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A Year's Temptation	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 28515 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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

Chapter Five—May

            “So we’ll spend two days on the ocean and…” Harry glanced up. “What do you think? A day in the sanctuary the Aztec wizards have up in the mountains? Or do you want to spend the next five days in San Luis Potosí?”

            Ginny smiled at him. “Wherever you think best, Harry. You were the one who decided to arrange this holiday, after all.”

            Harry smiled back, but he had to work hard not to snap the quill with which he was writing the letter that would detail his holiday to Kingsley, so that his superior would know where he was in case of an emergency. He wanted input from Ginny; this was supposed to be for her, really, and he didn’t want to arrange a schedule or location that would displease her.

            But always there was the shadow in the back of her eyes, just like there was the shadow that always hung between them now.

            Ginny had watched the events of his last meeting with Malfoy in Harry’s Pensieve, and since then she had spent a lot of time avoiding his gaze, answering slowly when he spoke to her, and giving him desperately sad looks when she thought he wasn’t watching. Most of the time, it drove Harry frantic. He could feel his marriage practically falling apart around his ears, when he’d taken measures he thought should save it.

            The rest of the time, he was angry. He had tried so hard, and he’d kept his promise to her. Why couldn’t she be contented with that?

            And then he would feel guilty for feeling angry, and waver back into fear again.

            “Two days on the ocean, a day in the sanctuary, and four days in San Luis Potosí,” he said, making his voice light and turning back to the parchment. “I think that will work.”

            Ginny made a soft, uninterested sound beside him. Then she said, “Have you told Malfoy you’ll be leaving for Mexico?”

            “Not yet,” Harry said. “He has a Quidditch game this Saturday. I’ll tell him then.”

            “So you’ll watch it?”

            Harry took a deep breath and glanced up. “Yes. Is that a problem?”

            God, her smile was so sad and so bitter that it stung Harry more fiercely than Alecto Carrow’s acid curse had. “Why should it be?” she asked, turning away. She used a hand to shade her eyes as she looked out the window. “After all, your lover deserves to know how long the holiday you take with your wife is.”

            Harry closed his eyes. “Please, Ginny, don’t be like this,” he whispered.

            “And how should I be?” Her voice was as pitilessly clear as the shriek Harry had heard from Malfoy’s throat when he was sick back in March. “My husband takes on a lover—only to save that lover’s life, of course—and then doesn’t want to talk about him with his wife?”

            Startled, Harry looked at her again, but he could only see her profile, and he’d never been good at reading her mood from anything less than a full expression. “I’m not his lover,” he said. “I just make him come.”

            “And he made you come, too,” Ginny muttered, “More wildly, more happily than I ever do.”

            Harry flushed crimson. He didn’t know how to explain how different that was. Malfoy had turned Veela magic on him that evening, and he’d hated it in retrospect: that feeling of absolute lack of control, absolute surrender, pleasure so great it choked him and made him scream. With Ginny, Harry was careful and held himself in check, taking control of his body so he could guide hers to climax. Or, at least, he had. They hadn’t made love since her accident, because her spine was still too fragile, and when Harry had offered to pleasure her in other ways, Ginny had simply shaken her head.

            “You’re the only one who makes me feel like I want to feel,” he said, hoping that would help.

            Ginny sighed. “The Pensieve showed me, Harry. There’s no way you didn’t enjoy that.”

            His blush was so hot that Harry felt uncomfortable. He coughed and stared down, not seeing the parchment in front of him. “It’s—how good it felt doesn’t matter,” he said. He knew his voice was weak, but he had to try to explain. Now that he thought about it, it made perfect sense that Ginny would feel hatred for Harry’s enjoyment. She might be feeling inadequate after the accident, sure that Harry preferred Malfoy’s embrace because she couldn’t compete on that playing field right now. “I like being able to choose what I do, Gin. And I couldn’t, with him.”

            “He used Veela allure?” For some reason, she sounded surprised.

            Harry glanced up, and reminded himself that Pensieves showed only what happened, not the inner, private thoughts of everyone involved. “Yes, he did. I agreed to let him touch me, but that moment when I start trying to pull away? Yeah. That’s the point where he called it, so I would stop trying to get free and surrender to him.”

            She turned fully to face him, and her expression was open and forgiving in a way Harry hadn’t seen in months. He couldn’t help reaching out and embracing her, breathing in the scent of her hair as she leaned against him.

            “Harry,” she whispered. “Harry. I didn’t know.” Her hands wandered up and tangled with his hair in turn. “Oh, you must think I’m an awful person, the way I’ve gone on.”

            “Not at all.” Harry closed his eyes. “This would have been hard for me if you were the one who had to be his mate. I know it’s difficult for you. And—sometimes I wish I hadn’t started this compromise at all.” He still didn’t see what else he could have done—nothing would spare Malfoy and yet preserve some semblance of their lives—but he wished he hadn’t been forced into making this decision. “I want to come home and forget he exists. Each time. I promise.”

            Liar, said his subconscious.

            Harry ignored it. It was wrong. What reaction he had to Malfoy was just that, reaction, and if he tried to tear down the barriers between them, because—

            Because he’s incredibly stupid? Because the Veela controls him more than he ever knew?

            Then Harry would just put them back again. He felt sorry for Malfoy, but he owed Ginny a greater duty than mere pity.

            He said nothing while she cried; she didn’t like having her tears acknowledged. And then she sat up, and began talking gaily of the holiday in Mexico, which places they should visit, and how she really wanted to see cathedrals more than sanctuaries, could he add an extra day in the city? And a large Muggle city. She wanted to see that. And perhaps some of the small villages?

            Harry felt the first touch of real happiness he’d had in a while, unless one counted that day on the pitch with Malfoy. Which didn’t count at all, of course.

            Liar, said his subconscious.

            Harry ignored it. He was really quite good at that.

*

            Draco shook his head at himself as he flew rings around the Cannons’ incompetent Seeker. He wondered that he could ever have thought his mate was in the crowd that day in February, when he’d played in front of Potter’s partner and wife. The sensation was incredibly different now that he knewHarry was there.

            Now, strength seemed practically to flow from his mate to him, a cord of warmth and magical power that struck Draco in the middle of the back. When he glanced down, he caught Harry’s eyes at once, and he could even see them, too, in all their brilliant green, from this height.

            Surely someone will see and declare this advantage I gain from him illegal any moment now!

            But no one did, and Draco flew on, warmed both by the sun above and the second sun below that shone only for him.

            The Cannons would never have been a challenge, except perhaps for the one week in March when Draco had been dying for Harry’s touch. Draco danced around the Seeker, the Falcons’ Chasers danced around their Bludgers, and the Cannons’ Keeper might as well have been a piece of Swiss cheese, so ineffectively did he block the Falcons’ shots with the Quaffle. Draco listened to their fans cheer from beneath him, and smiled complacently.

            He realized how intently he’d been listening for one voice only when he heard it.

            It was simple, just a call of his name—his last name—but it struck Draco like a Bludger of its own. Heat flared through his ears, traveled down his body, and made his heart throb and his vision waver. He licked his lips and turned his broom so that he could observe Harry again.

            Harry, who was on his feet, one arm pumping in the air, his face flushed with excitement.

            Draco had to fight to keep himself from growing wings. He wanted to spread them and turn them so that Harry could admire them. Anythingto make his mate as infatuated with him as Draco was with Harry right in that moment.

            Then a real Bludger whistled past his head, and he reminded himself that he was in the middle of a Quidditch game. And that Harry was the Veela’s mate, really, and not his, so he should be thinking in those terms.

            The Bludger traveled past a second time. Doubtless the Cannons’ Beaters had heard about how formidable Draco suddenly was, and wanted to take him out of commission as soon as possible.

            And Draco thought of another way he could impress Harry.

*

            Harry had meant to stay as academic and reserved as possible, so that when he placed these memories in the Pensieve to show to Ginny, she would have nothing to blame him for.

            But he couldn’t help himself. It was Quidditch, and professional Quidditch at that. Harry hadn’t been to a game like this in almost a year. And at the last one, he’d been there as an Auror, watching out for a threat to a star player, and had to dash out halfway through the match to apprehend their suspect.

            Here, he was completely and totally absorbed in what happened in front of him, judging Malfoy’s Seeker moves with a practiced eye, and he warmed to what he did and found himself on his feet yelling along with the rest when Malfoy executed a perfect turn in midair.

            Then the Beaters focused on Malfoy and began slinging their Bludgers at him. Harry felt a touch of concern, but shrugged it off. Bludgers were part of the hazards of every Seeker’s job. Malfoy could dodge them, certainly.

            Then Malfoy turned towardsthem.

            Harry felt every muscle in his back tense. He leaned forwards, then back again as he realized a tall man’s head in front of him blocked his view. His breath came so short that his vision fuzzed for a moment, and he licked his lips. He wished now that he’d bought the Omnioculars a man outside the pitch had been selling.

            Full sunshine silhouetted Malfoy for a moment, and then both Beaters twisted in a well-coordinated movement and swung their bats, hitting the Bludgers towards him with a dull thumpthat echoed louder to Harry than any other sound in the world at that moment.

            Malfoy!

            He knew he cried the name, though what he hoped to do from the ground was rather a moot point. If his Firebolt had been beside him at that moment, he would have hopped on it and gone to rescue Malfoy, and never mind that it would have caused the Falcons to forfeit the game.

            Malfoy balanced there on his broom, poised, so unconcerned that Harry believed for one long moment he hadn’t seen the balls coming at all.

            And then he flipped forwards, and began to dance with them.

            There was no other word for what he did. The balls wove around each other, vicious iron slugs worse than any Muggle bullet, which Harry had occasionally seen close at hand when the Aurors’ jurisdiction crossed over into a Muggle one. They both hit a Beater’s bat at the same time, and once again caromed towards the Seeker. Harry almost imagined he could hear them uttering hungry shrieks, eager to take and down prey.

            Malfoy dropped neatly out of the middle of them, so that one dodged past him to the right and one to the left. The Beaters hurried over and hit them as soon as possible, once again turning towards them the waiting Seeker.

            This time, Harry held his breath and waited to see what Malfoy would do.

            Lazily, it seemed, he waited until they were right in front of his broom, and then he wheeled head over bristles, turning backwards faster than the Bludgers could possibly move. For a moment, the move so confused the enchanted balls that they wavered in midair, and then started to wander off in pursuit of other players. The Cannons’ Beaters, probably convinced by Malfoy’s flying skills that he was still a danger, chased after them and herded them back towards their chosen target.

            This time, the Beaters made sure they came from opposite sides and that each traced a wavering course, so that it seemed Malfoy couldn’t possibly pull any trick that would enable him to avoid both.

            Harry felt his throat tighten. If he were ordinarily someone who prayed, he would have been tempted to do it then.

            Malfoy flung up a lazy hand, and then began whirling in place. Still he didn’t move, though, and still the Bludgers were free to fly towards him. Harry distantly felt a pain in his knuckles, and guessed that his hands were clenching too hard.

            He didn’t care. He had to do something. Or Malfoy had to, rather. Didn’t he see the Bludgers?

            They flew towards him. Closer. Closer. The one on the left would brush his leg if it flew a few more inches.

            And then Malfoy simply rose from between them, in such a whirl of speed that he briefly became a blur like the bird his team was named for. The Bludgers tried to alter course after him, but they were flying too fast themselves. They slammed together with a crack that attracted eyes from all over the pitch.

            Harry wasn’t the only one to surge to his feet in the next moment, yelling in sheer exultation.

            God, he can fly. He can really fly.

            Harry had intended to speak to Malfoy briefly after the game, if at all, and return home as soon as possible. Now he knew it would have to be a longer conversation. No one who had ever played Seeker could let a move like that pass unremarked.

*

            Draco accepted the congratulations of his teammates and the compliments of other Seekers on his technique complacently. His team had won the match, of course. And normally Draco quite adored the fawning that followed for its own sake, but in this case, he wanted to wait and see a particular special person he hoped would come up and speak to him soon.

            He had caught just a glimpse of Harry’s face. But that had been enough. It had simultaneously satisfied him and stirred a desire for more.

            He recognized the sensation that trickled up his throat, like swallowing hot tea in reverse. One of the books on Veela had described it.

            The Veela in him was in the mood to court its mate.

            Draco would have laughed—after all, the mating had come before the courting, for them—but the emotions that filled him didn’t lend themselves to laughter, except perhaps short bursts of it snatched between snoggings. The urge to displayconsumed him. He wanted to show his wings to Harry, to show off his flying to Harry, to show how well he could cast spells and how powerful his magic was. He wanted to see those green eyes soften with wonder and delight, with awe and adoration for him.

            And it was mattering to him less and less now whether those emotions were his or the Veela’s. He wantedHarry. Did it really matter why?

            Harry would almost certainly say it did. Pansy would say it did, Draco knew. But he was becoming accustomed to considering the needs of the Veela before Pansy’s, and—

            Well.

            He would deal with Harry’s objections as they came up.

            Finally,there he was, shoving his way through the thick press of people gathered around the other players. His eyes were still brilliant with joy, the kind that Draco had seen there when they played each other a few weeks ago, plus something else that Draco thought might be sheer appreciation. It was easier to trace another fellow’s movements when you were below him, after all, rather than right beside him and competing for the same Snitch to boot.

            “What a wonderful game,” Harry said warmly, seizing Draco’s arm in a hand that made him feel as if his muscles had briefly turned to melting butter. “And you were a large part of what was wonderful about it.”

            Draco drew Harry carefully towards the back of the room and away from the crowd, wishing that some place sheltered enough for him to spread his wings existed. But he couldn’t risk it without rumors getting back to the entire wizarding world, given how many reporters were here.

            “Someone who heard that might think you were flirting with me,” he murmured, bending his head so that his eyes fixed on Harry’s.

            Typically, Harry flushed and shifted backwards, only to find that Draco had casually curled one of his own hands around Harry’s so he could only go so far. Then he summoned that courage that Draco knew had led him to make this bargain in the first place, and shifted his eyes up. “They might think that, yes,” he said. “But since we’re both married, they wouldn’t be very smart for thinking it.”

            Draco laughed softly. Harry was not as good at denying the attraction as he was at exploiting it. “Marriage matters very little in the face of a juicy rumor,” he said, and then turned the conversation towards the game, since it seemed Harry absolutely did notwant to continue this discussion. The Veela needed to hear more compliments from its mate’s mouth, and Draco had to admit he wouldn’t mind them either. “So, what was your favorite part of the match?”

            “When you flew out from between those two Bludgers.” Harry’s face held something akin to awe, and Draco remembered that, as a Seeker himself, Harry would have an excellent idea of how much skill that maneuver had taken. “It was brilliant, of course, but stupid. Why’d you do it?”

            “To show off,” Draco said simply.

            Harry rolled his eyes. “And that’s what dominates every game? When you finally went after the Snitch, you looked in deadly earnest to me.”

            “Finally?”

            “You could have taken the Snitch at any time, Draco, and you know it.”

            Just like at their Quidditch game, Harry realized he’d broken his self-imposed barrier against saying Draco’s first name a moment later and flushed. Unlike at their Quidditch game, Draco saw no reason to deny himself the pleasure of noticing it. He’d ignored it in favor of kissing Harry last time, but that wasn’t an option here.

            “I like the way you say my name,” he murmured.

            Harry waved his free hand, his face still red. “No. Forget it, Malfoy. I shouldn’t have done that, not when—“

            “I don’t want to ignore it,” Draco said, his mood shifting. He enjoyed the compliments and the way that Harry kept tumbling into a deeper intimacy despite himself, but he hated the evasion Harry engaged in, attempting to deny something that Draco didn’t want to deny any longer. “What’s the harm in using each other’s first names, Harry? What’s the harm in visiting me, playing Quidditch with me?” He lifted his other hand and stroked a curl of that wild black hair, taking a deep breath. Pansy’s utterly tamed and neat blonde hair had become more unappealing than ever to him lately. “What’s the harm in letting me fuck you?” he asked into Harry’s ear.

            A sudden twist he’d probably learned in Auror training, and Harry broke free. Draco blinked as the Veela cried out in the back of his mind. He hadn’t realized just how close they’d been, or how much he’d been enjoying that closeness.

            Harry’s eyes were darker than they had been, though Draco didn’t know if that was honestly released passion or if he’d moved into a different patch of light. His voice had altered completely, becoming clipped and harsh. “It’s all the difference in the world. God, Draco—Malfoy, you know it is. We’re married. You seem to want to forget that. I won’t.” He glanced at the ring on Draco’s finger as if to memorize the sight.

            “I want this more,” Draco said.

            Well. He hadn’t meant to be quite that blunt. Perhaps the Veela had seized control of his mouth temporarily. But it was no use regretting the past. He watched Harry to see what he would do.

            Harry laughed, a short, sharp sound not much different from a grunt. “That doesn’t matter,” he said. “I don’t.”

            Draco lowered his voice, which had the effect of making Harry lean in to hear more whether he wanted to or not. “I think you’ll find that I’m quite insistent when it comes to getting what I want,” he said.

            “Yeah, you would be,” said Harry. “And you don’t quite seem to understand, Malfoy. I’m here to give you what you need to survive. No more than that. My loyalty lies with Ginny, still. That’s what I chose to be my life, and that will be my life long after the Veela has faded from your mind.” He put his chin up stubbornly.

            There was a limit to the Veela’s unconditional adoration of its mate, after all. Instead of thinking how beautiful Harry was, Draco felt a surge of irritation. “And for that, you would—“

            “You’re the one who’s stepping past boundaries you set, not me!” Harry’s eyes sparked, and so did his wand, which he must have pulled out when Draco wasn’t looking. “We all made this agreement, and Ginny and Pansy and I have all tried to keep it. You’re the only one who wants to break it.”

            “I had help in breaking it,” Draco snarled.

            Harry flushed again. “Against my will,” he said. “And that started out as my helping you get what you needed, so you wouldn’t die. That’s the only reason I ever touched you, let alone let you touch me.”



            That hurt, emotionally, more than anything had since his parents’ deaths. Draco put a steadying hand on his own chest, and supposed, grimly, that the Veela must still be separate enough from him to have its own opinion on events. He would not take rejection from Harry bloody Potter so hard.

            “So you were only trying to be a hero at the start,” he said. “That doesn’t matter now. It’s gone further than that, and you know it.”

            Harry ignored him entirely. “Look, do you need my hand now?” he asked abruptly. “Or will you be all right without it for another week and a half?”

            “Why a week and a half?” Draco demanded. That seemed an oddly specific time.

            “I’m visiting Mexico with Ginny.” Harry shrugged. “We’re leaving tomorrow and not returning until the Wednesday after next. If you start starving and dying in that time, it’s a bit hard for me to Floo into the Manor and do what’s necessary, you know.”

            Draco choked as that jealousy attacked him again, bitter as rotten eggs. Rushing forwards, he put his hands on either side of Harry’s head, pinning him to the wall, encircling him. Harry just firmed his jaw and looked up at him without a trace of fear, his hand lightly touching his wand.

            “I don’t want you with her, like that,” he whispered.

            “Then we have a problem, Malfoy, because, you see, she’s my wife.” Harry gave his head a slight shake. “I can see how that fact might have escaped you, since you’re so insistent on my belonging to you. But, regardless, I’ve made the plans.” He folded his arms, his face as expressive as a sheet of iron. “If I need to touch you before and after, then I’ll do it. That’s why I asked you that question.”

            Draco closed his eyes for a moment, resisting the impulse to scream. It would do no good. Could the Veela survive that long without the hand of its mate?



            The Veela answered the way it usually did, without words. They could not speak to each other; so far as Draco knew, the Veela was largely unaware of his existence except as a block on its actions and its desires. But it dreamed, and it fantasized, and Draco knew from the contents of the fantasies what the body they both shared needed to live.

            “I can live until you come back,” he said, opening his eyes.

            Harry’s burgeoning smile froze and died when Draco added, “But when you come back, I’ll want your mouth.”

            Harry’s eyes slid downwards, probably without his willing it, and sought Draco’s groin. Draco leaned slightly into him. He was half-hard, and had been since he touched Harry. Now his erection stiffened completely.

            “And there’s no way around it?” Harry looked slightly sick.

            “No.” Draco shook his head and ran a hand through Harry’s hair, lowering his head into it to memorize the scent. His mouth twitched with the urge to bite, but Veela only did that in extreme cases, when they wanted to track their mates and keep them safe, and then only at the mate’s request. “Time to prove to me how much of a hero you really are,” he whispered into Harry’s ear.

            Harry shrugged stiffly, his shoulder nearly bumping into Draco’s chin. “Nothing heroic about it,” he said. “Just doing what everyone needs. And if this needs to happen, then yes, I’ll do it.”

            Draco pulled back, quick enough that Harry blinked in the wake of his speed, and then put his hand on Harry’s pulsepoint, briefly pinning his head in place. “Have you thought about what you need?” he asked.

            Harry’s face became that iron mask again. “I’ll see you on Thursday, Malfoy,” he said, pried Draco’s hand away, and walked out of the locker room with a noticeable stiffness in his stride. Sadly, Draco thought, watching him, none of that stiffness was due to arousal.

            Probably.

            Most of the well-wishers had cleared away while he spoke to Harry. He stripped off his Quidditch gear, went in to shower, and ended up wanking while he dreamed of Harry on his knees, mouth open to suck his cock.

            The moment of orgasm came when he imagined Harry speaking his first name, deliberately and with affection aforethought.

*

            Mexico was a misery for Harry.

            They had decided to travel part of the time as Muggles, and so, though they Flooed into a local wizarding station, they checked into a Muggle hotel with the help of currency changed in Diagon Alley. The hotel was on the Gulf of Mexico, letting them see the rolling breakers bounding up any time they glanced out the window. They could walk on the beach in the morning—well, Harry walked, pushing Ginny in a wheelchair—and feel the slap of the air, wet and cold, against them, and watch the gray of the morning slowly clear as the sun lifted. Harry had never seen gold like it, nor blue or green like the colors in the water.

            Ginny laughed and enjoyed it, as she enjoyed their trip in a glass-bottomed boat to a small island whose name tripped Harry up every time he tried to pronounce it, and the sunlight they spent an hour in each day, and the bus they rode around the city—which bumped them up and down so roughly that several times they left the seats—and the Spanish that buzzed around them instead of English.

            But, too often, her face darkened. When she caught sight of the wheelchair wheels or her crutches, for example, or when she looked at Harry, as if she were remembering they hadn’t made love since March.

            Harry would speak quickly when he saw her looking like that, trying to draw her attention to some trace of color or quirk of the ocean or air she hadn’t noticed yet, or using his incompetent Spanish to make the people around him stare and her laugh. Sometimes it worked. When it didn’t, she would sink into a gentle, resigned silence for at least an hour, while Harry tried and failed to find something to cheer her up.

            He felt as if her happiness were a great glass ball he was carrying, and the slightest bump would make it drop and shatter.

            He found himself falling into the same mood that he assumed for the inevitable occasions each year when political obligations forced him to acknowledge his part in defeating Voldemort, and he had to become the hero people expected to see: not the battered, wounded, patient, dutiful Auror he actually was most of the time, but the gleaming persona with equally gleaming eyes and hair and teeth, and only the single, famous scar on his forehead to mar his appearance. He could make them believe he was that hero, through nothing more than the way he turned his head and the words he spoke.

            He managed the same thing with Ginny, but it was bloody exhausting.

            They left the ocean on Tuesday, and Apparated to the Aztec sanctuary. Harry didn’t remember much about it. Some shadows, some music that impressed him with its dissonance, some carvings in stone that looked important, and at one point a guide told them a story that seemed to Harry’s confused brain to include the moon, an army of stars, a coyote, a woman with a skirt of serpents, and a sacrifice of some kind. He couldn’t pay more attention than that. All his attention had to go to Ginny.

            She appeared to enjoy it. At least the sanctuary took her out of herself, and she didn’t fall into another of her apathetic silences.

            On Wednesday came San Luis Potosí, and for several days they wandered through tangled streets and into more cathedrals than Harry could count, every one of them thronged with shadows and age. Ginny did enjoy that, leaning back in the wheelchair to take pictures, and to admire the soaring ceilings. Harry was grateful; he could relax for long moments when her eyes weren’t on him, and let his sore muscles uncoil from their tense positions, before Ginny turned back to him to share a comment and he had to do everything that would show he loved her and nothing that might suggest he was thinking of Malfoy.

            The more times he had to do that, the more it frightened him. Enjoying himself with Ginny had never been an effort before.

            But he tried to stay cheerful while they were in the city, and then when they went to Morelia, the large Muggle city that Ginny had asked to visit. She took pictures of everything, from streets with four lanes of traffic—which Ginny had never seen before—to bougainvillea plants to a tiny green spider that fell onto Harry’s shoulder and tried to climb to the ground with a small thread of silk. Harry knew that one photograph would come out with him gingerly gripping the silk and placing the spider back on the ground, as he hadn’t the slight idea whether it was venomous. He only helped it didn’t show his grimace.

            They lingered in Morelia for their remaining time in Mexico, and didn’t end up visiting the villages that Ginny had wanted to see after all. As they prepared to Floo home, however, Ginny squeezed Harry’s hand and said that she didn’t mind.

            “We’ll just have to see them on the next trip to Mexico,” she said.

            Harry smiled. He knew he smiled. It just feltlike forcing the muscles of his face to work when they’d been hit with a numbing charm.

            Their house was almost a relief after all that, though, since he was alone with Ginny, Harry wasn’t sure why it should be. Perhaps it had something to do with not being in public any longer, however. If Ginny grew upset at him, they could raise their voices and argue as they never could with Muggles watching.

            He waited for Ginny to begin the first argument, but she never had a chance. A large black eagle-owl sat in the center of their dining room table, clearly awaiting them, and the moment Harry stepped out of the fireplace with Ginny held carefully in his arms, it began beating its wings and leaping up and down. Its hoots were urgent and erratic, and Harry could see that it had a letter tied to its leg.

            “It’s Malfoy, isn’t it?” Ginny asked, her voice curiously flat.

            Harry winced, but tried not to let it show as he helped her into her chair and arranged the blankets over her legs. The Healers had said she should be able to walk, carefully, without crutches in a few more weeks, but she’d moved around a lot in Mexico, with them and with the wheelchair. She shouldn’t strain herself.

            “For God’s sake, Harry,” Ginny said, her voice tired. No, more than that, Harry thought, stepping back to study her expression—but she foiled his effort by turning her face away and shutting her eyes. “Just take the damn letter.”

            Harry nodded, not that she could see it, and went to the owl. It leaped to his shoulder, making him wince as the talons clamped down on his skin. Then a scaled leg was thrust in his face, and he removed the letter from it, his hands feeling as numb as his face as he undid the twine.

            The letter was brief—Come to the Manor when you receive this, Harry—and the moment he opened it, the owl launched itself from him and out the window. Malfoy hadn’t wanted a reply, Harry thought, or hadn’t appreciated the necessity of it. He had just assumed Harry would do what he was told.

            He started to put the letter down, but Ginny’s voice spoke from behind him, all the carefully cultivated cheer gone out of it. “You might as well go, Harry. If you don’t, you’ll lie awake wondering about him all night.”

            “That’s not fair, Gin,” Harry said quietly, folding and then tearing the letter into small pieces, which he Vanished with a flick of his wand. “I don’t care about him morethan you. And I only started this—“

            “So he wouldn’t die, I know. I’ve heard all the justifications twice over, remember, Harry?” A weak sound, which might be Ginny’s hand waving and then falling back against the arm of the chair. “Just go.”

            An abrupt, stinging feeling caught him in the corners of his eyes. Astonished, Harry realized that, for the first time in years, he felt as if he might cry from sheer frustration

            He shook his head, and strode out of the house, heading for a point where he could Apparate.

*

            Draco had been waiting.

            The moment Harry appeared outside the Manor, Draco met him. He hadn’t forgotten Harry’s specification that they meet in a place where Harry could Apparate away when he found the passion becoming too intense for him. So Draco took his hand as he still stood there on the path that led up to the double doors, and drew him towards the immense gardens around the back of the house. Harry followed without protest. Draco could feel his weariness in his steps.

            Draco probably didn’t care that much about that. How much he cared seemed increasingly to depend on how much Harry would allowhim to care.

            The gardens had once been his mother’s pride, and then her hobby during the year Lucius was in Azkaban and she still lived in the Manor, but they had long since gone wild, which Draco permitted, as that made a sort of memorial to his mother. For this evening, though, he had instructed the house-elves to clear a path through the shaggy shrubbery and to the gazebo that he remembered as standing opposite the Manor’s large dining room windows. The house-elves had also spared no effort to clean the gazebo, and return it to its former, shining white. A bench sat inside, and two carved chairs, all softened by a series of blankets decorated with dragons that Draco had ordered brought from the Manor. He had known the moment he remembered the gazebo that he wanted to sit on the bench there while Harry knelt in front of him and sucked his cock.

            The Veela inside him stirred now and then, in anticipation, but barely did anything else. Draco supposed his constant fantasies of Harry in the last week—he no longer tried to block them from his waking mind—and the fact that he hadn’t slept with Pansy had helped.

            Draco felt a sort of academic interest in the future of his own marriage. How long would it last before Pansy decided that the insult to her dignity outweighed the benefits of being a Malfoy wife? Draco thought it might not be much longer.

            Still, he wanted her to be the one who began divorce proceedings. Doing it himself would make him look like the one too eager to pursue a lover, and also require confessing the presence of his Veela side to the world much too soon. With Pansy in charge of things, he estimated he had at least a few more months.

            He shook the thoughts away as he and Harry mounted the white stone steps into the gazebo at last, and he sat down on the bench. “Now, Harry,” he breathed. He had dreamed of this, wanked to it, and spied on the Veela’s own brightly-colored daydreams. He was sure that the reality would surpass that daydream, the way it always did when it came to Harry.

            Harry knelt without a word, and reached out to unbutton his robes. Draco raised an eyebrow. “Not going to undress me?” he asked. “Not going to offer me a word of protest?”

            Harry tossed his head back and looked up at him, face just barely visible in the light of the small lanterns the elves had hung around the edges of the gazebo’s roof. His jaw worked, and his eyes were nearly black. Draco blinked. It wasn’t arousal that made them look like that; with arousal, Harry’s eyes grew brighter. Defeat? Despair?

            “I have to do this,” Harry said quietly. “But I don’t have to enjoy it. And I don’t think it will satisfy you very much, since I’ve never done it before.”

            His fingers pried back Draco’s robes before he could really process the words, and then his pants, and then Harry leaned forwards, with a slight gulp that Draco more felt than heard, and put his mouth around Draco’s erection.

            Draco could feel the fumbling hesitancy in the motion. It was true he’d never had a blowjob from a man, but he suspected many must exist out there with more expert mouths than Harry had.

            But the heat and the wetness that graced Harry’s mouth were as good as anything Pansy had ever had, and the mere thought that it wasn’t Pansy doing this, but his lover and the Veela’s mate, heightened his pleasure. Draco closed his eyes and leaned back a bit, until he half-reclined, spreading his legs further.

            “I’m enjoying it very much, thank you,” he said.

            He wasn’t in a position to make eye contact with Harry, but he could feel the glare that answered his words. And then Harry moved forwards a little more, perhaps thinking he could get this over with quickly, and swallowed around him.

            Draco cried out in surprise. He had felt the motion before, of course, but the unexpectednessof it… He reached down, clawing for something, and briefly touched Harry’s face before Harry slapped his hand away. Then Harry swallowed again, and the heat and the wetness of his mouth combined together into one long, strong, sucking, continuous pull.

            Draco didn’t know where Harry got the endurance or the air for this. He didn’t fucking care. He wasn’t even embarrassed by the small cries that he knew escaped from his mouth now. He rather wished a crowd of people surrounded the gazebo, in fact, so that he could revel in enjoying something he knew they’d never have. The Veela uttered a series of crooning cries in his head, to complement his own sounds.

            He felt the long, slow, delicious moment when a pool of golden warmth ignited in his belly, and then his muscles tightened, and his groin flexed, and his hips lifted, and he knew that only—in only moments—there, right, almost there—

            He came with a sob, as the pool in his belly took fire. It had never been like that before; he’d always been able to warn Pansy in time. And then the warmth of the orgasm rushed up through his belly and torso in long searing threads to the rest of his body, and that had never happened before, either.

            He dropped finally, utterly spent, and heard Harry spit. Draco rolled over on his side, unable to open his eyes, and reached lazily for Harry’s hair.

            “Good night, Malfoy,” he heard, and forced his eyes open then, to see Harry flicking his wand to perform a few simple cleaning charms on himself.

            And preparing to depart.

            He’d denied Draco even a look at his face, so Draco could see if it was flushed with anger, or mortification, or lust. As he’d denied Draco a sight of him for more than a week.

            Draco rose without thought, and summoned his wings, knowing how much Harry liked them. He swept them around Harry’s hunched shoulders, and tugged. To his secret delight, he was indeed stronger than the fragile bones in the wings would have led him to assume, and Harry stumbled back towards him. Draco rearranged his wings again, and now Harry was held against his chest.

            This was closer than they had ever been like this, and oh, yes, it was much better. The Veela purred in the back of his head like a cat gone drugged on catnip. Draco dropped his arms over Harry’s torso and kissed his cheek.

            Harry made a noise like a child’s protest against going to sleep. The wings relaxed him, Draco knew, enough that he found it hard to want to escape. His hands rose and hovered over the edge of the pinions, then dropped back to his side. But he did still shake his head. “Stop it, Malfoy,” he whispered.

            “If I never do anything else with you, Harry, I’m going to make sure you speak my first name without prompting,” Draco muttered, and then rolled back on the bench so that he lay embracing Harry with both arms and wings. Harry relaxed on his chest. For a moment, he seemed inclined to speak, but in the end it lapsed into a deep breath and another restless movement of his hands.

            “Now,” Draco whispered. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

            Even mostly limp, Harry still whipped his head around and spluttered with shock. “What do you mean—“

            “You came in looking as if you’d spent the last week fighting Death Eaters with no break, not on holiday.” Draco stroked his hair out of his eyes and nuzzled behind his ear. “And since you left me here to seethe about your wife for that entire time, don’t you think you owe me an explanation?”

            It was not, perhaps, the clearest of logic, but Harry, his head swimming slightly with the soporific effect Draco now knew that a Veela’s wings exuded, didn’t seem to notice. He sighed, and said, “I tried to keep Ginny happy, and it didn’t work.”

            “Explain to me why not.” Draco shifted a bit so he could trace one finger down Harry’s neck. Harry didn’t seem to notice or mind.

            “I—I promised her a holiday without anyone but us,” Harry murmured, closing his eyes. “No talk of you, no talk of—of anything else that makes us upset and worried. Doing what she wanted to do, seeing what she wanted to see.

            “And it was so hard. She still appeared unhappy sometimes, and I worked to get her out of those moods, and each time it was more and more of an effort.”

            “And did she try to make you happy?” Draco probed softly. The Veela in the back of his head hummed and sent another daydream to him. It had had its fill of sex with Harry for now; it wanted to do something for its mate, content him and make him completely and totally its. Draco rolled again, until he lay flat on his back and Harry directly on his chest, cocooned within the shell of his wings.

            “Of course she did,” Harry said, with a trace of his old defiance. “But it didn’t really work.”

            “Why not?” Draco turned his head and nipped and lipped at Harry’s ear, pleased when his breaths grew shallow with arousal.

            “Because—Malfoy, please don’t—“

            Draco took his teeth away, but only so he could stroke Harry’s cheek, now resting only a few inches from his. “Harry,” he said in a tone that he filled with honey and sugar, “tell me why. Why weren’t you happy, in a beautiful place with your gorgeous wife?” It took an effort, but for the sake of seduction he kept his jealousy out of his tone.

            “Because I used to know why I loved her, and now the reasons have gone away.”

            Draco restricted his surprise to a simple tightening of his arms. So it wasn’t what he had hoped to hear—or what the Veela in him had hoped to hear—that Harry missed him constantly and didn’t want his wife any more, but it was still more revealing than he would have expected. Of course, with the Veela’s wings around him, Harry really had no secrets any more. “What do you mean?” he asked.

            “I just—“ Harry’s eyelids drifted up and down. “Our relationship was based on honesty. She was the only one who knew everything about me, and she confessed dreams she had that her family never would have understood.” A faint smile took over his face. “I’m surprised she had any of those left after a childhood with six nosey brothers, but she did.”

            Swallowing his annoyance, Draco moved his hand up and down Harry’s shoulder in an effort to make him go on.

            “And our relationship was based on really great sex,” Harry whispered. “And on the friendship we had when we were kids, and the fact that she knew why I tried to save people’s lives, and I knew why she did what she did.

            “And now the honesty causes all sorts of problems. She knows exactly what I do with you, but she hates it—“

            “She knows it exactly?” Draco wouldn’t have thought Harry had the courage, or the vocabulary, to confess what happened during their trysts to his wife in any kind of detail. “How is that?”

            “I volunteered to put the memories in a Pensieve for her after each time,” Harry whispered. “I’ll have to do it again after this. She’ll be angrier than ever.” Abruptly, he stirred in Draco’s embrace, as if the thought of future anxiety had finally disturbed his present contentment. “I should go—“

            “No, you shouldn’t,” Draco said, tightening his hold, and the wings made the words a command. Harry relaxed again, his eyes opening, soft and distant with peace. Draco bit back a groan. There was nothing about Harry that didn’t arouse him, it seemed, and his spent cock just had to give a twitch. Luckily, Harry didn’t appear to notice. “And you shouldn’t have to put the memories in a Pensieve for her, either.”

            His mind was racing now. If Weasley had seen what happened between them, she might understand, far sooner than Harry would, exactly how much of a rival she had for Harry’s affections.

            “And we haven’t had sex since her accident,” Harry rambled on, dropping his head so that Draco’s hair hid his face. “I know we can’t, I know why we can’t, but that takes away another thing that kept us together. And the memories of Hogwarts seem so long ago, now. I keep thinking how much more I shared with Ron and Hermione. And I haven’t even told Ginny about their deaths.” His tone shifted into a whinge, abruptly. “Why did you make me tell you? Now all I can think about it, when I think about it, is that you know and she doesn’t!” He gave another half-hearted push at Draco’s wings.

            “Shh, Harry,” Draco said, and pressed down until Harry’s little struggles had ceased and he lay still. “I want you to tell me more.”

            “You always want that, you bloody wanker,” Harry muttered, and then sighed. “And now she also doesn’t understand why I do what I do anymore. Or I think so, anyway. She wanted to know why marital fidelity was less important to me than saving your life.”

            Draco snarled under his breath. He felt a moment’s vindictive glee that the true answer as to why Harry hated people dying so much was in a memory he’d never shared with Weasley, but the hatred came back a moment later.

            Ginny Weasley was hurting his mate.

            Draco badly wanted to strangle her for it. Or pull back his wings and release the torrent of blazing white magic that he knew would have come for Pansy, that day in March he and Harry had awakened together.

            “You should be happy,” he whispered into Harry’s ear. “What is the attempt to be honest with her, to be her husband, costing you but shame and suffering? And her, too,” he added, because he could be generous when he stood a good chance of cutting Weasley out of Harry’s life because of it. “The Veela chose you for a reason, Harry. And you’re the choice I want.” His arms and his wings tightened, and he found his mouth again flooded with the temptation to bite. He managed to hold back, but the hand he moved down Harry’s chest shook. “Come on. Stop holding back when you’re with me. If she’s so upset that you give me what I need and deny your own pleasure, then let’s give her something to be really upset about.”

            Harry grunted and then moaned. His eyes slowly opened, no longer distant but bright with passion. Draco leaned nearer, shifting Harry a bit so he could kiss him.

            From a long distance down inside himself, it seemed, Harry found the strength to move.

            Abruptly he was free of Draco’s wings, and all the former tension came flooding back in a moment. Harry shook his head, and raked his fingers through his hair, sending it standing up in the most improbable places. Then he clenched his hands into fists, took a long, deep breath, and began to walk from the gazebo.

            Draco sat up. “Harry,” he said, in a tone of quiet command that no one could have ignored.

            “Fuck off, Malfoy,” Harry said, without turning his head. His voice was laced with bitterness, and it didn’t matter how much Draco told himself that bitterness was mostly for Ginny; it still hurt. “That was a selfish, cowardly trick to pull. And button up your robes, you look ridiculous with your cock hanging out.”

            A few steps more, and he Disapparated with a sharp crack.

            Draco sat back, his breathing fast and shallow as he did up his pants and then his robes, and reached into a pocket to pull his wand and cast a cleaning charm. All the while, his eyes lingered on the place Harry had been as if riveted there.

            Maybe he should take this as a warning and back down.

            But he wasn’t going to.

            Harry was putting up a bitter fight—bitterer than Draco thought the situation warranted, in truth. But that didn’t really matter. What did was that each encounter increased his sense of Harry, told him what was needed in the next attempt to convince him to come closer—

            And brought Harry closer to cracking.

            Draco had a thin smile on his face as he stood.

            No matter what Harry might think, the human body wasn’t designed to constantly build towards intimacy and then hold it off. Eventually surrendering to what they’d built between them was as natural as the Veela’s wish to please its mate. Sometime this evening, Draco hoped, Harry would remember that it was Draco, not his wife, who had soothed and comforted him, and made him talk about what bothered him.

            He might hate Draco for that, right now. But it was far easier to end by hating his wife. She was the one causing all the problems, after all.

*

            Harry hated himself.

            It was an hour before midnight now. He’d arrived home an hour past, to find that Ginny had already gone to bed.

            And to find Pansy Malfoy sitting calmly at the dining room table, as if she thought that her natural place since Harry and Ginny had sat at her table when they visited Malfoy Manor for the first time.

            “Mrs. Malfoy,” Harry said, as formal as he could be when it came to the woman whose husband he’d just finished sucking off in the garden behind her house. He averted his eyes, because he suspected he could only glare right now. I thought I was doing the right thing. How in the world did this get so fucked up?

            “Oh, we don’t have to be that formal, Harry, do we?” Pansy said, in a voice that reminded Harry strongly of Narcissa Malfoy’s. “After all, I’ve had sex with Draco, and you’ve had sex with Draco. That practically makes us comrades-in-arms.” She gave Harry a tiny smile that he knew held nothing of amusement in it.

            “I didn’t—“ Harry said, and gave up. After all, Ginny didn’t believe him when he said he hadn’t had sex with Draco, either. He rubbed his face, wishing he could simply close his eyes and will the last five months to be a dream. “Was there something you wanted?”

            “Yes.” Pansy came a step or two closer to him. “My husband back.”

            Harry looked her carefully in the eye. He could see simmering fury behind her gaze, and it made him wince. She might not be quite as dangerous as Bellatrix Lestrange—Bellatrix had been mad—but she might not be far from it, either. “I was under the impression that the agreement we made had to last until the end of the calendar year,” he said, his voice utterly neutral. “Has Malfoy lied about that?” He wouldn’t put it past the bloody bastard, after the attempt Malfoy had made to drug him with—whatever it was about the wings that Harry liked so much. Pheromones or something.

            Pansy shook her head. “No. But he plans on making your arrangement permanent.”

            “I am not taking it up the arse!” Harry snapped. “If he told you that, he lied to you.”

            Pansy smiled a bit. “I know you’re not, Potter,” she said, seeming to forget her own rule about formality. “You’re such a noble Gryffindor I doubt you could keep that secret.” She leaned a bit closer. “But Draco already looks at me like I’m second-hand toy he bought, played with for three days, and tired of. It’s the look he gave the lovers he had before our marriage. He wants you now.”

            “Shit,” Harry said wearily. “Look. I don’t plan on letting him have me—“

            “You’ve underestimated how persuasive he can be when he wants something.” Pansy folded her arms. “And the Veela has unique ways to charm its mate. I’ve read about them.”

            Harry could hardly deny that, not after what had happened in the garden. “So what do you want me to do about it?”

            “Argue with him,” said Pansy calmly. “Make yourself as irritating as humanly possible. Make him eager to spend time around you only to ease his sexual tension, and then even more eager to leave afterwards. You always could push his buttons in Hogwarts. I want to see you do it again.”

            Harry frowned. “Most of the reasons we were rivals in Hogwarts don’t exist anymore.”

            Pansy reached into her robe pocket and pulled out an envelope, which she put down in the middle of the table. Harry’s eyes tracked the movement unwillingly. The envelope was utterly smooth, unmarked and innocuous, on the outside, but he doubted the contents were anywhere near that.

            “I’ve lived with Draco for years now,” Pansy said. “And I’ve lived with him before that, more intimately than you could. I know his faults, his weaknesses, the things he can’t stand to have mentioned.” She nodded at the envelope. “That’s a list of all of them.”

            Fuck. Acid swirled in Harry’s throat. He shook his head. “I can’t just—“

            “Oh?” Pansy’s eyebrows climbed, a bit. “Really, Potter. When you’re having sex with my husband and drawing his attention from me every day, and wronging your own wife in the process? You can’t do the smallest favor for me?” She pressed her hand to her breast. “Really, I’m so impressed with your heroics.”

            Harry felt the urge to cry again, briefly. He was being ripped three different ways, and he didn’t know—

            Except that he did. Two of those ways were pulling the same direction, after all. Ginny and Pansy both wanted their marriages intact. Draco was the only one trying to step beyond the boundaries, as Harry had already told him.

            He picked up the envelope. “Fine.” He said it as curtly as he could, while his own flesh crawled and his conscience screamed at him.

            “You won’t regret this, Potter,” Pansy said, and patted his arm. “Draco really is not noble enough for the likes of you.” She paused a moment, giving him a long, slow look. “I don’t see how anyone could be, really. Or maybe it’s that I don’t see how anyone could put up with your self-righteousness. Hard to choose.”

            “Get out,” Harry said.

            Luckily, she took him seriously and did so.

            Harry dropped the letter on the table as if it had stung him, and then went and took a long shower. The warm water failed to relax him, especially compared to the sensation of Draco’s wings around him, and it utterly failed to make him feel clean. That was when he leaned his forehead against the tile and decided he hated himself.

            If Hermione was alive, maybe she could tell him a way out of this. If Ron was alive, maybe he could offer a strong shoulder, tell Harry he’d be there no matter what happened, and guide him out of this.

            But there was only him now. And no matter which way he turned, what he did would be wrong.

            He finally shut off the water and wandered back into the kitchen. It looked as though Ginny hadn’t sorted through the post that had come while they were away; it still lay in scattered piles where the owls had dropped it. Harry shrugged. He might as well tidy it, then put the memories of this evening into the Pensive and brace himself for Ginny’s anger in the morning. It wasn’t as though he could sleep.

            He organized most of it quickly enough: the Daily Prophet, letters from the Weasleys, the usual requests for autographs and interviews that he’d discard without a second glance, post relating to his job, and—

            He paused as he reached the final envelope, one that must have come the day they left. Potter was all it said on the outside.

            Harry recognized the flowing, fluid script. He’d seen it before on ransom notes and the letters stalkers sent to their victims. The most elegant and effective handwriting charms produced it, disguising any attempt to trace the quill or hand that had penned the words back to their origin.

            Frowning, he cast several detection charms on it, and found no hexes or poison. Nevertheless, he opened it carefully.

            The letter was to the point, which Harry appreciated. At least it wasted no time on gameplaying or elaborate phrases that would disguise the reality they both knew lay beneath.

            Dear Mr. Potter:

            I am sorry to inform you that your recent exploits against the Carrows have deprived me of the most effective of my brewers. I gave you a month to release them, hoping against hope you would see sense and recognize that there is prey far more worthy of the Hermes Corps’s time and attention. I am sorry that did not come to pass, as I must now take action against you.

            You may be interested to know that I am also a veteran of the wars against Voldemort—note that I do not hesitate to write his name—and a brewer; I developed the potion you have become so dogged in pursuing. I will never be a potions master, but I have a fair amount of skill.

            Do not fuck with me, Mr. Potter. Your hero complex has led you into trouble this time. I will give you a few more days to consider your position, not that I truly expect you to back down.

            I do differ from your previous enemies in one important respect. I want no one but you, Mr. Potter. Your friends and family are not in danger. You were the one who insisted on piling up the clues that led to the capture of my brewers, so you are the one I want.

            Come June, the hunt begins in earnest.

            Sincerely, a friend and admirer.

            Harry lowered the letter to the tabletop and spent a long moment staring at the far wall. He knew what he should do in a situation like this. Kingsley took threatening letters to any of his Aurors seriously, and would immediately arrange protection for Harry.

            But—

            He was so sick of having no privacy. So tired. Malfoy knew about Ron and Hermione’s deaths, and Harry’s newest dirty little secret, that he couldn’t help getting aroused with him. Ginny knew everything about his encounters from the memories in the Pensieve.

            Harry felt stretched, strained open, like an oyster stripped for its meat.

            He wanted something that was just his. Something he could know about and no one else could, something he could smile about and have no one able to guess what the source of the smiles was.

            This secret was dangerous. Everyone around him would tell him not to keep it, if they knew.

            Malfoy, in particular, would be furious, Harry thought, remembering the git’s reaction to his untreated wounds.

            But he’d kept dangerous secrets before, from hearing the basilisk’s voice in Hogwarts on up to the Horcruxes, and he was more than confident that he could handle anything this mysterious hunter brought against him. And this might be something to keep him sane and distract him from the maelstrom his personal life had become. In that way, it would benefit everybody.

            Decision made, Harry slipped the letter into his pocket, and Summoned his Pensieve to him. He had already calmed down, he discovered, and tugged the memories out of his head with grim determination.

            Maybe, once Ginny saw them and he told her how helpless Malfoy had made him feel, she would help him find a way out of this.

            Together. They had to be together. Harry didn’t know any other way to live his life.
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A Year's Temptation

Chapter Five—May