Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

The Tapestry of Loss	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 4014 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this writing.

Chapter List
- 1-The Tapestry of Loss
- 1
Title: The
Tapestry of Loss

Disclaimer: J. K.
Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun
and not profit.

Pairings: Harry/Draco

Rating: R

Word Count: ~5000

Warnings: Profanity,
bit of angst, bit of sex

Challenge: for nevcolleil

Keywords: marks,
sunshine, tapestry

Dialogue: "I
mean, honestly... If you hadn't wanted me to put it in my mouth, you might have
said something.�

Summary: After
Harry and Draco discover a mysterious tapestry as part of an Auror
investigation, Harry starts noticing that the effects on Draco are�not quite
good.

Author�s Notes: This
is a response to a challenge nevcolleil submitted to
hd_500 in February.

The Tapestry of Loss

�� Draco! Not
that way!�

�� Fuck you,
Harry, it is too!�

�� Harry
ducked a green line of light that nearly decapitated him, and then popped up
and fired a Stunner at the smuggler who�d tried to hurt him. The man stiffened
and fell over. Then Harry dived behind a chair as a Cutting Curse nearly opened
his throat. �No, it isn�t!� he yelled, which he knew would negate the effect of
his hiding, but at the moment he didn�t really care. �You can�t use the Freezing Charm that way, Draco, because if you do��

�� A sound of
desperately scrambling feet and a loud crash answered him.

�� You�ll
fall yourself,� Harry finished with a sigh, and rolled out from behind the
chair in order to stand up and survey the room.

�� It was the
ground floor of what had once been an impressive manor house, at least before
the pure-blood owners had been forced to sell the building after the war. The
manor had passed through several hands, more and more rapidly, until at last it
had landed back in the hands of its disguised first owners. The Bonneville
family had made themselves part of a smuggling ring that stole Dark magical
artifacts by that time, or perhaps they could have gone on living in their old
home in peace.

�� Now, half
the floor had been Transfigured to extraordinarily slippery ice, and the
remnants of the smuggling ring lay about groaning�but so did Draco. Harry
rolled his eyes. Draco thought that the physical laws of the world should just
exempt him from consequences when he used a spell like this.

�� What did I
tell you?� Harry asked rhetorically, Body-Binding the wizards and witches who
were trying to aim their wands at Draco.

�� And why
should I have to listen to you?� Draco turned to look at him with a sneer reminiscent
of the time they had started their partnership and hadn�t yet managed to find
any camaraderie. Of course, that had
become easier after they spent a night hanging off a tower by a few fingers
each, taking it in turn to cast spells that would strengthen their hands and
keep them warm. Draco was the only one who knew what it was like to stare at
the flagstones five hundred feet beneath them for ten hours, and the only one
who really understood why Harry had
been a little queasy about heights from that time on.

�� Harry was
prepared to tolerate his mistakes, but he did
wish Draco listened to him more often, because he was usually right�about
spells, anyway. Draco could be right about fashion and wizarding novels and
pure-blood traditions and the consequences of drinking, and together they made
a balance.

�� Draco�s
elbow slid out from beneath him at that moment; the ice had been designed to
frustrate any attempt to rise from it. Harry sighed. �I should leave you there,
really I should,� he mused aloud.

�� You won�t
do that,� Draco said, his voice muffled since he hadn�t bothered to raise his
face from the ice. �You care too much about me.�

�� Harry took
the moment to give the bowed head a warm smile; none of the smugglers were in
any condition to comment on it. Yes, he did
care about Draco, and slowly they were moving closer to each other, in an
immense spiral that seemed composed of contempt, arguments, competition, shared
experiences, inside jokes, and some tense, tentative flirting. Harry thought
they would probably be dating someday, and he could accept that with happy
patience.

�� But that
didn�t mean he needed to indulge Draco
when he was so clearly wrong.

�� He
levitated his partner to his feet and then jerked his head at the smugglers. �Ready to take them back to the Ministry?�

�� Draco
tossed him a horrified look, dropping his jaw and widening his eyes, as if
Harry had managed to blaspheme his personal gods. Of course, in a way, Harry
had, and he had caused the reaction on purpose, but he was not going to admit that, either. �Without
looking at their goods?�

�� We can
leave that up to the people whose job it really is,� Harry said piously. �You know, the ones who catalogue Dark artifacts?�

�� We�ll see
what they have first,� Draco said. �You never know.� He turned resolutely
towards the stairs that led up to the first floor of the manor house.

�� Harry
grinned at his back again. Draco�s greed and sarcasm could be rather amusing
when it wasn�t directed at him. And since Harry had given him friendship and
begun gently flirting with him, Draco did
seem less selfish in general.

�� It made
Harry wonder what would happen if they had become friends as children�

�� But he had
long since forbidden himself to regret the past, so he forced himself to shrug
now and wait patiently for the moment when Draco slipped again, since he was
still walking on the ice.

�� It�s not funny,� Draco said a moment later,
as Harry laughed at the sight of his arse sticking straight up in the air.

*

�� Look at
this, Harry!�

�� Draco was
scampering through the treasure room like a child, he knew, but that was
because the objects around them were interesting.

�� Golden cups
that could turn any liquid put into them to poison! Emerald statues of snakes
with closed ruby eyes that would open those eyes and cut holes through the body
of any intruder! Cursed iron bracelets that would bring death and destruction
down on anyone who stole them! An urn covered with swirling, hypnotic patterns
of golden wolves that started to revolve and rise towards the surface,
snarling, when Draco looked at them without blinking!

�� And Harry
followed him with his wand warily in hand, jerking his head towards the urn
when the wolves snarled, and hissing in warning when one of the emerald snakes
moved, because objects didn�t matter to
him.

�� Draco had
never understood that. Yes, he knew that one didn�t technically need silken
sheets and roast quail every day. But if you could afford them, why wouldn�t
you have them? And if you could have beautiful, magical objects like these
around you, why wouldn�t you have them?

�� Sometimes
he wondered if Harry was scowling at his back in contempt when he wandered
around hoards of artifacts like this. But he didn�t think he could give it up,
and anyway, he told himself, Harry mostly thought of him as an equal.

�� Mostly.

�� He put
aside a bronze shield with strange marks around the center�the marks looked
like the tracks birds would leave in snow, which didn�t strike Draco as
enthralling�and found himself facing the far wall of the room. For a moment,
Draco felt disappointment. He hadn�t expected the smugglers� hoard to be so
small.

�� But then he
realized that the best treasure of all hung here. And no one could say that the
smugglers didn�t know how to treat their loot.

�� It was a
tapestry. It shimmered green and golden, subtle patterns appearing and then
vanishing again, so that sometimes Draco thought it was a forest scene in
sunshine and sometimes an ocean on a brilliant day and sometimes a depiction of
a giant emerald set in a golden ring. But each time his eyes discovered a twist
or curve that made sense, it faded. Draco knew nothing of the tapestry that was
true after five minutes of staring, except its beauty.

�� And then, the
real form appeared.

�� Draco
leaned towards the tapestry, his breath quickening. He could see lines
springing into being, coiling around each other like the branches of a tree.
They grew thicker quickly, and words sprouted from them and hung like leaves,
and light like sap surged through them.

�� There,
before him, was a depiction of the Malfoy family line, as Draco had often seen
it on books and the tapestries his own family possessed.

�� Draco
reached out with a shaking hand to touch the surface of the tapestry. The cloth
brushed against his fingers, so exquisite a weaving that he wanted to shake
again with sheer respect for its beauty.

�� This must be something that was stolen from
my family a long time ago, he thought, moving closer to it. Or maybe Father was too embarrassed to
mention that he lost it.

�� He could
see the words now.

�� And he
paused.

�� Because the
words on the tapestry recorded death and destruction, disappointment and loss,
and they flared the brighter and the larger as his eyes ran across them, as if
the tapestry could tell where he was looking at any particular moment.

�� There was
Apollonius Malfoy, whom Draco had never heard of except as someone who had died
young and disappointed his father. Now, from the tapestry, he learned that Apollonius
had tried to Transfigure himself into a plant. Draco
wanted to snort aloud with despair. That was only for Transfiguration masters! Only for people who were sixty
years old at least, and Draco could see from the date that Apollonius had only
been twenty when he died.

�� Draco could
also see why the Malfoys hadn�t wanted to remember him.

�� He leaned
closer still, gazing now at a name he didn�t recognize at all, though it was
only two generations before his father. Ianthe Malfoy
had been the sister of Lucius�s grandfather, it looked like, and she had turned
into a prostitute, selling herself and her heritage for money. Oh, said the
writing, she had called herself a �courtesan,� but still, the shame had been too
much for her family to take, and they had burned their name off their own
tapestry.

�� And there
was Quintus Malfoy of five generations ago, who had been�a cannibal?

�� Draco
shuddered with disgust.

�� Draco, are
you all right? You haven�t extolled the virtues of any of these artifacts in
ten minutes.�

�� Harry. Harry was right behind him.

�� And if he
came closer, he would see the lines on the tapestry, and the words, and the
truth about Draco�s family, that it wasn�t grand and regal after all, but full
of crawling, petty darkness and terrible sins�

�� Draco
didn�t care about what most people thought of him, but Harry was an exception,
ever since the night on the tower. He turned around, putting his back to the
tapestry, carefully arranging his body so that, at the very least, he was
covering up Ianthe and Quintus Malfoy.

�� It�s
nothing,� he said. �It�s pretty, I think, but the magic�s faded.�

�� To his
relief, Harry gave the tapestry a single, uninterested glance, nodded, and
turned away. �Well, then, I reckon we should start cataloguing these artifacts
and moving them back to the Ministry.�

�� His voice
reflected a distinct lack of enthusiasm, and Draco seized the opportunity. �Why
don�t you take the smugglers back to the Ministry? I can catalogue and move these.�

�� Harry gave
him a faintly suspicious glance. �You�re sure?� He knew Draco liked to be seen
coming in with the criminals, to reinforce his reputation as an Auror who
actually did hunt
down Dark wizards instead of letting them go.

�� Draco
nodded fiercely. �Positive.�

�� All right.� Harry leaned towards him until their lips
nearly touched, and suddenly Draco was thinking about something other than the
tapestry for an instant. �As long as you�re not taking the
chance to sneak out with some other man, Draco Malfoy.�

�� Draco
caught his breath as he met Harry�s glance. �And you really think that you have
the right to control me?� He turned his head to the side and fluttered his
eyelashes.

�� Not so
much control,� Harry whispered, �as the chance to know you. I don�t intend to
let someone else find out all your secrets first.� For a moment, his fingers
hooked into Draco�s robes as if they would delve under and find skin.

�� That�ll
never happen,� Draco breathed back. �Not when I�m keeping some of those secrets
just for you.�

�� Harry
grinned at him and stepped back, then trotted down the stairs to pick up the
smugglers.

�� Draco at
once faced the tapestry and waved his wand. It uncoiled neatly from the wall
and into a roll of cloth. Draco tapped the roll with his wand to send it away
to Malfoy Manor.

�� He told
himself there was no need to feel guilty. After all, the tapestry had been
stolen from his family, and they were only reclaiming it. And if he did take it to the Ministry, the same
thing would happen in the end, but only after endless leaps through paperwork
and suspicious undersecretaries who still resented Draco�s parents for the part
they had played in the war.

�� It�s just easier this way, he told
himself, and then began to gather up the other artifacts, although with his
mind only half on the work.

*

�� Where�s
Malfoy?�

�� Hmmm?� Harry glanced up from the file he was studying. The
Head Auror had assigned him a new case, one he would probably have to
investigate alone because it called for work in the Muggle world and Draco
could never fit in there, or stop
making loud remarks about magic. He�d been so involved in his reading that he
hadn�t even heard Ron arrive at the office door.

�� Malfoy,�
Ron repeated, tapping a sheaf of parchment against his arm and looking
agitated. �I have to get him to counter-sign on this report, and I can�t find the git.�

�� Harry
snorted softly. His growing friendship and flirtation with Draco hadn�t
affected Draco and Ron�s antagonistic relationship at all, except to move it
from open violence to muttered insults. Come to think of it, Harry reckoned
that was a fairly extreme sacrifice for both of them to make.

�� I don�t
know. You remember that he comes in late sometimes, when he�s been attending
another of Parkinson�s parties.� Harry turned a page of the file and told
himself that he was not jealous that
Draco never took Harry as his date to one of those parties. So far as he knew,
Draco never took anyone else, either, and anyway, those parties were full of
his particular friends. Harry didn�t think he�d have a good time at them,
especially since he�d have to look the other way half the evening to avoid
making arrests.

�� Well, if
you see him, tell him I don�t want to
see him, but I have to.� Ron stomped
off, looking martyred.

�� Harry
returned to reading, and then went to the Confiscation Stores to requisition
some tracking devices he�d need, and then went to lunch, and then practiced
some of the spells he�d need in the dueling rooms, and then went to play with
Teddy; it was his day to rescue Andromeda from the activities of a rambunctious
six-year-old Metamorphmagus for a while.

�� It was only
as he was going home that he realized Draco had never come in that day at all.

*

�� Draco
crouched before the tapestry, drinking in the darkness that had haunted his
family, running his finger from line to line and sibling bonds to marriage and
parental bonds. Each time, the tapestry obligingly glowed and swirled, so that
he could read the latest murder, or betrayal, or petty crime.

�� These weren�t
even crimes of which one could be proud,
that was the horrible thing. There had been no Dark Lords in his family. There
had been murders for sheer gain, for a few more Galleons or for possession of a
steel mirror that Lesbia Malfoy had wanted desperately
for some reason, although she was rich enough to buy a hundred more just like
it. There was incest, and cannibalism, and infanticide. There was rape. There
was the truth about the dispute with the Weasleys, which nearly made Draco rend
the tapestry in half.

�� What
stopped him was the still beauty of it, and the fact that he knew it wasn�t to blame. It was merely the
reflection of history. If the Malfoy family wanted a better reflection, they
should have done better things.

�� Draco had
become an Auror partially because he wanted others to understand that Aurors
were not always from the �Light� families, and because he thought too many
people were forgetting the distinction between good and evil in the post-war
trials. What was good and evil was what you did, not just family reputation.
The Malfoys could be �good� if they wanted. Hadn�t his father donated money to
all sorts of charitable causes? Hadn�t his mother saved the Savior�s life?

�� And he had
wanted, too, to do something positive, rather than merely continue the vacillating
neutrality that had ruled most of his efforts in the war. He hadn�t been able
to make up his mind, so he hadn�t been able to choose a side.

�� Well, at the very least, no one can doubt my
decision now.

�� But against
the weight of the past that the tapestry carried, with so many negative and
spiteful and self-defeating decisions, Draco had to wonder if his one small
choice mattered at all.

�� He hadn�t
yet dared to look at what the tapestry said about the latest generations, about
his parents and about him. So far, he
had kept to the sunlight-flecked corners that were farthest away when he could,
and had stopped himself from looking past Abraxas
Malfoy when his eyes and fingers wandered in that direction.

�� But he knew
it was only a matter of time before he arrived there.

*

�� Harry
knocked on the doors of Malfoy Manor, frowning. He knew that Draco sometimes
went into sulking fits and took time off from work, but it had never been for
three days before. And Harry couldn�t think what would have sent him into such
a fit, anyway. He had looked perfectly normal when they parted at Bonneville
Manor. Maybe someone in the Artifact Collection Office had said something to
upset him?

�� He does get easily upset, Harry thought,
with faint exasperation. He has to know
that people are going to make comments on his family sometimes.

�� But six
years after the war, when Draco had spent two years as a full-fledged Auror
with no bad marks on his record, Harry could understand why he got upset. He
didn�t want to be defined by his past alone, any more than Harry wanted to be
recognized only as the Chosen One, but it seemed they both would be.

�� Upset
enough to take three days off work, though? Harry wanted to know who had said
that thing, and what it was, so that he could punish his partner�s bully
properly.

�� A house-elf
answered at last, after long moments of knocking. It squeaked in surprise to
see Harry and bowed. �Master Harry Potter is forgiving Elsie,� it said. �Elsie
did not know he was knocking.�

�� Harry
nodded. �That�s all right, Elsie. Is Draco home?�

�� Elsie cast
an anxious glance over her shoulder into the house, as if she expected to see
Draco running up behind her, and then lowered her voice. �Master Draco is being
sick.�

�� Well, that would explain why he wasn�t at
work, at least, Harry thought, consoled. �What kind of sickness?� he asked
briskly. �Does he need me to fetch a Healer from St. Mungo�s?�

�� Elsie shook
her head so hard that her ears flopped into her eyes. �I is
not understanding,� she whispered miserably. �Master Draco is staying in one
room all day, and is not eating, and��

�� Harry
narrowed his eyes in concern. It was possible that Draco had been contaminated
by Dark magic from one of the artifacts he�d handled. For the sake of Draco�s reputation
as an Auror�and for many other reasons, such as Harry�s being on his way to
falling in love with him�he thought he should investigate.

�� Can I come
in, Elsie?� he asked, and gave his most charming smile, the one that made Winky scramble to prepare his favorite breakfast when she
came to visit Kreacher. �Maybe I can do something.�

�� Elsie
beamed and stood aside.

*

�� Incest, even, I could understand if it was
some tale of grand passion. Draco shivered as he crouched on the floor and
traced one finger over the lower left-hand corner of the tapestry. The part of
the tree that bore his name and his parents� was directly opposite. He was
creeping slowly towards it now, no longer able to admit to his cowardice by
putting it off. But because of lust, not
love? Why can�t my ancestors be as grand as I always thought them?

�� He had
contemplated asking Lucius and Narcissa about their family and why they had
told him lies, in some cases, and cleaned-up versions of the stories, in
others, but he didn�t think he should do that until he saw what the tapestry
had to tell him about his parents. He needed knowledge of their secrets in
order to show them he couldn�t be lied to any longer. Trembling, he focused his
eyes on the lower right-hand corner of the tapestry.

�� And yet,
despite his commitment and his courage, his gaze landed on his name instead of
Lucius�s or Narcissa�s.

�� Draco Malfoy, said
the tapestry in black letters that stood out like stains against the
scintillating green-golden background of the cloth. Considers himself good at Quidditch, and wasn�t. Tortured
people because of his own refusal to stand up against the commands of the Dark
Lord. Flirting with Harry Potter to pass the time, and
planning to break his heart when Potter is thoroughly enchanted with him.

�� Draco
caught his breath. That wasn�t�

�� The first
wasn�t a crime, at least, he carefully reasoned. But the
other two? Was weakness the only reason he hadn�t cast down his wand
when the Dark Lord ordered him to subject failed Death Eaters to the Cruciatus?

�� And Harry? He had thought that he really meant to have a
loving relationship with Harry, as soon as he had convinced Harry that he was a
competent Auror, strong, brave, and good at other things besides torture. He
knew that any bond between them couldn�t depend on looks or the tension that
had always remained between them since their schooldays; it had to be based on
Harry�s admiration and respect for the qualities of his soul.

�� But when he
tried to remember his own intentions clearly, they swam in a green-golden haze,
and he began to wonder.

�� I thought I was doing that. But what if I
wasn�t? I had hidden motivations before, when I told myself I hated Harry all
through school, and yet later I acknowledged that I wanted his attention.

�� Is this another case?

�� His eyes
roamed feverishly over the long list of beloved names that had become no more
than a tarnished list of sinners and criminals.

�� The tapestry knows the truth. It must know
the truth in this case. I can�t�I can�t�

�� Draco felt
his body shaking, but as if from a distance. The green and gold in his vision
swirled and expanded. He knew he was lifting his wand, but he didn�t know what
he was going to do with it. Destroy the tapestry? Blast away the condemning
words that had grown longer and brighter as he watched? Read the rest of his
crimes, some of which he didn�t remember but knew were true?

�� From behind
him came the sound of an opening door, but that, too, was in another world.

*

�� Harry
stepped into the small study that Draco had chosen to barricade himself in�he�d
used a locking spell, but Harry was an Auror, too�and saw Draco crouching
before what looked like an unfocused ward, holding his wand against his temple.

�� Harry
leaped from where he stood, crashing into Draco and knocking his wand aside.
Draco fell on the floor with a sudden, hopeless cry. His hawthorn wand rolled
towards a corner and Draco groped after it, but Harry Summoned it to him and
stuck it in the back pocket of his robe.

�� Then he
turned to the thing hanging on the wall, which vibrated with ripples of Dark
magic that almost nauseated Harry. Since Voldemort, he seemed to have become more
sensitive to individual pieces of
Dark magic; an accumulation of artifacts like the one in the smugglers�
treasure room or curses in a battle didn�t bother him, but a single artifact or
spell could make him sick.

�� Concremo!� he shouted, and the thing burst into
flames that ate greedily at every corner and every fiber. Harry saw a
forest-green haze rise from it, struggling as if it meant to escape. He cast a
spell that, employed properly, would destroy malevolent ghosts or spirits that
had tried to possess the living, and had the satisfaction of seeing the thing
burst apart into four puffs of dust as if drawn and quartered.

�� Then he
turned and knelt over Draco.

�� Draco�s
eyes fluttered as he came back to himself. He had a green tinge to his face and
a hollowness to his cheeks that made Harry think he
hadn�t eaten in a few days. He glared at the wall, wishing he could have done
something even more violent to the Dark artifact, but the Concremo spell had done its work and completely eradicated its target�and
only its target. The wall didn�t even have a burned spot.

�� Harry?�
Draco whispered. �I learned�I learned awful things about myself�� And then he frowned and touched a hand to his head. �At
least, I thought I did. And about my family. But now I
can�t remember why I believed them.�

�� That thing convinced you, I think,� Harry
said, and slung an arm behind Draco�s shoulders to help him sit up. He seemed
to be recovering rapidly, at least. He only looked confused, not dazed. �It
must have interacted with your mind.�

�� It was a
tapestry,� Draco whispered, looking haunted. �A Malfoy family tapestry.�

�� It
wasn�t,� Harry said. �That is, I think it was a tapestry, but I couldn�t see
any Malfoy family line on it.�

�� Draco
looked skeptically at him. �And since when have you seen a pure-blood family tapestry?�

�� Oh,� Harry
drawled, �there�s only the one from the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black
that hangs in my home. The one with your name and your mother�s and your
father�s on it.�

�� Draco had
the grace to blush. �So you think the tapestry made that up?� he murmured. �It
didn�t portray my family line at all?�

�� Harry shook
his head. �It interacted with your mind and produced what you most feared to
see. The smugglers we questioned did admit that they had a few artifacts like
that, but we thought we�d catalogued and neutralized them all.� He tapped a
finger on Draco�s shoulder, his relief giving way to anger. �I didn�t know that
someone had taken one home.�

�� Draco
pouted at him. �I was ensorcelled! And not in my right mind! You can�t blame
me.�

�� Certainly
not when you look like that,� Harry whispered.

�� He didn�t
mean Draco to hear that, but his sly smile proved he had. Then he reached out
and took Harry�s hand in his, tracing his fingers over Harry�s palm in a way
that made his breath catch. �You saved my life,� he said. �Again.
I don�t know what we�re going to do about repaying all the life-debts, at this
rate.�

�� It hasn�t
been a matter of repayment between us for a long time,� Harry answered quietly.
�I�ve considered us equal since at least that night on the tower.�

�� Draco
looked at him with a face that had a blaze like a comet�s imprinted on it, and
Harry cursed himself for not saying that earlier. Only now did he realize that
Draco might not have thought of
himself as equal with Harry, thanks to the taunts about his family that he
regularly received in the Department and what had happened during the war. Harry
had thought he�d made it clear enough with the way that he accepted Draco as
his partner, but there were some people who needed the words.

�� And some who have to show their appreciation
in other ways, he realized, as Draco moved Harry�s hand to his mouth and
began to suck on Harry�s finger.

�� Harry
stared, as entranced as Draco had been before the tapestry, whilst Draco�s
tongue worked up and down his finger and traced around the nail and the knuckle
in intricate swirls. Then he felt the response from his groin and yanked his
finger out hard enough to bump two of Draco�s teeth.

�� Draco
ducked his head, his eyes brilliant, even as he felt at his mouth with an air
of injured dignity. �I mean, honestly...� he said, when he appeared satisfied
that there was no actual damage. �If you hadn't wanted me to put it in my
mouth, you might have said something.�

�� Harry
leaned forwards to kiss him. Draco grasped his shoulders in response, and Harry
discovered that having Draco�s tongue twine around his felt even better than
feeling it twine around his finger.

�� So,� Harry
said, sitting back on his heels, when he finally felt able to pull away and not
gratify Draco�s silent request for more kisses. �Here�s the plan. We reassure
your parents that you�re still alive, explain your absence to the Auror
Department, and then go back to my house and shag.�

�� No,� Draco
said. �I have a better plan. I get something to eat and we reassure my parents
that I�m still alive by the extreme noise of our fucking.�

�� That
doesn�t take care of the Auror Department,� Harry said, trying to comprehend
how in the world it had happened that he was sitting on the floor of a dusty
study in Malfoy Manor discussing the progression of their fucking with his
partner.

�� Hmmm.� Draco tilted his head. �I agree.� He brightened. �On
the second try, then, when we know each other�s needs better, we can make each
other scream loud enough to alert the Ministry that we�re fine, too.�

�� Harry
kissed him again, because it was something, to know that not even almost dying
as the result of a Dark artifact�s enchantment could dim Draco�s spirit.

�� As it happens, he thought, feeling
Draco�s erection just then, we might not
get out of the study for our first time.

�� And as it
happened, they didn�t.

�� But Harry
thought it was worth it, even if he did have to listen to Draco�s complaints
about having to pick splinters out of his back for a week.

�� End.
- 1
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

The Tapestry of Loss