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

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Chapter Three—Courage

            “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

            Harry winked at Hermione. He was standing in front of the large mirror he’d put up in his drawing room, so that he could make sure he didn’t look too strange before he Flooed to work in the morning, and Hermione’s face was floating in the fireplace behind him. “Of course I know what I’m doing,” he said, and turned slightly to the side to admire the hang of his cloak.

            “I haven’t seen you preen this way before.” Hermione was giving him a steady look. Harry was used to returning those with impunity, though, including the gaze of his own eyes in the mirror now. He would come home after plenty of those one-night stands with Muggles and look into his own face, to make sure that he didn’t look too needy. Most of the time, things were okay.

            The times that it wasn’t, Harry stayed home for a few nights and reminded himself that this wasn’t about romance.

            And neither is this.

            “It’s my first date with a wizard in quite some time,” Harry said, spinning away from the mirror and patting the little shelf he’d attached to the wall in front of it for luck. “I think I should take some more care with my appearance, don’t you?”

            “Not if it’s Malfoy.”

            Harry blinked, then laughed. “Ron infected you with his disdain for the whole plan, didn’t he?”

            “What plan?” Hermione leaned forwards as if she was going to transform the firecall into actually coming over any minute. “As far as I can tell, you’re dating Malfoy because you like to shock people, and because you think you might get decent sex out of him.”

            Harry raised his eyebrows. Well, it was true that Hermione was more honest about sex than Ron, and could discuss it, and even sex that other people were having, without turning the color of a forest on fire. “Not really. I’m doing it because I’ll be with someone who knows that I’m a wizard, knows my history, and won’t be surprised if I do magic or refer to the war. It’s one kind of freedom to be with Muggles, having no one know who I am, but I was getting tired of it.” He shrugged. “I thought I would try this different kind of freedom for a while.”

            “Oh, Harry,” Hermione whispered, her eyes darkening. “You really don’t expect any more than that, do you?”

            Harry shook his head impatiently. “Like you pointed out, Hermione, this is Malfoy. He came up and asked me out for his own reasons. I’m almost positive that those had to do with getting me to ‘appreciate’ him the way I never did when we were kids. I don’t know if I’m even going to have more than one date with him. Freedom might not be enough to make up for his taunts, and his obnoxiousness.”

            Hermione fussed with her hands for a moment, not meeting his eyes. “I just hate that you’re reduced to this,” she muttered.

            “Reduced? I chose this.” Harry put his hand out. “I could have chosen to keep pursing people in the wizarding world. I could have chosen to reject Malfoy. But I didn’t do either, and here we are.”

            Hermione sighed again, and then said, “Yes, I understand. And I know that your happiness is yours to choose, and that I shouldn’t interfere.”

            Harry smiled at her. “I know it’s just because you’re worried.” He had thought it would be hard to make Hermione understand why he was giving up on love, as she saw it, but she had been surprisingly accepting once Harry refused the books and simply shut the Floo or the door if she tried to lecture.

            “Yes, it is,” Hermione said. She hesitated one more time. Then she said, “Malfoy did always manage to pull intense emotion out of you. Do you think…?”

            Harry shook his head, hoping that his face didn’t show the pity he felt for Hermione too clearly. “No. Whatever he wants from me, he came on too strongly and too openly for it to be natural. And even if he felt attracted to me for some reason, why do it now, after a year of my not dating anyone in the wizarding world, and so suddenly, without an attempt to get more comfortable with me first?” Harry snorted at the idea that Malfoy could be attracted to him. He knew what he looked like. He knew the sort of thing Malfoy aimed for. They didn’t exist in the same universe.

            “Fame, then?” Hermione’s voice dipped again.

            Harry nodded. “Most likely.” He checked his watch, and flicked Hermione an apologetic smile. “I have to go.”

            “Sorry,” Hermione murmured, and her face faded out of the fireplace. Harry stepped outside the house and engaged the wards with a swish of his wand. He had strengthened them a year ago, when he understood that he would never have to allow an exemption in them for anyone else ever again, except Hermione and Ron.

            And there was a freedom in that knowledge, too. It meant that he was less likely to be betrayed, or to die because he had made a mistake in adjusting the wards and one of his fanatic enemies could creep through to murder him in his sleep.

            I’m not as happy as I wanted to be, but I’m safer.

            His mind firmly on the Leaky Cauldron, Harry Apparated to his date.

*

            “Sorry that I’m a minute early.”

            Draco jerked his head up. He’d taken a seat near the door of the pub, sure that he would spot Potter the minute he entered. The room would go silent in that special way it did when a celebrity was nearing, the way Draco had long since accepted it would never go silent for him.

            But Potter strolled up to him as though he was an ordinary person, dressed in dark green robes that looked like velvet, and nodded casually to him. “What place did you choose?” he asked, waiting while Draco scrambled to his feet.

            Draco stared at him for a single second, and then shook his head and extended his arm. Potter looked down at it with his eyebrows raised in a way that made Draco feel utterly stupid. “Take it,” he snapped, to cover that. “I can’t Side-Along you otherwise.”

            “That’s true,” Potter said, and smiled as though Draco had done something vastly entertaining instead of slightly embarrassing. He rested his hand on Draco’s arm, and it was lighter than Draco had known Potter could touch someone, or at least someone like Draco, who Potter probably despised as much now as he did when they were younger—

            And that can’t be true, or he wouldn’t have come along on this date.

            Draco cut the thoughts off, a little disgusted at himself for becoming that involved in the analysis of a simple gesture. He smiled at Potter, and hoped the smile would make up for the awkward start to the evening. “I didn’t know what sort of food you would prefer, so I chose a restaurant I like.”

            “That’s fine,” Potter said, waving his hand. “I’m sure I won’t have been to it before.”

            “That’s right,” Draco said, as he turned them on the spot and Apparated them. They arrived on the Apparition point outside the Sapphire Rose, and he dropped his hand to the small of Potter’s back to escort him up the stairs. “You didn’t often go to such places with the last wizard dates you had, did you?”

            He felt the brief clench of the muscles under his hand, and then Potter turned his head and winked at him. “I think it’s tiresome to talk about my old lovers when they’ve already bragged about themselves, don’t you?” he asked casually. “I know that I don’t find it a stimulating topic of conversation, at least. And I think you want some stimulation.”

            His hand slipped down and brushed Draco’s groin.

            Draco nearly stumbled, and not just because they were on the steps going up to the front of the Sapphire Rose and someone could have seen them, unlikely as that was with the dimness of the torches here. Potter was—going for that? He expected to have sex with Draco that soon?

            It made no sense, if what Tobley had said about his incapacity in bed was true. Or had that had something to do with the fact that she was female and Draco male?

            Potter didn’t seem to think he had done anything unusual. He halted on the step that overlooked the room, and his eyes widened in genuine appreciation as he turned his head back and forth, taking in all the sights.

            “I like it,” he said.

            Draco smiled in spite of himself. So unqualified emotion was a bonus sometimes. He would have to remember that the next time he was tempted to decide there was virtue in only dating pure-bloods.

            He turned to look out over the Sapphire Rose, trying to see it as a stranger himself, the way Potter would.

            The room was both wide and long, the walls rising up to delicate arched windows decorated in deep blue glass, each of them forming a pattern of thorns, or rose petals, or leaves. Sometimes there was a whole flower, shedding carefully modulated light on one of the round tables that stood here and there about the room. Never too close together, of course. That would ruin the experience of dining in silence and beauty.

            The center of the ceiling bore the largest rose, made of what Draco was certain were set sapphires, and the blue light that beamed down there bathed the largest table, made of a hinged sideboard and the much smaller portion where two people would actually sit. Harry laughed a little as Draco led him over to it and seated him at it with both fuss and ceremony.

            “Of course you would reserve the largest one,” he said, leaning back and smiling at Draco.

            Draco paused a second before slipping into the chair that the discreet house-elf popping up beside him had already drawn. That smile was dazzling, and he didn’t think it was just the blue light that made it so.

            “What?” Potter asked, raising his eyebrows.

            That’s right, he’s probably had enough of staring from his past lovers and those people who call themselves his fans. Draco shook his head with a smile and slid into his seat, waiting until the house-elf had pushed it the perfect distance forwards to answer. “Nothing. A memory of dining here before, that’s all.”

            Potter grinned at him, took a glance at the menu that had appeared—letters floating down the beam of blue light to hover in front of them—and leaned back in his chair, lounging and graceful. “Really? Who were you with?”

            Draco blinked at him. “You want to hear about someone I dated before you? Why?”

*

            Harry lost his smile, not because Malfoy had really done something that unexpected, but—

            All right, so that’s completely the reason.

            He hadn’t thought Malfoy would ask that question, would be so direct. He had given Malfoy the chance for mind-games, for cryptic remarks that would compare Harry to his past lovers and to brag about his own skill, because that was surely one of the reasons Malfoy had taken him on this date. Competition with other people, but also with Harry and his own past self.

            Maybe I was wrong.

            When he realized that Malfoy was waiting for an answer, though, Harry shook his head a little. No, he might have been wrong about Malfoy’s methods, but not about his motive. He still wasn’t doing this out of the goodness of his heart or any genuine attraction.

            “Because I wonder what you look for in a dining partner, not a date,” Harry said. “It surely can’t be a Gryffindor nature.”

            “What if I said it was green eyes?” Malfoy murmured, leaning nearer and pitching his voice low.

            Harry didn’t scowl, but only because he had somewhat expected the answer. As Frank said, his eyes were attractive.

            He leaned back and picked up the small crystal glass of water that had already risen out of the smooth surface of the sideboard. “Then I’ll say that you have a wide field to choose from, and I only hope I don’t disappoint you,” he remarked, swallowing a little of the water.

            Malfoy frowned. Apparently that had been the wrong answer, but since Harry had no idea what the right one would have been, he did nothing but smile. Malfoy half-shook his head and asked, “How many green-eyed wizards of an acceptable age and power level do you think there are?”

            “More than you give yourself credit for,” Harry said, and smiled winsomely at Malfoy. “Of course, if you want to date only in Britain, that does cut down your field. I can give you the Floo address of an old lover of mine, though. He only moved to Germany. Not that far away by International Portkey.”

            Malfoy sat up very stiffly, as though his chair had poked him in the back. “You want to pawn me off on an old lover?” he hissed.

            And now what? Harry hadn’t said anything disparaging about Malfoy, more implied something disparaging about himself. He’d thought Malfoy would like that.

            Well, maybe Malfoy had taken it as an insult to his taste. Harry shook his head. “Of course not. I was just saying that green eyes aren’t as rare as you seem to think.” He glanced over the letters swirling in the blue beam of light. “And I think I’m going to have that chicken in cream and the salad with fresh spinach.”

            Malfoy pressed a hand against his chest. “You don’t fill up on treacle tart and cheese the way you always did at Hogwarts? And I see your table manners are better than I would have imagined by associating with Weasley.”

            Harry blinked once. So the past is fair game. Okay. “Of course not,” he said evenly. “Tastes change. I’m sure that you receive real post now, for example, instead of the boxes of sweets that your mother used to send all the time.”

            Malfoy leaned nearer, and Harry assumed someone watching from a distance would see this as an intimate, lover-like conversation. Hardly, Harry thought, as he heard Malfoy hiss again. “Don’t you insult my mother.”

            “Then don’t insult my friends,” Harry snapped back, and stood up, drawing his wand to Summon his cloak from near the door. He should have known better than to think this would work. Malfoy was politer and more polished, but still Malfoy, under the surface. “Good-bye, Malfoy. Go find someone else with green eyes to fuck. I assure you they’re better in bed.”

            And that would have been that, except Malfoy reached out and caught his wrist. Harry turned back and stared at him, already reaching down to remove the hand. He doesn’t even see the favor I’m trying to do him, by preventing him from spending the night with someone incompetent.

*

            Draco had no idea what was going on. Potter had shocked him, surprised him, and made him recoil so far, and none of it had been on topics that Draco could have anticipated, save perhaps that Potter had insulted his family.

            But I started that one. I should have known better than to make a crack about Weasley. Draco had seen how close Weasley’s desk was positioned to Potter’s in the Auror Division, and no rumors had spoken of a wedge driven between them, vicious gossip circulating about Potter or not.

            “I’m sorry, Potter,” Draco said, speaking as soothingly as he could, and saying the first thing that came into his head, much as he had all night. His father would be ashamed of him. “I didn’t mean that just your eyes are attractive.”

            Potter turned to consider him with that wide, calculating green gaze. Then he nodded shortly and sat down again from Draco.

            “Apology accepted. Although if you didn’t want to date me for my eyes, I’m at somewhat of a loss,” he said, and sipped at his water, never taking his eyes off Draco. “Mind clearing it up?”

            Draco cleared his throat and leaned forwards to whisper his order to the beam of blue light that bore the menu. A transparent dodge, but one that Potter, his eyes sparking, allowed, following it with his own order. Draco watched the letters disappear and accepted the glass of wine that rose at his right hand, studying Potter intently. Potter returned the scrutiny, but not as if he needed to figure Draco out, the way Draco was trying to do to him.

            “I wanted to see how you’d changed since we were kids,” Draco said, telling part of the truth. “And the challenge of seeing if you would agree to go on a date with someone I thought you might still have reasons to despise. I have to admit, I didn’t think that you would accept.”

            Potter smiled. “Yes. You should have seen your face.”

            Draco waved one hand to dismiss the subject. “Why did you want me to pay for dinner?”

            “Because I don’t usually eat in wizarding establishments this expensive.” Potter continued sipping water. He’d apparently ordered nothing else to drink. Draco wavered between being insulted by that and gratified that it meant his bill would be smaller than otherwise. “This represents a rare opportunity for me.”

            “You could eat at one any time you wanted,” Draco said, and smiled at Potter, seeking to regain control of the conversation. “Unless those rumors about you losing all your money in Quidditch wagers are true.”

            “Not Quidditch wagers,” Potter said, shaking his head a little. “Private lessons and potions that I needed.”

            Draco blinked at him, but Potter didn’t give him the chance to inquire if that was the truth, continuing, “Besides, it’s no fun to eat a meal alone, and that’s what I should have done in the last year, bar the rare times Ron and Hermione could join me.”

            “Your friends are that busy?” Draco tried hard to keep his voice to a neutral tone, but he didn’t know if he succeeded. He almost never would succeed, he reflected, with Weasley.

            “Yes,” Potter said, and gave Draco a smile that was almost tender, although Draco was sure that it was tender on his friends’ account, and not Draco’s. “They have their own lives now, and Hermione in particular is busy. Do you know that she successfully argued that werewolves created by other werewolves—like Fenrir Greyback—for revenge shouldn’t have to register with the Ministry? As long as they take Wolfsbane, they’re safe, and they’re law-abiding members of wizarding society, unlike the werewolves that created them. It’s unfair to punish people who are victims more than the werewolves who are outlaws, and who the Ministry can’t force to register anyway, because no one can catch them—”

            “Yes, yes,” Draco cut him off quickly. He liked the way the light came back into Potter’s eyes and his face opened up when he was talking about his friends, but he also couldn’t listen to details of Granger’s exploits forever. He was more interested in talking about Potter. “But what about you? Don’t you ever have things to do that would prevent you from eating with your friends?”

            Potter peered at him as if he was some strange new species of snail. “Yes. Otherwise I would meet with them more often.” He spoke slowly, and then gave Draco a more natural smile. “And of course, tonight, there’s this date with you.”

            Draco nodded sharply and leaned back a little as the sideboard opened up and their meals rose, fresh and steaming, from the underground kitchen. They had been talking about half an hour, and he hadn’t accomplished anything so far except to nearly send Potter away and learn a little about Potter’s friends and finances. He didn’t seem to be anywhere near to the core of Potter, the man he would have expected to emerge on dates. Even if Draco didn’t care that much about romance and permanent commitments—and he had learned to rate them a little better in the last few years—he would have expected Potter to.

            Potter was eating, instead, with every sign of enjoyment of the delicate food, and every sign that he would be happy to leave the conversation lying in the middle of the table where they’d left it. Draco eyed him and wondered what was going through his head.

*

            What did Malfoy expect? A full confessional?

            Malfoy was puzzling Harry more and more as the evening went on. First he seemed polite, then he was insulting, then he acted as though he wanted to hear something about Harry’s life, and then he kept silent after their food arrived. Of course, at that point, it might simply be that his mouth was full.

            But if he wanted sex, Harry could give him that. Harry leaned back, his stomach comfortably full of chicken and spinach, and wondered what Malfoy would do if he simply asked him about that outright.

            So he decided to find out.

            “This restaurant is nice,” he said, smiling at Malfoy. Malfoy looked as instantly wary at the smile as he had looked when Harry was planning a prank on him. Harry nodded to himself. This can’t work as the kind of relationship Hermione was hoping I could have, but it’ll work on my terms. “And I was thinking of having dessert, since you’re paying. But we can leave a bit early, and have a different kind of dessert. My treat.” He let his voice lower, his hand stray out to play with Malfoy’s fingers.

            Malfoy jerked his hand back as if a live spider had attacked him. He was staring at Harry, and his mouth was open. Harry inclined his head, letting his smile remain, and took his hand back. It was up to Malfoy to accept or refuse the invitation.

            “You,” Malfoy said, trailing off as if a new thought had occurred to him. He ended by saying, “The rumors that said you were a slut were right.”

            It wasn’t that much effort for Harry to preserve his smile; Muggles had called him worse things when they were coming in his mouth. “That’s right,” he agreed. “And you can experience it for yourself, if you like.”

            “They also said that you weren’t much good at sex.” Malfoy continued speaking as though he had no idea what he would say next, as if he was confessing aloud to his enchanted mirror, never taking his eyes from Harry.

            “Well, I can give you a taste of the one thing I’m good at,” Harry said, and licked his lips fully before taking another swallow of water.

            Malfoy shut his eyes. Then he opened them and said, “Something isn’t right here.”

            Harry laughed aloud, again drawing a few glances from the nearby tables, although they turned away soon enough. He didn’t know who was looking at them, and he didn’t care. The news that Harry Potter was dating Draco Malfoy would be all over the Ministry by tomorrow, but it might already be there; Malfoy hadn’t been subtle about the way he approached Harry in the middle of the Auror Department. “Of course it isn’t,” he said. “It wasn’t from the first moment you approached me, and I don’t think we’ve got along well here. But I am offering you sex. Think of it as payment for the dinner and the insults I forced you to endure, if you want.”

            Malfoy reached out and picked up his glass of wine with a hand that shook. Harry leaned back and waited for him to make up his mind, touching and tapping his water all the while, to listen to the music on the glass.

*

            He can’t be offering what I think he’s offering.

            But it seemed Potter—from the bright determination in his eyes to the way that his slender hands lay on the table—was. And that he had no embarrassment about it, no shame, and no desire to cloak what he was saying in something else.

            I called him a slut.

            Potter’s lip curled as though he could sense every thought that paraded through Draco’s head and considered most of them ridiculous. He shrugged and said, “It’s up to you whether you accept it, of course. I would never want to force someone into something distasteful to them. Not now,” he added, his face darkening, “when I found out that I did it more than once without meaning to.”

            Draco’s head was spinning faster than the wine could have accounted for. “Explain what you mean by that,” he snapped.

            “I found out that several of my previous lovers were deceived in me, that I wasn’t what they thought I was, and it disappointed and hurt them,” Potter said evenly. “I would have done something to stop it if I knew that when we began dating, but I didn’t. Their confessions were forced out of them later, long after the point when I should have known something was wrong and stopped.” His eyes fluttered briefly closed, then opened again. “So. It’s absolutely and utterly up to you. Anyone who gets involved with me now knows what I look like, minus Muggles that I have to conceal some of the more magical scars from.”

            Draco stirred his finger through his wine, then realized how vulgar he was being and put the glass down hastily. The only thing he could think of was a question that had rung in the back of his mind ever since he’d spoken with Tobley. “Do you really have a scar from a Blood Quill on the back of your hand?”

            Potter gave him a smile that had a dark light behind it, and pushed his right sleeve back, revealing his hand.

            Yes, there were the words. Draco stared at them. They were even in Potter’s sloppy writing, which he’d seen often enough when glaring at Potter in class. I must not tell lies. Somehow Draco had thought he would notice them right away.

            “What other scars do you have?” he asked.

            Potter lifted his eyebrows. “Then you’re accepting my offer?”

            “I—don’t know yet.” Draco reached into his purse and put some Galleons down on the table with a shaking hand. “But I know that I don’t want to discuss this inside anymore.” It wasn’t the sort of conversation appropriate for the Sapphire Rose, and if he seemed too shaken or interested, there was the chance that someone would start to use eavesdropping charms.

            “Fair enough,” Potter said, in a tone so calm and deep that Draco would have thought it was a lie, but he stood up, then walked around the table and drew out Draco’s chair as though he was the one who had invited Draco on this date, and was personally responsible for courtesy towards him.

            Draco rose, feeling as though a spring was uncoiling inside him. He was shaking, quivering, and he couldn’t even name the emotions that turned steadily back and forth in his head, only the impulses: to punch Potter, to Apparate away, to apologize and scurry off.

            To kiss Potter.

            “Come on, then,” Potter said, extending a hand. “It’s only fair that you have a look at how scarred I am. I never showed most other people that until we’d been dating a while, and it made them recoil. God knows that we’re hardly friends, but I don’t want to do that to anyone again. Your place or mine?”

*

            Harry had once thought he would never willingly set foot in Malfoy Manor again, but then, he had once thought he would never willingly date anyone but Ginny. Things changed.

            They had Flooed in after all, rather than Apparated, and this room was a rather nice one, Harry thought, looking around critically, whose principal colors seemed to be blue and white. The bookshelves glowed a subtle version of the first, but the carpet was a deep-piled version of the latter, almost as blue as the sapphire roses in the restaurant they had left behind. The chairs were white with traceries of blue on the cushions and arms, and the fireplace that dominated the room, which they’d come out of, was flanked with blue winged lions. Harry wondered what the significance was, but it was probably something private to the Malfoys.

            He turned to face Malfoy, who had stumbled in first and was standing in front of Harry now, staring at him as if he was drunk. Malfoy swallowed and said, with the sort of desperate courage that Harry had seen in a few of the Muggles who’d propositioned him in clubs—usually men who were having their first time with another man—“Let’s see what’s on offer, then.”

            Harry nodded, half-smiling. He was glad that Malfoy’s bravery had come this far, and he could oblige without ever taking off his clothes, which would promise some kind of sex that he would be spectacularly bad at and upset people with. He turned his back to Malfoy, so that Malfoy would start off staring at his arse, and cast the charm that turned his clothes transparent.

            He heard Malfoy breathing hoarsely behind him, which wasn’t unexpected. Harry knew what he would be seeing without a mirror, of course. The harsh white scars that curved around his ribs, legacy of a conjured bear with huge claws that Harry had faced in his first month of proper work as an Auror; a few of the long-ago markings from beatings by Dudley; the scar that began on the side of his throat and continued around.

            And a skinny back and untalented arse and pale skin that never seemed to turn a healthy color no matter how Harry was out in the sun, of course. But Harry had given up on thinking about those a long time ago. As long as he wasn’t tormenting people with them, only showing them to someone who’d asked, it didn’t matter.

            When he thought Malfoy had looked long enough, he turned slowly to the side. Now Malfoy could see how the scar continued across his throat, and the mark on his arm from the basilisk’s fangs. And probably how Harry’s arms flowed into stupid elbows and knobby wrists, of course. But Harry didn’t know exactly how the evening would end, and he had vowed to put off trying to anticipate someone else’s reactions. So he stood there, and breathed softly and lightly, and turned to face Malfoy only when Malfoy made a small choked sound.

            Now he would see, more fully, the scar from the Blood Quill, and the ending, messy brand on Harry’s throat, and the burn on his chest from the locket Horcrux, and the half-completed Dark Mark that one of Harry’s enemies had thought it would be fun to carve into him after he’d tied him down last year. That had only lasted until Ron burst into the cavern and disrupted the magical circle by kicking apart the ashes that their enemy had used to form it, but the knife he’d been using was an athame, and the Healers had told Harry that to reduce the Mark to a mere outline was the best they could do.

            Harry’s skin still stretched tight over his ribs. At that, it was an improvement from what he had looked like when he was still dating Frank, before he began taking the nutritional potions the Healers had recommended.

            Harry looked up from the consideration of his own body to Malfoy. Malfoy was pale, and Harry sighed a little. Being faced with these reminders of the war when he had his own was probably too much for him. Harry waved his wand, and his clothes snapped back into opacity again. He glanced at the Floo, and wondered if it was too late for him to retreat gracefully out of it.

            “Do you want me to go?” he asked quietly. “I understand if you do.”

*

            Draco shook his head. It was the only, it was the instinctive, response to a question like Potter’s, but he didn’t have the words to follow it for long moments.

            He had never thought that Potter would look like that, so scathed from his meetings with the world and the Dark Lord and the other dangers that he’d faced. Draco had once been lucky enough to get hold of a basilisk fang when he’d done a favor for a friend of his mother’s, and he recognized the scar it would leave if it pierced something. Draco was just lucky it hadn’t been his skin, or he knew he would carry the identical scar.

            But he didn’t find Potter ugly, not the way Tobley had told him he would. He found Potter a survivor, and intriguing to look at, and interesting. Tough in the way a survivor was meant to be. Maybe a little pale, maybe a little skinny. But not repulsive.

            He looked back at Potter’s eyes, and saw Potter half-frowning at him. “Why don’t you want me to go?” Potter asked. “You look—well, as though the past has come back to haunt you.”

            The war, Draco decided after a confused moment of trying to think of what Potter could be referring to. He means the war.

            “No,” Draco said, and moved forwards. He wondered what he was going to do next, what Potter was going to do next. For all he knew, Potter would turn around and sweep towards the Floo, and Draco wouldn’t have the strength to stop him.

            But instead, Potter stooped down and met him kiss for kiss. Draco discovered his mouth was open for the kiss and his hands greedily reaching after all.

            But where he had wanted to kiss Potter’s mouth, Potter kissed his cheek, licked his cheek, and whispered into his ear, “Do you want the dessert I offered you in the restaurant?” His voice was deep and husky.

            Draco swallowed. He didn’t know what he had wanted, he thought. That was still true. He might want something Potter couldn’t give him, something that Potter was incapable of giving anyone, if the stories that Tobley had told about him were true.

            But on the other hand, hadn’t he already decided not to believe her? He had decided that when he looked at Potter and didn’t flinch away.

            He found himself nodding.

            Potter pulled back and considered him in silence for a moment. Then he smiled.

            “This might work,” he murmured, pulling back and dropping to his knees as he reached out with graceful hands to tug down Draco’s trousers. “It might even work more than once.”

            Draco stared down at Potter, and said nothing, because there was nothing to say. Potter, the emblem of Gryffindor trust and faithfulness, had decided to abandon Draco after one night, and go back to working in the Ministry beside him as if nothing had happened? That did stun Draco. There was nothing in either what he knew of Potter before now or what the rumors had said to substantiate it.

            But Potter was continuing. “It’s not as though either of us is in love,” he said, and slipped Draco’s trousers down deftly. He smiled at Draco’s legs, running his hand over the pale skin and startling shivers to life that Draco hadn’t known he could feel. “Not you with me, not me with you. But you’re attractive, and you haven’t run screaming from me, and you’re braver than I knew, approaching me like this.” He tilted his head back, his weight resting more firmly on his knees, and Draco found himself glad that the carpet was as thick as it was. “So. Maybe you’d be more interested in this than I thought? More than once?”

            Draco could only nod. He wasn’t sure what else he ought to do, but he did know that he wanted to see Potter again, if only to talk about the absurd thoughts racing through Draco’s head and the tension coiled in his middle.

            “Good.”

            Potter smiled, and there was such light in his eyes. Draco wanted to reach out and touch the beams that came from them, the delicacy and the beauty of them. But he found his hands remaining at his sides as Potter lowered his pants, too, and sighed at the sight of Draco’s bobbing cock. Draco stared down, overwhelmed and shocked and not sure when he had got hard.

            “This is all right with you?” Potter asked, looking at Draco a moment later so strongly that Draco wasn’t sure this was the same man who had stared at his erection after all. “You don’t want me to stop and walk away? Because I can, you know. I’d much rather do that than hurt you.”

            He’s so strange. What is he talking about? Draco’s head might be a little unclear, but he knew what he wanted. He reached out and grasped the back of Potter’s neck, guiding him towards his groin, while at the same time he muttered, “Yes. Yes, I want you to continue.”

            He was proud of himself for managing a big word like “continue,” and Potter grinned at him as if he was proud of Draco, too, before opening his mouth and taking Draco with gentleness onto his tongue.

            Draco shut his eyes and sagged back against the wall. Potter’s hands on his hips held him up even more than that, fingers running over his skin, nails not digging in but caressing. Draco gasped and panted through the initial warmth, and then Potter began to suck in earnest, and Draco forgot his world.

*

            He’s enjoying it.

            This was the one thing Harry knew he was good at, the one thing he had practiced and practiced and practiced, because it was simple and that meant even someone like him could learn it, and because it was easy to see results on the Muggles who were his practice. Still, he felt relaxation flood him to know that he was pleasing another wizard lover.

            Maybe he could have been doing this all along, during the last year. Take someone who didn’t care that much about him personally, who was even hostile to him, and give them the pleasure of his mouth. He had tried to get too involved last time, but this was simple, this was holding back and giving at the same time.

            This was a way of making them both feel good.

            Malfoy was beautiful, with the high color in his cheeks and the way his hands groped and fluttered about in the air, apparently thinking that Harry was much taller than he was when he was kneeling down. Finally, one found his neck and one his hair, and they both kneaded and turned back and forth, while his hips jerked in Harry’s hold and his cock jerked in Harry’s mouth. He was warm, too, blazingly warm as the light in the Sapphire Rose, and he tasted very good.

            Harry stroked his tongue up and down, closing his eyes so he could concentrate on scent and taste. Both were sharp, as though they had invaded his mind and space. But no, that was wrong, he had invited them here, and he was tasting someone he knew. Harry smiled and let more and more of Malfoy into him, down his throat, and rubbed his hips as Malfoy groaned like he was going to slump to the floor.

            He had to lean forwards and brace his shoulders against Malfoy’s legs as they shook, to keep him from falling. But he didn’t care. What mattered was that it was Malfoy’s angles against him, and Malfoy’s pale skin, and Malfoy’s scent curling into his nostrils as persistent as the points to Malfoy’s cheekbones, and he wanted to laugh for the thrill of it.

            Harry licked and lapped and leaned back, letting Malfoy simply sit on his tongue for a second, while Harry teased him with fast dashes of his tongue, learning what he liked, what would make him pant and what would make him groan. Then he leaned back in, and sucked so hard that Malfoy’s hips rose off the wall and fully into his hands. Harry hummed and took a deep breath through his nose, then began to suck without breathing at all.

            It was something he couldn’t do often, mostly when he liked the person he was sucking rather than just thinking of them as a night’s entertainment. Malfoy trembled worse than ever, and then his muscles locked and his noises paused in the way that was so familiar to Harry. Harry shut his eyes firmly and imagined his throat opening, flooding, filling—

            It came, and Malfoy came. Harry swallowed quickly, but in measured gulps. He was overwhelmed, not by the amount, but because the sharp smell increased, and the stickiness in his throat, and the way Malfoy curled over him and fumbled out with one hand for his wand, something a Muggle would never do.

            Neither did he immediately push Harry away, the way Frank had before Harry became aware of his deficiencies and could correct them. Harry leaned back on his heels and gently manipulated Malfoy to the side, casting a Cushioning Charm on the carpet so Malfoy wouldn’t bump his head.

            Malfoy looked up at him from the floor, panting in a daze of completion. Harry grinned and swallowed once more before he kissed Malfoy’s throat. He wasn’t confident enough to try a brushing of lips, which would probably be as wet and ungraceful as he’d always been, but most men had sensitive necks, and he couldn’t go too wrong. From the way Malfoy turned his head towards Harry, he liked it.

            “Thank you,” Harry whispered. “You were really you. And really responsive,” he added, because he wanted to say it. He found a bit of wetness that Malfoy’s cleaning charm had missed and swiped it off with a finger. “Do you want me to call a house-elf to take you to bed?”

            Malfoy just lay there, breathing hard. Maybe he was too worn-out to say much for a second, Harry thought. Well. He supposed that was a compliment. He sat down, gently stroking his own erection, certain Malfoy wouldn’t mind because he was lying there with his eyes closed now and wouldn’t know.

*

            Shit.

            That had been one of the most thorough experiences of Draco’s life. Potter seemed to take the time to learn what he liked impossibly well, given that this was the first time he and Draco had ever been together. He teased, yes, but then he fulfilled the teasing, and he knew what would tread the edge of painful and what would go over. He knew what made Draco nearly helpless, his toes curling into the carpet. It had even been hot the way he had left Draco’s shirt on and that had continually brushed against Draco’s hands when he was trying to feel for the way to hold himself up.

            And now Potter sat back and asked questions that frankly weren’t very important right now, because the rushing and roaring in Draco’s ears made it hard for him to listen. Draco lay there just trying to get his breath back.

            By the time he did, and opened his eyes, Potter was sitting beside him, smiling a little down at him. The smile was weird, Draco thought. It had lust in it, sure, but also gentleness, and what he could have sworn was nostalgia, as though Potter was reliving the experience in his head and liking it.

            Draco slowly lifted himself up on one elbow, intent on saying a lot, especially about some of the things Potter had said before he started sucking Draco, or about the scars Potter had showed him. But he paused when he saw Potter was still hard.

            “I didn’t know,” he said, and gestured to Potter’s groin. He felt steadier than he had since before Potter had offered to take him back home and suck him. He could say this, and Potter would understand what he was talking about and not be offended.

            “Hmmm?” Potter blinked at him. “What do you mean? You didn’t know what it would be like to have sex with me?” He grinned. “But how should you? It’s not like either of us ever thought about it before.”

            Draco just shook his head, not wanting to get into that right now. “I didn’t realize you hadn’t come,” he whispered, and reached for Potter. “Let me take care of that.”

            Potter’s hand moved, catching Draco’s wrist, and holding it away. Draco blinked, then refocused on Potter. He would have said something about how Potter still didn’t think Draco was good enough to touch him, but that wasn’t true. He’d let Draco hold onto his hair while he was sucking him, that was all.

            “No,” Potter said, softly, definitely.

            Draco stared at him. “I don’t know what you mean,” he finally muttered, because he didn’t. This was probably the most baffling thing Potter had done all evening.

            Potter sighed. “Look. Some of the rumors you heard were the truth. I’m really not good at most parts of sex. That’s why I didn’t let you kiss me earlier. It would have tasted horrible and been sloppy and snapped you out of the mood completely. And I really wanted to taste you.” He smiled again at Draco, the way he had a minute ago. “And it was great.”

            “Look, Potter,” Draco said, taking a moment to be glad that his parents were on extended holiday at the moment and not around to hear him speaking as though this made sense. “How good you are at sex or not has nothing to do with the way I touch you. You can let me wank you without succumbing to some horrible sexual disease, I promise.”

            Potter continued looking at him as if he made no sense. “No,” he said, finally, when the force of his stare had failed to get the message across to Draco. “It’s—I don’t respond the right way, okay? To anything. I wouldn’t thrust the way I should, or last as long as I should.”

            Draco just continued staring at him. This was probably the most bizarre conversation he’d ever had. It had seemed comic when Tobley had told him that Potter would come prematurely, but for Potter to have accepted it so thoroughly, to talk about it with even less reluctance than Tobley had…

            “Look,” Potter said, softly, soothingly, with an expression of deep understanding on his face that chilled Draco in ways he wasn’t used to. “It’s okay. If you can accept it, I’d really like to see you again. We can have passable conversations as long as we stay away from the past, and it’s not like you have any illusions about me now, and you still haven’t run screaming the other way.”

            Like the others did, Draco thought, his heartbeat slow with shock. Like the way Potter thinks I would at a moment’s notice.

            “And it’s nice to not have to pretend with someone, to be honest from the beginning,” Potter said, his voice growing quicker, his eyes brighter. “This way, you’ll at least get a couple of brilliant blowjobs out of it. And if you get tired of me and don’t want to see me again, no harm done.” He shrugged and smiled at Draco. “Neither of us cares that much, right? Neither of us has a relationship that this interrupted.”

            Draco shook his head. He didn’t know whether he was agreeing or disagreeing. He didn’t know if any statement he made was capable of climbing the walls Potter had erected around himself.

            He didn’t just think that what Tobley—and probably the others—said about his being bad in bed was true. He took it into his head and fucking internalized it.

            “You can stop any time,” Potter said. “Like I said, I’d really like to see you again, but I’ll leave right now and never come back, if you want.”

            Draco’s tongue was all tangled up beneath his teeth. Finally, though, he managed to blurt out, “Why does that matter to you so much?”

            Potter relaxed at the question, bloody relaxed, and looked at him with his face shining like starlight. “Because I physically hurt and disgusted a lot of people, and I never knew it,” he responded. “You should be absolutely free and know everything from the beginning, so that you know what you’re getting, and what you’re not. Not someone who’s whole, or emotionally stable, or someone who can kiss you or wank you or fuck you acceptably. Or someone who would respond the right way if you wanted to do the same things to him,” he added, as if that had occurred to him late. “But someone who’s good with his mouth, and casual, and someone you can probably talk to more honestly than anyone else. I won’t tell any of your secrets that you don’t want me to, promise, but I don’t have many of my own.”

            Draco just stared. The corners of his eyes felt tight, and so did his throat. He had to swallow a few times so that his words would come out comprehensibly. “What if I—what if I wanted to do those things to you?”

            “Touch me?” Potter arched his eyebrows, then sighed. “You don’t have any idea what a horrible experience it would be. Trust me, I’m protecting you.”

            Draco just shook his head. The tightness at the corners of his eyes increased, and he wanted to do something, to say something, to touch Potter in just the right way that would make his walls fall and make him reveal what had to be the truth. Because this couldn’t be, not this—this conviction of ugliness. Draco had met some people who protested that they were ugly or evil or bad at sex, but they didn’t really believe it; they wanted to be reassured by hearing someone else compliment them.

            Potter believed it, and there was a touch of what was nearly pity in his eyes as he regarded Draco.

            “Like I said,” Potter finished quietly, “if you aren’t comfortable with that, tell me. I want to see you again, but that doesn’t mean you want to see me.”

            Draco caught his tongue and his head, both, before it could shake. He knew how Potter would take it if Draco shook his head right now.

            “No,” Draco said, strongly, aloud. “I want to see you again. I think I can bear the terms.” He studied Potter. “But I don’t always want to pay for dinner.”

            Potter laughed. Draco watched him hungrily under the cover of the moment, blanking his face when Potter looked at him again.

            Draco wanted to know what the hell was going on, what had happened, what kind of strangeness lay behind the attitude Potter had formed. And he would learn, he knew now. He would make sure that he learned. He would stay close to Potter and put up with terms that were distasteful to him—or, well, not distasteful, because the blowjob really had been brilliant, but not as close as he wanted—for a time.

            In the end, he would achieve what the others hadn’t. He would learn the real Potter, and he would make sure that he had a chance to speak to him, challenge him, maybe make him shed those strange things he believed about himself.

            Because no one could go on believing those things. Not really. They would go mad.

            Draco had to learn what was behind them.

            “Thanks,” Potter said, grinning at him. “It means a lot. Let me know when you want to go on another date.” He stood up and brushed some dust off himself, and Draco realized then, fully, for the first time, the truth hitting him like a blow, that Potter had never taken off his clothes.

            “But why don’t you make the date the next time?” Draco asked, before Potter could Floo out.

            “Because that might not be the time you wanted, and I’m terrible at figuring out what other people want,” Potter said quietly, glancing at him over his shoulder.

            Draco didn’t know what to say, so he just nodded, and watched Potter vanish in a rush of green flame.

*

            Harry had barely reached home when he sagged against the wall and grabbed himself, wanking in three sharp jerks until he exploded over the inside of his pants.

            He leaned there, letting himself spiral down through pleasure until he reached what was waiting for him at the bottom. But not loneliness, this time, or getting out of a Muggle club and back home.

            He had someone who wanted to see him again. Someone who acted as though Harry was tolerable company, and tasted great, and knew he was a wizard.

            Harry opened his eyes and grinned.

            He was happier than he’d been in a long time.

*

            delia cerrano: Well, they’re not doing it so much anymore, but they don’t have to. Harry does it to himself.

            SP777: Everything Harry said about being premature and so on is true. Of course, the implications of all this have gone deeper than anyone intended them to.

            alexkdp: You’ll get to see him startled a lot.
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Nothing Like the Sun