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Starfire Nights	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 3526 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this story.

Chapter List
- 3
- 4
I would be willing,
but I don�t know what you want.

�� Draco
wanted to crumple up the letter when he read those words. Wasn�t it obvious? He
had phrased it as openly as he knew how without making himself
sound weak. All he needed to do to confirm that was turn his letter over, since
Potter had been obliging enough to send his words back to him.

�� And then he
paused and made himself think more rationally about it, which was much more
rationally than he wanted to think.

�� Potter
seemed to understand his goals perfectly well. That was proved by, if nothing
else, the way he had reasoned out Draco�s desire for freedom with no one to
tell him directly. But that wasn�t the same thing as seeing what he could do
about it. He might rightly feel that the original bargain had been for help in
promoting Malfoy�s Machineries, and that Draco could ask for no more than what
he�d already received.

�� Draco
himself wasn�t sure what he wanted. An example? But he
couldn�t follow the road that Potter had marked out for himself, and if the
knowledge of Potter�s success was enough, well, he already had that.

�� A champion? But he would feel weak if someone stood up for
him and pushed him into the freedom he wanted, just as he would feel weak
disgracing his family�s name to make Lucius see him as an individual.

�� No, he decided, and his fingers curled
into the edges of the paper, because it was more than he had wanted to find out
about himself, at least like this.

�� I want a companion.

�� That was
it. Walking into freedom by himself would be lonely,
since he would have no one to follow him there (except perhaps his mother, who
had surprised him with several sympathetic glances in the last day). He wanted
someone who could walk beside him, who could laugh with him and challenge him
when he became complacent and was in danger of losing what he had fought so
hard to attain.

�� Someone who could dance with him.

�� Potter was
the best candidate he had ever seen for that, and in fact the one who had
sparked the desire in the first place, because Draco hadn�t been aware before
that that this would be a wonderful thing to have.

�� So, really, it�s all his fault, Draco
thought. He can�t blame me for wanting
him beside me when he showed that he�d be capable of it.

�� Potter
perhaps didn�t need a companion. He made the whole world into that,
unwittingly, since they didn�t realize who they were laughing at or admiring or
fighting with. He was courage personified, daring and dancing and laughing.

�� But Draco
needed more.

�� He sat
there in an agony of mute indecision for a few minutes, wondering how he could
express that need to Potter without exposing himself unforgivably. Then the
barrier in his head broke, and he scribbled the necessary words down on the
letter beneath Potter�s.

�� I want you.

�� He called
for his owl, and ignored the reproachful look she gave him as he handed her yet
another message. This was just the way it had to be, flights back and forth
between him and Potter until he figured out how to assuage his need.

�� Besides, he thought, as he sat there
watching the owl soar away and tried to soothe his own sense of vulnerability, Potter�s more likely to respond to raw and
honest words than he is to sophisticated ones. So you could see this as my
manipulating him so that he�ll agree to my desires.

�� Those desires being centered on this need.

�� Draco
locked his hands together behind his head and shook it. It was impossible to
escape the reality of how much he needed Potter for long. He would have to hope
that he would eventually learn to live with it.

*

�� Harry
sighed when the letter landed in front of him, and even more when he saw the
words. Of course, this was a sigh produced from causes that Malfoy couldn�t
have foreseen, because he didn�t know all the reasons that Harry had to hate
and despise a statement like the one he�d just made.

�� He wrote
beneath Malfoy�s words, hoping that his hand would still be legible given his
irritation, Which of me do you want? Someone like Truth,
except that he�ll help you in more substantial ways than just socially? Someone
lovely and delicate as a flower, who the other
pure-bloods will envy you for possessing? I can do that. But
male or female? Old or young? Light in manner or haughty? With blonde or
black hair? I need to know more than this simple thing. And I�ll expect
to be paid this time.

�� The owl
gave him a long-suffering glance when he handed over the letter. Harry started
to take it back, thinking he should let her rest, but she grabbed it, almost
nipping his finger, and soared out the window before he could offer her the
chance.

�� It�s not
my fault that you�re not eating the treats and keeping up your strength!� Harry
called after her.

*

�� Draco
flattened his palm against his desk when he read Potter�s answer and ground his
teeth. There was a suspicious prickling at the edges of his eyes, but he wasn�t
going to weep, even if it was tears of frustration. What he wanted was perhaps
not as simple as he had made it sound, and he needed to find the words, again,
for a declaration that Potter couldn�t ignore.

�� I want the person behind all the masks, he
wrote. With dark hair and green eyes, because that�s what
you have. Come disguised if you need to; like I said, it�s a masked ball, and
with as reclusive as you�ve pretended to be in the last few years, no one will
expect to see you at the Kellisons� party anyway. But
I need the person who thinks up the glamours and Transfigurations, the person
who�s good at this, the person who comes up with clever plans in the blink of a
moment.

�� He hesitated,
then added, I�m not going to pay you in
coin. Think of the pay that a lover normally takes, and demand that.

�� He used a
second owl, because Duchess wouldn�t be ready to fly again for some time, and
he needed to send this letter off before his nerve failed him and he tore it
up, or at least erased the last words.

�� But it was
done now.

*

�� Harry
leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes.

�� It had
come, then.

�� His clients
had fallen in love with him before, or the person they thought he was. They had
offered him enormous sums to stay with them, or tried to discover where their
�perfect strangers� came from when Harry left. But since those people didn�t
actually exist, they never found a trace of them. The cover stories Harry
prepared would run out under careful investigation, but that was part of the
point. The truth was never what those cover stories dissipated to reveal, only
blank nothingness. The most infatuated witch or wizard would give up in a few
months and go back to loving someone they could actually know.

�� But this
was different.

Harry had wondered what would
happen if someone wanted the depths and not the surface, the mind and not the
body, or at least only the body of the single, solitary person he�d been born,
instead of the hundreds of people he�d evolved into. It had seemed unlikely to
happen. Who knew his secret?

But if someone did find out, it
still wouldn�t matter. Everyone would react the way Hermione had when Harry had
hinted to her that he was exploring the possibility of disguises and masks for
passing unseen in wizarding society: that it was wrong and disgusting and the
only �real� people were the ones who were alone in their heads. There was no
way that Harry could confess his deepest deceptions. No one would understand.

Now Malfoy seemed to know, and he
had said that he still wanted the mind that could think like that, even the
scarred and too-familiar body that contained the mind that had thought up the
people he met.

But
he doesn�t know that I�m everybody behind Metamorphosis.

�� Harry sat
very still. For a long time, that fact, the secret he didn�t dare tell anyone
else, had been the center of his life. When he was with his friends, he thought
about it, and it was a beating heart, a second heart they didn�t know he had. I�m a monster, really, he had wanted to
say sometimes. I have two hearts and a
thousand minds, and you don�t know.

�� When he was
at the dances and parties with Malfoy, he hadn�t thought like that, but that
was because he was being Lionel Truth, who had no reason to be an actor but his
natural personality. And then, he had wanted to show Malfoy a level of skill
that would explain his job but not set him thinking in other directions.

�� For the
very first time, confronted by an appeal he could hardly understand, his mind
racing and dipping through colored clouds of interest and excitement, he
wondered if the secret mattered all that much.

�� I�m many people. And I�m one. I don�t like
thinking that way, because Harry Potter is so much a failure, but not the one
that Malfoy knows. He sees a talented actor who can help him survive in a world
that he�s known from birth and still finds uncomfortable to navigate.

�� I�ve gone before him fully masked, and he
knew me before I was masked at all.

�� But what happens if I go before him half-masked? He knows a little bit about what I
do for Metamorphosis, but not the whole of it, not yet. And there�s no reason
to tell him. I could tell him in the future. In the meantime, I can let him see
the bravery and strength and cleverness he admires, and convince him that even
more of that is behind the mask.

�� Harry shut
his eyes. His heart was sweet within him. That rush of freedom he�d experienced
so often when he was dressing up as a new character for the first time crested
and broke in his soul, and he might as well have been standing in a whole ocean
of sweetness, of freedom, of artistry, of beauty, of all the things he�d become
familiar with since he started running Metamorphosis.

�� Malfoy�s like me. He likes freedom. He�ll
appreciate this. He might be the only person who wouldn�t recoil when I do
eventually reveal the whole secret to him.

�� He�s giving me something new.

�� I want to try this. And it�s without risk.
If it doesn�t work out, I can retreat, and there�s no way he can find me.

�� Harry
smiled, and picked up the letter, and wrote,

�� Malfoy. Yes.

*

�� Draco
stirred anxiously, casting his glance around the great ballroom in which the Kellisons� party was taking place. He expected Potter
tonight, but Potter hadn�t said in which costume he was coming: as himself, or
as Lionel Truth, or as someone else. Draco wondered if he would recognize
another persona should Potter show up in it. He
wanted to say he would, but he really didn�t know enough. (He himself was
eminently recognizable, having come as the ancient Lord Longinus Malfoy, with
his white robes and blond hair more than enough to play the part without a mask).

�� And he
didn�t know what kind of entrance Potter would make, either, or when it would
be.

�� The Kellisons� party was, as always, magnificent. Other parties
used illusion to invite the outdoors indoors. The Kellisons
mingled them expertly, so that one passed from a shaded forest aisle into a
circle of tables and chairs sheltered by walls, and then into a garden, and
into a buffet with delicate foods protected from the elements by the elements
of a house.

�� The theme
this year was green and silver. Draco didn�t think they�d chosen that in deference
to Slytherin House, even though the current mistress of the house, Elizabeth Kellison, had been in Slytherin years ago. It was a
convenient way to account for the leaves and the moon and starlight, however,
without having to go to great lengths to make the vegetation look the right
color and natural.

�� Laughter
whispered through the dusk that surrounded them (for the sections of nature
were wrapped in real night, while the sections of the house were lit up exactly
as they should be by candles and firelight). Draco had already seen a
shimmering mist rising from the trees, and darting forms that vanished when he
turned a head. He had watched an exquisite dance conducted by figures that
could have been real fairies or costumed and masked guests. He had untied the
mask from the face of a pale, fey, smiling woman, only to find that she had
vanished as he untied the strings and he was left holding nothing but a black
mask that began to chuckle softly.

�� Draco
shivered and tried to hold himself taller. This was Midsummer�s Eve, the last Starfire Night. It had always been the most complicated
time, the most magical, the most enchanting. He had never felt fear during it
before, though�or at most only the slight tickling frisson of delight before a
horror that he knew couldn�t hurt him.

�� Now, there
was something that could.

�� Had he been
a fool to send that message to Potter? Perhaps so. The
words Potter had written in return had warmed him like dragonfire, but that
burn had long since gone. Perhaps he should have insisted on better
arrangements, or said�

�� A chorus of
gasps arose from one end of the room. Draco had to step past seven trees and an
overloaded table of pasties before he could see what was causing them.

�� Then he
gaped.

�� He had
known that Potter liked to make an entrance, but so far, the disguises he had
adopted had at least been human.
Draco had assumed without thinking about it that Potter preferred to adapt his
glamours and Transfigurations to the human body, or, at most, the artifacts he
handled and rode on, such as the horse he had made into a unicorn.

�� This was
something new, something more.

�� Potter
walked down the grand staircase that was the only unaltered part of Kellison Manor, his head held high and his steps the
graceful, mincing ones of a peacock. Perhaps that made sense, given the huge
silver wings that reared from his back and spread out behind him, arranged in a
fashion that would recall a peacock�s tail.

�� The wings
looked utterly real. Draco immediately wanted to touch them, and he could see that
desire echoed on faces all over the forest/dining hall. The feathers at the
edge fluttered in the slight breezes that the Kellisons
had sent spinning across their rooms to stir the leaves of the trees and add a
hint of coolness to the evening, and the great primaries looked as if they
might cut your finger. Potter paused at the bottom of the staircase, and the
wings folded forwards, then straightened up again,
with a tiny bob that made Draco�s mouth water. They appeared to spring from the
middle of Potter�s back, between the shoulder blades, rather like butterfly
wings might. But from their size and shape, they were a great bird�s.

�� It occurred
to Draco suddenly to wonder what had made Potter change his mind and enter the
party as himself, wings or not, instead of another made-up person like Truth.
He glanced at the man�s face for the first time.

�� And then he
wanted to laugh. Potter wore no disguise but a simple white mask fastened
across his forehead and the bridge of his nose with careless grace, so that the
startlingly green eyes showed through but the scar did not. He might also have
used a charm to straighten his hair so that it wasn�t immediately recognizable
as his own shaggy black mop.

�� That was
it. He had come as himself because he knew the wings would be enough of a
distraction. People would think of them
far more than they would the man who wore them.

�� And the best disguise is to hide in plain
sight, Draco thought, as he moved forwards and held out his hand. Potter�s
gaze fastened on him at once, but his eyes were so bright with satisfaction in
his own glory that Draco couldn�t tell what he felt.

�� May I have
this dance?� Draco asked softly.

*

�� Harry could
feel his lips parting in surprise. It wasn�t so long ago that Malfoy had used a
dance to show everyone around them�at least, many of the same guests would be
here that had been at the Haggertons� party�that he
wasn�t gay, was in the proud tradition of the grand wizarding community, and
that they would be safe buying new machines from him. Harry hadn�t expected
more than a few quick conversations with Malfoy tonight. If he was right and he
wanted Harry, that would still take them time to work
out.

�� But Malfoy
stood there, hand held out despite the length of the silence since his request,
his eyes steady.

�� Harry
understood then, or thought he did. Freedom
requires courage. Malfoy wants to show me that he�s free of the laws that do
nothing to contribute to his pleasure and enjoyment of life.

�� Admiration
made him smile and accept Malfoy�s offered hand. �I would love to,� he said,
and Malfoy tilted his head and shivered. Harry blinked. His voice had never had
that effect on someone before, unless he�d added an auditory glamour or a Siren
Spell to make it irresistible. Some of his clients wanted effects like that.

�� Maybe it�s because it surprised him, to hear
my voice without alteration, Harry thought, as they wended their way over a
bridge which crossed a lily pond and through a series of small, round tables to
the dance floor. He couldn�t have known I
would decide not to disguise it.

�� The dance
floor was a wide pane of something smooth and glassy, with patches of grass
alternating with ordinary black tile. Harry smiled and cocked his head when he
stepped onto it. Malfoy laughed, probably at the expression on his face, and
rested a hand on his shoulder, caressing the fanned-out edge of one feather.
Harry shivered in pleasure.

�� Does
touching them mean touching you?�
Malfoy asked, voice low and guttural as they began to
move to the music. It was a slower and more traditional dance, for which Harry
was grateful. He wouldn�t want to try a waltz or other fast dance with the
wings clinging to his back and entangling his feet.

�� Yes,�
Harry said. �I grew them from my back. They won�t let me fly, but they aren�t
just illusion.�

�� Malfoy
promptly tweaked the feather again. Harry caught his breath, and the wings
flexed in and out in response. He�d tied their movements to the movements of
his lungs, because it was the best way he could think of to make them look
realistic.

�� Malfoy was a
marvelous dancer, something Harry hadn�t truly noticed during the Arctica, when his attention was mostly fixed on his plan
and what would happen next. Malfoy�s steps were light, quick, and smooth; he
was always balanced no matter what awkward turns Harry had to make because of
the wings, and he didn�t huff and gasp into Harry�s face the way some of his
partners had, particularly when he turned himself into a tall woman. And his
eyes never wavered.

�� Harry knew
some people might find that intense regard impolite, but he could smile at
Malfoy, because of the mask and the wings. He was half-masked, the way he�d
planned, and its effect on Malfoy was pleasant.

�� You�re
taking an enormous risk,� Malfoy murmured, barely moving his lips, as if he
wanted to fool someone looking at him from a distance rather than the stares of
all the people who could see them very well from a few feet away. �Coming here
like this. Someone might recognize your eyes.� He looked at his forehead, but
Harry was wearing his mask across it. Nevertheless, he went on, as if he wanted
to make the point. �Or your scar.�

�� I know
that,� Harry said. He took a deep breath, and the wings spread to their fullest
extent, scattering light. The breeze tugged at him. Harry knew he couldn�t
really fly, but it felt as if he
could. He shuddered as Malfoy pinched another feather. �That�s part of the
thrill.�

�� Malfoy
cocked his head and whirled Harry in a circle, which was a bit more difficult
than usual with the wings, but which allowed Harry to come back to his arms
with a graceful sliding motion. He appeared entirely unconscious of their
audience, which had gone past staring into murmuring. �Funny,� Malfoy said. �I
hadn�t thought of you as a risk-taking person when it came to your job. You
wanted to be safe, didn�t you? To construct personas who would appear as
different from you as possible.�

�� Harry
smiled and decided this wasn�t a good time to get into a discussion of how he
pulled out bits of himself and gave them to his personas�his cleverness, his
caution, his fear of the dark, his nightmares, his fondness for defensive
magic. �I did,� he said. �And then I realized that being safe doesn�t really
conduce to being free.�

�� As he had
thought would happen, Malfoy�s eyes went dusky, and he rested a firm hand on
Harry�s hip as they moved in the next set of steps, which didn�t involve
separating. �Is that what it�s really about for you?� he whispered. �It is for
me, but I wasn�t sure what your motivation was.�

�� More than
one motivation,� Harry said gently. �That motive is among them, though. Of
course it is. How else could I hope to move around in the wizarding world
unrecognized?�

�� Malfoy gave
him a withering stare. �Please tell me it�s more than that,� he said. �You want
to be free of people bothering you, and nothing else?� His scorn clanged like
iron.

�� Harry
laughed. He could feel the people around them stirring restlessly,
wanting to know the source of his amusement, but still none of them would
approach and ask. The
great cowards. They�re afraid
of what might happen to them if they get too close. �Yes, it�s more than
that,� he said. �Dancing with fire. Wondering what I
can create, and being free to create,
instead of assuming that I�m bound by the limits of my face or my body. Walking
among people who would give a thousand Galleons to know who I was, and knowing
they couldn�t guess.�

�� Malfoy�s
other hand tightened on his other hip, and Harry raised an eyebrow as he
realized the picture they must make: dancing like pistons from the waist down,
their feet hitting the dance floor hard, while their heads hovered close to
each other. He let his eyelids fall over his eyes and gave Malfoy a look he
knew was sultry. �Does that excite you?� he breathed.

�� Fuck,
yes,� Malfoy said. His breathing was faster, and Harry felt a brush of smooth
muscles against his own as Malfoy briefly leaned forwards. He bent back again,
but nothing could hide the flush in his cheeks or the rasp of his breath now
that Harry was looking for it. �You�re powerful,� Malfoy said. �You�ve managed
to use your freedom to develop your power, and you�re not at anyone�s mercy.
That�s what I want to be.�

�� Harry
considered him thoughtfully. �I can�t believe you couldn�t do that if you
wanted to,� he remarked. �I know a lot of the younger pure-bloods are afraid of
angering their parents and getting disowned, but you don�t seem to be, or you
wouldn�t have started a Muggle-like business in the first place. What�s made
you wait so long for your freedom?�

�� Malfoy
clapped his teeth together and didn�t respond for a moment. Harry could hear
the clicking in his jaw, and imagined that he was grinding his teeth together
as they turned and dipped in a circle, whirled faster than normal, and came
back to almost their original place.

�� I wanted
companionship on the journey,� Malfoy said at last. �Respect from my parents. Tolerance. Permission. If I could
get it, then I thought I wouldn�t feel so lonely striking out on my own and
doing something different to earn money. But I realized the other day that I�m
probably not going to get it from them, and that there�s no good reason for me
to deny my life because of their reluctance.�

�� He bent
slowly, as though he couldn�t bear for his eyes not to be perfectly on Harry�s
level as he spoke the next words. �I still want someone to come with me. But I
want someone else, someone outside my family.�

�� Harry
swallowed. He felt lost and small for a moment, and wondered if he should have
come in a persona after all. Harry Potter, the way Harry knew him, was a man of
too many failures to solve Malfoy�s problems.

�� He
concentrated on the sensation of the mask on his face, of the wings on his
back. He was still half-masked, he reminded himself. He was still the daring,
dazzling figure that Malfoy needed. Fuck, Malfoy was half making him into that by talking about his needs.
Harry could do what he had always done, adapt himself
to be what the client wanted, the perfect stranger.

�� Except I�m not strange to him.

�� If he
thought too much about that, he would panic and run out the door. He thought
about other aspects of it, instead.

�� I don�t
know if I can be your companion forever,� he said. �We�re very different. And
I�m an artist, and you want a different kind of freedom.�

�� Malfoy was
silent in turn. They had circled around several times, and Harry thought some
of the spectators were getting up their courage to approach, before Malfoy
said, �A short time would be enough.�

�� His hand
tightened on Harry�s hip in a way that seemed to suggest he didn�t mean the
words. Harry met his eyes and wondered what he should say in response. He
didn�t want to disappoint Malfoy, but neither did he want to promise too much.
And the situation was complicated by the fact that Malfoy knew who he was, so
Harry would have less luck in vanishing.

�� If that�s what I want to do.

�� In reality,
Harry didn�t think he wanted to, or at least he didn�t want to right now. The
curious eyes prying at his disguise, and defeated by the simplest
strategies�the way they danced together and defied anyone who cared to
challenge them over it�the way Malfoy�s eyes burned into him as if they wanted
to sear the mask off�

�� Harry liked this. He wasn�t being another
persona, but the dance provided a similar level of excitement.

�� Well?�
Malfoy whispered.

�� Harry
laughed and ran a caressing hand along Malfoy�s chest. �One thing you�re not is
patient,� he said.

�� I�ve never
needed to be.� Malfoy�s eyes shone for a moment like dew in the morning.
�Except with my parents, and that turned out to be useless. They acted like
their natural selves in the end, without reference to what I wanted or liked. But what about you?
Are you going to put me off?�

�� Harry
paused, soaring through the moment as easily as though the wings were real, and
then chose.

�� No.�

�� He chose
for the excitement, for the light that lifted him and blazed through him when
Malfoy smiled, for the rustle of the wings about him�

�� For the pleasure of the dance.

*

�� Draco
didn�t realize how tightly he had been strung until he heard the words that
emerged from Potter�s mouth. He closed his eyes and bowed his head, his body
shaking with tremors that made him feel as though he had narrowly escaped a
dragon�s mouth.

�� When did I start thinking that I needed not
just any companion, but Potter himself, to be happy?

�� Draco
didn�t know, but he didn�t mind the thinking.

�� He drew
Potter closer, and Potter came, staring up at him out of those green eyes that
looked all the darker and more striking because of their contrast with the
mask. Time for Draco to do something that would stake his claim and mark his
difference from the past and his union with the future more strongly than a
mere declaration.

�� He curled
his arm around Potter�s neck and kissed him on the lips.

�� A rushing
noise rose around him, a chorus of mingled gasps and laughter and cries of disgust
so thick that it resembled the ocean in Draco�s ears instead of a series of
individual sounds. It didn�t matter. Nothing mattered except the reaction of
the man he was kissing, and so far that was stiff and unresponsive. Draco
swirled his tongue gently along the lines of Potter�s lips, something that
should get him a reaction if anything would, and waited.

�� Potter
finally moved.

�� He lifted
his hand in a lazy, dream-like motion and touched Draco�s neck, then his cheek,
then the line of his nose, as though he were trying to make sure Draco hadn�t
disappeared when he began the kiss. Then he gave a soft, contented sigh and
opened his mouth in welcome.

�� The thought
flashed through Draco�s head on wings of lightning and was gone.

�� My father will be angry when he hears about
this.

�� The
lightning burned out. Draco moved closer still and tugged on the edge of one of
the wings. As Potter gurgled in pleasure, Draco forced his tongue deeper, his
body nearer, his knee between Potter�s legs.

�� Potter
pressed back, stronger than most of the lovers Draco had had,
at least if the way he nearly toppled Draco over on the dance floor was to be
believed. His wings flared wide and then wrapped close around them. Draco, his
nose suddenly full of feathers, sneezed. Potter used the chance to wrestle away
from him and stand there with one hand dramatically extended, his wings lifted
high enough that everyone could see.

�� Choose,�
Potter said, and he had altered his voice enough to be loud without masking the
tone. Draco thought he saw a few frowns from the corners of his eyes as
listeners fought to find the familiarity in the sound. �Do you have the
strength to maintain this stance, or will you turn away and walk back to your
normal life?�

�� Draco
almost smiled. In his own inimitable, overdramatic manner, Potter was asking a
question that Draco had to answer.

�� Draco bowed
his head and said solemnly, �I choose this,� and then used the extended arm to
spin Potter closer and engage in another kiss.

�� The
spectators were still staring. No one knew quite what to do, Draco sensed. On
the one hand, propriety demanded that they turn their backs on two men kissing,
or make nasty remarks about them, or hex them, or at least attempt to separate
them. On the other hand, so many things about this situation were unreal that
it seemed to become one with dreams, with mirages, with poetry.

�� Or so Draco
thought, because it was certainly a dream, the way that Potter began to kiss
him then.

�� A brilliant
circle was forming around them. Draco thought he was seeing a halo of candle
flame until he realized it was red and silver, and then he blinked and turned
his head away from Potter�s kiss. He stroked his hair to try to let him know it
was the only thing that could have made an effective distraction.

�� The silver
and red light leaked from their bodies, from the edges of Potter�s wings and
the elaborate robes that Draco wore. Draco knew what it was. Their magic was
reaching out to each other�s, creating a powerful tie that might lead to their
experiencing each other�s sensations during sex, or responding more powerfully
to pleasure, or�other things. Draco had never felt this before, so he didn�t
know exactly what ought to happen.

�� More sounds
came from outside the circle of light, but they seemed less important than ever
to Draco. He shook his head and leaned against Potter, his mouth once again
finding his, his hands slipping from shoulders to waist to hips to wings.
Potter kissed him back with something that might have been laughter trembling
on his lips.

�� Finally,
someone cleared her throat beyond the circle of magic. Draco reluctantly turned
to face her, and found it was Elizabeth Kellison, the
hostess of the party. She had her hands clasped behind her back and a calmly
inquiring look on her face as she looked back and forth between them.

�� I must ask
you to remove yourself from my party,� she said. �Though we are masked, and
thus we cannot be as angry about your insolence as it perhaps deserves, and
though this is Midsummer�s Eve and freer than any other time of the year, the
limit of license is good taste. You have surpassed those boundaries.�

�� Yes,
perhaps we have,� Draco said, and caught Potter�s hand, half-afraid that he
would retreat with someone close enough to recognize his eyes. Potter simply
looked back and forth between Draco and Kellison,
however, as if making sure that Draco was as calm as he seemed, before he bowed
to Kellison and turned towards the entrance.

�� The crowd
made way for them, murmuring doubtfully, wonderingly, angrily, excitedly.
Potter used his wings to sweep some of the more reluctant out of the way, and
Draco didn�t bother to conceal the laughter in his eyes even though he kept it
from his voice.

Many of the faces
that stared back at him looked almost hungry. Draco shook his head. He
knew that many of the younger pure-bloods spent at least some time with lovers
of the same sex, out of a desire for difference and excitement and pursuit of
the forbidden if not from a desire for life-long companions. But they didn�t
have the courage to seize their freedom the way he had seized his.

�� Courage is what won me Potter.

*

�� Harry kept
expecting the feeling of enchantment, of dancing on a high wire covered with
light, to fade as they left the party. The masks, the illusions, the grass in
the dance floor, they were all part of what had made this experience special to
him. Leaving those behind must mean leaving behind the emotions they had
inspired, and then perhaps he would regret that he had so impulsively agreed to
what Malfoy asked of him.

�� Any moment now. Surely.

�� A few steps
across the Kellisons� immaculate grounds, and the
feeling was still with him. Harry paused and tilted
his head back to the cool night air, gulping at it. When he breathed in the
summer, he thought, he would exhale his hope. He must.

�� But it was
still there, and the burning in his chest and in his mouth burned, as well, a
hole in a certainty he had had for a long time.

�� What if I can achieve the feeling of freedom
and creation I need in other ways than just by dressing up as other people? I�m
only half-masked now, and I�m experiencing more than I do on most of my
assignments.

�� How much of what I do has become routine?
The biggest rush is in the first creation of that persona, thinking about how
I�ll dress up and about how I�ll adapt myself to that situation. Planning to be
Miranda Goldreyer was more exciting than being her
was.

�� Lionel
Truth had been an exception, but Malfoy hadn�t hired him through the usual
channels and hadn�t treated him in the usual way. Harry had to wonder whether
the life he had invented for himself was staling slightly, whether he needed
something new.

�� I�ve found something new.

�� He turned,
and Malfoy was there.

�� They didn�t
retreat into the shadows. Harry thought about the people who might be watching
them from the windows of Kellison Manor, and then
decided that he didn�t give a fuck if they were. It was their own fault for
looking when their morals said they should have looked away.

�� He and
Malfoy collided, no longer held back by the formal steps of the dance or the
desire to restrain their passion before an audience. Malfoy dragged his mouth
away from Harry�s after the initial kiss and bit and licked down his neck.
Harry got a handful of Malfoy�s hair between his fingers and worked them open
and closed, letting the strands brush against his skin and awaken small, sharp
thrills.

�� I don�t
believe you,� Malfoy whispered, tugging at the collar of his robes until they
burst open and let him have more access to Harry�s skin. �You�re too good to be
real.�

�� Harry
arched his back and breathed deeply so that the wings flexed open and shut like
his fingers. �I can become anything you want me to be,� he said. �I can do
things that you�ve never dreamed of. I�m an artist.�

�� And better
than that,� Malfoy said in a guttural voice, and got his mouth where he wanted,
nipping sharply down Harry�s collarbone. Harry let his head roll back a moment
and wondered how Malfoy could have known he was sensitive there.

�� Legilimency?

�� But, for
once, he didn�t seriously consider the possibility and didn�t tense in alarm at
the prospect of someone finding out his secrets. He kissed Malfoy instead and
then hauled himself closer, climbing Malfoy�s shoulders and waist like someone
trying to ascend a mountain.

�� Malfoy
pulled back and frowned, starting to ask what he was doing, but Harry aligned
their cocks and Malfoy�s mouth fell open as he shivered and knew.

�� And the
circle of red and silver magic flashed back into their bodies, lighting them up
with sensation. Harry laughed, and held on.

*

�� Draco knew
it was mad, to be engaging in sex like this in public, where anyone who liked
might see them and then gossip the next day about how Draco Malfoy had achieved
orgasm with a winged, male lover. Where anyone could see.
Come to think of it, Draco wasn�t sure which part of that combination would
provoke the most interest from the people who might read the papers, or the
most outrage from his father.

�� But madness
was part of the tenor of the evening. It was mad for Potter to have wings on
his back. It was mad for Draco to have decided that just being a respected
businessman wasn�t enough, or that his father�s respect would never come and
that he might as well do what he liked for a change. It was mad for it to be Potter who had caught his attention in
the first place, and it was most mad of all that he felt a kind of satisfaction
whenever he thought of that, that it had been Potter.

�� It didn�t
matter.

�� Draco
curled his fingers into Potter�s shoulders and hung on. He tilted his head back
and sighed blissfully between his teeth as their cocks rubbed against each
other. He was hard, and Potter was hard, and the magic crackling back and forth
between them let them feel each other�s hardness, the blood aching against the
skin, the flush and the heat and the longing to come.

�� Potter was
panting. The sound was close to Draco�s ears and far from it, lost in a
corridor of echoes that were fascinating to listen to. Brilliant sparks leaped,
and he realized he had his eyes shut. He opened them, and found the sparks
shining, too, in Potter�s eyes.

�� Too much light. Too much heat. Too
much madness, and it wouldn�t end, instead catching
them up and forcing them relentlessly into a higher spiral. Draco had wings,
and he didn�t know when he would return to the ground.

�� Potter
moaned. Draco felt the sound as it dragged itself up from his throat, and knew
the way Potter clenched his teeth to contain it, and knew he couldn�t. The
desperation behind the sound, the hunger, the anxiety, assaulted Draco, but he
honestly had no idea whether he was feeling them as echoes of Potter�s emotions
or simply as responses from his own mind and soul.

�� His heart
stuttered. He lowered his head and gritted his teeth, slamming his hips furiously
against Potter�s, partially because he wanted to feel what would happen and
partially because he wanted to end this and come.

�� Cloth
rasped against his cock�the material of Potter�s clothes or his own, who could
say? Cool feathers brushed his face and the wings beat on his back, not
powerful enough to carry him into the sky but feeling as if they should be so.

�� Hair
touched his face. His hot breath left his throats dry. His shoulders bore the
clenching marks of fingers, and so did his hips. He rode the edge, and it was a
fucking hard and twisty edge. He had no idea when it would let him go.

�� Was he
soaring? Then it was an eagle who had snatched him,
and would set him back on the ground or let him fall at its pleasure.

�� With an
effort, Draco forced his eyes open. He didn�t remember when he had shut them,
but he obviously had, because the sensations had simply become too much to cope
with. But he knew the end was approaching at last, and nothing in the world,
imaginary eagles or real wings, would prevent him from seeing Potter�s eyes
when he came.

�� The edge
trailed before them for a few moments longer, and Draco saw flashes of blond
and grey as he saw what Potter saw, but the green and the dark were stronger�

�� Potter
convulsed, mouth stuttering as though someone were forcing it open from the
inside, his pleasure bouncing crazily through his body and then back and down
into Draco�s stomach and his hips and his legs, rooting itself in the earth,
shooting towards the heavens.

�� Draco fell.

�� The force
of his orgasm was actually terrifying. He felt as though he experienced every
separate drop of his semen as it slammed into the cloth stretched over his
crotch separately�and wasn�t that a humiliating remembrance, that he hadn�t
even taken his clothes off before they engaged in this�but perhaps naked would
have been worse�

�� The
pleasure hurt his mind. Long after it faded, he half-slumped over Potter, his
words slurred, his thoughts groping to try and find some way back home. He felt
Potter�s hands on his back and his arms around his waist, and it really did
seem as though those were the only things holding him up.

�� But as he
stood there, a dissatisfaction was born in his mind.
He tried to ignore it. It felt vulgar to be dissatisfied after sex like that, and especially when he began to
wonder if that would happen every time he and Potter were together.

�� He couldn�t
ignore it.

�� He leaned
back. Potter looked calmly at him, his eyes wild and green, his wings spread
about him in such a glory and glamour of feathers that they nearly distracted
him from his purpose. But Draco had had enough time to grow used to the wings,
or at least see them as an addition to Potter.

�� And what he
wanted was the real thing.

�� Take the
mask off,� he whispered.

*

�� Harry
froze. His thoughts had been whirling before, but now they slammed together and
froze in his mind, sticking to one another like ice cubes.

�� I�m half-masked. I came to his party, I
danced with him, I had sex with him, I promised to be with him in the future, I did everything he wanted! He has no right to demand this
of me!

�� I promised to be with him in the future.

�� Harry knew
Malfoy enough to realize that he would demand something like this for any
consort he took. No matter how disguised they might be in public, he was the
kind to demand ruthless stripping in private.

�� Or at least stripping to a level he�s
comfortable with, Harry thought, eyeing Malfoy carefully. He might allow people who are less powerful
than him or who he knows better, like his parents, to hide behind masks. But not me.

�� Malfoy
never moved. He didn�t repeat his demand, either. He just stood there, looking
steadily at Harry. His extended hand had slightly hooked fingertips, as if he
wanted to reach out and snag the edge of the mask to drag it off, but wouldn�t
do so unless Harry gave him permission.

�� Harry
burned for a moment. If Malfoy forced him to reveal himself, then it would be
Malfoy�s fault and not his if it all went sour later, if Malfoy couldn�t take
the newspapers talking about him dating Harry Potter or if his parents forced
them apart�

�� Then Harry
bowed his head, ashamed of himself.

�� Have I got that used to disclaiming
responsibility?

�� He reached
up with trembling fingers, and laid them along the edge of his mask. His hand
hurt, as if he�d been cramping it or curling it up and hadn�t noticed. He
swallowed, and thought the sound echoed further through the dark air than it
should have.

�� Take it
off,� Malfoy said, and this time there was a breathless moan behind the words
that reminded Harry of the way he�d sounded when they were having sex.

�� Mountains
seemed to rise and fall in Harry�s mind in the time it took him to haul off the
mask.

�� His face
emerged into the open air, solely as his, for the first time since he had set
up the deception of being a recluse and �retreated� to Grimmauld Place. It was
never Harry Potter who ventured out of the house. It was the Manager of
Metamorphosis, or the other people Harry played.

�� To be bare
was terrifying.

�� Harry would
have been as happy to go on staring at the ground. But, no, he couldn�t do
that. He raised his eyes to Malfoy�s face, using all the courage he had used
when walking into the Forbidden Forest to die. If he had been wrong about
Malfoy, this was a kind of death, too, and farewell all his artistry.

*

�� That bloody mask distorted things, Draco
thought as he reached out and stroked down the side of Potter�s face. I had no idea how beautiful he was.

�� In the back
of his mind, he had wondered if part of his attraction to Potter would fade once
he looked at the world with bared features. What if Draco was only drawn by the
mystery and the skill with which Potter flickered from part to part, playing
many others but never himself? It could have happened. One couldn�t simply discount things like that.

�� But Potter
with his face naked was just as wonderful and just as rare. Draco�s balls
tightened, despite his recent orgasm, when he thought that he was the only one
who had seen Potter like this in years.

�� Lovely,�
he said, voice deep because they both needed it to be. �I want you.� He put careful emphasis on the
last word and leaned down to kiss Potter again.

�� His father
would be furious. The wizarding world would be outraged. At least some of
Draco�s custom would suffer as conservative wizards and witches stopped buying
his products in shock.

�� But Draco
had someone beside him who possessed the cleverness and courage to conquer
those things.

�� And,
inspired by Harry, Draco was hardly going to matter less.

*

�� Harry felt
as though he were about to fall over. That someone could want Harry
himself�Harry Potter, the failed Auror, who had made so many mistakes in the
year after the war, who had done stupid and insignificant things that didn�t
matter nearly as much as he had wanted them to, whose intelligence and good
sense and bravery were always on loan to other people�

�� It changed
the world.

�� Harry
raised his hands and shaped them around Draco�s face, around the bones and the
eyebrows, the nostrils and lips. Draco stared at him with softly amused eyes,
raising his brows as if to ask whether he satisfied Harry.

�� You do so much more than that, Harry
thought to him. You inspire me to be
honest.

�� Trembling,
as delicately uncertain as a creature newly emerged from the chrysalis in the
act of unfolding its wings, Harry leaned in and returned the kiss.

�� Draco
smiled at him.

�� Maybe someday I can tell him about owning
and managing Metamorphosis, being all those people. If he can survive what the
world�s going to hurl at us, I don�t think he�ll run.

�� Harry
closed his eyes. The promise of �someday� having someone to trust with his
secrets was more than he had ever possessed.

�� I want you,� he whispered back, and his
words seemed as clear and pure as the starfire these
nights were named for.

�� I am freer than I was.

�� The End.
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Starfire Nights