Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Muggle Technology and Heroism	By : Tommy-Lane Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 6929 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of its characters and I am not making any money off of this.

Chapter List
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"Firstly, this thing? Utterly useless." Draco dropped dramatically down onto Harry's bed, propping himself up on his side with his elbow and tossing the once neat box that housed the electric tin opener onto the bed - the cardboard on the top ripped to shreds with the sides barely holding it together.

"Told you." Harry murmured as he turned the page in the novel he was trying to read, not that he was having much success mind. He blamed his inability to concentrate not on his horribly long and tedious work day filled with endless paper work but solely on Draco and his flatmates odd tendency to sing muggle pop songs to himself as he prepared himself for going out. The blonde had a surprisingly good singing voice, even off pitched as he was fifty percent of the time. "What were you trying to do with it anyway?" He peeked over the side of his book to catch a glimpse of the man lounging next to him and damn if he didn't look perfect. God had dealt Malfoy a card unlike any other and when the man put all his focus on looking hot...Harry swallowed thickly and looked blankly back at the page before him.

"Open a tin, what do you think?" Draco drawled before reaching out and snatching Harry's glasses from his nose. "Merlin your lenses are nothing but one gigantic smudge, don't you ever clean them properly?"

Harry blinked, trying to keep the other man in focus as Draco wiped the lenses on his shirt tail. "Of course I do and what tin? Were you trying to cook?"

Draco snickered and shook his head before jamming the glasses back on Harry's face. "Fuck no, that's what I have you for. I just wanted to see how it worked...I think I may have melted something though..."

Harry sighed and dropped the book onto his lap with his thumb holding his spot. "Melted? How the hell did you manage to actually melt something?"

Draco shrugged nonchalantly as he picked at the bedspread, his fingers pulling the fibers from the thick blanket. "Wasn't my fault, the damnable thing malfunctioned."

"Sure it did." Harry shook his head, thumbing the edge of his book idly. "Are you leaving soon?"

"Mhmm." He nodded, flicking the little pile of fibers with his finger and watching as they went tumbling across the bedspread. "Good book?"

Harry shrugged. "It's alright."

"Not a gripping page turner?"

"No."

"No crazy hermit desire to see what happens next?"

"Erm?"

"I'll take that as a no. In that case I have a proposition for you." Draco swung up onto his knees, his black jeans stretched impossibly tight over his sinewy thighs. "I've decided I'm not in the mood for a pub. Too loud for my head today."

"Hung over already?" Harry smirked and ducked as Draco went to smack him upside the head.

"No you dimwit. Work was abysmal today and I spent the afternoon fending off idiots who didn't know anything about how to brew properly and I don't feel like fighting off another wave of drooling idiots again tonight. So I was thinking we could do Thai and then maybe -"

"I'm having dinner at Ron and Hermione's." Harry interrupted him, something that felt suspiciously like regret pooling in his gut. It was silly, he spent most week nights with Draco, he shouldn't feel upset over the fact that he wasn't going to get to go out with him. That they weren't going to go to dinner with Draco wearing those insane jeans and that icy gray button up that matched his eyes. That there would be no walk back with Draco harping in his ear and shoving his hands in Harry's pockets. "Do you want to come?" He registered what he had asked moments later, his teeth biting into his cheek as he watched Draco mull the idea over.

"Weasley dinner? Will the drooling one be there?"

"You mean their son? Yeah, I'd imagine so." Harry chuckled and hoped the other man would say yes simply so he could witness Hugo trying to crawl up Draco's leg as the blonde attempted to discreetly shake him off with a look of horror on his pale face.

"Can we get drinks first?"

"I don't think we'll have time."

"After?"

"I have to work tomorrow."

"God Potter, you're not decrepit, surely you can stay out past sunset on occasion?"

Harry smiled despite himself, Draco's snotty tone along with the haughty curve of his lips always managing to do funny things to his nerves. "Alright, if your good."

"If I'm good?" Draco snorted, shuffling his way towards Harry with a predatory gleam in his eyes. Harry found himself holding his breath as Draco neared, his stomach doing that terrible flipping thing when his flatmate grasped his chin and tipped his head up - his skin igniting beneath the sure, cool touch. "What are you going to do? Spank me if I talk back to the weasel?" His tone dipped low, a deep gravel that Harry rarely heard from him, the sound driving straight through him and making blood swell in his ears and rush south in an instant as Harry stared hopelessly up at him. "Kinky Potter, who knew you had it in you." He patted his cheek as his lips morphed from a smirk into a laughing smile and before Harry could blink and process all the sensations coursing through him, Draco was bouncing off the bed and snatching Harry's book from his hands.

"Fucking demented Malfoy." Harry grumbled - trying to discreetly catch his breath and calm his heartbeat, his fingers curling into the blanket at his side.

Draco raised a single eyebrow. "I'm not the one with the punishment fetish."

"What - I, no...what?!" Harry felt his face flame, heat pouring through him in waves. It wasn't helping that he could still smell Draco like he was hovering over him still, his hand on his face, his lips dripping that deep rumble - speaking words that conjured impossible images.

"Calm down Potter, I'm joking, now get me a shirt will you?"

Harry blinked stupidly as Draco started plucking at the buttons of his shirt, each little one that slipped from its confines revealing a trail of luminous skin. He swallowed and looked away. "What's wrong with what you're wearing?"

Draco paused and sent him a sharp look. "It's Hermes."

"Erm?"

Rolling his eyes, Draco shrugged the shirt from his shoulders and carefully folded the material in his hands. "I am not subjecting it to the drool and spit up fest that is the Weasley humble abode. Really all my things are too nice to be put through such trauma, so in short, get me a shirt Potter because yours are already a disaster."

"You're still so stuck up, you know?" Harry grumbled, tossing Draco one of his nicer button ups - a soft blue that he knew from prior experience offset Draco's pale skin beautifully.

Draco caught it and grinned. "Part of my charm."

****

Draco's face was turning bright red, washing like a rising wave up his neck and curling all the way around his ears.

Harry could see it all the way from his perch in the kitchen, his hands methodically wiping down the wet dishes as Hermione handed them to him. The former Slytherin was seated primly on Ron's faded, velvet crimson armchair - a glass of scotch cradled worryingly in his hands as he shook his leg in a futile attempt to divert Hugo's adamant attention. The little boy had his spit soaked fingers tangled in Draco's (Harry's actually) trousers, his ruddy face giggling up at the blonde like they were engaged in a loving game.

If only the child knew that Draco was seconds away from punting him like a football.

Ron was being absolutely no help, either not noticing Draco's outright discomfort or deciding to blatantly ignoring it. Harry smiled as he stacked the newest clean dish atop the others and decided that it was probably the latter.

"Your son already has a thirst for danger." Harry mused, his eyes drifting back up from his godson trying to climb up Draco's leg to the man's face. There was nothing soft about the blonde and even though the years had aged him kindly, his sharp angles had only seemed to grow - his angular jaw, his steep cheekbones, the drastic curve of his collarbone, and bend of his elbows. He was like a painting made up entirely of straight lines - jutting hipbones that peeked out of his sleep pants and low slung jeans, ribs that Harry could count and a flat plane of a stomach that tapered down sharply from his hard chest. His legs were strong, two thick lines with slim muscles, bending knobby at the knees before flowing down to sharp shins and bony ankles. Even the curve of his pink lips were sharp, puckered harshly when he was annoyed or angry, his slate gray eyes a slit of revulsion.

Harry loved to make them round nearly as much as he loved to make him smile that big smile he rarely showed anyone, to make something break from the sharp, angular lines that made him up. He had wondered - aimlessly, obsessively, for hours on end - what Draco would feel like under his hands. If he'd feel as sharp as he looked or if there would be a hidden softness - a secret gentleness. Draco never sounded gentle when he was with his lovers. He sounded as wicked as his tongue always was, just as hard. Harry couldn't help but wonder what it would take to melt those moans into submission, into something that broke...

"Harry?"

"Mhmm?" He blinked and pried his eyes from Draco who was now trying to shoo Hugo away with little flicks of his slim wrists.

"I asked why you thought my son was turning into a little you?"

Harry shifted against the counter top as he wiped his hands on the kitchen towel, drying them of the dish water that had made his skin prune at the tips. "Why does a penchant for danger equal a mini me?"

Hermione glanced over her shoulder into the living room, her gaze falling lovingly on her son who was being belligerently stubborn in trying to engage Draco. "Oh I don't know Harry, penchant for danger, pawing at Malfoy..."

Harry threw his towel at her. "Haha."

"Suppose I should go rescue him, wouldn't want poor little Hugo to follow too closely in his uncle's footsteps." Harry's smile died slowly on his lips as she turned to look at him, leveling him with a steady gaze that made her words feel heavy and hurtful. "Not to mention the age difference would be rather appalling by the time he's old enough, but it starts young doesn't it?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" He asked quietly, the weak attempt at a joke doing nothing to disguise the nature behind what she was getting at.

She sighed and finished drying her own hands. "It’s not that I don't like Draco, I do, but we invited you to dinner, not him."

Harry felt a familiar discomfort crawl up his spine, spreading a blushing heat up his neck and into his cheeks before he could stop it. "I firecalled and checked, you said to bring him along." He reminded her as he felt himself immediately go on the defensive, he had a feeling he knew where this was going and he wasn't in the mood for it.

"That's not the point."

"Then what is?" He ground out, the sound of Hugo laughing in that high pitched way only a baby can reaching his ears.

"The point is that you spend all your time with him, you bring him everywhere with you. You're basically settling down with a man who isn't even your partner and will probably never be. Do you honestly think that's healthy?"

"We're friends." Merlin he didn't know how many times he had to have this conversation, how many times he had to say it.

"But you like him." She whispered with a frustrated huff, like he was being purposely obstinate. "You love him."

Harry didn't answer, his chest squeezing tightly at her words as he looked at the floor. It hurt hearing them, because even though he had never admitted it aloud it was true. He did love Draco and each day he spent with him he felt himself falling a little further down the dark precipitous that was the grave yard of broken hearts that the blonde left in his wake. But he couldn't help it, he couldn't stop - what he had with him was better than nothing. Right?

She let out a soft noise, something that sounded like part pity, part annoyance, part sorrow. This wasn't the first time she had brought this up, but it had been awhile, the last time had been when Harry had to cancel his plans with her because he had somehow gotten sucked into an impromptu weekend trip to France. The memory almost made him smile - Draco had wanted chocolates (and not the rubbish in Diagon Potter, honestly), though perhaps that had just been an excuse so he could flee from the rather persistent man he had been dating that week and somehow, amongst it all, Harry had ended up in a little hotel room in Paris. Sitting on a plush bed, watching a television program he couldn't understand, and eating an enormous array of confections with Draco lying next to him after a long day of sightseeing. Hermione had stared at him when he had gotten back like he had lost his mind, her arms crossed over her chest and her feet planted in her lecture stance.

"Look Harry, I understand, I do. It's just," she paused and glanced back into the living room, watching her son and her husband as Ron scooped up Hugo and swung him up onto his lap. She looked at them like they were her entire life and Harry knew they were, knew that even though Hermione was always busy - rushing about with a million projects - that her family would always come first. "What if Ron had never looked my way? What if after the war I had moved in with you two, just pining away after him, for years, just wasting my life away on hoping...would you honestly let me do that?"

"I'm not wasting my life on him." He grumbled, looking away from the expression on Hermione's face. He was happy in his life, in his job, he loved his friends and all the times they shared. But sometimes if he was honest, if he allowed himself to really think, well, it hurt a little - holding Hugo, playing with Teddy. Sometimes seeing Ron and Hermione, and Bill and Fleur, and Ginny and Neville all settled and happy was like a knife to the gut that he liked to pretend never cut him.

He wondered if perhaps he wasn't as good at hiding it as he thought.

"Are you going on dates? Are you putting yourself out there?" She pried, this time a little more softly then before and Harry had to force himself to keep from snapping at her. He knew she meant well, that she kept pressing because she cared deeply for him, that she wanted for him what he wanted for himself.

Harry's jaw tightened as he shook his head softly, unable to look up and meet her eye. He hadn't been on a date in over a year and the last few he had been on had been nothing short of a disaster - leaving him feeling hollow and wanting. He knew what the problem was, he knew his dates all fell hopelessly short because he kept comparing them all to a certain blonde. He knew he needed to stop and get out there, to try and find someone but he had someone and...Merlin he was fucked. Maybe Hermione had a point, maybe he was wasting his life away on a hopeless desire. He squeezed his eyes shut and felt his throat tighten, the ball of nerves in the pit of his stomach rolling at the thought.

"Oi Harry, get in here, I want to whoop your arse at chess before it gets too late!" Ron hollered, peeking his head into the kitchen, Hugo's thick fingers combing through his hair and making it stand on end.

"Yeah, coming." Harry smiled tightly at him as he glanced up briefly - just long enough to see the confusion and understanding rush across Ron's face as he looked between them. With a long, silent look at Hermione, Ron nodded once and was gone - his boisterous voice commanding Draco to fetch the board and to prepare himself for a vicious defeat. "I should..." He shifted awkwardly, unsure how to end the conversation. What could he say even?

Hermione nodded and pulled him into a quick hug that made him feel even more jittery and tangled up inside. "Just think about it Harry. Okay? It might be time to cut the cord."

****

Three hours later - after Ron had won two rounds, Draco had won three, and because Harry was still as pants at chess as he had been at Hogwarts hadn't won any - they had bade goodbye and found their way to one of Draco's favorite pubs. A quiet place that he usually reserved for nights out with Harry or other close friends with high backed booths running around the circular wall and waitresses dressed all in black that handed you black leather menu's with dirty white parchment and inky scrawls of ink describing their drink and food options in elaborate loops and dips.

Draco sat across from him, his long slim fingers holding his glass of Merlot, a trace of humor on his lips as he retold the story of a particularly dim witch that had come into his shop earlier that day. His voice was low, just loud enough to tangle itself around the gentle hum of background music - his free hand brushing his hair back from his forehead, curling a lock behind his ear despite the fact that his hair was too short for it to ever stay back for long. He was still wearing Harry's clothes (much to Draco's chagrin, but he had simply refused to go all the way back home simply so the blonde could change) and there was a slight discoloration on the pale blue collar - a rounded mark, dripping just a bit, the material scrunched around the neck in a way that only Hugo ever managed when he finally made it up onto Draco's lap.

Harry smiled at it and tried to push down the anxious wave of thoughts and feelings that Hermione's talk had stirred in him. He had spent too much time that night watching Draco with Hugo, watching the man try to dissuade his attention as he glanced both helplessly and accusingly at Harry, how he had finally huffed and settled the child's weight on his lap, how his arm had shot out to keep the chubby boy from falling as Hugo made a swipe for something on the table. He was still picturing in a corner of his mind the pointed look on Hermione's face when Draco sat himself on the floor next to Harry later on in the evening, nudging Hugo onto Harry's legs and then instead of retreating after the successful transfer he had just stayed there - sitting right next to him and grudgingly letting the boy grab his finger or bat at his hair.

It felt a little like...

Not quite what Ron and Hermione had, but close. Merlin it felt so close.

And he wanted that, he always had, since a very young age. He wanted that deep connection and belonging - he wanted to wake up with the same person every morning and fight over whose turn it was to buy the milk and make love on lazy Saturdays before sharing the newspaper over pancakes. But the problem was that Harry had a portion of it - he had a deep connection and the milk fights and the newspaper sharing and someone he could come home to and god it was good...but it was only a portion, it wasn't a whole. Draco wasn't his - body, heart, and soul - he didn't belong to him. Not like Harry wanted him to, not like Harry already feared he belonged to the Potion's Master.

Leaving their home, with Ron's arm looped around Hermione's shoulders, had made him feel bitter. He hated Hermione for bringing his situation up, for putting words to his hopeless circumstance, and he felt like he was going to have a full blown mini melt down when Draco snagged his arm and shoved his hand in Harry's jacket pocket - muttering about how fucking freezing it was and how he smelt like baby now which was just not acceptable.

But he kept it together, had managed not to shove Draco off nor pull him into an unexpected kiss, had told himself to get over it and to enjoy the night. And he was - mostly.

"You're oddly quiet."

Harry glanced up into Draco's face and felt his shoulders lift in a shrug as he lifted his glass to take a drink before thinking better of it and placing it back on the table. God knew he was too close to saying something he would regret as it was, best not tempt fate by adding more alcohol to the mix.

"Ducat for your thoughts?" Draco tipped his head and leaned his elbow the table, his chin cradled in the curve of his palm with his delicate wrist disappearing into the slightly too big cuff of his shirt.

Harry laughed, shaking his head as he toyed with his glass. "It's penny, penny for your thoughts."

Draco wrinkled his nose, cutting two deep lines across his forehead in the process. "What in heaven's name would you want a penny for?"

"No, it's the...never mind. It's nothing, I'm just...have a lot on my mind."

"Obviously." Draco tapped his glass and considered him for a moment. "You've been off since after dinner. So come on, out with it, before I smack that dumbfounded look off your face instead."

Harry stared back at him and wondered if perhaps he was being a coward. Ron thought that he should go for it. Hermione thought he needed to either give him up or ask him out. Draco looked sharp and guarded even now in the dim light of the pub, his skin so pale, glowing in the splashes of light from the streetlamp out the window and flickering candle at their table and Harry's hand was still warm from where Draco had curled his fingers inside his an hour ago. But...Draco wasn't shy about his sexuality, about what he wanted, and he had never come on to Harry. Not once. It was all just friendly touches that were perhaps a little too close for most people but then...they weren't most people were they? They never had been.

You'll never know unless you go for it. Harry swallowed and cursed his own shacking nerves.

"Do you ever think about...you know, settling down, someday?" Harry felt like the words left his tongue in a helpless sputter and he was suddenly terribly grateful for the low lighting as it helped to hide the blush staining his cheeks at his own awkwardness. But it was a safe question right? Hypothetical and set in the future, nothing hinting outright that Harry wanted Draco to settle down with him.

Draco looked taken aback and Harry couldn't blame him. They didn't talk about things like that, barely did they ever even speak about Draco's never ending string of flings or Harry's lack of them. "The Weasley brood leave you feeling domestic Potter?"

Harry shrugged and picked at his glass. "I don't know...maybe. Don't you ever think about it?"

"About finding the one?" Draco's lips and voice curled around the last two words like they were something vile and foul, like they were something that shouldn't have to have ever been on his tongue for even a second.

"Yeah...I mean, why not?" He tried to ignore the sliver of ice that penetrated his heart at Draco's sneer, his eyes skirting down to his still mostly full drink. "I think it would be nice, having something like that."

"You mean a family, children?" Draco clarified and Harry glanced up to see him watching him closely.

"Maybe, not necessarily."

Draco chuckled lightly and took a small drink. "Trust me Harry, you want children, you want their grubby hands and dirty faces and disgusting spit covered clothes."

Harry smiled softly at the thought - his traitorous brain bringing to mind the image of him and Draco sitting on the floor with Hugo playing on their legs. He could so easily turn the little boy into a blonde hair, green eyed child, could imagine Draco tipping his chin up for a sweet lingering kiss as the little boy busied himself with some toy. "Yeah I guess. Don't you, maybe?"

"No and not only because adoption would be messy with my history but I don't relish the thought of all my time being sucked up by a snot eating little money grubber."

"Money grubber?" Harry laughed and watched as something softened, oh so very slightly, in Draco's face. "Alright so no kids, but you could still settle down? If you found the right person?"

Draco sat back, his hands dropping into his lap. "Potter, is this your way of telling me that I need to find a new place because you've met someone with whom you wish to share mundane, domestic bliss?"

"What?" Harry asked alarmed, uncertain how Draco could have possibly drawn that conclusion. "No, it's just been something I've been thinking about is all and well...you asked..." The other man was quiet for a long moment in which Harry felt his insides twist up tightly, his heart pounding too loudly for his chest to bare as he tried to breath normally, to look back at Draco like there was nothing raging in his heart - making sure that he wouldn't be able to guess what this had all really been about.

"Indeed I did. So I suppose...if truth be told Harry, I don't subscribe to the idea that there's one person out there for everyone. Not everyone is destined to have a soul mate. Call it draw of the luck, cosmic per-destiny, whatever you will, but some of us are fated to wander this life alone."

They felt like bitter words shrouded in nonchalance, cast with ambivalence, but Harry wasn't sure if that was him just projecting his own desires atop Draco's speech or if there was something more the blonde wasn't saying. "Us?" He repeated softly. Draco's gray eyes were dark in the flickering light and fixed on his, quietly daring Harry to disagree, to try and persuade him differently, to say something that he wouldn't be able to come back from. He licked his suddenly dry lips and swallowed through his parched throat. "Does that mean that you -"

"Draco?"

The blondes name was spoken quietly, a calm voice that sounded as if it never reached a louder pitch and as Harry's head turned to take in the man who had interrupted them, Draco breathed out a breathy "shit," and Harry felt a nervous thought prick at the back of his mind. The man standing at the their table wasn't looking at Harry, his bright brown eyes staring at Draco with what could only be described as elation - like Draco was the sun and he had been trudging through the bowels of the earth for years.

Harry couldn't read the look on Draco's face - everything about him a hard covering shell, an exoskeleton of smooth, porcelain skin and drastic angles, prickly just to look at and sharp to the touch. Then something cracked, a tiny fissure that started around his eyes which blinked a little too rapidly, his throat moving visibly before he was opening his pink lips. "Ethan," he said without any inflection - just a flat name on his tongue like it held no meaning but Harry recognized the name from long ago and pinning it alongside the taut line of Draco's shoulders and expression Harry felt his stomach sink.

Ethan.

He had never met the man but he knew of him, he had been Draco's boyfriend when he and Harry had first started getting along years ago. As far as Harry knew they had dated exclusively for over a year, perhaps two, the details were vague - Draco didn't talk about him and Harry didn't want to ask. He could remember the day they broke up though - they had been sitting in a little sandwich shop when Draco told him, stating that Ethan was taking an apprenticeship in Germany, and that was it, Draco never mentioned him again, their line of connection snipped and wiped from Draco's mind and vocabulary. Harry could remember how his stomach had done a funny little flip at the news as he bit into his food, at the time uncertain just what the feeling that was spreading through him was. But it was warm and it was giddy and it didn't take long for Harry to pinpoint the emotions that were causing it.

He felt his eyes narrow on their own as he glanced back up at the man, taking him in and setting him alongside the picture Harry had sculpted in his head. Ethan didn't look anything like Harry imaged he would, he didn't even look anything close to any of Draco's frequent flings - he was tall and lanky, his legs too long for his torso, his hands unsteady by his sides as they slipped in and out and in and out of the pockets on his pressed forest green slacks with an ironed crease down the middle. His dishwater blonde hair was a riotous thick mess blown across his high forehead, freckles spreading across his thin nose in small brown and red flecks, a pair of thin wired spectacles folded neatly in the breast pocket of his gray vest.

"It's so great to see you, I was hoping that maybe..." Ethan smiled charmingly, his lips thinning and revealing large white teeth a little crooked in the front, and waved his twitchy hand like he couldn't think of the proper word to finish up his thought.

Draco nodded slowly, glancing briefly at Harry before settling his gaze back up at his former partner. "When did you come back?"

Ink stained fingers threaded through Ethan's wild hair as he shifted his weight from foot to foot. "Yeah, maybe a week ago? Moved into my sister’s attic till I can find a place. God Draco, I just..." he was grinning again, a childish, joyous grin that lit up his entire face. "Can I buy you a drink, we can talk and catch up?"

"I..." Draco glanced at Harry again, this time Ethan's eyes following his gaze with a startled jerk as he noticed Harry for the first time - his wide smile faltering for a second.

"Go ahead." Harry answered Draco's silent question as he tried to keep from shifting uncomfortably under both their stares, unsure if that was the right move to make or not - but he had no claim on Draco, there was no legitimate reason for him to try and run Ethan off other than the fact that he hated him already. Deeply, deeply hated him - more than he had hated any of Draco's one night stands. He smiled tightly as Draco leveled him with a steady look before saying goodbye, taking his wine and following Ethan into the crowd - the pair of them disappearing moments later with Ethan's hand touching, so very lightly, the small of Draco's back as Harry's heart sunk like lead in his chest.

A/N: So...anyone reading this?
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Muggle Technology and Heroism