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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
- 2
- 3
- 4
Thank you again for the reviews!

Chapter Three—March

            Draco pictured himself alone in a perfectly bare room. There were no doors or windows, no furniture, no carpets. Thick wards shimmered along the stone walls, preventing any house-elf from appearing. Soundproofing spells ensured no one would hear him from without, and he could hear no one. He sat there, and the loudest sound was his own breathing.

            The Veela snarled in the back of his head and retreated.

            Draco opened his eyes and smiled. The Ministry pamphlets Potter had given him worked surprisingly well. So long as he concentrated, he could bring the Veela under control, and still enjoy the clearer perception of life and keener senses that contact with Potter had given him.

            He gave a little stretch and rose to his feet. It was March third, as the calendar on the wall reminded him. He carefully examined his own level of desire to see Potter again, and was satisfied to find nothing more than ordinary anticipation, such as he might feel when Blaise came back from one of his trips around the world. Certainly it had nothing of the Veela’s level of drooling imbecility.

            If I could go a month without Potter’s touch, I would.

            Content now, Draco turned to selecting his dress robes. His private bedroom made a perfect place to meditate in—Pansy never intruded—and it also had the advantage of containing all the clothes he would need for an evening at one of the parties Pansy was continually invited to. Draco had taken to practicing the meditation exercises the pamphlets recommended on the evenings before they attended one. It calmed him down enough to meet the people who variously looked as if they’d like to laugh and turn away when the name ‘Malfoy’ was mentioned.

            He pulled on a set of dark blue dress robes edged with silver, and then performed a charm that made his rather windblown blond hair lie flatter and tamer. Pansy complained that grooming magic cheated, and there was nothing like letting house-elves dress one, but Draco had spent the morning listening to Branwen lecture the team and then half the afternoon flying in a high wind. If he had to attend a party instead of spending a quiet evening at home with his wife, then he would cheat.

            His reflection in the mirror smiled approvingly at him, and the mirror crooned praise, too. Draco studied his face a moment. The marks of sleeplessness present last month, when he still spent a great deal of energy resenting his status as Potter’s mate, had faded entirely, and he looked like someone who should be standing in a room like this, with gleaming oak and mahogany furnishings behind him, windowsills made of sculpted dragons’ claws, and portraits on the walls of distinguished ancestors.

            Pansy knocked on the door. “Are you decent?” she called.

            “Yes,” Draco called back casually, and then turned with a dramatic flourish that made his robes swirl in the mirror, clothing him in a mantle of starry sky, like Merlin. He gave another smile, this one nearly involuntary, and opened the door. Pansy promptly spread her robes and turned in a slow circle, letting him look all he liked.

            “You’re very striking,” he told her. And she was. Her wispy blonde hair—permanently enchanted to that color from the brown hair of her youth—was piled up on her head, and her dress robes were one of those deep colors, neither brown nor blue, that shimmered with darker shades in the light and yet didn’t make her pale skin look washed-out. Among other things, his wife knew how to dress. He held out his arm. “Shall we?”

            “Of course,” said Pansy. She looked at him critically for a moment, with sharp dark eyes, and then deigned to allow her arm to rest atop his. Draco blinked a bit, but the scrutiny amused him more than anything. Since he and Pansy had none of that silly love nonsense to act as a barrier between them, they quite often used honesty with each other, and he was sure Pansy was about to comment on his use of grooming charms.

            Instead, she said, “I understand the news about Potter is disturbing, Draco, but try to act normal tonight.”

            Draco blinked a bit more. Then he shrugged. Perhaps she thought he would drift dreamily off into a reverie about Potter, which had happened a few times when the Veela was still taking over his body. But it had stopped doing that since he started the meditation exercises. “Of course, Pansy,” he said.

            She examined him for a moment more, then graced him with one of her rare open smiles. “You’re handling this remarkably well,” she said, as she drew out the Portkey that would take them to Mrs. Zabini’s exclusive party to welcome her son back home. “I don’t think Lucius would have had nearly your calm.”

            Draco smiled. Pansy was the only one who could tease him about his parents and get away with it.

            “I don’t think he would have been sane enough to understand any of it in the last year of his life,” he remarked dryly.

            Pansy let out a high-pitched giggle. The Veela thought her voice sounded wrong, but Draco pictured the stone room briefly, and the Veela went away. “No, perhaps not,” she said, as she closed both their hands around the broken guitar string she held. “And what about your mother, dear?”

            “She would have told me to do what was socially acceptable first, safe second, and morally right if I had the time for it,” Draco murmured. He did miss his mother. She had gone a bit mad without Lucius, he believed, and volunteered for the attack the Dark Lord had organized on Azkaban in the middle of the war. Of course, she had walked directly into an Auror’s wand; by then, the Aurors surrounded the wizarding prison day and night. Draco had sometimes suspected that it was his cousin, Nymphadora Tonks, who had killed her. He had never sought confirmation for that, though. Both his parents were ghosts now, and he had his own life to lead.

            No matter what obstacles might come up in the middle of it.

            “You’re doing exactly that,” Pansy told him, and then the Portkey whirled them away.

*

            “Terrible, this thing that happened with Potter, isn’t it?”

            Draco turned around with a glass of water in his hand—he didn’t drink anything when he had practice in the morning, because Branwen would smell her players’ breath—and a neutral expression on his face. It was Blaise speaking, and though Draco couldn’t think Pansy would have let any part of this unfortunate business with Potter slip to him, Blaise might have the means to find out on his own.

            Blaise regarded him above his own glass of wine, his eyes narrowed and twinkling in the same damn way Dumbledore’s used to do. At nineteen, he had inherited a fortune from an uncle no one had ever heard of and promptly begun a distinguished career of world-wandering, debauchery, and capturing exotic magical creatures for zoos and collections in Britain. He wore some sort of form-fitting magical robe he claimed was common in America; to Draco it simply looked like an excuse to get away with bad taste and have glamours of stars winking on his clothes, a style that had gone out of fashion with the generation before their parents’. He also had a set of cards proclaiming him, “Blaise Zabini: World Traveler.” Draco had had an uneasy friendship with Blaise in school, and now he thought him alternately amusing company and the most insufferable ponce alive.

            “I don’t really know what you’re talking about,” Draco drawled, and took his own sip of water. “It doesn’t seem that terrible to me.” If Blaise had discovered Draco was a Veela, Draco was determined to ride out the revelation with his own utter unconcern.

            Blaise’s face went through several very peculiar expressions very fast, and finally settled on incredulity. “I say, Draco,” he said, “I didn’t like the git in school either, but he is a very distinguished Auror—“

            Draco opened his mouth to comment that this was just the kind of thing Blaise would say, but Blaise didn’t give him the chance.

            “—and no one really deserves what happened today.” He shook his head meditatively. “It doesn’t sound like a good reflection on your name to hear you gloating over it, you know.”

            For just a moment, Draco’s thoughts were occupied with the social warning. And then the Veela cried out anxiously in the back of his mind, and he felt his eyes narrow.

            “What happened today?” he demanded.

            “Now you’re just fucking with me,” Blaise said, and turned as if he would walk away.

            Draco caught his arm and drew him into a secluded corner of the large room where the party took place. It was relatively easy; even though Blaise was nominally the guest of honor, most people concentrated more of their attention on his mother, now about to wed her ninth husband. A constellation of men and women surrounded the smiling, flirting beauty in the center of the room, most of them, Draco knew, taking bets on how soon her new spouse would die.

            “I’ve been in Quidditch practice all day,” Draco hissed at him, “and then I had to get ready to come to this giddy thing. Tell me what happened.”

            Blaise stared at him for a few minutes, then seemed to decide that Draco’s intense curiosity simply came from being left out of the loop when news arrived. He shrugged and answered. “Potter’s wife is assistant flying coach at Hogwarts.”

            Draco nodded tensely. The Veela’s cries were getting louder now, and he sincerely hoped he didn’t show the shadow of wings and beak.

            “And today she tried to save some first-year from falling from a jinxed broom, and fell herself, and broke her back.” Blaise took a sip of his wine and shrugged again, though Draco saw a shadow of regret in his eyes; he’d been attracted to Ginny Weasley himself, back in the day. “She’ll recover, eventually, but the internal injuries are going to be severe enough to keep her in bed for at least two weeks, according to the Daily Prophet. Potter had to rush to her side at once, of course, like the hero he is.”

            The Veela’s intense, twinned emotions coiled around inside Draco’s stomach: jealousy for Potter’s inevitable concern for the bitch, indignation that his mate was suffering. Then he shook his head and reminded himself that Potter was the Veela’s mate, not his.

            Start thinking of those feelings as your own, and you’re lost.

            “They took her to St. Mungo’s, I suppose?” he asked, and forced himself to take a drink of his water, as though it could soothe the ache in the back of his throat.

            Blaise laughed. “No. Some nonsense about how she was too injured to be moved, so she’s in the infirmary at Hogwarts. There’s no such thing as too injured to be moved, though.” He leaned nearer. “Now, did I tell you about the time I broke a leg in the Mexican desert and had to drag myself to safety? I wouldn’t have succeeded if I was worried about internal injuries. I—“

            Draco smiled mechanically, and gave the right, mechanical responses, as he listened to a story he’d heard Blaise repeat several times before. His mind was with Potter. He imagined him sitting at his wife’s bedside, listening to Madam Pomfrey as she wittered on and on, his shoulders hunched with tension.

            He wondered if Potter had someone to comfort him, take him away from the bed and insist he rest, make his excuses to his superiors at the Ministry—

            Then he took a long swallow of water, and laughed politely at Blaise’s next story, and reminded himself that, whether Potter had someone to do that for him or not, it was not his responsibility. He didn’t want to be more involved in Potter’s life than he had to be. He would not get involved.

            He stayed at the party, and ate, and laughed, and talked, and circulated, and listened to some of Blaise’s new stories, and laid his own bet for how long Mrs. Zabini’s new husband would live. He ignored the fact that most of the food tasted like cinders in his mouth and that Pansy’s approving glances made him feel sick.

            He sent Potter an owl when they arrived back at the Manor—just a short, one-line letter telling him he’d heard and was sorry. He had to do it before the Veela would allow him a peaceful night’s sleep.

            He received an answer in the morning, equally short and curt.

            Malfoy, thanks for your sympathy.

            Potter hadn’t even bothered to sign it. But Draco still stood with the parchment held to his nose for a few seconds before it occurred to him what he was doing and he jerked his head backwards.

            I can’t give in to this. I won’t.

            But his palms had begun to itch as if it were months since he had seen Potter instead of a few weeks, and the longing to Apparate to Hogwarts had already settled into his bones.

*

            “She’ll walk again, Mr. Potter.”

            Harry allowed his eyelids to droop shut in sheer relief. He had asked Madam Pomfrey the questions hours ago, but she hadn’t been able to answer it then; she’d had to cast spells that floated the bone splinters of Ginny’s legs back together and then bound them in place. The splinters could have been too small for the magic to find, and she hadn’t dared to use Skele-Gro, she explained, because there would be no way of knowing that the bones were gone completely, as was required for the potion to work.

            Harry could hear Hermione’s voice whispering in his head, talking about incurable maladies and wounds that couldn’t be healed by magic. Ginny could have had one of those.

            But she hadn’t. She wouldn’t be paralyzed for the rest of her life, or made to look on wistfully from the ground while young children did better than she could at the flying she’d made her life.

            “Thank you, Madam Pomfrey,” he said quietly, and took his wife’s hand.

            She had been awake only for short, scattered periods of time in the three days since the accident, partially because of shock and pain and partially because of the spells and potions the mediwitch had had to use. Bandages still wrapped her chest, and her skin was so pale that her freckles looked like dots of blood. Her chest still rose and fell, though. So long as he could see that, Harry would have some hope.

            The moments after the accident had been the worst. Ralph had caught the memo bearing the message for Harry while he was in the loo. He’d come back to find Ralph looking as if he were about to sick up, and had to shout and shake the man several times before he’d say what was wrong. And then Harry had to sit still and take several deep breaths so that he wouldn’t try to Apparate straight through the wards at the Ministry and give both himself and everyone else in the building a heart attack.

            His journey here was a brew full of shattered glimpses: McGonagall’s solemn face; Ralph clutching his arm and telling him earnestly that he’d let Kingsley know the situation; owls swarming and flying about him before the Headmistress had adjusted the school’s wards so that only owls from individuals not connected with the newspapers could find their way to Harry. And since then it had been Madam Pomfrey, and snatched bits of sleep when he could, and quiet little talks with the professors, nearly all of whom had stopped by to offer sympathy.

            And Ginny.

            Ginny, Ginny, Ginny.

            She gave a little shiver, and made a soft mewling sound of pain. Harry leaned closer to her, his shoulders hunched. He had learned, long before this, the helplessness of seeing someone you loved in pain and being unable to do anything about it, but he had never known it so acutely. He had been able to do something for Ron and Hermione in the end. He could go out and arrest the people who did horrible things to innocents, since he was an Auror. But he could do nothing here save stay out of the way and try not to bother Madam Pomfrey too much.

            Ginny stirred then, and opened her eyes. She tried to smile at Harry, but it slid off her face. “Can I have some water?” she asked softly.

            “Of course,” Harry murmured, and reached for the cup that Madam Pomfrey had left on the nearby table, never taking his eyes from his wife’s face. She was putting a brave front on it—she’d even smiled again—but he could see the pain in the set of her jaw.

            Ginny drank quietly, and then settled back against the pillow. For a moment, she blinked as though she were trying to think of questions to ask. But her eyes shut and her grip on his hand weakened as she dropped back into sleep.

            Harry put his head on the blankets and closed his eyes.

*

            Draco couldn’t take his eyes off him.

            McGonagall had been somewhat reluctant to let him into the school, but even she knew that he’d been cleared of all charges during the Seven-Day Trials in the wake of the war, and there had never been a declaration saying he couldn’t set foot on Hogwarts grounds again. She had finally permitted him to Floo in, and from there he’d found his way to the hospital wing.

            The Potters were behind a section of wards that kept them protected from sounds and also, Draco thought, prevented curious students from peering in. Even he had to squint to see through the shimmer of the spells, and he was a fully trained adult wizard.

            Weasley was asleep. Potter lay with his face on the blankets, most of his body supported by a chair. He had what Draco didn’t doubt was three days’ worth of stubble on his face, and his eyes were tightly shut, lines of pain and suffering drawn around them.

            He’s bearing it.

            He always bears it, I think. But it isn’t fair that he should have to.

            Draco wanted to scoff and shake his head. Since when did he care about fairness? But the fact that he was here at all, let alone staring at a married man like some lovesick teenager, proved that his convictions had already started to change. The Veela had brought him here, but it had retreated to a frightened croon in the back of his mind as soon as it saw that its mate hadn’t suffered any bodily injury. It was up to Draco to decide what he wanted to do now.

            He stepped forwards cautiously, still debating in his own head. Perhaps he could just watch for long enough to content the Veela and then retreat, which would obviate the need for any confrontation.

            He’d forgotten about Potter’s Auror instincts. He whipped around immediately, probably seeing something moving in the corner of his eye even beneath the shut lids. He had his wand in his hand, and his gaze was grim, filled with a blazing determination that took Draco’s breath away. Unbidden, the thought came to him that Potter had probably looked like this when he killed his best friends, or when he killed Voldemort.

            “Potter,” he said quietly.

            Potter recognized him in the same moment. He brought his wand down, blinked, and then let out what sounded like a sigh of annoyance. With one more glance at his wife, who slept on, he strode out of the wards around the bed and came up to Draco, his every movement sharp.

            “Well?” he asked.

            “Well what?” Draco asked, frowning. He was distracted by the realization that he could smell Potter, and the Veela didn’t seem to have anything to do with it, other than the fact that it had given him sharper senses. The smell wasn’t arousing, simply present, insistent, worming into his face.

            “How long should this take?” Potter asked brusquely. “I know a few empty classrooms we can use, as long as we put up strong wards to ensure no one can enter. But I’d like it not to take more than ten minutes. I have to get back to Ginny.”

            Draco finally realized that Potter thought he’d come for their monthly jerk-off session. He twitched his lips, revolted.

            “You don’t understand,” he said.

            Potter gave him a look of utmost contempt. “Look, Malfoy, whatever game you’re playing, I don’t want to hear it. My wife nearly died, all right? I don’t have any time for—“

            “I didn’t come for that!” Draco hissed, unable to bear that Potter should think he could only think about his own needs. “I came because—I heard. I’m sorry,” he finished lamely, because now Potter was staring at him with surprise wiping out every other emotion.

            Some moments passed in silence, while those blazing green eyes glared at Draco, and he felt as though his soul was picked up, turned around, and studied.

            “But why?” Potter asked finally. “We’re not friends.”

            “No,” Draco said, licking his lips. Now the need to put his arms around Potter was distracting him, and, to make it worse, he couldn’t tell whether it was the Veela’s desire or his own. He satisfied himself by leaning back a little, and shrugging. “I don’t think there’s a word for what we are.”

            The Veela surged up in him, trying to take over his mouth and suggest that the appropriate word was mates. Draco pictured the bare stone room, and folded his arms. The Veela once again sank. “I really did just want to come and see you,” he added. “I’m sorry she fell off her broom.”

            Potter regarded him a few moments longer, with a jaundiced eye. Then he gave a quick nod, as clipped as his first words had been. “Thanks, Malfoy,” he said, in the same tone of voice Draco had heard the letter in in his head when he read it. “We appreciate it.” He started to turn around again.

            “Are you well?” Draco asked hastily. Potter turned back to him with his eyebrows up. “You look—tired.”

            Potter snorted. “You have your wife in a hospital bed, and then tell me it’s easy.”

            Draco shook his head and did his best to strike a casual pose. “I didn’t mean that,” he said. “But you have to rest too, Potter.”

            “Madam Pomfrey’s taking care of that,” said Potter. “You can’t be around her without her making sure that you eat and sleep properly.” He shrugged. “It’s not easy, no, but we’ll make it. Thanks,” he added, and this time there was an undertone of sincerity in his voice that made the Veela unfold like a flower.

            Draco controlled it with more difficulty this time, because instead of sexual desire it flooded him with affection. He hoped his eyes and voice were sufficiently hard as he nodded to Potter and said, “I do hope she gets better, Potter.”

            And this time Potter smiled, and said, probably just because he wanted to tell someone, “Madam Pomfrey says she’ll walk again.”

            The smile struck the Veela like a blow, and sent it reeling down into dizzy, gleeful silence. Draco remained alone to nod, and fiddle with the edge of his dress robes. “That’s good,” he said.

            “Thanks,” Potter said yet again, and this time he hesitated, then reached out and put his hand on Draco’s elbow. Draco gasped. The tiredness burning at the edges of his vision dissipated like smoke. He blinked and focused on Potter only slowly.

            “Why?” he whispered.

            Potter shrugged. “You looked like you needed it.” And he turned and walked back to the hospital bed, vanishing behind the wards again. This time, Draco thought he’d strengthened them, because it abruptly became harder to see him or his wife.

Too bad, because Draco had been about to ask him if he always did things people needed.

            And who gives him what he needs? He immediately scolded himself for the thought, and left the hospital wing as quietly and quickly as he could.

*

            “Stupid things!” Ginny said as, for the fiftieth time, the crutches slipped out from under her arms and nearly sent her sprawling to the floor, which she was spared only by Harry’s quick use of a Levitation Charm.

            Harry grinned at her. He knew she found the constant almost-falls tiresome, but he hadn’t got to that point. His wife was walking again, even if she had difficulty managing the crutches yet. “You’ll get the hang of it,” he said encouragingly, and floated the crutches back into their proper positions as she spread her arms. “First hobbling, then walking, then flying—“

            Ginny made a strangled noise in her throat and turned her head away. Harry paused, frowning. He’d seen her make that motion some other times when he or one of her brothers talked about flying, but he hadn’t questioned her about it before. She had enough work to do with recovering in the last three weeks. Now, though, he thought he had to ask.

            “Ginny?”

            She remained still until Harry got up to stand in front of her, grip her chin, and tilt it back. Then he saw her eyes glinting with tears. He nearly wrapped his arms around her before he remembered that her spine was fragile and shouldn’t be handled unless necessary. He settled for speaking her name again, gently.

            “You’ll find out sooner or later, I suppose,” she said dully, turning her head away from him. Her eyes moved around the familiar furnishings of their house as if she didn’t recognize them. “I’m afraid of flying,” she said.

            Harry blinked for a long moment. Then he said, “You don’t want to get back on a broom again?”

            She nodded, red hair hanging around her face.

            “Because of the fall?” Harry asked.

            A second nod.

            Harry kissed her. “That’s no reason to be ashamed, Gin,” he said softly. “Why should it be? You don’t need to work for a while; you shouldn’t anyway, since you’re recovering. And you can always get another job.” He didn’t mention her not working at all. Early on in their marriage they’d sat down and talked it out, and decided that, even though Harry’s money meant neither of them needed to work, they were both happier when they were busy. “It doesn’t need to be teaching kids how to fly brooms.”

            Ginny mumbled something. Harry lifted her face so that her hair was away from her lips and asked her to repeat it.

            “I thought you would be ashamed of me,” Ginny whispered. “You’re never afraid, Harry. You always do the right thing. And I love you for it, but it’s awfully hard to live up to you, sometimes.”

            Harry simply tightened his hold on her chin, in silence. What could he say? He got afraid, like everyone did, but it was true that it didn’t much affect his day-to-day life with Ginny. And as for doing the right thing…he didn’t know if doing everything perfectly for the rest of his life would be enough to make up for the mistakes he made as a child and a teenager.

            But even then, he didn’t think of it that way very often. He’d forced himself to heal, not brood—pick up the burden and go on, when everything in him had wanted simply to stop living. And doing the right thing was part of that life. He would be unhappy if he acted the way his Slytherin side sometimes wanted him to act.

            This was just the way he was.

            “You never need to worry about that,” he whispered into her ear. “We’re different people, Ginny. I couldn’t bear being bedridden as patiently as you have, you know. You were almost a saint. I would have been trying to cast spells on the second day, fighting the sleeping potions on the third, and hitting everyone with my crutches by this time.”

            Ginny let out a stifled laugh. Her hands roamed over his robes now, clenching and relaxing. “I thought you would insist that I get back up on the broom,” she whispered back. “That there was nothing to be afraid of.”

            “Of course not,” Harry said. “I would do that, but you’re not me.” He didn’t know how to make that clear, except to keep repeating it. “I don’t expect people to be exactly like me. If there was ever a recipe for disappointment, it’s that one.”

            Ginny closed her eyes, and a few tears slipped out. Harry kissed them away.

            He was just opening his mouth to talk a bit further on the same subject when their fireplace flared. Harry gently set Ginny on the couch, and turned to face the fire. He was startled to see Pansy’s face appear in the flames.

            “Does Malfoy need me?” he asked, moving forwards.

            “Yes,” Pansy said without ceremony. “The idiot has decided to be noble, at exactly the wrong time, and now he’s too weak to leave his room.” Her green head rolled its eyes. “I rather hate having you in the house this late, Potter, but needs must.”

            Harry nodded, and looked back at Ginny. She gave him a tired smile, her crutches folded around her like broken wings.

            “I’ll be all right,” she said. “I won’t try to walk while you’re gone.” She waved him off when he still hesitated. “Like I said,” she added, almost beneath her breath. “You always do the right thing.”

            Harry would have stopped to question her about the emotion in her voice that was nearly bitterness, but Malfoy needed him. He blew Ginny a kiss, and then took up a handful of Floo powder from the bowl on the mantle and tossed it into the fire.

*

            “He’s in his bedroom,” Pansy had said. “No, not the one that you used before. His own.” She had shrugged when Harry simply looked at her. “I don’t enter it,” she said. “That was a bargain we made a long time ago, when we first married. Private space. He doesn’t intrude into mine, either.”

            Her voice had said she didn’t appreciate telling an outsider this much about her married life, and Harry could hardly blame her; he wouldn’t have wanted to tell someone this much about his marriage with Ginny. So he’d nodded, and now he stood inside Malfoy’s bedroom, staring at him, appalled.

            He’d never seen Malfoy look this disheveled and worn-down, even the time he caught him in the girls’ loo in sixth year and subsequently slashed his chest up with Sectumsempra. Malfoy had at least been able to wield his wand then, and try to use an Unforgivable Curse on Harry in return. Now he looked as though he couldn’t have cast Lumos.

            His skin had turned literally translucent in some places, and not far from it in others, so that Harry could make out the blue of veins and the shadow of bones. His hair looked like straw, and crackled like it when he stirred restlessly on the pillows, too. His breathing was fast, harsh, and short. And then abruptly he uttered a hideous cry that made the hair on the back of Harry’s neck stand up.

            He didn’t think much further about what needed to be done. He crossed the few paces of carpet that separated the bed and him, and laid his hand on Malfoy’s shoulder.

*

            Draco had floated in flames so long, flames made of his own desires and the Veela’s longing for its mate, that he barely recognized cool water when it arrived. A slight lessening of the pain was not enough to make him sit up and take any notice. He turned his head in that direction. It was all he could manage. Perhaps Pansy had spoken Potter’s name. That helped sometimes.

            And then the cool pressure returned, dimming the flames, even changing some of them so they didn’t hurt, and became just ordinary, aching, human sexual need. Potter’s voice said, “Malfoy?”

            Oh, God. He’s here. It’s real, and he’s here.

            Draco answered with a wordless cry. He heard Potter flinch when he gave it; he knew his voice wasn’t human any more. He suspected it sounded like the shriek of some giant bird. But he was as helpless to prevent that as he was his arms from rising and closing around Potter, dragging him fully onto the bed. Potter let out a rough gasp, and then his chest rested against Draco’s, his legs against his legs, his arms pushing at his arms.

            The flames stopped burning.

            Draco could see past his own feverish imaginings again, and when he kissed Potter, the last of the pain vanished.

            Potter gasped again, and Draco’s tongue found entrance to his mouth. It felt so good that Draco was afraid he might cry, except that he was too busy to cry; he had dragged Potter’s outer robe halfway down his shoulders with one hand, while keeping his head in place with the other so he could kiss, and kiss, and kiss. The hard angles of a male body, which he had once feared would feel so strange, were now the only thing that would save him.

            After a moment, Potter moved above him. He murmured a spell, and Draco’s clothes vanished. Then he rolled to the side, and Draco found himself abruptly resting braced on his elbows, while Potter knelt beside him and reached down towards his erection, which had been tormenting him for almost two days now.

            Draco arched his neck, and cried out when Potter touched him. Then he said, “It won’t be enough.”

            Potter’s hand paused a moment. Draco didn’t care. To have contact with his mate’s rough palm and callused fingers was enough for the moment. “What won’t be?” Potter asked into his ear, and Draco turned his head to kiss him again. Potter permitted it, though his eyes were shuttered and wary, not the blazing green Draco remembered from the Hogwarts hospital wing and wanted to see focused on this task.

            “It was—too long,” Draco said. The Veela surged about in him, too uncoordinated to take over his muscles but strong enough that Draco had no doubt about what it wanted. “I subdued it too much with—those pamphlets you lent me. It—wants to touch you, too—ah!” Potter’s hand had slipped along his cock, perhaps only because he was startled, and that simple motion made Draco thrust. With an enormous effort, he gained control of his hips and stopped himself. “Take off your clothes, Potter.” At least he didn’t have to look at the git when he said that.

            “I can’t—“

            “Yes, you can,” said Draco, letting some of the Veela into his voice after all. “Because you said you’d do what you needed to do so we can go back to our normal lives when all this is done.” He lowered his tone and rolled back against Potter, doing his best to urge him into hardness with hips and waist. “We won’t be sleeping together, but you have to let me bring you off. Do it, Harry.”

*

            Harry shut his eyes. For a long moment, he made himself conscious of nothing but Malfoy’s panting and his dangerous thinness.

            He had to do this. Malfoy—the thing—was right.

            Grimacing in distaste, he waved his wand again and murmured the same charm he’d used on Malfoy, divesting himself of clothing.

            Malfoy’s skin on his felt like a revelation. There was so much, and it was so warm. With effort, Harry convinced himself to think of that as the heat of fever, and not listen to his libido. An image of Malfoy as he’d been when Harry entered the room flared up in front of his eyes, and he nodded. Yes, that was why he was here, solely to let Malfoy have what solace he needed.

            He eased his hand back into place around Malfoy’s cock, and set a furious pace. Maybe, if that worked well enough, he would entirely consume and exhaust the Veela’s enthusiasm in its own orgasm, and not have to reciprocate.

            It was hard not to wish for reciprocation, though, and Harry’s mind was on the point of handing him dirty puns about his own choice of words. Malfoy kept gasping and muttering nonsense words, and so long as he only did that, Harry could forget about both how different his voice was from Ginny’s and how it felt to hear the git say his name. He bucked and twisted to the point that Harry had to work hard to keep his hand in place. The movements brought a lot of smooth, pale, almost hairless skin sliding under Harry’s arm, and that, too, was warmer than it should be.

            With fever, Harry argued, and added a little twist at the end of his latest pulling motion that he thought he remembered Malfoy enjoying.

            Malfoy shrieked, sounding like a strangled cat, and then turned around and latched his mouth onto Harry’s. Then he rolled, pushing off the bed with a motion Harry definitely didn’t remember being used in Quidditch, and pinned Harry beneath him, almost on the edge of the bed. He tossed his head back, eyes shut, his face tight as if in pain, but he evidently wasn’t so focused that his own hand couldn’t find its way to Harry’s cock.

            “Malfoy, damn it—“

            Shit. The Veela’s touch had the same effect it had when it kissed Harry and touched his cheek; warmth encircled him, and Harry felt his vision go gray with pleasure. He uttered a strangled cry in turn, and forced his eyes open to see that Malfoy was watching him now. Maybe the Veela glitter was in his gaze; the position of Harry’s head and the generally dim lighting made it impossible to tell.

            “That’s it, Harry,” Malfoy whispered in a voice that sounded far too human. “Been holding back from me—that won’t happen anymore—“ And then his hand moved in a single, long stroke.

            Wondering dazedly who in the world could sound that coherent when in the middle of a wank, Harry began pulling on Malfoy’s erection again. Malfoy uttered a pleased growling sound and dipped to kiss him. For a moment, he seemed to forget about his own hand.

            And then he didn’t, and Harry’s world was a blur of heat and sweat and trying simultaneously to get Malfoy to come and avoid coming himself. The position was awkward, and he had constant reminders of the fact that this wasn’t Ginny on top of him. Beard stubble scraped along his face. Too much weight forced him into the bed. Strong hands held him prisoner, propelling his face into the kiss, his erection into Malfoy’s fist. Harry couldn’t escape, not into his own body and not into his own head, the way he had the other times when stroking Malfoy.

            Finally, finally, there was wetness dripping through his fingers, hotter than the simple touch of the Veela’s skin. Harry tried to twist and pull himself free, using both his hands on Malfoy’s to get him to stop yanking on Harry’s bits.

            “No,” said Malfoy, with an honest-to-God golden aura surrounding his head, and then he did—something. Harry knew it was magic, but it didn’t feel like any magic he’d ever experienced before. Suddenly the gray eyes captured his face, and he was the center of the world, knowing himself revered and loved and adored by one person, and he knew his defenses were down and he didn’t care, it wasn’t like any mind control he’d ever felt, and the proper thing to do was arch his back and go with the tugging, coaxing, jerking, pulling movements he felt above him.

            “That’s it, Potter, Harry,” a voice crooned into his ear, tipping back and forth between bird-like music and masculine huskiness, which would have been disturbing if he could have thought about it, but he couldn’t. The mere idea it might have been disturbing flitted across his mind and vanished. “Fuck, fuck, come on, so good, no idea how beautiful you look, no idea what I’d do for you, want to fuck you senseless, never have to hurt again—“

            And for just one moment, Harry believed everything that voice wanted him to believe: that he was someone special, worthy of preservation and being taken delicate care of, and that he was beautiful, and that his cares somehow set him apart from other people.

            And in that moment, he came.

            Heat flared in his chest like a branding iron, in his cock like pain, but it was pain reversed and turned over, turned opposite to the universe, and it went on and on. Harry felt a jerk like a Portkey, and then like time had stopped completely, and he screamed his completion, hoarsely, before he fell utterly limp and sated into Malfoy’s arms.

            He had intended to leave the moment he finished, making his way back to Ginny. He knew that. But he couldn’t have moved if he tried, and he didn’t want to try.

            He pressed closer to the warmth against his side. Malfoy’s mouth moved over his face, pressing kisses that lingered for long moments, so sometimes it seemed as if five or six Veela were kissing him at once.

            “Go to sleep,” Malfoy said, in the same moment as enormous white wings swept forwards and sealed them into a light, airy, feathery cocoon.

            Harry obeyed. It was the simplest and the sweetest thing he’d ever done in his life.

*

            Draco had been awake for some hours, watching Potter, when he saw the first tremble of motion in the eyelids that suggested Potter was rising towards wakefulness. Draco traced a hand on the coverlet between them and wondered what he was going to say.

            He had awakened when Pansy knocked insistently on the door, to find both himself and Potter shaded by what looked like giant silvery palm fronds at first. He then realized they were wings, his wings, as they sealed down around Potter to shield him from Pansy’s sight—Draco had known already that the Veela didn’t want anyone else seeing its mate naked—and he turned to face the door. He couldn’t go far, given that he couldn’t leave Potter, and so he had faced his wife across an expanse of carpet with the smell of sex hanging in the air.

            Pansy raised an eyebrow and tightened her lips a bit, but otherwise showed no reaction. “The Weasley girl is calling through the fire for her husband,” she said. “What should I tell her?”

            “Tell her he isn’t coming home yet,” Draco said shortly. He had to use that tone, or the Veela would have taken over his voice with shrieks of outrage. At least this way, it was satisfied he was doing all he could to defend its mate. “He won’t be until he wakes up of his own free will.”

            “What did you do to him, Draco?” Pansy’s voice did go up a bit, then.

            “Wanked him,” Draco said. “That’s all.” He shivered at the memory of Potter’s reaction, though, and wondered whether he would ever consider wanking something simple and uncomplicated again.

            “I thought the bargain was that he wanked you,” Pansy said, and now her voice had deepened to a hiss.

            Draco shrieked at her. It was a more intimidating sound than he had thought it would be—not the warble of a songbird trying to be threatening, but the call of a great raptor. His wings sealed more tightly around Potter than ever, and he curled close, feeling his face waver and alter as if he would grow a beak. His mind bubbled and swam with strangely-colored thoughts like flaws in glass. If she tried to take a step closer, he would rear and spread his wings, and the magic that would come out from underneath them would hurt Pansy.

            Strangely enough, Potter didn’t wake, just uttered a sound like a cat purring and closed one hand around the edge of his right wing.

            “I do think,” Pansy said when she spoke again, her voice soft, “that your animal side has been indulged quite enough, Draco. After this, it would be best to restrict yourself to seeing Potter once a month, don’t you agree?” Her face had smoothed out into blankness, calmness, but her eyes sparked in the way Draco knew they only did when she was extremely angry. Right now, he didn’t care, but in the back of his mind, he knew he would later. “No more mutual wanking, and no more overnight visits. He may be your mate, but I’m your wife.”

            Picturing the stone room with all his might, clawing control back from the Veela for one moment, Draco managed to nod. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry. I just don’t think there’s any point in regretting the past.”

            Pansy studied him a moment longer, then sniffed. “Well,” she said. “You’re right about that. I’ll stall the Weasley girl until he wakes, Draco, but you can’t have longer than that.” And she walked out and shut the door behind her.

            Draco turned back and buried his nose in Potter’s hair, sniffing. The Veela wanted his scent, and Draco thought that, if he wrapped himself in all the sensory input he could take now, perhaps it wouldn’t urge him back to Potter quite so quickly next time. Or maybe it would even satisfy itself with Potter’s grudging, hesitant wanking, instead of that—that brilliance last night.

            From the Veela’s excited chattering and bouncing up and down in the back of his mind, Draco didn’t think it would. But he could try.

            His wings faded, dissolving and drifting apart like mist in the morning, about an hour after Pansy’s visit. Draco was relieved. As beautiful as they’d been, he had no idea how he would have explained their presence to Branwen. The Veela subsided down into his mind like mud settling at about the same moment.

            And that left him alone to stare at Potter.

            Draco’s memories of the last few days were scattered at best. He’d hurt more than he ever had before; it had felt as if a fire had burned in the hollow of his chest, turning his inner organs and his bones to ash. The Veela had turned its magic, its burning desire, on itself, at the thought that it might not see its mate again and at the thought that Potter was spending all his time with his wounded wife.

            Draco had tried to be noble, had tried to respect Potter’s grief and give him the distance he needed so he could tend to his wife.

            And look what happened.

            At least now he knew he should have gone with his instinct, and simply sought Potter out in the Hogwarts hospital wing when he first started to feel the need, about twelve days ago now. Fuck nobility. It was for people who hadn’t been Slytherins. If he tried to hold off, he only made it worse, for both of them.

            Or maybe that should be all five of them, counting Weasley, Pansy, and the Veela.

            Draco couldn’t lie to himself, at least not as long as Potter just lay there and snored as if this were the first sleep he’d had in weeks. He didn’t remember much of what they’d done last night, but he remembered enough. And it wasn’t only the Veela who wanted that to happen again.

            How could he resist wanting it? That had been the best he’d ever felt, and that it came on the heels of the worst pain he’d ever experienced only increased his hunger for more of the same.

            He studied Potter as he lay there naked, and didn’t find him revolting, in the way he always imagined he would. Potter was certainly muscled enough from his work as an Auror, if not as flexible and graceful as constant Quidditch had made Draco. He’d grown into a certain bulkiness that could have made him too broad through the shoulders otherwise, and even his scar seemed to dominate his face less than it had half a decade ago. No, he wasn’t ugly.

            And with his face twisted in pleasure, calling out as he came—

            Draco felt a tug low in his belly, and knew it was all his own arousal, without a trace of the Veela’s enchanted need.

            He held up the truth in front of his eyes, and kept it there until he accepted and acknowledged it. Yes, if he wanted what had happened last night, then he had to accept that some of that was wanting Potter, too.

            He couldn’t gain a thing by lying to himself, and he would insist that Potter not lie, either.

            What they didn’t need to do was act on it, as Potter would say. Just because they felt the desires was no reason to give in.

            Draco licked his lips. He suspected it would be triply difficult to maintain the cool façade of before—at least until Potter said the next stupid thing. He sometimes acted on his libido before realizing it. Pansy had had to pull him back from flirting with those of her friends he found attractive more than once.

            But—

            At the same time, he found it hard to imagine flirting with Potter. Thanks to the Veela, they’d jumped over the usual steps in getting to know one another and landed straight at an unnatural intimacy Draco couldn’t, and wouldn’t, ignore.

            Potter’s story of his friends’ deaths had been the first link in a chain. This, the most intense sexual experience of their lives, was the second.

            Draco had no idea where the chain was leading. Maybe it would lead nowhere, and they would end the year with nothing but memories between them, memories they could ignore as long as they didn’t step into the same social circles.

            He suspected that wouldn’t happen, but he didn’t really know.

*

            Harry opened his eyes. For long moments he knew nothing but warmth, and he hummed under his breath and stretched his arms over his head. He felt rested, as he hadn’t done since hearing about Ginny’s accident.

            Ginny.

            Malfoy.

            Oh, God.

            Harry ducked his head, feeling a blush swift as sunrise sweep his cheeks, and Malfoy’s deep chuckle sounded from above him.

            “Surprisingly modest at a surprisingly late stage, Potter,” Malfoy murmured, and his fingers dropped to rest on Harry’s cheek.

            Harry thought what happened next startled both of them. He moaned helplessly as the warmth increased and stretched around him, cradling him like the waves of a hot bath. It wasn’t precisely sexual; it just made him feel good to be where he was, to be with whom he was with. He wondered hazily if, since the Veela had touched him practically everywhere last night, there was no way for Malfoy’s hand to connect with an untouched patch of skin and give him those sexual feelings any more.

            Malfoy gasped at the same time, and Harry forced his eyes open to see him staring at his hand as if it had detached itself from his body. His features were soft, slack with surprise—human. And then he closed his eyes and rolled his shoulders as if he were spreading those wings Harry barely recalled, and his mouth uttered its own moan.

            Hearing that, Harry managed to roll away from the touch, though that nearly caused him to fall off the bed. Malfoy’s hand slipped to the blankets, and Harry could suddenly think again. He gulped breaths of cold air, and refused to look at his bedmate.

            “Potter,” Malfoy said at last.

            Harry grunted.

            “Have you ever felt anything like what you felt last night?”

            “No,” Harry said crossly. He wished he could lie, but then Malfoy would only accuse him of lying, and that would start another argument. “And no, I don’t want to feel it again,” he added, anticipating Malfoy’s next question.

            “Liar.”

            “My body wants it,” Harry corrected himself, as he rose to his feet and began to search for his clothes. His wand had banished them to a corner, where he found them tangled with Malfoy’s robes. He shivered in distaste, and used several cleaning charms before he put them on. “My mind doesn’t. And when in doubt, Malfoy, I listen to my mind and not my body.”

            “I won’t let you hide from this.”

            Harry stiffened. The noise of his own incantations must have covered the sound of Malfoy’s rising from the bed and coming to stand a few inches behind him. He turned around again, and forced his eyes to look only at Malfoy’s face, not his body. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Malfoy’s hand reaching out to cup his cheek, and he held his wand towards it.

            “Back off,” he snarled.

            “No,” Malfoy said, with unexpected strength. Harry blinked. Why had he thought the git would back down from a challenge? He never had in the past. “What happened, happened. Part of you is mine, Harry.”

            Harry had to close his eyes at the sound of his name. “Malfoy,” he whispered. “Please. Think about what you’re doing. It’s the Veela who wants this, not you.” He heard Malfoy attempt to interrupt, but he kept his words low and rapid and clear like cold water, and he had to listen instead. “I understand that you can’t help it, and yes, what happened, happened. But you’re pushing as if you want it to happen again, and it can’t. If you think about it, you’ll see that. You have a successful career, a lovely wife who helps you all the time and was strong enough to agree to this, and a life without me. I have a career, too, and a wife I love, and need to spend time with. After this year, the Veela will be gone. Do you really want to ruin our lives for it? Think. It’s only you falling under the dominion of the Veela again.”

            Malfoy was silent. Harry knew he hadn’t moved, but he also didn’t try to touch him again. He just seemed to stand there, thinking.

            “What do you suggest, then?” he asked, and his voice was a cool drawl one inch from a sneer again. Harry could have fainted in relief.

            “That we only have contact the once a month it’s needed,” Harry said, opening his eyes again. “That you don’t let your Veela get that desperate again. That we meet only in locations where I’m able to Apparate away immediately, if it comes to that. That you continue the mind-controlling exercises I showed you, to subdue the Veela.”

            “Fine,” Malfoy said. “But I have two conditions of my own.”

            Harry nodded warily.

            “If I need you, I can come more than once a month,” said Malfoy. “And that you don’t deny what happened here when we’re together.”

            Harry relaxed. “I can do that.” He might see Malfoy, what, two or three hours out of the month? He could do that.

            “Good,” said Malfoy. His gaze still held Harry’s even as he stepped out of the way and let Harry have access to the bedroom door. His face was full of that disturbing intimacy, the one he had said Harry couldn’t deny.

            Harry finally looked away, face burning. He hadn’t let even Ginny see him that uninhibited, any more than he’d told her about Ron and Hermione’s deaths. It felt wrong and dirty that Malfoy had managed to wring that reaction out of him when Ginny hadn’t. Opening himself up had never been easy for Harry, and now Malfoy had leaped over all the walls with an unfair advantage.

            “Good-bye, Malfoy,” he said firmly.

            “Good-bye, Harry,” Malfoy said, and didn’t seem to notice the glare Harry automatically whipped over his shoulder, instead calling casually for a house-elf.

            Harry gave a great sigh, and went to smooth over the matter with Ginny.
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A Year's Temptation

Chapter Three—March