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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
- 7
- 8
- 9
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Eight—August

            Harry now thought he knew what a piece of rope in a game of tug-of-war felt like.

            He didn’t enjoy it.

Ginny had contacted him again on his birthday, officially giving him permission to owl her. She’d sent a Pensieve containing a few of the genuinely happy memories of their first years together as a gift. Her letters were brave and sad, reminding Harry that she didn’t have much more of an idea of what to do than he did, and that he wasn’t the only one suffering from the loss of their innocence. She did give him permission to tell Ralph about the mess with Malfoy, if he really wanted to. Ralph had been Harry’s friend for almost as long as he’d been his partner, and his adoration of Ginny was unabashed. She wouldn’t mind him knowing, she said.

She never made any reference to Malfoy as anything other than “the complication” or “the problem.” Harry found she didn’t need to. It was still there, in his owls and hers, an unspoken shadow.

            Draco wrote gently coaxing letters, at least one a day, many of which never mentioned the Veela or their last assignation at all. He talked about his day, described his coach’s irritation and the expensive, inane dinner parties he went to in amusing detail, and asked questions about Harry’s past which he didn’t want to answer. Sometimes he asked to meet for lunch or dinner, but he seemed to graciously accept Harry’s refusals each time.

            And then there was the letter where he described a favorite fantasy of his. That was the wording he used, giving Harry no room to doubt it.

            I know it’s a day one or the other of us should work. But we don’t want to. We’re lying in my bed—the one in my bedroom, not the Transfigured one in the gardens. You lie on your back with me slightly on top of you, but we’re so closely entwined it hardly matters. We’re so warm, too. There’s a fire blazing on the hearth, but most of it is body heat and sheer contentment.

            Once or twice I try to stand and roll out of the bed. You pull me back each time, muttering sleepily about how we’re Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy and should have a day off if the rest of the wizarding world gets one every so often.

            I can touch you wherever I want. I do, in between dozing sessions. I wake up and my hand’s on your hip, on your knee, on your groin. Everything about you is mine, and you want it to be. This makes you happy.

            It’s become much easier to have that fantasy since I actually know, now, what you look like happy and sated.

            The letter left Harry with a soft, squeezing warmth in the center of his chest when he finished reading it, and he thought that was probably the most dangerous thing of all. He put the parchment down, went running in the streets near Grimmauld Place, and tried to think about Ginny. But his mind filled with thoughts of Draco like a sky with falling stars, and usually he just gave up and thought about him, instead.

            Sometimes he sat in the one room on the upper floors of the house that had a decent view—of the house’s back gardens—and stared out the window at the sunset, trying to decide what in the world he should do.

            Maybe he should do what Malfoy had advised, and consider what it was that he wanted, since trying to balance the competing claims of the people around him got him nowhere.

            Well, that was simple. He wanted his old life back. He wanted this never to have happened. He seriously contemplated, just for a moment, trying to find a Time-Turner and travel back so he could prevent Malfoy’s Potions accident.

            But, bar that, what did he want?

            He had not the slightest bloody idea.

            When he took the time to clear the clutter out of his head and achieve the calm, balanced state that Kingsley had taught his Aurors to enter before the start of each raid, he did have an idea of what the right thing to do was, though. He’d taken marriage vows with Ginny. He had bent them, but he had not yet broken them. At least, she didn’t seem to think so, since she’d given him one last chance to prove himself.

            All right. So he had to return to the life he’d once had the hard way—not by going backwards, but by traveling through the months in front of him. He and Ginny could come back together. Their marriage would never again be what it had been, no, but it could be stronger after the break. They both knew what they were capable of in the face of adversity now, and they both knew they’d fight for each other. This could be like—like the trials some couples faced when they found out that they couldn’t have children. Yes. He liked that analogy.

            The night he decided on that, Harry had gone to his bedroom, pleased with his thoughts, and then caught sight of himself in the mirror as he undressed to take a shower. The silvery sheen of the claiming mark, in the shape of Malfoy’s lips, flared against the paler skin of his neck. Thank God robes covered it.

            Hesitantly, Harry pressed a finger into it.

            Warmth coursed over him, as if Malfoy stood behind him with wings extended and drooping, and memories of the night they’d spent together flooded Harry, so intensely that his knees buckled. He caught himself with one hand on the wall of the loo just before he might have slipped and cracked his head.

            The mark hadn’t done that when the collar of his robes brushed against it, he thought dazedly as he stood up again. He supposed it took deliberate touch.

            He’d purchased a few books on Veela. He knew what the claiming mark meant. The Veela was saying mine! for the whole world to see, though originally the mark had been meant simply to speak to others of its own kind.

            Malfoy seemed to accept they hadn’t reached that point yet, hence his placing the mark where it could be hidden. But the intention was clear enough.

            Harry shook his head and finished taking off his clothes, pulling at them roughly. Maybe he should accept one of those lunch invitations, just so he could ask Malfoy when he intended to give up.

            He did his best to convince himself that the hard-on he had now was entirely a coincidence.

*

            “Really, Pansy.” Draco pried at her tight clutch on his arm as subtly as possible. “Maybe you should let me go? Blaise is over there. I haven’t seen him since that party in March. And don’t have so much to drink, next time,” he added for the benefit of the people looking at them curiously.

            He was alone in the room in knowing that it wasn’t wine that had made Pansy’s cheeks flush like that. Draco had slowly increased the amount of Veela allure he used on her day by day. By now, she was well on her way to being addicted to his touch; an ordinary human lover would have to work awfully hard to make her look at him with any degree of desire.

            The eyes on him also made his skin crawl, but it was with satisfaction, and the urge to burst out laughing. The attention was worth it, for what it would mean in the end. Let the whole world see that Draco Malfoy’s wife had become just a bit too attached to him, to the point where she followed him like a duckling.

            “Draco,” Pansy breathed. She probably thought she was whispering. She wasn’t. “I’m bored here. Let’s go home. I want you to fuck me.”

            Draco flushed; the embarrassment was real. He hadn’t known she was quite that far gone yet. He heard laughter and regretted using so much allure.

            For a moment.

            Then he thought of the day when he could come to parties like this and have Harry on his arm, looking at him with passion and amusement in his eyes, and he found it impossible to regret anything.

            “Pansy,” he hissed at her. “Calm down. You’re making a scene.”

            “I don’t care!” Pansy turned to face the room, holding up her wineglass. “I want everyone to know that I have the very best husband in the world! A toast to Draco Malfoy, witches and wizards, if you would!”

            Most people who drank the toast around her did so with grand mock solemnity. Others were too consumed with laughter to even attempt it. A few people shook their heads pityingly. Of course, Pansy Malfoy could usually control her liquor, but Draco knew it wasn’t likely that they would believe this was part of a cunning master plan of hers. It was too loud, too obvious, too mortifying, too—

            Too common.

            Pansy had spent years building a reputation as a cool, reserved witch, someone who could deliver stinging insults and carefully polished condolences in the same even tone. She wouldn’t sacrifice it like this. She was just drunk, or so everyone would think until the moment when Draco went public as Veela and revealed Harry as his properly fated and destined mate.

            Then they would just think her hopelessly addicted to his allure. So sad, really, it could happen to anyone…

            Draco took his wife’s arm, gave the rest of the party an apologetic, exasperated look, and prepared to Apparate home with Pansy.

            He landed at the Manor feeling odd, as though he had somehow got sick to his stomach between one moment and the next. He swallowed several times and rubbed his gut experimentally, releasing Pansy; she draped herself over one of the chairs, giggling and hiccupping in equal measure. Had he eaten something that disagreed with him? Even more unlikely, had someone managed to poison him at the party?

            Then his head jerked to the side, and a spot low on the right side of his neck flared with pain.

            He recognized those signs from his reading.

            His mate was in immediate danger.

            The Veela in his head shrieked, and then Draco’s pulse began to beat, a sound like giant wings coming closer and closer.

            His breath quickening, his anger rising so swiftly that it hurt, Draco stretched a hand out in front of him, as the book on Veela courtship had advised him, and closed his fingers tightly. A sensation like string sliding through his fist touched him. He made sure he had a firm grip on his wand.

            Then the imaginary string snapped taut, pulling him across the distance to Harry’s side in an involuntary Apparition.

            The Veela came with him, snarling and roaring fit for two. It would snap whoever was trying to kill its mate in half.

*

            It had been swift.

            Harry was returning from his latest run when a spell exploded beside him, landing with a crackthat ripped open the pavement. Harry didn’t think the attacker was above him this time, or at least not far above.

            He hurled himself forwards and sideways, deliberately moving in confusing zigs and zags that made it impossible to tell where he would go next and, thus, impossible to fire spells at. Or at least that was the way it was supposed to work. Another spell passed him, and though the full force missed him again, its trailing edge caught him along the ribs, slicing through the soft gray cotton of his T-shirt as if it were nothing. Harry stumbled, hissing, and blood ran down his side like thicker, warmer sweat.

            He turned even that to his advantage, because as his head hung and his vision swung, he caught a glimpse of his attacker. That last spell had made him visible; some offensive magic did that. He’d probably been using a Disillusionment Charm. His broom hovered just a few feet off the ground, and he wore a heavy cloak that shielded everything from his face to the thickness of his limbs and the shape of his body.

            Harry planted one foot, turned the momentum of his stagger into an efficient turn, and leveled his wand straight at the attacker. “Conquasso!” he shouted, casting one of the spells just on the edge of Dark Arts, which Kingsley had warned them all never to use unless they were suretheir lives were in danger.

            Harry thought this bloody qualified.

            White light charged from the end of his wand, splitting into one fork, then two, then six, then hundreds. Most of them landed solidly on target, because the broom dodged too late, and the terrific retort of several dozen bones shattering at once echoed across the air to Harry. His enemy screamed a moment later, and then vanished.

            He managed an Apparition even with that, Harry thought. He laughed, high on adrenaline, and then winced; that made his ribs ache something fierce.I suppose he was right to brag in his letter.

            Another pop sounded. Harry brought his wand up, just in case his enemy had an accomplice, and blinked when he saw Malfoy standing there, wings swirling around him in lazy patterns with white magic trailing them, his face furious.

            “What are you doing here?” Harry asked, pressing a hand over the wound to control the bleeding. Not a danger, he judged as it began to respond to the pressure. He’d had much worse. An elementary healing spell, such as he was capable of managing, could close most of it, and he’d scrub and sponge the rest.

            “The claiming mark told me you were in danger,” Malfoy said, his words nearly too high and shrill for Harry to understand. His eye fell right where it shouldn’t, on Harry’s bloodstained fingers. “I see it was right,” he added, and came forwards to—

            Oh, he wouldn’t—

            But he did. He scooped Harry up with his arms and wings, hoisted him off his feet with effortless strength, and looked around for a brief moment. He must have identified Number Twelve by the tingle of its wards, because he blinked, but then started heading in the right direction.

            “I didn’t think you lived here, Harry,” he murmured.

            Harry fought madly against the temptation to go limp that those fucking wings always induced in him. His head already drooped against Malfoy’s shoulder, and his muscles were relaxing rapidly from their tight battle coil. An insistent little voice in his mind whispered: Let go, let Draco take care of everything.

            He coughed, then mustered enough will to say, “Long story. Look, could you put me back on my feet?”



            “With that wound?” Malfoy asked incredulously, pausing and waiting at the edge of the wards. Reluctantly, Harry waved his wand, dissipated the protections, and set them to close behind them when they’d passed inside. Malfoy continued carrying him towards the house, of course. “You can’t walk, Harry.”

            “Of courseI can bloody walk!” Harry struggled a bit, and finally managed to tear away from Malfoy just as they reached the door. Maybe the git’s insane Veela strength left him when he realized his mate wasn’t in any danger. “If you hadn’t shown up, I would have walked right up to the door, healed myself, and drawn a bath.”

            Malfoy looked at him as if he had pronounced the moon were made of green cheese. “Harry,” he said gently. “Someone attackedyou.”

            Harry snorted and wriggled the hand not pressed against his wound in Malfoy’s face. He felt remarkably better, much more clear-headed, now that he was out of the grip of the wings. “And I’m all here. See?”

            Malfoy’s face changed so fast that Harry might have been frightened, but he was in his own home, and this prat, besides being the one who’d made Harry’s life difficult for the last half a year with his Veela side—

            And writing you caring, comforting letters—

            —had just appeared out of nowhere, for no reason, and was saying perfectly ridiculous things. Harry raised an eyebrow back, and waited for the outburst that would make Malfoy sound like an imbecile.

*

            Draco hadn’t experienced anger like this before. The Veela practically vibrated in him, as if it were a crystal that might break if the right note were struck. Its mate had been attacked, and now he stood there looking mulish, even telling Draco off, as if it were—

            As if it were no big deal, as if he hadn’t almost died—

            Draco shoved the door open with a violent kick. Harry, who had been partially leaning against it, staggered inwards, but Draco caught him before he could hit the floor, wrapped his wings around him again, and whispered, “Relax.” His reading had reassured him that few mates could resist any command while held in feathers.

            Harry’s eyelids drooped. He moaned, a word that sounded a lot like, “Bastard.”

            “Relax, Harry.”

            Harry went limp, finally. Draco carried him without effort up the stairs, past a truly creepy set of curtains and a line of empty plaques that looked as if they’d once been used to house hunting trophies of some kind, perhaps animal heads. He couldn’t believe Harry would consent to live like this.

            He didn’t. He was here because something had happened at the house he shared with his wife, Draco was sure of it.

            Another attack, perhaps?

            The idiot. Someone had put his life in danger at least once before, and he hadn’t reported it, he’d just endured it, maybe he’d even enjoyedit, like the absolute and utter idiotthat he was—

            The Veela sent constantly changing daydreams, one of finding and beating the shit out of the wizard who had attacked its mate, and another of holding Harry still until he babbled out the truth, then wrapping him in thick woolen blankets and tying him to Draco’s bed, since he obviously couldn’t be trusted to take care of himself.

            Draco quite agreed.

            The bedroom was too large, dark, and bare, with heavy plain furniture and only a single lamp next to the bed. Draco deposited Harry on the blankets and snorted. When Harry accepted the way things would be and moved into the Manor, Draco would give him several rooms twice as large and lavish as this one just to be alone in. Not, of course, that Harry would stay there at night, since he’d share Draco’s bed, but it was the thought that counted.

            Draco had thought about Harry’s wound, too, and though he wasn’t perfectly adept with healing magic, he had decided he’d have to cleanse and cure the wound. It would simply raise too many questions if he carried Harry to St. Mungo’s now. For one thing, someone would eventually question why Draco Malfoy, of all people, had brought Harry Potter in; for another, the Healers would find Harry’s claiming mark; for a third, this might be just the shock that would break through the allure daze Draco had inflicted on Pansy.

            He pulled back Harry’s shirt and studied the wound. It had stopped bleeding, thank God. Not especially long, but deep. Draco pressed the feathers of one wing across Harry’s forehead.

            “You stay here,” he said. “You can’t move.”

            Harry’s hand, which had been creeping towards his wand, froze at once. His eyes screamed frustration at Draco.

            Draco didn’t care. He would have preferred it if Harry had asked for help on his own, of course, but he didn’t mindcommanding his mate and healing him like this. The Veela had had an array of quite interesting daydreams where it took care of a helpless Harry. It couldn’t last forever, but sometimes this would be necessary, and this was one of the times. Harry might not like the care, but he would have to accept it.

            He retracted his wings, went into the loo, and found towels and hot water. This would have been easier with a house-elf to help him, but he didn’t care about that, either. He gathered up the supplies he needed and hurried back out.

            Just in time. Harry, who had an incredibly strong will—Draco remembered those rumors about his being able to throw off the Imperius Curse in fourth year—had planted a hand in the sheets and was struggling to sit up. He also had his wand in hand again and appeared to be whispering a healing charm under his breath.

            “Stop that!” Draco snapped, nearly enraged now. Harry’s health was hishealth, too, didn’t he understand that? Or did he imagine it was easy for Draco to stand by and admire his wounds?

            Harry swung to face him with a surprised gasp, and Draco’s eyes narrowed. Some sort of glamour had faded, that was obvious, maybe out of the sheer stress Harry had been under, from the fight and resisting Draco’s command. Dark burns encircled his mouth and ears, and more, though faded from what must have been bright pain, curled down his arms.

            Something else happened. And he hid it from me. A freezing anger stirred in Draco’s gut, quite unlike the fiery rage of the Veela. And the increased control of his magic that the Transformation initiated probably helped him. He’s my mate. He’s not allowed to lie to me. Not about things like this.

            “This isn’t the first time, is it,” he said flatly, as he strode forwards and practically slammed the bowl of hot water down next to Harry. He dipped one of the towels in the water and reached for the wound. When Harry started to wriggle away, he added in the same even tone, “So help me, I will break your legs to keep you in bed if you don’t sit still and tell me the fucking truth.”

*

            Harry supposed he didn’t have to attend a private lunch now to know exactly what Malfoy planned for him. He thought Harry would be his property, that was clear, his to order about and force bed rest on when it was perfectly obvious that Harry didn’t need it.

            Fury flashed up in him, the same impatient, reckless emotion he’d always felt when the Dursleys discussed putting him back in the cupboard, and he leaned forwards so that he held Malfoy’s eyes. He willed the gentleness of the warm wet cloth across his wound and the memories of what it had been like to make love last month very firmly away.

            “You have no right,” he hissed. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

            “I have a perfect right.” Malfoy’s eyes were clear, with a kind of anger in them Harry had never seen before. His free hand rose and curled around Harry’s neck, stilling him as he tried to shy away. His fingers stroked the claiming mark, and Harry felt his mind briefly go blank. When he could see again, Malfoy was practically snarling at him. “This says that we belong to each other. And your death is my death, Harry. I suppose it never occurred to you that if you died, I’d die, too?”

            Harry blinked. Tried to answer. Caught his breath. Cast his eyes down and couldn’t think of a thing to say.

            Sickness and guilt washed over him, and my, weren’t thosefamiliar and pleasant companions after seven months?

            “I just want this to stop happening,” he whispered, and ran a hand over his mouth. “To go away.For the problems to stop and someone to tell me that it’s all right, that I don’t have to make an ethically dubious decision today. I’m so tired.”

            Malfoy said nothing for long moments. Then he nudged Harry. “Lie down. And take off your shirt. I have to scrub this further, and I don’t think it’s best for you to sit up right now.”

            Numb, Harry did so, wincing and hissing again as the motion of pulling off his shirt made the wound stretch. Malfoy slightly increased the pressure of the cloth, and Harry groaned, just grateful to know that someone else’s hand was guiding it and he didn’t have to do it himself.

            But then, that’s the whole problem, isn’t it?

            Malfoy said at last, softly, “I will give you whatever you desire, Harry. You only have to hint that you want something, and it’s yours. And what you’re speaking about are specific things the Veela wants to give you. A warm shoulder to support you, a shared bed, someone you can talk to about allyour problems. A person, a companion, a partner you don’t have to hide anything from.”

            With an effort, Harry turned his head. Malfoy’s eyes burned with a different emotion now, but Harry couldn’t immediately tell what it was.

            Then he leaned forwards and brought his lips down over Harry’s in a gentle kiss.

            Harry recognized the emotion then. It was caring, warm and soft and relentless. It was intimacy. The kiss promised absolute surrender for absolute surrender. If he gave in, Malfoy—Draco—wouldn’t hide anything from him, and he wouldn’t have to hide anything, either. This offer was no-holds-barred, everything it seemed.

            This would consume him. Harry knew it. Give in, as the gentle, insistent, continuing kiss begged, and he would have no hope of coming back to Ginny, because everything about him would be Draco’s.

It terrified Harry.

At last, the kiss ended, and Malfoy pulled back to continue bathing the wound. Harry shut his eyes, because he couldn’t possibly meet and match that clear, calm gaze.

“That’s what I want,” Malfoy said. “No secrets. Someone who’s shared thatwith me is not going to hide them.”

            Harry spent a few moments forcing his breathing to calm. He flinched a bit when Malfoy cast a spell to heal as much of his wound as possible, but he didn’t let it disturb the state of mind he was falling into, the one that was usual in the aftermathof a battle, to subdue the dangerous parts of himself and the excited parts both.

            “Maybe not someone who’s shared that with you,” he said, opening his eyes at last. “But I might.”

            Malfoy cocked his head at him as he flicked his wand again, this time to clean up the blood that had spilled on the bedcovers. “I would be interested to know the difference, Harry.”

            Harry rubbed his face with his hand again. “Why do you think I kept this secret in the first place?”

            “Because you aren’t as intelligent as you think you are?”

            “That’s true of everyone.” Harry clenched his teeth so he wouldn’t yawn; with the mother-hen mood Malfoy seemed to be in, he would force Harry to go to bed if he saw so much as a sign of weariness. “No, I kept it secret because it felt as though I had nothing of my own anymore. I was sharing my memories, my body, my time, my innermost feelings—none of which were good.” He shrugged, and decided it wasn’t so hard to meet and match that gaze after all. “I wanted somethingprivate.”

            “Why?”

            Harry chuckled a bit. He knew the sound was bitter, but Malfoy wanted honesty, didn’t he? “Let’s say—my life has been too public. I used to keep my most precious belongings under the floorboards as a child, because otherwise my Muggle relatives, who didn’t like magic, would have taken them away from me. I had no privacy at Hogwarts, especially not once Skeeter took an interest in me. And even people who hadn’t the least idea about me presumed they knew me, because they’d seen my face and name in the papers.” He shrugged and leaned back against the pillows. “You’ve seen for yourself that I didn’t tell Ginny everything. Now it seemed I was entering a time when I did have to do that. For the best of reasons, of course, but it strained me and stressed me and came near to pulling me apart.”

            He felt a bit calmer now—true calm, not that artificially induced by Auror training. He turned so that he could meet Malfoy eye-to-eye. Malfoy was at least intently listening, though Harry had a hard time telling what was in his expression beyond intensity.

            “And that’s why I can’t be part of this,” Harry said calmly. “In my marriage, I had a choice what to hold back. With you, I won’t. You said it. I’m not the right partner for you—not temperamentally, whatever we’re like in bed.” His cheeks stung with their flush when he said that, but he went on staring at Malfoy. “I think it best we maintain the more limited contact we have now and give up ambitions towards anything else.”

*

            Draco wanted to curse. But he sensed doing so would only drive Harry back into his shell, which he didn’t want at all.

            Oh, the poor idiot.

            “I didn’t mean every single secret,” Draco said slowly, and this time knelt down on the bed, next to Harry. Harry twisted himself to the side, apparently to keep a few inches of space between them. Draco allowed it, since he didn’t want Harry to stress the wound. “Only the ones that could put your life in danger. I wantto know when something like this happens, Harry, because I needto.”

            “The kiss felt like more than that.”

            The Veela crooned agreement in the back of his head, but since the Veela was currently dreaming of devouring Harry whole with whipped cream, Draco was not inclined to take it seriously.

            “That would happen if you wantedit to,” Draco stressed, and let his hands fall to rest on his knees. God, he wanted to touch Harry, but it was a sign of trust already—though Harry probably didn’t realize it—for him to lie flat in front of Draco and glare up at him. Small steps. He wanted to coax Harry in, not frighten him so badly he would run back to that unthreatening wife of his. “The only thing inevitable about it is that we’re both passionate people. I really don’t think we could keep fromfalling completely in love like that, if you would take that final step.”

            The ache for Harry to trust him that completely was as keen as the sexual hunger he’d felt at one point. The Veela was very nearly sated on that now. What it wanted was Harry’s heart.

            Draco was very glad Harry couldn’t hear what was going on in his head right now. He’d probably laugh himself sick at the sappiness of it all.

            “And that’s exactly what I won’t give you.” Harry’s voice was cool and calm, his face open and determined.

            Draco ignored the stab of pain from the Veela. He simply studied Harry until the other man turned his head away, still finding it hard, evidently, to looked at someone had his well-being in mind. Then Draco lowered his head and spent a few moments licking the claiming mark.

            That sent bliss flowing through Harry, he knew. He pulled back before it could become too much and Harry would panic. He just wanted to make a point. Never mind that his mouth tingled and ached the way it did when he ate ice cream too fast.

            “I know you like this,” he said. “And you could conquer your fear of my loving you so completely as you’ve faced any other such fear. What reallyholds you back, Harry? What’s going to drive you into Ginny’s arms, when you knowthat you would spend the rest of your life remembering me every time you made love to her?” Some of the Veela’s pleading crept into his tone, though he had not willed it to. “What keeps you from letting yourself be happy?”

            It took long moments before Harry could pull his voice out of oblivion to answer, but he did it.

            “I wouldn’t be happy if Ginny were suffering,” he said, and rolled back over to look at Draco. His eyes held the kind of defiance that Draco suspected the Dark Lord had found infuriating. “And I took marriage vows with her first. I was hers first.”

            “Things have changed,” Draco said.

            “Yes,” Harry said. “And I didn’t will them to.”

            Draco nibbled his lip in thought. “That bothers you, doesn’t it? For all that you came up with a plan to let us endure a year together, it bothers you.”

            Harry looked at Draco as if he had asked whether Harry liked having lemon juice rubbed in his wounds. “Of courseit bothers me,” he said. “I’ve had my life controlled by fate and destiny and things I couldn’t do anything about. There was a prophecy that said I would be the one to kill Voldemort. And then being helpless to do anything but killmy two best friends rather increased my liking for self-reliance.” His voice was a low snarl now, the kind he used when he thought people were being stupid. “I choseto marry Ginny. I chosemy work as an Auror. I didn’t choose this—this whatever it is that we’re in.”



            “Relationship,” Draco said, amused in spite of himself. “The word is relationship, Harry.”

            “Relationship, then.” Harry’s eyes flashed. “I didn’t choose it, I don’t want it—“

            Draco pierced him with a look.

            “The part of me that wants it is physical alone,” Harry said without hesitation.

            Draco bent towards him and whispered into his ear, because he wanted to, because he could. “So you didn’t appreciate the time and effort I took to make that photo album for you? So you watched my Quidditch game just because you felt an incredible physical draw to me? So you weren’tunconscious with a smile of exhausted pleasure on your lips the last time we made love? So—“

            “Stop!”

            Draco sat back, but didn’t retreat further than that. He spoke very plainly, because that seemed to be the only way Harry would understand. “I won’t hurt you. I don’t plan to force you into anything you genuinely don’t want. I won’t even use my wings and my claiming mark to make you relax, though your reaction to both of them is perfectlynatural. But I won’t go away, I won’t stop making gestures to help and comfort you, and I won’t pretend not to exist.”

            Harry gave a sound somewhere between a grunt and a strangled moan. “You haveto,” he whispered. “Don’t you see that you haveto?”

            “Why?” Draco asked, barely moving his lips.

            “Because otherwise there’s a good chance that I’ll fall in love with you, you prick!”

            The words echoed in the room. Draco saw Harry widen his eyes in realization, and then he tried to turn his face away.

            Draco caught his chin, gently, keeping him in place. He held Harry’s eyes as he said, “Nothing would make me happier.”

            Harry gritted his teeth. “And you don’t care at all about Ginny’s happiness?” His voice was thick, as if he had choked down tears.

            “No,” Draco said softly. “I don’t want to hurt her, because she meant something to you—“

            “Means, Malfoy.”

            Draco continued with only a small tilt of his head in acknowledgment. “But I don’t think she has a right to be content when it comes at your expense. So, yes, I will woo you, court you, pursue you very gently, until you see sense and realize that this isn’t something you need to fight.”

            Harry closed his eyes and said nothing. Draco suspected he didn’t want to. There waspart of him that enjoyed this—as who wouldn’t?—and even though Harry didn’t want to listen to it, it would have increasingly louder voice in his actions.

            “I won’t even force you to tell me the secret of thisfor right now.” Draco traced a line across the wound on Harry’s ribs. “Come and have lunch with me tomorrow, and you can tell me then.”

            “I’m going to the Burrow to see Ginny tomorrow,” Harry said, looking at him directly. “It’s her birthday.” There was a kind of twisted triumph in his eyes, as if he enjoyed the rock-solid excuse even though it hurt him, too.

            The Veela loosed an earth-shattering shriek in Draco’s head. He gritted his teeth and said, “The day after that, then.”

            “It depends on what Ginny says.”

            Draco huffed and got to his feet. He spent a moment touching Harry’s lightning bolt scar, not wanting to break contact with his beautiful, infuriating, fascinating mate.

            “Someday, Harry,” he said softly, “you’ll spend time with me of your own free will, and we’ll have that fantasy I described to you in my letter several days ago.”

            Color swept into Harry’s face, and he looked away. Draco stooped and gave him a kiss on one flushed cheek, making it matter less than the impassioned one that had declared his intentions earlier, but showing that those intentions were still present, still there, still waiting patiently for the day that Harry finally got sick of denying himself.

            Then he swept out the door.

*

            “Harry. Come walk with me, would you?”

            They’d eaten cake, and Ginny had opened a pile of gifts, including the necklace from Harry that ended in a silver locket with a picture of both of them inside it. Harry knew he had taken a risk, but Ginny only nodded over it, thanked him solemnly, and set it aside with the other gifts. It would have been better if she’d hung it around her neck, Harry thought, but this was much better than if she had thrown it across the room.

            And now Molly and Arthur politely looked away, and the twins pretended to be engaged in discussions of their products, and Angelina looked at Harry with pity in her eyes—

            And Ginny beckoned him from the front door of the Burrow, her eyes intent but with no smile in them.

            Harry stood, and went.

            They ambled easily enough across the ground outside the Burrow. The sun shone down, but mildly, not with the full force it had had even just a few weeks ago. Long golden fingers of light crept across the grass. Here and there, Harry could see a gnome’s head peeping out, but they withdrew hastily when they caught sight of him and Ginny.

            Ginny wore a set of blue robes that made her pale skin look paler, and her brown eyes stand out large and clear in her face. Harry thought she hadn’t looked more beautiful since the day he came back to her, told her Voldemort was dead, and asked her to marry him. She had watched him with the same solemn look for long moments before her face opened in a brilliant smile.

            Harry didn’t think that would happen this time. No matter how often he glanced at her from the corner of his eye, he saw only a face bowed and half-hidden behind a mane of bright hair, and her hands swinging emptily, aimlessly, at her sides.

            They walked until no one could have heard them from the Burrow even with Extendable Ears, and then Ginny drew a deep breath and came to a halt. Harry did the same thing, and turned to face her. His heart was beating so hard that he felt sick, and had to swallow several times.

            She might look at me this way if she was planning to tell me it was all over, he thought. It isn’t exactly what she looked like the night she told me she was leaving, but it’s close enough.

            “I miss you,” Ginny said.

            Harry’s sickness turned to relief all at once. But Ginny was shaking and seemed ready to collapse, so he forced himself to be strong for her. He stepped towards her, tucked his arms around her shoulders, and whispered, “Really.”

            “Yes.” Ginny nestled back into his shoulder. “I didn’t think it would be this bad,” she whispered. “I thought—six months of watching you with him, having to endure what I did—I thought that was enough to wear me out and make me bitter at the thought of coming back to you.”

            She paused, and added, “I’m not coming back to you. Not yet. But I did want you to know that I missed you.”

            “Thank you,” Harry said. And it did ease his heart. Ginny’s letters had been so formal that it had been hard to guess what she felt from them. He had thought she might enjoy her freedom and want a divorce after this.

            That would sever their last connection, leave him aching and broken, and make him easy prey for Malfoy.

            Harry didn’t want that to happen.

            Ginny stepped back from him, took his hands, and gazed into his eyes. Harry mimicked the posture, not sure what she would do next.

            “Fleur’s spoken to me several times,” Ginny murmured. “Told me that this transformation on Malfoy’s part is natural, and no one chose it, but he shouldn’t be blamed, either, any more than you get to blame someone for puberty.” She raised one hand and put it on Harry’s shoulder. “But that doesn’t mean we need to give in to it, does it?”

            “Of course not,” Harry murmured. His excitement and fear were making him sick again.

            Ginny gave him a faint echo of her usual smile then. “Good. I thought you’d agree to fight with me on this. You’re a natural fighter, Harry. The trials you’ve gone through—“ She shook her head. “I think they would have killed me, or Malfoy, or any other dozen people that you cared to name. So. I know that you feel a kind of obligation to Malfoy. Fleur explained it to me, how the changes in a Veela affect its mate. So I thought—“ She paused a moment, licking her lips, and Harry wondered when the gesture had stopped affecting him the way it used to. Then she said, “I’lltalk to Malfoy.”

            Harry blinked. He thought about it for a moment. Then he said, “Are you sure that’s safe?”

            “Will the Veela attack me, do you mean?” Ginny’s voice was rich with good humor. “Well, it might. But I won’t be foolish enough to meet with him alone, Harry.”

            “Meeting in public—“ Harry was privately amazed that rumors about him and Malfoy hadn’t started circulating already, actually, given Malfoy’s several impetuous visits to the Ministry.

            “Oh, not in public,” said Ginny. “But Fleur will be with me. She’s lived with her own Veela powers since birth. She can certainly stop anything Malfoy tries. And she’s my sister-in-law. I know that her loyalty is entirelywith me.” She eyed Harry for a moment.

            Harry winced. He could hear the unspoken words—as yours isn’t—as loudly as if she had shouted them.

            “If you feel it’s a good plan, a safe plan,” he said, “then yes, I think you should.” Malfoy had said he cared nothing for Ginny’s happiness, but maybe it would be different when they met face-to-face.

            “Good.” Ginny patted his arm. “We’ll try for the fifteenth, since that’s the next day Fleur can take away from work. If Malfoy won’t answer, she and I are prepared to go to the Manor.”

            “All right.” Harry would have liked to bow his head and take a kiss from her, but he didn’t think she’d want it. “If you’re sure.”

            “I am.” Ginny settled the matter by putting her arms around his neck and drawing him down for the kiss herself.

            Only a tremendous amount of effort kept Harry from wrenching back and vomiting with disgust. He had grown used to touches on the hand and shoulders from others—one had to, when one had a partner like Ralph, prone to pushing people playfully into walls at every opportunity—but he’d kissed no one but Malfoy since the Transformation started. He hadn’t known that Ginny’s mouth would taste like oil and garbage, that even the merest brush of their lips would make him think instead of Malfoy with painful longing.

            But if you can do this, he reminded himself, it’s only a few months until Malfoy has to give up.

            He broke the kiss gently, and drew back, looking into Ginny’s eyes and trying his very best to show her that part of his heart that was hers.

            “I think you can do anything you set your mind to,” he said.

            She smiled back at him, obviously pleased, and looped her arm within his for the walk to the house. Harry ignored the way his skin vibrated and tingled with displeasure, hypersensitive, except for the finger where he wore the silver ring with a curl of Malfoy’s hair, concealed under a glamour.

            I can ignore the parts of myself that tell me I’m his. I have to be able to.

*

            Draco had been sufficiently intrigued when he received the little Weasley’s owl to agree to meet on the fifteenth, particularly when he heard that she was bringing her sister-in-law with her. She’d chosen a small restaurant located on a street, Whimsic Alley, that ran parallel to Diagon but contained more restaurants than shops and more “discreet services” than either. No one would trouble them while they met in a small, private room at the back of the Phoenix’s Nest. Draco had actually thought of bringing Harry to this place for one of the private meals he still thought they should have, not least because the staff would arrange for a room with both a table and a bed should they wish it.

            Pansy had let him go without a murmur. She now mostly wanted to spend her time at his feet, having her hair petted like a cat. Draco had coaxed her to reveal one cache of photographs hidden in the Manor and let him destroy them. When he asked her about the others, she still demurred and had a spark of temper in her eyes, so Draco estimated he would need another month or so there.

            He entered the Phoenix’s Nest and looked around. A tall, beautiful woman with hair as pale as his own beckoned him from a doorway that would look like a part of the wall when it closed. Draco smiled slightly as he went towards her. It had been ten years since he’d last seen Fleur Delacour, but some things one didn’t forget. She still looked like a statue with shining silver hair, but such things only interested him on an aesthetic level now. Harry was already the only one who could make him hard; he had to think about him intensely on those evenings when Pansy demanded sex.

            “Fleur…Weasley?” he asked as he took her hand and rubbed her knuckles with his lips. The Veela in him gave a little shudder, then felt the wave of complementary magic in Fleur’s being and went back to sleep instead of subjecting him to intense revulsion the way it usually did.

            “Draco Malfoy,” she said in response, her French accent only a trace on some words. “Veela in the middle of Transformation. I would ‘ave known that if I did not know your name.”

            “It’s a trying time,” said Draco, with a little shrug, and stepped past her into the interior of the room. He had seen the speculative gleam in Fleur’s eye, and wondered if the little Weasley had really brought an ally, or just a different kind of enemy. This was a woman who knew the ways of Veela and what one was required to do in order to keep and have a mate. She might feel it was better for all concerned that he and Harry have each other.

            Weasley waited in the center of a pale room, in which her red hair shone like a flame. The only furniture was a table and three chairs. Two of them sat next to each other, leaving one for Draco in isolation.

            “Malfoy,” she said, with an understandably chilly intonation, inclining her head just a bit.

            “Ginny,” Draco said, feeling generous. Why shouldn’t he? Harry was on the verge of falling in love with him. Draco couldn’t estimate when he would, but now that he knew the goal was possible, he would be much more patient.

            From the way her face shut down, she didn’t find the use of her first name pleasing. She made a stiff motion at the chair across from her. Draco took it, keeping his face keen and interested.

            “I’ve come to talk about Harry,” she said. Fleur sat beside her, turning her head slowly back and forth between the two of them. Her face had acquired a slightly haughty coolness that Draco thought was her natural, neutral expression. “I know that he does feel a sense of obligation to you, and that some of what he did was necessary, or you would have died.”

            “Yes, I would have,” said Draco, not moving his eyes or his hands.

            “But enough is enough.” Weasley had a force in her voice that Draco would have admired, were they discussing anyone but his mate. She leaned forwards. “I’ve come to tell you what Harry won’t tell you himself.”

            “He said these words?”

            Weasley shook her head. “No. But this is what he wouldsay, save that he’s too afraid of hurting you to say it.”

            Draco bit the inside of his cheek to hold back a laugh and raised his eyebrows in invitation.

            “Back off,” Weasley said. “You’ve taken what you needed, but now you’ve gone further than that; you’re taking what you want. I saw the mark on Harry’s neck when he came to the Burrow. You didn’t need to put that there to live. And he looked at me with confusion and misery in his eyes that I know you’vecaused. Stop whatever you’re doing. Harry is only an amusement to you, only a toy, but he’s my husband.I care about him, and I willdefend him.”

            Draco had been amused throughout most of that speech, but the last words nearly destroyed his self-control. He hissed, “He’s anything but an amusement to me. He’s my mate—“

            “Only to the Veela part of you.” Weasley waved a hand as though dismissing that like smoke, never taking her eyes from him. “Fleur told me. The human part of you is something quite different, more selfish. So you can let him go, with only the minimum sexual contact between you until the end of the year.”

            “I’m in love with him,” Draco said quietly.

            It wasworth it to see Weasley’s jaw relocate itself halfway down her chest, though Draco would have preferred to say the words first to Harry. But with the mood he was in right now, he would probably have run, and Draco didn’t particularly want that to happen. He leaned back with his hands behind his head and waited, considerately, for Weasley to recover herself.

            “You—you cannot be,” she whispered at last. Fleur had a slight frown on her face now, but she still made no move to interfere.

            “Why? Because Harry is not lovable?” Draco snorted. “Forgive me for not believing that, when I know you married him.”

            “But—“ Weasley shot a single glance at Fleur, and though the other witch gave her no encouragement that Draco could see, she seemed to draw strength from the look anyway. She tossed her head back and sat up a little straighter. “You and the Veela are still separate personae. There is no reason for you to be in love with him, even if the Veela is, and I have information that I trust that what the Veela feels is more like a very strong lust.”

            Draco calmly shook his head. “The Veela and I have largely blended, and I’ve had a lot of time to think about this in the last two months. I amin love with him, I promise. It’s not about just sex, anymore. I’ve sent him a birthday present, rowed with him, thought about him every spare moment of the day for what feels like as long as I can remember, and—this is very new for me, which, if you think about my past and my name, you will see must be true—realized that I would rather have him happy, even if that’s away from me, than anything else.”

            Weasley didn’t waste time pouncing on that, of course. “Then why not step back, do the honorable thing, and let him return to me? You know that’s what would make him the happiest.”

            “Oh, but I’m not convinced of that at all.” Draco smiled. He didn’t particularly want to cause Weasley pain, no, but, on the other hand, she was his rival, and could he help it if his confessions hurt her? “When I made love to him last month, I saw him happier than he’s been since this started.”

            Weasley flinched a bit, but didn’t back down. “You’ve only known him as a person for a few months, Malfoy. Not at all long enough to form that good an opinion of him, not long enough to know what will make him content for the rest of his life.”

            Draco made an irritated sound in the back of his throat. “I don’t mean content, Weasley. I mean happy. That is what I want for him, and I know I can give it to him, while I’m not convinced you can. And I may not know everything about him yet, but I am close. I have the Veela’s observational skills to back my own memory. Trust me, it notices every tiny detail about its mate.”

            “That is true, Ginny,” Fleur said softly, putting a hand on her arm.

            Weasley shook it off. Her jaw was clenched, but unlike on Harry, Draco didn’t find her stubborn look at all attractive, and was sure he would not have even if he were free to choose whom he was attracted to. “Then think about it from his perspective, Malfoy. Do you believe Harry really wantsyou to pursue him?”

            Draco bared his teeth. If Weasley wanted to take it for a smile, let her.

            “I think it’s a delicate balancing act, truly,” he said. “Yes, I care about his happiness. But I also care about mine. Both of us matter; we couldn’t live side by side for decades—“

            Weasley frowned at him.

            “—and not have that be true. So I’ll humor Harry, seek to please him, yield when necessary, and care for his happiness. But he has to do the same things for me. I may be mistaken in some things concerning him, but I know what Ineed to be happy, and he’s it. So there are some things I won’t do, and condemning myself to misery and suffering is one of them.”

            Weasley sighed. “I still don’t understand why you’re doing this, Malfoy. You had a good marriage and a good social standing before this.”

            “I did,” Draco agreed. “If the accident hadn’t happened to me, I would probably have remained content with them.”

            She stared at him. “Then why aren’t you now?”

            “Have you ever paid attention to him when he’s in the throes of passion?” Draco asked softly, leaning forwards so she could hear every word. “Ever seen his smile when he’s glad to see you, even if he doesn’t realize it? Watched him glaring at you when the Snitch dodged out of his grasp and into yours? I have, and I paid attention. That’s why I’m chasing him as hard as I reasonably can.”

            Weasley exhaled. Her eyes were exhausted. “You’re wearing Harry to a thread. I hope you realize that.”

            “I’m not,” said Draco. “The situation is. Some of that is his fault. He can’t admit what he needs, what makes him happy. He considers his own well-being as less important than other people’s. Tell me, do you really think you could change that, if he came back to you?”

            “He does that because he’s compassionate, which is something I can see you don’t understand.” Weasley’s eyes glittered with anger.

            “He’s toocompassionate,” Draco corrected her. “His selflessness borders on the stupid. And no, obviously you didn’t notice.”

            “Harry can take care of himself.”

            Draco studied her for some moments. She really did believe that, he decided. She hadn’t ignored Harry’s condition because she was self-absorbed; she had done it because she trusted him, and believed his lies.

            That only increased Draco’s determination not to back out of this contest. Harry needed him. Draco could give him something that no one else could, because he would get Harry angry enough not to hold back, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

            “If you say so,” he murmured lightly. “The fact remains that I want him, Weasley, and I’ll have him. He has to make the decision, but he’s close to choosing me. I suggest you not force him. He won’t take it well.”

            “This was a waste of time,” Weasley said softly, standing up. “You can’t see beyond the end of your own nose. I hope that you enjoy it, the moment you realize that Harry’s not some game you can play, nor some animal for you to chase.”

            She walked with quiet dignity out of the Phoenix’s Nest. Draco shook his head at her back. She didn’t know Harry as well as she thought. It wasn’t really anyone’s fault, and it was a pity, looked at in a certain light, but since she was the source of it, Draco did not care to pity her.



            Fleur coughed gently, and only then did Draco realize she had remained in the room. He turned to face her, head tilted curiously.

            “You are much further advanced than I suspected,” Fleur murmured. “Eet can take years for some newly awakened Veela to accept their other ‘alf. But you ‘ave, and that means that you can be good for ‘arry.” She hesitated, then leaned across the table and kissed Draco on both cheeks.

“I am sorry for Ginny,” she whispered to him, “but I do ‘ope you can cause him to fall in love with you, and soon.”

She turned and followed her sister-in-law then.

Draco left a few minutes later with a faint smile, enjoying the first human contact other than Harry’s that hadn’t disgusted him since the Transformation.

About other things he was less happy. He highly suspected that Weasley would do her best to put Harry in a corner, for example.

He could do nothing but be there for Harry when it happened.

*

“Draco.”

Something was definitely wrong. Harry’s color was much too high, and his eyes glittered with a feverish brightness. Draco’s first thought was that he was drunk, and the next that his wound had become infected and given him a real fever. But when he touched Harry, and came close enough to smell his breath, he could see that neither was true.

Harry bent and kissed him with a kind of careful kindness. They had met at the bed, this time, with Draco lounging in wait. Draco tried to stand and undress him, but Harry pressed him flat with a small shake of his head, and a smile that trembled at the corners.

“No, don’t, let me,” Harry whispered.

“I’ve ‘let you’ every time we’ve been together.” Draco drew Harry back to him with another long, slow kiss. “Come, please, let me do this for you.” The Veela was awakening, filling his mind with a low humming, and Draco’s shoulders twitched as if his wings would grow out of their own volition. “You need to be pampered much more than I do, God knows.”

            Harry’s hands briefly tightened like manacles. “Draco,” he said.

            The sound made Draco lift his eyes to Harry’s face, and he studied what he could see there. Then he nodded and lay back on the bed.

            It was not that he particularly wanted to. But he knew—he could see from the eyes—that this was something Harry needed to do.

            Harry removed his clothes in a leisurely fashion, not using the charm. Then he spent some time working over Draco’s chest, tracing the lines of muscles and his nipples with a patient tongue. Draco bucked, and worked hard not to grasp Harry’s head and hold it in place. He remained still, compliant, letting Harry choose what to do next. It felt good, of course.

            Harry took off his trousers, and after a hesitation, as if he were not quite sure what to do when confronted by a naked man instead of a naked woman, rubbed his cheeks gently over Draco’s inner thighs. The pants came next; Draco heard Harry make a slight sound of discomfort when he touched them, and knew they were already wet from his precome.

            “Sorry,” he whispered.

            Harry swallowed for a moment, and then looked up at him with a smile. “Nothing to be sorry for,” he said, and gently licked at Draco’s erection, nuzzled into his groin, and proceeded to spend some time exploring.

            Draco let his legs fall open, and gasped and panted. He couldn’t draw breath for any deeper sound than that, because every time he attempted it, Harry would try something new, and all the air would leave him again. His hands curled like crabs at his sides, and his head turned restlessly on the pillow, as Harry went back and forth, slowly, from his cock to his balls, and bathed every bit of skin between his legs with licks and gentle bites.

            When he finally took Draco’s cock in his mouth and began to suck, Draco made a tremendous effort and heaved himself up to look down. Harry had his head bowed, but he looked up when he felt Draco move, and his eyes were a brilliant green, his cheeks hollowed. As Draco watched, his mouth moved into a gentle smile.

            That had neverhappened.

            Draco came, a long-drawn-out, warm orgasm, without the burning heat it had always had previously. Harry coughed, but didn’t complain, and Draco finally flopped back down, trembling.

            “I assume,” Harry murmured at last, sitting up and beginning to remove his own clothes, “that you liked that?”

            Draco lunged at him, caught him, and laid him down on the bed by way of answer. Harry laughed at him, but it stopped when Draco’s hand found his right nipple and twisted it. He hissed instead, and the unnatural brightness of his face drowned in arousal.

            Draco was determined to make this the best Harry had ever felt. He fixed his attention carefully on his mate and let out a modified burst of the allure he’d perfected on Pansy. He knew it made every inch of her skin sensitive and pushed her want into need, and her need into desperation; it should work even better on Harry, the one who was actually intended to receive it.

            In the pause that followed, he wondered if he’d overdone it. Perhaps, since he didn’t like becoming a pool of mush from the claiming mark and the wings, Harry wouldn’t like this, either.

            “What was that?” Harry practically growled, and Draco’s fears vanished. “Do that again.”

            Confident now, Draco did, and Harry twitched and twisted on the bed, pulling at his shirt with clumsy hands, frantic to have it off. Whatever secret worries or fears he had nourished had melted. He lunged up, bit Draco’s lips in a fierce kiss, and tried to force his hand to push into his trousers.

            Draco slid them off smoothly, then his pants, and gripped Harry’s erection. Harry bucked at him, as eager as though he’d never felt shy or embarrassed of his own vulnerability.

            “I want your mouth,” he said. “Now.”

            Draco thought his knees must have melted as he fell down, weak with desire. Last month he’d seen Harry in the mood to give; now he saw him in the mood to take, and if it wasn’t actually just as inspiring, Draco would have been hard-pressed to say what was the difference between them.

            He used more than his mouth, as much use as he did put that to. One hand held Harry’s right hip to the bed; the other had picked up his wand and cast a lubrication charm on two of his fingers, then a cleaning spell on Harry. Harry made a startled sound, like a stepped-on cat, when he felt it.

            “What—“ he began.

            Draco slid his fingers gently down to Harry’s arse and pressed on it. Harry froze. For a moment, they stayed like that, while Harry looked another fear in the eye and Draco sucked temptingly.

            Then Harry said softly, “Yes. I’ll—try it.”

            Draco rewarded him with another blast of warm breath and an equal blast of allure, which helped Harry to relax while Draco gently slipped a finger inside him. He spasmed, almost, with vigor, and Draco waited until he had relaxed again before coordinating the movements of his finger and his tongue.

            Harry cried out in pleasure, overwhelmed, taken, abandoned, and his legs spread further open in unmistakable encouragement. Draco snarled aloud in chorus with the Veela’s mental sound, waited a few moments just to be sure his own enthusiasm wouldn’t hurt Harry, and added a second finger.

            Either he’d touched Harry’s prostate, or Harry simply enjoyed the feeling of fingers inside him for itself, because at that moment he came. Draco swallowed hungrily, and carefully withdrew his fingers, petting Harry for a moment before he slid up his body to claim another kiss.



            Harry grinned up at him, relaxed, calm, sated, and stretched his neck to capture a second kiss when Draco drew back for some air. Draco draped himself half atop his mate and nuzzled his neck. The claiming mark flared bright silver, and he licked at it, urging it into brighter contrast with Harry’s skin.

            Harry closed his eyes and lay with him in silence for some minutes, his hands smoothing up and down Draco’s back. Then he kissed his cheek and said, “I’m sorry. I have to go.”

            Draco sighed and rolled over, watching idly as Harry gathered up his clothing. “Will you tell me what made you act like that?” he asked.

            Harry hesitated. Then he glanced over his shoulder, and his eyes, though still cautious, were without that tight guard Draco hated so much, which had shut him off from his mate’s thoughts and feelings.

            “Not right now,” he said. “I’m not in love with you yet, Draco, but you’re—you’re a friend, at the very least.” He licked his lips. “I’m confused, still, but less confused about some things than I was. I’ll tell you soon. I just need time to think about it for a while.” Another lip-lick, which made Draco fight against the impulse to pull him back down. “Let’s say that I’m thinking about what I want, but I’m not quite clear on what it is.”

            Draco’s voice was warm and helpless in his own ears. “That’s wonderful, Harry. Take all the time you need.”

            Harry grinned at him, gave him a lazy salute and a nod, and took the path out of the gardens. Draco watched him go before he bothered to stir and release the glamour that had hidden Pansy.

            She looked a bit like a lost puppy when she peered up at him. “I’m the only one you’ll ever love, right, Draco?” she asked.

            Draco stroked her cheek with one finger, leaving a shimmering smear of lubrication behind. “Of course, darling.”

*

            Harry’s tension had not quite returned when he made his way back to Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. It was hard to be as tightly coiled, after sex like that, as he’d been when he went to the Manor.

            He fixed his gaze on the letter that lay on the table in the center of his study, and had caused all these problems. His mouth tightened, but he forced himself to go to it, smooth it out, and read it again.

            August 20^th

            Harry:

            The meeting with Malfoy didn’t go well. He’s still determined to pursue you, and he doesn’t really care what it costs you. You’ll have to be the one to break this off, because he won’t.

            Please, don’t go to him the next time he asks. I’ve talked with Fleur, and she says that, at the stage he’s in, he doesn’t need your touch every month, only every other. He’ll suffer, but he won’t die. Please, Harry, if you love me, show it this way.

            Love,

            Ginny.

            Harry closed his eyes.

            He loved her, he still did, but he recognized manipulation when he saw it, and he recognized someone’s attempt to force him into a corner, too.

            He’d gone to Draco immediately, on fire to prove that he couldand wouldgive him what he needed despite Ginny’s attempt to force him to stop, to make him break his word. It had become more than that when he arrived, of course. It always seemed to lately, when he was with Draco.

            Malfoy, he thought, but there was no bite to the word.

            He still didn’t know what he wanted; it might not be what Draco offered at all. But he had accepted, at least, that his marriage could never be the same again. The woman he had married, the woman he thought he knew, would not have written these words. She’d only asked; she’d done it for what she probably thought was a good reason.

            But things had still changed between them.

            Harry sat down and wrote his reply. It wasn’t long; it didn’t need to be. Then he called Hedwig and gave her a few strokes on the head the letter.

            He stood, watching Hedwig fly away, and wondered what Ginny would make of the letter when she opened the envelope and read the words inside.

            I’m sorry. You’re asking too much of me.

            Harry.

*

Magnus: The bad man is definitely not Lucius; in this story, both of Draco’s parents are dead.

Bookworm51485: Actually, armchair psychologist or not, many of your guesses about the characters are spot-on. Harry would probably disagree that he’s screwed-up, though. The way he sees it, he just has some natural desires—to be a free person, and a private on—that are getting trampled by this Veela thing.

Night the Storyteller: Controlling Pansy will be a long, slow process, which Draco has not yet fully mastered. He’s awfully close to doing so, though.

Ralph cares about both of them because he’s Harry’s good friend, and he has somewhat of a crush on Ginny.
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A Year's Temptation

Chapter Eight—August