he was eleven.

            Potter merely nodded, but not as if he’d heard Draco, more as if he were responding to a voice within his own head. His eyes had gone wide and glassy. Draco shifted uneasily.

            “So they cast a curse on me, and on them.” Potter cleared his throat. “Have you ever heard of the Pyrrhic Victory Curse?”

            Draco shook his head. He had to admit that he, not only the Veela, was interested in finding out what had really happened.

            Potter shut his eyes. “They had us in a cave,” he said, “a rough little chamber with no windows, brick walls and floor, and only one entrance. They pushed water and food through the door. Then they cast the Pyrrhic Victory Curse on us.

            “It filled me with this—mad desire to eat and drink. A little like the Veela you bear, I suppose. And every time I took a bite or swallowed a gulp of water, something happened to Ron or Hermione.”

            “What happened?” Draco whispered. He didn’t know if he was asking for the Veela’s sake or his own.

            “It depended,” Potter said. His eyes were fiercely shut now, as if to hold tears at bay. “Broken bones. Internal injuries. Loss of toes, or fingers. Hermione went blind when I ate a whole piece of bread. Ron lost his magic when I finished the apples they’d left. But I lived, and grew stronger. That’s why the curse has the name it has; the person it’s cast on always lives, but the price of his victory is the death of the others named in the curse.”

            Draco tried to imagine it. He couldn’t, maybe because he couldn’t think of two people, other than his parents, whose deaths would have distressed him that much. He licked his lips and said, “Could you—fight the desire to eat and drink at all?”

            “For days at a time,” said Potter. “And then I’d give in, and something else would happen.

            “Finally, Hermione—Ron was in a coma by then—told me it had to end. I asked her how, since we didn’t have our wands, and any damage I tried to inflict on myself would only have rebounded on them. She—“ Potter’s voice cracked.

            And Draco found that he knew the ending of the story.

            “She made you kill her and Weasley,” he said softly.

            “Yes,” said Potter. “I was strong enough to do that, and I think it was the one thing they—never thought I’d do. So there were no protections built into the spell against it. I st—strangled them.”

            And then he was silent, his breath heaving wild, uncontrolled. Draco stared at him in silence. The Veela had retreated completely, as if, having heard what it had been promised, it had no more interest in its mate for the moment.

            For Draco, it was a revelation. He no longer really wondered that Potter had made the bargain he had. If he was strong enough to kill his two best friends, he was strong enough to endure a year of touching someone who wasn’t his wife.

            “How did you escape?” he asked.

            Potter gave a dry laugh. “I ate and drank without stopping, then. When the Lestrange brothers came to replenish the food, I was strong enough to fight them bare-handed and take my wand back. And then I killed them—“

            Draco thought he wouldn’t ask how they died.

            “—and I went to face Voldemort.”

            He fell silent again. Draco waited until he saw Potter’s shoulders stop shaking, and knew he had wrestled himself back under control.

            Potter’s face and voice were both very calm when he told Draco, “I haven’t told Ginny this because it would hurt her so much. And I mean it, Malfoy. One word, one hint of a rumor of a whisper—“

            “I promise, Potter.” It wasn’t hard for Draco to make that promise. He couldn’t say that he liked Potter, even now, but that story had brought him close to something that resembled respect.

            Potter gave a small nod, and then released the last of the Body-Bind on him. Draco stood up, dusted off his robes, and put the Ministry pamphlets on resisting possession and mind control in his pockets.

            Then he walked towards Potter.

            The other wizard tried to back up, putting the desk between them, but Draco simply put his hand on Potter’s cheek. Potter studied him warily. This close, Draco could plainly make out the shadows in the green eyes.

            He couldn’t have otherwise. Potter had done an excellent job of recovering from his ordeal.

            Draco leaned in and kissed him lingeringly, without a hint of the passion the Veela always tried to force in, purely and solely because he wanted to. Potter remained stiff and unresponsive, but Draco didn’t mind that. He had no fear, now, that he didn’t matter to him. The sharing of the story of Weasley and Granger’s deaths had changed the atmosphere between them. Like it or not, they were now firmly linked.

            And even Potter’s wife had never heard this.

            “See you next month,” he whispered into Potter’s mouth, and then stepped back and departed.
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A Year's Temptation

Chapter Two—February