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Come Slowly, Eden	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 5594 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Come Slowly, Eden
- 1
Title: Come Slowly, Eden

Disclaimer: These characters are the property of JK Rowling, et al. This was created for fun, not for profit.

Pairing: Harry/Draco, Blaise/Pansy

Rating: R

Warnings: Sex, profanity, “eighth year” fic, more fluff than you can safely consume.

Word count: ~17,000

Summary: Harry didn’t mean to start liking Draco Malfoy. It just happened.

Author's Note: This was written for amour3559 for her generous donation to the cause of help_chile. She asked for a fic set at Hogwarts, with supportive Blaise and Pansy, and Harry liking Draco first. The title is taken from the first line of an Emily Dickinson poem.

Come Slowly, Eden

            First Moment

            Harry remembered exactly where he was standing when he realized the truth, which made him smirk triumphantly when he thought of the way Hermione would respond. She would say that he couldn’t feel something like this, that it was too strange and against all common sense, odd and foreign, and he was probably letting disappointment over Ginny’s refusal to get back together with him overpower his logic. If he just thought about it rationally…

            But the thing was, Harry had thought about it, and he could remember where he was standing when it happened. So the memory was clear and sharp, and that meant he wasn’t crazy, and Hermione was the one who would have to shut up and listen respectfully to him.

            If he had ever told her about this, which he didn’t intend to.

            But, you know, if he had. It would have made sense.

            He was standing outside the Great Hall on the first night of the new school year, listening to yet another row between Ron and Hermione, and bracing himself for the stares of the students when he entered. He was wondering if he had made a mistake by coming back. The Auror program would have taken him without his NEWTs. He could have made a career of destroying Dark wizards—

            And that was the problem. He wanted something else, something at once lighter and more substantial. He didn’t know what that was, only that he would know it when he saw it.

            Then a sensation ran through the students around them, and he turned his head.

            He remembered exactly where he was standing. He could have pointed to the stone.

            Draco Malfoy strutted past him, in company with several other Slytherins. He sneered in all four directions, and then at the floor, as if he wanted to show the air and the other students and every spare corner of stone that he owned it. He was walking in an odd way, lifting his feet too high, and Harry thought that was meant to add to the strut.

            Harry saw him closely. For once, Malfoy was ostentatiously ignoring him, probably because he knew they would fight if he looked at Harry and he didn’t want that to spoil his little display. Harry had plenty of chances to see whether this was a fake assurance, whether Malfoy was just putting on a show for the others to build up the confidence of Slytherin House—a confidence they didn’t deserve to have, but that wasn’t the point right now—or not.

            He wasn’t.

            Malfoy had come through the war, and he was still himself, unabashed and arrogant.

            Harry felt his mouth water. He remembered that. He remembered that Hermione said something sharp to him, probably to keep him away from the fight that anyway wasn’t happening (and when would Hermione learn to trust his judgment better?), and he didn’t hear what it was, because he was paying attention to Malfoy.

            The world was changed after the war, but no one seemed to know quite in what way. There were funerals to attend, dead people to weep over, injuries to heal, Death Eaters to capture, but also the death of a Dark Lord to celebrate, survivors to hug, jokes to crack, a school to rebuild. So sometimes people shone and sometimes they drooped, but they were all changed.

            Harry didn’t feel like he was a new person, even after he’d died and come back to life. He wished people would stop staring at him and asking what it was like to be a victor in the war. It wasn’t like anything, not for him. He was still the same torn and confused person he’d always been, especially after Ginny told him, gently, to sod off.

            But Malfoy…

            He’d stood up under the blow. He was the same as ever.

            Or, well, not the same same, that would be stupid, but he didn’t pretend that this was a glorious new world and he needed to change his behavior to suit it. He looked sleek and self-satisfied, and his voice was the same sneering whinge as always, and Harry would not have been surprised to hear him say something about “my father,” the same as always.

            He had survived. He had endured.

            And Harry was fascinated by him.

            Malfoy didn’t need to be a hero. He might have tried. He might have tried to look meek and tame and like a good little supporter of the Ministry. Even though Harry had got both him and his parents off, it would have been prudent. But he didn’t need to. Or he didn’t see it that way. He dared to look around and bite and screech, like some—some bloody cockatoo or something.

            He was free in a way that Harry could never be, self-important in a way that Harry should have found disgusting but was interested in because everyone else seemed so uncertain, and powerful in his own right. That arrogance would make dents in the soft shells people had wrapped around them right now. Not all the glances Malfoy got were disgusted. Some people looked thoughtful, as if they wanted him to show them the way forwards.

            And Harry thought much the same thing.

            He wanted Draco Malfoy.

*

            Draco sneered at the people around him, because sneering at one’s best friends wasn’t done, especially given the news they had just greeted him with.

            “But I always thought I would marry you, Pansy,” he said stubbornly, turning his head so no one could read his lips whispering the words. “Or that I’d be Blaise’s lover.”

            “Well, we chose each other, instead,” Blaise said, while Pansy blushed and looked at the floor, obviously unhappy.

            Draco sneered at a second-year Hufflepuff and made her clutch her robes and squeak, cowering back from him. That made him feel somewhat better, so that he could speak normally to Blaise. “You didn’t have a right to choose each other without consulting me. My future depended on one of you. It wasn’t polite.”

            “But it’s done,” Pansy said, and her voice was gaining strength instead of weakening. Draco turned and stared at her, displeased. Pansy lifted her chin and swallowed. “I’m with Blaise now, and I’m not going to leave him just because you would enjoy dating him.”

            “Or you,” Draco felt compelled to remind her. “My choice could have settled on you. You never know.”

            Pansy gave him a sad look, but shook her head. “I don’t think it would have,” she said. “I was never enough for you, even when we were children.”

            “That’s ridiculous,” Draco said roundly. “You didn’t stand still long enough for me study you. I wanted you to come back to me once every three months, remember, and tell me how you had changed. I could have decided if the change was enough for me, that way.”

            “Don’t you realize how arrogant that sounds?” Blaise asked.

            “If anyone has a right to be arrogant, it’s me.” Draco halted in front of the doors to the Great Hall and folded his arms, staring at them expectantly. He thought it was stupid that all of them needed to wait here as if they were first-years condemned to sit under the Sorting Hat. Didn’t McGonagall have any taste, tact, or sense of what was due to the returning eighth-years?

            “Why?” Blaise asked with a snort. “When your family barely survived the war, and you and your mother escaped Azkaban but your father didn’t?”

            “Father always knew he would go to prison,” Draco said, with a sigh for the childishness of the world that he addressed to the doors. They were the only solid objects near him, the only ones that would understand the need to remain firm against the flightiness of other people. “He made preparations to ensure that Mother and I were all right before he went. And that’s why I can be arrogant.”

            “Because your father planned ahead?” Draco wasn’t looking at Blaise right now, but he knew he was folding his arms. That was audible in his tone of voice. “My mother did, too. In fact, she planned so far ahead that she never became a Death Eater.”

            Pansy intervened. She thought she was so subtle when she tried to keep him and Blaise from rowing, Draco thought, but she had no idea. Draco detected every stratagem that was used against him and defeated it with his marvelous cunning. “Potter’s staring at you, Draco.”

            Draco turned and glanced casually over his shoulder. As a matter of fact—and she did not always let fact intervene with her interventions—Pansy was right. Potter was staring at him as though someone had clocked him over the head.

            Draco snorted and turned his shoulder. “Potter isn’t worth bothering with.”

            The doors opened at last, and they strode into the Great Hall, Draco leading the way, his House, fashion, and everything else that mattered.

In Slughorn’s Class

            “I think the proper ones to brew a potion as complicated as Amortentia would be Mr. Malfoy and—Mr. Potter.” Slughorn beamed foolishly in Harry’s general direction.

            Harry swallowed. His palms prickled with sweat as he stepped up to the demonstration cauldron that Slughorn had placed in the front of the class. He wiped them off on his school robes and told himself that he should have known Slughorn would choose both of them. The idiot still thought Harry was some kind of Potions genius, and he liked to have Harry show Malfoy up, maybe because Snape had favored Malfoy.

            But it was the first time Harry had been so close to Malfoy since he realized that he liked him. He shot little nervous glances sideways, but Malfoy didn’t react. He leaned one elbow against the cauldron and nodded in response to the instructions from Slughorn on how to brew Amortentia, which he probably already knew.

            I should think he’s a horrible person, Harry thought. Brewing a potion like that. He probably used it to make people lust after others, as a joke. He probably used it on first-years. I have to remember who he is, especially if he really hasn’t changed.

            But Harry’s crush wouldn’t listen to reason. Malfoy smirked, and Harry saw the boy he had known, grown old enough now that it wouldn’t be stupid to try and get over the rivalry.

            For the first time, though, he thought of something, something that made him pause in worry. If Malfoy really hadn’t changed, then why should he reconcile with Harry? He would do nothing but sneer at him, insult his dead parents, walk past him with a shove, not look at him differently.

            Harry was still mulling over that problem when he realized that it was silent around them. He looked up, absurdly hoping Malfoy might have said something gentle, and realized that Slughorn had finished his instructions on the potions recipe and was pointing to the supply room. Malfoy walked a few steps in that direction, then paused and gave Harry an annoyed glance over his shoulder.

            “Coming, Potter?” he drawled.

            Harry grabbed his own throat to prevent himself from speaking an innuendo and followed Malfoy.

            I just have to figure out how to make him pay attention instead of ignoring me and everything I say.

*

            Potter was acting bloody creepy.

            He was staring into the distance as if distracted, which he normally never did when Draco was nearby. A Gryffindor so perfect would think that one had to watch out for sneaky Slytherins and their tricks, after all. And he hadn’t listened to Slughorn’s speech, which, since nearly half of it was praise for Potter’s supposed Potions skill, meant he had missed out on a diet of the words he liked most.

            Then there was the clutching at his throat as he followed Draco in to gather their supplies.

            Maybe he thinks he’s dying of poison and he intends to blame me, Draco thought, and began watching Potter’s face for signs of the most common poisons: blueness, shortness of breath, a tightening of the mouth as though the victim had swallowed a lemon.

            Potter’s face turned red instead of blue, though, and he whirled away and nearly knocked down a jar of hawthorn petals as he reached out blindly. Draco sprang to steady the jars, and couldn’t prevent a note of contempt from creeping into his voice. “What is wrong with you, Potter?”

            “Why were you staring at me?” Apparently the imaginary poison had rendered Potter’s voice hoarse and almost non-functional.

            “Because I never tire of how remarkably stupid your face looks,” Draco said, and congratulated himself on a nice save. He plucked the ingredients they would need neatly from Potter’s hands. He noticed that Potter went still and shivered when their fingers brushed.

            And he’s so disgusted he can’t even bear to touch me, Draco thought, rolling his eyes as he pulled his hand back and turned towards the Potions classroom. That ought to answer his question of whether I would poison him right there. The best venoms are contact venoms. How can he be the kind of student Slughorn praises and not know that?

            Then he remembered some of the things Professor Snape had said to him about Slughorn’s taste and discrimination, and smirked. Potter had never attained to any real knowledge of potions under someone worthy to teach the subject. God knew what kind of fancies and laughable ideas his head was stuffed with.

            “Malfoy?”

            “What’s wrong with your voice, Potter?” Draco turned his head back and arched his eyebrow. “Someone scatter Dog Star Anise into your porridge?”

            From the confused look on Potter’s face, he had no idea what the joke meant, and cared less. “I want to know something,” he said.

            “Well, ask.” Draco balanced the jars on his palms, and he knew he made it look both good and easy. Potter’s eyes focused on his hands in envy. Draco smiled. Not that he’ll ever consciously recognize the envy. That would mean admitting something about me was admirable.

            “Never mind,” Potter whispered, and this time his voice was practically strangled. Draco made a mental list of poisons that might have caused that as they stepped back into the classroom. In case Potter did come down with something, his friends might blame Draco even if he didn’t. It was always good to be prepared.

            Slughorn was visibly disappointed when Draco did both the lion’s share of work to brew the Amortentia and to make it look presentable. Draco felt his heart surge and bound in him. Disappointing idiots was one of the things he lived for.



            On the Quidditch Pitch

            Harry crouched over his broom and circled, watching the Gryffindor players yell and swoop beneath him. He was already higher than he needed to be; he knew the Snitch was hovering near the long grasses at the edge of the Forbidden Forest and not moving.

            But he didn’t want to chase the Snitch right now, heresy though that would have sounded to Ron. (Hermione would probably have assumed he wanted to study and dragged him inside before he could explain the truth. Not that he wanted to explain the truth).

            He wanted to think. And it seemed that no matter where he turned in the school, everyone’s mouths and eyes were full of Malfoy.

            Bloody Malfoy had brewed the most perfect potion Slughorn had ever seen. Malfoy had astonished McGonagall with how well he had turned a sparrow into a kitten. (Harry had been there, and knew the kitten had had suspiciously feathery front legs, but it was still better than anyone else in the class except Hermione could do). Malfoy had made some joking remark about Neville and Hannah, who were dating now, and it had been repeated all over the school—but no one could tell anyone else what it was, for fear that some impressionable firstie might be listening.

            Harry knew that he was only listening harder for mentions of Malfoy; that was why he heard them all the time now. It was like hearing a new word you’d just learned everywhere for a week.

            But that didn’t help, especially because it was Hermione-logic, and Hermione-logic had nothing to do with the thing that tightened his throat when he looked at Malfoy, or made the blood rush down between his legs.

            Malfoy was unapologetic. He was brave; he was the only Slytherin who didn’t cower when a new edition of the Daily Prophet came out, but took it from the post-owl and read it, coolly. Harry suspected that was a mask, but it was still one he would have given anything to wear during those awful years when the Prophet was reporting that he was mad or the Heir of Slytherin every time he turned around. Or even now, when they found something to celebrate in his smallest movement.

            Malfoy strolled alone through the corridors where his friends went in frightened groups. And there was a rumor that a Ravenclaw fifth-year who had been bullying Slytherins had been found with his bollocks turned inside-out. Since Madam Pomfrey, the only one who could confirm that rumor, wasn’t talking, Harry didn’t know if it had actually happened. Or if someone else might have done it.

            Malfoy spoke up in classes, answered questions, and refused to notice the way that the professors tried to pick someone else. It was as if he had decided that he wanted to learn things, and he wouldn’t let prejudice stand in the way of his goal.

            Harry would have liked to save younger students—just because it was right, not because anyone expected it of him. He would have liked to be a serious student.

            And he had no chance of that, and one would assume that a former Death Eater like Malfoy didn’t, either. But he did those things, all the same.

            Harry frowned. These were all things that he had pondered before. So far, being up on the broom wasn’t helping him with his thinking; it just made his mind circle around the tracks with slightly greater clarity. This was a rut, there was another…

            Maybe I should decide what I’m going to do instead of what I think.

            It would help if he knew more about Malfoy than the glimpses he was getting from the outside, which almost certainly had gaps and things wrong with them.

            Harry sat up. Of course. Why was he thinking instead of doing? He should go spy on Malfoy and see what that revealed. It was what he had done during sixth year, and he had been right that Malfoy was doing something evil, despite what Ron and Hermione said. He smiled and tore down towards the grass. He found the Snitch on the way and scooped it up casually, bouncing it in his palm as he landed in front of his startled team and grinned at them.

            “Practice is over for today,” he said. “Go shower and get back in the castle. Remember we have a strategy meeting for tomorrow.”

            “Mate?” Ron pushed his hair back from his face and frowned at Harry. “What’s going on? You said we were going to stay out here an hour!”

            “That was before I remembered that I’d put off my homework,” Harry lied smoothly, and rolled his eyes at the chorus of groans that rose around him. “You could all use more time to work on it, too, admit it!”

            They trailed away into the showers, complaining in six-part harmony. Harry hastily locked the balls in their box and collected the few brooms left lying around, then hurried over to the showers, too. He couldn’t count on Malfoy to go to one place as regularly as he had gone to the Room of Requirement during sixth year. It would take a bit of preliminary spying to learn his schedule and how strictly he followed it. Maybe he could—

            He saw a flash of familiar hair and ducked out of sight before he even thought.

            Malfoy was just coming into the showers, Zabini beside him.

            This is perfect, Harry thought in glee as he steadied himself against the door he was hiding behind. I’m so smart.

*

            “I really wish you would stop banging on about this, Draco,” Blaise said, rolling his eyes. “We knew your opinion the first night of term. Talking about it all the time won’t change things.”

            “But you should have considered me before you began this relationship,” Draco said stubbornly. It was a late evening with nothing to do. The first-year Slytherins had hardened to the point that they no longer automatically believed the stories invented to frighten them, and Draco hadn’t found any conveniently unguarded firsties from the other Houses. He had come down to the pitch, pulling Blaise with him so they could row while they flew, and now he found the Gryffindor side of the building full. They’d have to wait. Draco leaned against the door, noting absently that it seemed the wall behind it was softer than usual, and folded his arms. “I had a claim on you.”

            “One that existed in your head,” Blaise retorted. “Just like your claim on Pansy only exists in your head.”

            Draco scowled and pressed back harder. The door moved a little, then stopped again, and Draco thought he heard a muffled squeak. Someone had probably left a pile of Quidditch equipment there, he thought. He could ruin it, but he felt too lazy to look. Arguing with Blaise was more interesting. “You know I wanted to fuck you.”

            Another squeak. That Quidditch equipment is probably already ruined if it makes that much noise just from being pressed on, Draco thought. Maybe it got wet.

            “Isn’t that a crude way of putting it,” Blaise muttered, but he had relaxed, and his eyes shone with the fun of the taunting game.

            “It’s the straightforward way,” Draco said, and dropped his voice to a purr. He didn’t want to break Blaise and Pansy up, not really, but it would be marvelous if he could make them wonder and regret giving up what they knew they’d had a chance at. “Don’t you want to go to bed with me? Think about it. Thrusting, fast and deep, our skin squealing as we rub against each other, you panting and writhing beneath me—”

            Blaise sneered as the leather piled behind the door squeaked again. “What makes you assume that you would be on top?”

            Draco gave him a patient look. “Because only one person can be, and you know where you belong.”

            Blaise rolled his eyes. “You’re not nearly as dominant as you like to think you are.”

            “Come here, taste me, and try,” Draco said softly, and parted his lips, waiting to see if Blaise would resist or not.

            Of course, he did. His newfound fidelity to Pansy was rather disturbing, Draco thought as he watched his best friend shake his head and walk back to the doorway, pausing to point an accusing finger at Draco. “Someday you’re going to meet someone you’ll want to fuck you,” he said. “I want to be there the day it happens.”

            “Maybe it would have been you,” Draco said, dropping his voice. “You’ll never know if you don’t try. Let me have my way a few times, and I’ll be relaxed and pliant enough that you could roll me over.” Never in your wildest dreams, Blaise, but how will you know that if you don’t try?

            “You’ll never bend,” Blaise said, stepping outside. “You’re stiff all over.”

            “That’s a very good thing, when you know how to use it,” Draco said, and followed him. Because the Gryffindors were here, the castle, or the walk back to the castle, was as good a time to row as any other.

            He thought he heard someone slip and fall behind him, near the door, as they left, and snickered. He hoped it was one of the Gryffindors.

Disturbing Daydreams

It didn’t matter where Harry went, whether his eyes were open or closed, whether he was sitting in the Great Hall or fighting desperately not to doze off as he listened to Binns.

            (Well, all right, so it was better when he had his eyes closed and was lying in bed, but that wasn’t the point).

            He still saw the images that had come spilling from Malfoy’s mouth—well, words, but the words formed images so easily it ought to be a crime. Malfoy talked about fucking Zabini so vividly that Harry wondered how many times they’d done it, and in what positions. Had Malfoy ever let Zabini top? Had they tossed each other off? Watched each other wank? Sucked each other off?

            The questions came and went, and around the second day Harry started wondering if Malfoy fucked girls, too. And what really happened in the Slytherin common room, which supposedly became quieter than any other room in the school at night despite Snape not being around anymore. And if Zabini was going to change his mind any time soon and agree to let Malfoy have him.

            He’d be a fool not to, Harry thought, pushing his hair out of his eyes as he squinted blearily across the Great Hall. It was morning, the third morning since he’d heard Malfoy and Zabini talking, and Malfoy sat in his chair and ate an apple as calmly as though his sleep had been undisturbed. I mean, look at him.

            It had been easy not to look at Malfoy before, due to Voldemort and the way he’d acted since first year; that was the only excuse Harry could give for not noticing his perfection long since. Malfoy’s pointy face had sharpened, and to call it “pointy” now was using too weak an adjective. He looked strong and determined, instead. His blond hair was bright enough that Harry wanted to touch it and make sure everything about it was real. (He would wager it wasn’t).

            Malfoy had eyes of a clear grey that reminded Harry of Sirius’s. Of course Malfoy wasn’t Sirius and Harry would be stupid to think he was, but they were related. Maybe all the Blacks had those eyes.

            Malfoy had a quiet grace to his walk that reminded Harry he could really fly. He never got the Snitch, of course, but that was a law of the universe, and one Harry had no intention of changing no matter how attractive Malfoy became.

            Well, there were certain circumstances that—

            “Mate?”

            Harry blinked and turned his head. Ron was sitting beside him, one eyebrow curled up in a way that reminded Harry so strongly of Malfoy Harry had to bite his lip. He didn’t want to blurt out the wrong name by mistake.

            “Are you all right?” Ron asked carefully. “You were staring at the Slytherin table and frowning like one of them enchanted your broom to throw you off.” In an instant, he’d swiveled around and was glaring himself. “Did they do that? I bet it was that prat Malfoy, wasn’t it?”

            “No, Ron, nobody did that,” Harry said, catching Hermione’s eye. Or trying to catch it, rather. She was involved in an enormous book that said History of the Founders on the cover, and didn’t even twitch at the patient note in Harry’s voice. Harry sighed. He was probably on his own to handle this one. “I was just staring randomly at one point while I tried to put Quidditch strategies together in my head. It just happened to be the Slytherin table.”

            “I came up with a great combination of moves last night,” Ron said, animated in an instant, reaching out and snatching up the salt from the corner of his plate to slam it into the center of the table. “It goes like this. When our Beaters first lift into the air, we send them after the Slytherin Chasers, and then…”

            Harry fixed half his attention on the conversation out of necessity, while the other half remained on Malfoy. He’d finished the apple and was lazily licking his fingers.

            Harry’s stomach lurched. His tongue felt as if it were on fire. No, that was his lips. He licked them.

            And Malfoy looked up and right at him.

            Harry tore his gaze away, feeling his cheeks heat up. This was stupid. This was insane. He shouldn’t be thinking about what it would feel like for Malfoy’s fingers to clamp onto his hips, or the long, hissing sigh he would make, his mouth falling open, when he began to fuck Harry. His hips wouldn’t snap down and then up with hard thrusting movements. He wouldn’t feel fantastic inside. Harry hadn’t even had sex with a girl, for fuck’s sake. How did he know what it would feel like?

            Malfoy would probably be rough just for the sake of being rough, just because it was Harry Potter he was fucking.

            Apparently, Harry’s cock had no problems with that.

            “Pay attention to my strategies right now and not yours, Harry,” Ron complained.

            With a sigh, Harry looked back at the table and the plates, forks, and cup Ron had dragooned into joining the salt cellar as representatives of the players. If he could think about Quidditch, he could stop thinking about Malfoy.

            Malfoy, who was probably fucking Zabini and Parkinson in his head during the day and in his bed at night. Look at him right now, laughing at a joke from Zabini and touching his shoulder with a hand that lingered a bit too long.

            Harry swallowed. Jealousy tasted a lot like bile.

*

            Potter’s behavior was starting to worry Draco.

            He didn’t want to worry about Potter. He had come back to school intending to enjoy the life he should have had last year, if his father hadn’t been an idiot and decided to join Lord Snake-face. Draco had seriously contemplated trying to find a Time-Turner so that he could travel back in time and persuade his father not to do that, but maybe then he wouldn’t be born or something, so he’d reluctantly given the idea up.

            He was trying to have a normal year. He joked with Blaise and Pansy. He defended Slytherins from the harassment that “heroes” like Potter were too busy to notice. He played pranks and he excelled in Potions, though Slughorn continued to prefer the taste of Potter’s arse to his. He was living in a way that no one could blame, unless they were going to blame him for existing and looking like his father, in which case Draco wasn’t interested in their opinions anyway.

            But Potter was following him, the way he had in sixth year.

            At first, he followed Draco with his eyes. They would be in Potions and Draco would look up at the feeling of an intense gaze, thinking Slughorn was judging him, only to see Potter staring at him like a hungry dog.

            Then Potter just “happened” to be behind him when he entered the Great Hall at meals, or walked through the corridors to his classes. Draco shuddered with relief when the door to the Slytherin common room closed at night. At least Potter couldn’t follow Draco there, no matter how he wanted to.

            And then Draco saw Potter whip out of sight when he was coming out of the Quidditch showers one day, still pulling his shirt over his head and carrying his robes draped over his arm.

            That was the most disturbing of all. What if he had seen Draco naked?

            Draco had to pause, because his own reaction to that was complicated and not easy to put into words.

            But Potter did so many other stupid and disturbing things that it was easy to replace the complex emotions with simple exasperation. He followed Draco down to the dungeons, and only left when Blaise and Theo both came out and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Draco. He worked with Draco on a potion in Slughorn’s class and insisted that Draco take the credit when it turned out perfectly. He raised his voice during a heated Gryffindor argument that Draco hadn’t paid attention to until then to claim that not all Slytherins were bad.

            Of course, he went on to say that he was talking about Professor Snape and the ones who had fought during the Battle of Hogwarts, but his eyes were on Draco when Draco dared to look up to meet his.

            As days passed, Draco decided what Potter’s behavior most resembled. It didn’t have the dark edge that it would if Potter still suspected Draco of a crime, and what would be the point of defending Draco in conversation with his friends if he did? And he didn’t want to be Draco’s friend, or he would have come up and asked directly. Or he would have called for a truce. That would be the best way to make the other Gryffindors leave the Slytherins alone, which Potter clearly wished for.

            But if he had a crush…

            It was incredible. It was amazing. It was laughable. It was stupid, because surely not even Potter could act like such a child after he had gone through a war and realized that he liked someone else.

            It was true.

            Draco started catching Potter’s eye and smiling at him more often, and watched what happened.

Potter blushed. He dropped his spoon in his soup. He dropped Potions ingredients (which Slughorn managed to blame Draco for, but even a detention didn’t lessen the fascination of Draco’s discovery). He stared back at Draco, open-mouthed, forgetting himself for a moment, before he would shake his head and turn resolutely away.

The resolution would last a few hours. Then his eyes would come back, and he would lick his lips.

            Of course, once Draco knew that Potter had a crush on him, he had to decide what to do with it.

            It didn’t take him long, especially when he thought about that complicated reaction he’d had to the thought of Potter seeing him naked.

            The Lure

            Harry sighed and leaned against the wall. Quidditch practice had gone terribly that night. The Beaters had crashed into each other, Ron had missed the Quaffle three times, and the Chasers were involved in a long and complicated row that Harry couldn’t figure out no matter how many times he listened to it and kept sabotaging each other. Harry’s muscles ached with the constant flights he’d had to take to all corners of the pitch, and his throat ached with yelling.

            Their match with Slytherin was next weekend. Harry didn’t know if they would be ready by then.

            After a few minutes, he made his way into the school, watching gloomily for any sign of his team. He’d sent them ahead of him to “recover and think about what they should be doing,” but in reality, he’d wanted to ensure that he didn’t catch up with them before they got to Gryffindor Tower.

            No one else was in the entrance hall as Harry stumbled wearily through it. So he was the only one to see the two Slytherins pushed up against the shut doors of the Great Hall, their legs and arms and tongues wrapped around each other.

            Malfoy had his back to Harry, but by this point Harry would have known him anywhere, and he could see the smushed pug-face of the other well enough to identify her.

            Parkinson.

            Jealousy surged like flame along Harry’s muscles, and he acted without thought. Drawing his wand from his sleeve, he pointed it at Parkinson and gave her a hotfoot.

            Parkinson squealed and leaped straight up, then stamped in a circle, trying to get rid of the flames. Malfoy turned around and gaped at Harry. Harry, chuckling viciously and not regretting what he’d done at all, fell into a defensive stance, expecting a hex.

            But Malfoy continued to stand there, mouth open. Harry blinked in confusion. He knew that his memories were a few years old by now, but even the new Malfoy he’d seen since the war wouldn’t have left it at this. He would have flown at Harry, mouth open in a snarl, hurling any curse that he thought wasn’t likely to get him in trouble. In fact, he might have done more of that this year, since he was so committed to protecting other people from Slytherin.

            Then Harry saw the blond hair shifting and melting into dark, the clear grey eyes that he had learned to know so well from covert glimpses turning black.

            Polyjuice.

            Harry spun around and searched the corners of the entrance hall. Malfoy wouldn’t be far away from a prank like this. Harry didn’t know why he’d set it up, or maybe Zabini had taken the Polyjuice just so that Parkinson could feel what it was like to kiss Malfoy, or so that he could experience Malfoy’s body from the inside, but Harry didn’t think so.

            A flicker of a black robe, a green tie, and pale hair darted around the corner in the direction of the dungeons.

            There.

            Without even thinking about it, Harry gave chase.

*

            Draco leaped the last of the stairs and set off directly into the heart of the dungeons, trusting on speed to leave Potter behind. Cleverness would have been a lot easier, but he couldn’t do it. Not when Potter was already this close and had seen enough of him to know that he was behind this prank.

            Not that it was meant as a prank. Not exactly. Draco had just wanted to see what Potter would do if he saw “Draco” kissing someone else. At the same time, he didn’t want to choose a random Slytherin who would be sure to babble about Draco’s intent and victim all over the Slytherin common room, and he hadn’t wanted to get between Blaise and Pansy, the only ones he could trust, himself.

            There was Polyjuice aplenty in the Potions storeroom, though—Draco could only shudder at the thought of what Slughorn must do with it all—and it was simplicity itself to get into it after the precautions that Professor Snape had taken to guard it. The addition of a strand of Draco’s hair and a bit of pouting and whinging to make it seem he still resented Blaise and Pansy dating, and the thing was done.

            Of course Draco had had to hide nearby to see what happened.

            And of course Potter had decided that he was to blame and looked around too quickly, and seen him.

            Draco suddenly paused, becoming aware of the lack of footsteps behind him. He threw himself into an alcove, where he would at least have stone at his back if he had to fight, and looked cautiously down the corridor.

            Nothing. No one. The dungeons had never looked more innocently deserted.

            Draco smiled, knowing what must have happened. Blaise and Pansy had stopped Potter for him. They would reunite in the Slytherin common room for a good laugh later, especially over the confirmation that Potter really did have a crush on Draco, or at least cared an awful lot about who he happened to be kissing.

            Draco stepped out of the alcove.

            Someone grabbed him around the waist and jammed a wand into his neck.

            “Ha, got you now, Malfoy,” Potter snarled into his ear.

            The shudder that ran through Draco’s body was not terror.

            A Little Contest

            Harry wanted to dance and howl with sheer triumph. He had been the smart one this time, whatever Malfoy might think. He was the one who had outwitted the Slytherin who strutted about and pretended that he was so sly.

            He had won.

            And now he was closer to Malfoy than he had been at any point since they started the school year. His arms were locked around Malfoy’s ribs, which heaved with his breath. That breath whispered across Harry’s neck and made him think confused thoughts about things being hot and cold at the same time. His wand had found a soft nestling place on that jutting jaw, and Harry wondered what other places on Malfoy’s body were softer than they looked.

            “Potter,” Malfoy whispered.

            Harry shivered—not because of the whisper, he told himself, but just because it was odd to hear his name spoken like that, by anyone—and responded, “Yeah, Malfoy?”

            Malfoy twisted savagely to the side, thrusting back with one elbow and up with his hand at the same time. Harry reeled, caught between the pain of a blow to his solar plexus and an ache in his nose and mouth that made him think one or the other was broken. He flailed with his wand, but Malfoy had stepped beyond his reach already. Probably running all the way to the Slytherin common room like the coward he was, Harry thought, with some spite.

            Then a hand grabbed his wrists and locked them together in place behind his back, while Malfoy’s wand settled in the curve of Harry’s throat, over his pulse, like it belonged there.

            “Who has who, now?” Malfoy hissed into his ear. He sounded exultant. Harry felt shivery, because Malfoy’s breath was in a whole new place this time, and Harry had never known earlobes could be sensitive.

            Harry took a moment to take stock of his position, considering and reconsidering the positions of his hands and feet. Then he smiled. Malfoy hadn’t bothered to take his wand away.

            “You don’t want to rethink that?” he asked.

            “Of course not,” Malfoy said, with typical haughtiness and snottiness and everything, really. “I have you, and you can’t move away from me. That means I won. Winning is good.”

            Harry rolled his eyes and cast a nonverbal charm through his wand. It was almost the only spell he could manage nonverbally, but that didn’t matter when it was the perfect spell for the situation.

            Malfoy flailed as his feet suddenly locked themselves together, and his wand fell away. Harry skipped free and turned around, kneeling beside Malfoy, taking the time to reposition his wand where it would do the most good—right in the middle of Malfoy’s chest, pressing against his sternum. Malfoy shook his head several times, as if he were hurt where it had connected with the floor, and then stared up at Harry.

            “Like I said,” Harry murmured, his grin bursting across his face, “you might want to rethink that.”

            Malfoy gave a snarl and lunged upwards, unfairly fast, snatching Harry’s wand in one hand and his neck in the other. Harry froze, terrified to struggle too hard lest he break his wand, and Malfoy rolled him over and pinned him down. The way his legs were frozen was an advantage at the moment, because they formed one solid block that made Harry unable to effectively fight once Malfoy got him in the right hold.

            Malfoy’s wand jabbed back into his throat. He did seem fond of that, Harry thought, his heart beating with the unexpectedness of the attack and indignation that this had happened to him, of all people, the wizard who had defeated Voldemort.

            “Ah-ha,” Malfoy said, his breath raking Harry’s face. It was just as warm as Harry had imagined, making him shiver again, but not as sweet. Harry wrinkled his nose. What did he have for dinner, onions?

            Harry punched Malfoy in the solar plexus, where he’d hit Harry a few minutes ago, and watched in satisfaction as his eyes crossed and he slumped down with a weak grunt. Harry kicked Malfoy’s hand until his weak grip on Harry’s wand faltered, and then he was back where he wanted to be, this time with conjured ropes carefully holding Malfoy’s wrists and arms down, his legs slung on either side of Malfoy’s hips, and his grin sweet and vicious.

            “No,” Harry said. “Ah-ha.”

*

            Draco let his eyes shut. He wanted to be upset, but what had just happened was so ridiculous that he was closer to laughing instead.

            He and Potter would always challenge each other, always struggle against one another—and always be doomed to that struggle, because they were too evenly matched. Yes, Potter was good at chasing the Snitch and better at catching it than Draco was, but he wasn’t good enough to make Draco feel humiliated and give up playing Seeker forever. And yes, Draco was good at coming up with plans to get Potter in trouble, but they never worked well enough that he felt he never needed to do it again.

            Draco imagined them as a pair of dogs forever chasing circles around each other, or a pair of Quidditch players falling from the sky, then straightening and soaring back up enough to attain some height, then getting entangled again. There was so much that connected them, tied them, so much that they would never escape from.

            And Draco was beginning to realize that he might not want to escape.

            “Malfoy?” Potter sounded half-worried, half-indignant. “Are you going to sleep? Wake up.” His wand jabbed Draco in the chest. “I want you to wake up and acknowledge that I won, for once.”

            “Never permanently,” Draco murmured, opening his eyes and peering into those green ones, obscured by glasses and so much else. He craned his neck up, moving dreamily, obeying the realization he had just had about their entanglement more than anything else.

            He reached Potter, and dragged him down with the force of his kiss, a kiss so harsh that it burned through his veins like drinking Firewhisky. Draco gasped, and then kissed again to see if the same thing would happen.

            It did. And then of course he had to try it for a third time.

            Potter began to splutter around the fourth kiss. Draco let him go and licked his lips absently, unsure whether he wanted to savor the taste or the strangeness. It felt good, but that alien feeling was also there. They were entangled, but they had never done anything like this. It was a contest where Draco couldn’t see the end and didn’t automatically know which one of them was better.

            “What—” Potter said. Then he stopped, perhaps because of the condescending look Draco was giving him, perhaps because it was plain to even his dim mind exactly what had happened. He touched his lips, looked at his hand as if to check whether the kiss had rubbed off on it, and then leaned in and frowned ferociously into Draco’s face.

            “You can’t do that,” he said. “I was supposed to do that. I was the one who thought of it first.”

            Draco sneered at him. “I have no idea what you mean,” he said, even though he half did and that was part of the fun. The outlines of their contest were becoming clearer to him now, and Draco was smugly pleased to find out he was winning so far. “Maybe you thought of it first, but I was the one who had the courage to try it.”

            Potter flushed. “Courage?” he demanded, spit flying everywhere. “You have no idea what you’re talking about!”

            “No, you don’t,” Draco said. He was already tired of Potter’s idea of biting repartee, and he could think of better things for him to do with his lips than spit. “Come here.” He lifted his head, seeking Potter’s mouth again.

            But Potter shook his head and raised himself up, and thanks to the stupid bonds around his wrists, Draco couldn’t pull him back down and make him surrender the way he would have liked to. Instead, Potter pushed his hair out of his eyes and stared at Draco as if this was all his fault and said, “It should have been different.”

            “What should have been?” Draco demanded, frustrated this time by Potter’s lack of grammatical specificity. “This kiss, or the crush that you have on me, or this fight, or something else?”

            Potter’s mouth fell open. “You know about—about what I feel for you?”

            “What’s wrong? Think calling it a crush is undignified?” Draco mocked, but Potter just stared at him with a stubbornly open jaw, and Draco gave in. “Yes, of course I do. The next time you want to hide a secret like that, try not to stare openly at the object of your affections in Potions.”

            “It should have been different,” Potter said, his frown deepening. “I was thinking about it, and I hadn’t decided yet, but it should have been different.”

            “And once again, I ask you, in what way?” Draco was getting annoyed. His arms ached from the awkward position they were tied in, his lips wanted Potter’s back again or else a drink of water, and he really didn’t think he could reach his wand from here. “What would you have done?”

            “I don’t know,” said Potter. “Let me think about it.” Then he leaned towards Draco and narrowed his eyes. “And no more giving Polyjuice to other people and letting them pretend to be you while they snog Parkinson. Or anyone else,” he added. “Male or female. Especially not Zabini.”

            Before Draco could point out how stupid he sounded, Potter had snapped his wand down and removed the ropes around Draco’s wrists and the spell that kept his legs locked together. Then he’d marched down the corridor, his scowl as dark as though he was on his way to detention.

            Draco retrieved his wand and conjured a glass of water for himself, then sipped it and watched the way Potter had gone. Try as he might, no new thoughts, and no profound ones, occurred to him about what had happened.

            “Well, fuck me,” he told no one in particular, and stood up to make his way back to the entrance hall, where Blaise and Pansy were waiting for him.

            The Perfect Kiss

            Malfoy had stolen his vision.

            Harry lay awake in his bed with his arms folded, staring at the canopy and brooding on that, until the small hours of the morning. Then he fell asleep, but his dreams were full of ruined kisses, so all he ended up doing was waking up and brooding about it some more.

            It wasn’t fair.

            Harry had had small dreams. They didn’t come together. Sometimes he looked at Malfoy and thought about dating him, but then he would think of all the things against that. And sometimes he thought about fucking Malfoy, but he only seemed interested in Zabini, and he would probably laugh if Harry asked him. And sometimes he thought about letting Malfoy fuck him, which might work better, but there was no means to ensure the entire school wouldn’t be snickering at him the next day.

            Well, until he started to think about Memory Charms and his mind wandered away in pursuit of some other goal that dissolved into kisses.

            So, the point was that he didn’t know how this would work, but Malfoy had stolen his chance to find out. Their first kiss had been after a fight that no one had won—unless Harry chose to forget about the times that Malfoy had pinned him—and which Malfoy had started instead of Harry.

            There had to be a way to get the vision back, but Harry didn’t think of one until noon, when he looked across the Great Hall at Malfoy laughing with his friends (Goyle had ended up with a bowl of soup on his head, but he did that every day, so Harry didn’t see what was funny about it) and suddenly the realization clicked into his head.

            Malfoy liked to do things first. He had hated it when Harry became Seeker for the Gryffindor team because he knew that he wouldn’t become Seeker for the Slytherin one until the next year. He had kissed Harry first, and he had set up that trick with Zabini and the Polyjuice so that he could see how Harry felt first.

            Harry could do nothing about the fact that his kiss would be a second kiss. But he could make it the first good kiss between them, the one that Malfoy would remember. It would burn his memory of the first to ashes and replace it.

            And the moment Harry thought that, he knew where the first kiss had to happen.

*

            Draco frowned at the note that had been delivered by a school owl earlier that day. Outside the place you went during sixth year, six-o’clock.

            He knew exactly where that was, of course, but the number of people who also did were limited. Unless his secret had received wider circulation than he thought.

            He had watched the faces of the Slytherins surrounding him for most of the day, trying to learn if he had to be wary of them, but they all seemed intent on their schoolwork, and Draco had got scolded for not being so. At least he heard no snickers, no insinuating whispers about what he had done during sixth year, and failed to do.

            Six came, and Draco slipped away from dinner and made his way up to the seventh floor, his hand tight on his wand, his frown increasing.

            He had to pass a small alcove on the way there, with a tapestry hanging in front of it, and he had always been careful of it, because it was a perfect place for an ambush. This time, he wasn’t careful enough, and someone grabbed him and dragged him behind the tapestry.

            Draco tried to drive his elbow into his attacker’s side, or spin around and confront him with dignity. But the attacker was too fast and too strong, and Draco found himself hurled against the wall. He bit his lips against whatever potion would soon be forced on him and squirmed, once again trying to bring his wand up between them.

            Lips slammed onto his, and Draco found himself soundly kissed.

            His mouth fell open in surprise, and his attacker’s tongue darted inside. Draco would have liked to bite down, or gag, or otherwise pretend that the taste was horrible, but the most incredible flowing sensation invaded his limbs, and he moaned before he thought of it. He reached up with one shaky hand and placed his fingers in his attacker’s hair, but he couldn’t push his head away as he’d planned to; this was too good.

            The wild tangle of hair told him who it was well enough. Even then, though, Draco couldn’t muster up enough strength to push him away. His arms fell open, his legs fell open, and he tried to buck and rub upwards while standing still to concentrate on the flavor of the kiss at the same time.

            The need for air finally drove them apart. Draco gulped in air as hastily as he could, and then leaned forwards to reach for Potter’s mouth again. Who cared that it was Potter, when it was that good? It was the kind of kiss Draco had dreamed of sharing with Blaise or Pansy, only they had unfairly got together before giving him the chance to see if they could kiss like that. For once, the universe had decided that Draco should get compensation for one of his losses, and he was all for it.

            But Potter rested his hands on Draco’s shoulders and held him back. Draco felt himself flush with both anger and shame. Had he done something wrong? Was this an ambush by Gryffindor House in general, and were Weasley and Granger going to spring out of hiding to yell at him in a moment?

            “I told you,” Potter said in a quietly insistent voice, “that I had the idea first. Have you ever had another kiss like that?”

            “No, never,” Draco said, anxious to get the stupid words over so they could go back to the sweet, sweet taste. “Come here.” He moved away from the wall, because Potter wasn’t holding him firmly enough to keep him there, and seized Potter’s shoulders in turn.

            “Not even the one in the corridor?” Potter gasped. But Draco ignored the words, as they were both more words and incredibly stupid, and began the kiss again.

            He was half-afraid it would taste bitter and fiery like the snog they had shared before, the one Potter had just reminded him of, but now that they had found the sweetness, Draco didn’t think he would misplace it again. His hands massaged Potter’s shoulders, tracing the lines of bone under flesh, and Potter moaned into his mouth and grabbed his neck. Draco found he even liked that, the fingers slamming home and locking together, pinching, torturing, hurting, worrying his flesh between them. Everything about this experience was incredible. Everything about Potter was marvelous and fantastic.

            Then Potter shoved up and turned them so that Draco was against the wall again, kissing him.

            Draco didn’t much care as long as he could continue learning about Potter’s hands and mouth, but it was the principle of the thing. He waited until Potter was drowning more than he was, sidestepped neatly, grabbed Potter’s shoulders, and taught him how stone felt with only a thin layer of cloth to protect him from it.

            “Ger—off—” Potter said into his mouth. That was what Draco could make out, anyway, past the groans that trembled there and the violent way Potter bit his lips and tried to crawl into his body.

            “No,” Draco said, and twisted past another attempt to unseat him. Then he kissed Potter hard enough to make his lips ache and split, and small trickles of blood ran into his mouth and wormed their way past his teeth.

            “Bastard,” said Potter, or at least the word that would be “bastard” without a lot of consonants, and the kiss blurred the room around them, the dart and curl of tongues turning hot enough to make Draco’s muscles weaken.

            He didn’t lose his head, though, and he pushed back when Potter once again tried to reverse their positions.

            “Just let me,” Potter panted, not finishing the sentence. His eyes were wide and wild behind his glasses, his hands making empty gestures in the air. His tongue wagged as though it were drawn to Draco’s like a filing to a magnet. Draco smiled, enormously pleased. He should look this way all the time. I should make him look this way all the time.

            “No,” he answered, and shoved and pulled and leaned, and Potter surrendered to the kiss again for a few moments instead of thinking about his lost control. Draco gloried in it. This was another contest, one he stood at least a decent chance of winning, one that would have a better outcome than their last kiss in the corridor, one that he never wanted to end.

            Then Potter hooked a foot between his legs, hopped sideways, and pulled Draco with him. They crashed to the floor in a mass of limbs and gasps. Draco didn’t think Potter had meant that to happen, but he had banged his elbow and was in no mood to be charitable.

            “Idiot!” he panted, lifting and shaking his head to remove the stars from his vision. “What do you—what—”

            Potter rolled on top of Draco and almost viciously reclaimed his mouth. Draco grunted encouragement and worked his leg around Potter’s right hip. It was much better than the last kiss, when Potter’s spell had frozen him and he didn’t have room to move.

            Then Potter pulled himself up, smiled down at him, and said, “That was a lot better, wasn’t it?”

            “Yes,” Draco said, mindless, reaching for him.

            Potter dodged his grasp. “Come and find me when you think you can top that,” he said, and marched out of the alcove, leaving Draco witless, dazed, annoyed…

            And hard enough that he didn’t cast more than a Silencing Charm before he reached down and brought himself off.

            The Questions

            “Why are you staring at Malfoy, mate?”

            “Malfoy just glared at you! What are you going to do about it, Harry?”

            “Did something happen? Because you’ve been looking at Malfoy and then away all morning, and…”

            Harry buried his head in his arms with a groan. One thing he hadn’t anticipated when he started playing this game with Malfoy—the game he was determined to win—was his friends’ questions. He had been as careful as he could, and yet it seemed they watched over everything, from the way he turned his head to the way he ate his breakfast, a lot more than he had thought they did.

            Or else Ron was just as obsessed with Malfoy as he was, because Ron was the one who had noticed the glare. Maybe Harry ought to consider him a rival for Malfoy’s affections.

            If Malfory had affections. Or passion. Or daring. It had been three whole days, and Malfoy hadn’t yet approached him with some way to top the kiss. And as wonderful as that kiss had been, Harry knew Slytherin arrogance. Malfoy ought to have thought of something and implemented it as a plan, no matter how pathetic it actually was.

            “Are you all right, mate?”

            Harry raised his head and smiled dimly at Ron. “Fine.” He made himself pick up his fork and eat some of the potatoes on his plate, fiercely resisting the urge to glance over at the Slytherin table. It would serve Malfoy right if Harry just lost interest in him altogether, or at least didn’t pay any attention to him for the rest of the day.

            But it was too late to forget about Malfoy. Harry knew that from the way the vision fluttered and blazed in his head, following him around and popping up in his mind to keep him awake in History of Magic.

            The vision was of Malfoy sprawled on the floor of the little alcove near the Room of Requirement, his hair splayed around his face, his mouth a brilliant, sucked red and his legs falling open so that Harry could see the bulge between them clearly.

            Harry knew he could cause that, now. He knew that Malfoy would yield to him without so much as a murmur, opening his legs and his arms in welcome. That meant Harry couldn’t resist the temptation to cause it again, and again, and again.

            If Malfoy didn’t come up with something soon, then Harry would have to go find him again, that was all, and give him more incentive.

            “Why are you so flushed, Harry? Are you all right?”

            Hermione didn’t usually speak that openly in the middle of class, even if Binns was droning on about another goblin war and wouldn’t notice. Harry sighed in exasperation and nodded to her, crossing his legs in the meanwhile so that there was no chance of Hermione getting a glimpse of what he, er, “felt” right now.

            “Yeah, I am.”

            Hermione wrinkled her brow. “But you look like you have a fever. Maybe you should go and see Madam Pomfrey after class. And now you’re squirming around in your seat,” she said, watching Harry’s movements with what she probably thought was an expert eye. “Did someone cast the Bladder-Restraining Curse on you? I know some Slytherins were practicing it the other day. And—”

            “For God’s sake, Hermione,” Harry hissed, so exasperated that he spoke the truth without thinking, “I’m flushed for the same reason you came to Transfiguration flushed the other day, all right?”

            “I—oh.” Hermione blinked and leaned back in her seat. She had, indeed, walked through the door with every sign of an intense snogging session still on her face. Ron hadn’t bothered to show up at all. She cleared her throat and glanced away, and Harry smirked with a sense of triumph.

            But only until Hermione, who had been scribbling away industriously on what he thought were her notes, slipped him a piece of parchment as they left the class. Harry glanced down at it, and saw it was a list of book titles. The Joys of Safe Sex. A Wizard’s Guide to Wanking. Spells for Protection and Pleasure.

            “I think you could use them,” Hermione said.

            Harry went out to the Quidditch pitch. Flying around in circles was better than screaming at his best friend in the middle of the corridor.

            But better still would have been snogging Malfoy, if the git could just find his fucking courage.

*

            Draco smiled slowly and peeled himself away from the wall as he saw Potter dash towards the doors that led out from the school. Well, well, well. He had thought he would have to wait forever for Potter to escape from the company of his constantly monitoring friends.

            But he was outside now, alone. And Draco had his plan.

            He walked out into the pitch and stood there, his hands clasped behind his back, waiting patiently for Potter to glance down and notice him. It did seem as if it would take a long time. Potter soared in furious circles and tried zigzags that Draco wouldn’t have attempted on his best days, let alone in a light rain like the one that was falling now.

            Then Potter saw him.

            He came driving in on his broom so powerfully that Draco licked dry lips and wondered if this was a good idea. But he had already waited as long as he could, considering his own sexual needs. He held his ground, not even flinching when Potter popped off the broom and covered the distance between them in three long strides. He grimaced, instead of flinching, when Potter poked him in the chest like the uncouth being he was.

            “Listen, you—you,” Potter said. “I want to know what the fuck you think you’re playing at, making me wait so long—”

            “I’d like to fuck you in a bed,” Draco murmured. “Did you know that?”

            Potter paused, his nostrils flaring to the point that it made him look like a startled horse. Then he stepped closer and peered at Draco’s face. “Look,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re playing at.”

            Draco smiled. He could feel Potter’s breath now, and it made him dizzy and braver than he ever had been.

            “I don’t play at fucking,” he said. “You’re the one who’s forced me to play more games than I am comfortable with or care for, these last few weeks.” He swayed forwards, and Potter imitated him without seeming to realize what he was doing, so that their noses were a shadow’s breadth from brushing against each other. “I don’t want to play at this. I’m telling you what I would do.”

            Potter’s hoarse gasps were the only response.

            “I’d like to push you into the bed,” Draco said, “one of the comfortable ones that actually has enough room for two people. One like my bed in Slytherin, perhaps.” Potter’s eyes flared as if he was about to say that his bed in Gryffindor was big enough, too, but Draco wasn’t inclined to listen to any such nonsense at the moment and went stubbornly on. “I’d pull your shirt up first, because I’d like to taste your chest.”

            Potter stared at him with his mouth dropping open slightly. Then his teeth clicked together as he looked away. “It tastes like skin,” he whispered. “It’s nothing strange.”

            Draco laughed, knowing that the low sound and the way it threaded through the darkness were bringing them ever closer together. “Unless you’ve tasted your own chest, I think you ought to let me be the judge of that.”

            Potter nodded, dazed, and for a moment seemed to struggle with the emotions that were doubtless rising in him. Then he whispered, “Go on.”

            Those were the words Draco had been waiting for. He gave Potter a lazy, appreciative smile, making sure to let his eyes burn as he considered Potter’s tangled hair, his narrow face, his lean but strong body.

            He began again in a lower and breathier voice, trying to let the visions form in his head and spill directly out his mouth. “I’d flick your nipples and suck them until they stood upright. You’d like that. There aren’t words for how you’d like that. You’d writhe under me and beg for more, but I wouldn’t have to listen to the begging, because I would be in control and able to decide how fast we went.”

            He could hear the whistle of breath through Potter’s mouth now. Potter shut his eyes and tilted his head back with a little shudder.

            “Oh, you like that, as well,” Draco said, and regretfully had to set aside the fantasies that came bubbling up then. He would finish this one first and see how Potter reacted. “I’d move down your body, slowly, slowly. We would both know where I was going, but there wouldn’t be any way for you to rush it. And by the time I finally touched you, you’d be begging and moaning, little broken words dropping from your lips, words that I’d treasure forever.”

            Potter gave a whimper then. Draco stared at him, transfixed, the ache between his own legs suddenly so prominent that he thought about stepping forwards, touching Potter, and letting nature take its course.

            But he’d promised himself that he would win this time. So he cleared his throat and continued. “I’d stroke you slowly. I’d twist my fingers near the head, and leave them there until you begged again. And then I’d order you to spread your legs, and you would, because there’s just no choice, it’s what we both want and that’s most important, don’t you agree?”

            Potter’s eyes rolled open, so glazed that Draco had to squeeze himself. He wouldn’t have lasted, otherwise. As it was, his words came out more rushed than he had wanted them to.

            “I’ll reach back down,” Draco whispered, husky beyond bearing, “between your legs, towards your hole. I don’t think you’ve ever had a finger there before, have you? But I’d give you more than a finger. You’d feel that first, circling you, but then another one would come in, and you’d writhe and stare up at me nervously, wondering how many I meant to put in. The answer is: as many as I want. But I’d tug on your balls and bend my head down first.”

            Potter had his hands balled into fists at his side, his hips thrusting forwards in little jutting motions.

            “My tongue flicks out,” Draco said, and magnetism seemed to draw him closer to Potter, his steps across the ground between them as irregular as the way Potter’s hips thrust. “It touches the head of your cock. And at the same moment, a finger slides inside you, and you can feel it there, burning, pressing in—”

            Potter gave a sob, turned, and fled. Draco started to go after him, determined to win, though maybe, if he’d made Potter run, that was his victory.

            But then he saw Potter’s legs go out from under him, and he fell to his knees, head tilted back as he shook, his hands braced on the ground in front of him and curling as he ripped up grass blades, a weak cry emerging from his throat that Draco understood well.

            It was all Draco needed. He dropped to only one knee, but he came, too, his neck flexing as he tried to wrap up the rush of his desire in his thoughts and understand it, both this intense pleasure and this intense wanting after it.

            When he looked up again, hand instinctively reaching out, Potter was gone.

A Decision to Come To

            That was…

            That wasn’t supposed to happen, in Harry’s view.

            Well. Of course it had happened, and Harry had to deal with it the same way he’d had to deal with Malfoy kissing him in the corridor and then staying away from him for three days after Harry kissed him. But this one was a little harder to deal with. For one thing, no one had ever talked him to orgasm before.

            No one had ever caused an orgasm for him before, not like that. Harry had honestly thought he would get out of Hogwarts without someone here doing it, too. After all, he had the rest of his life to become an Auror and fall in love with someone on a dangerous mission and get married in a rush of heat afterwards.

            Harry, staring at the canopy of his bed, shut his eyes and carefully forbade himself to remember that he had fantasies that silly.

            But the question remained. Exactly what was he going to do now?

            There was the inevitable option. He could give in and acknowledge that Malfoy was going to win at least some aspects of their contest. He could go to him and beg for those words to become reality. That would have its good aspects. He would get the crawling need that seemed to have taken up residence in his belly satisfied, and he would get to see Malfoy lose control.

            But part of him still wanted the victory. He had to outshine Malfoy at this as at everything else, or he wouldn’t respect himself in the morning.

            He would have tried already, but for lack of a plan. He couldn’t talk like Malfoy. He couldn’t challenge him to some sort of duel in public. He could try another kiss, but it probably wouldn’t make Malfoy come in his pants, and even if it did, it would only be equal to what Malfoy had done to Harry, not superior.

            In fact, he thought, rolling over and pushing his face into the pillow as if either ideas or sleep were there and could crawl into his head via his eyelids, part of the problem is that I’m not a Slytherin. I would come up with a wonderful and cunning plan if I were. But I’m much better at Quidditch and dying to save the world and making Voldemort understand why I defeated him. The obvious things.

            Then Harry paused.

            Why couldn’t the obvious become subtle when the person you were doing it to didn’t expect it? Malfoy was too Slytherin. He would make those plans and get the better of Harry if he could until the end of time, but his plans hadn’t always worked, either. When he’d dressed up as a Dementor, he hadn’t thought about the obvious consequences—the way that Harry tended to react to Dementors.

            Harry smiled. He had the idea.

            Now, the only thing was to pick the place. He didn’t want to do it somewhere too public, because he didn’t want to humiliate Malfoy. He wanted to win over him, and win him over.

            And then Harry knew. He settled back into the pillow, humming, and thinking of the expression on Malfoy’s face when he realized what Harry was doing.

            Thinking about Malfoy necessitated some heated wanking before he fell asleep, but still. It was worth it.

*

            Draco kept his eye on Potter for the rest of that week. He wanted to be ready when the inevitable next move came.

            But it didn’t come. He might as well have ceased to exist as far as Potter was concerned. Potter trained with his Quidditch team, ate in the Great Hall, ferociously studied for the NEWTs under Granger’s direction, and continued to display a frustrating if minor talent in Potions. He would catch Draco’s eye and smirk or blush, sometimes, but he didn’t make a move.

            Come on, Potter, Draco thought, staring one day at the back of his neck. I don’t know how much clearer I can be. Give me some excuse to tumble you on a bed already.

            Potter turned around and smirked.

            Draco stared, lips parting slightly. Is it going to be here? Here and now, in the middle of Potions? His heart beat faster, both with nervousness and excitement. What would his parents say? What would the papers say? What about the disappointed witches and the wizards Draco knew of who would want Potter for themselves?

            But smugness was under all of that, lapping through Draco like acid. I’m the one who got him. More to the point, he fell for me before I fell for him. Who else in the wizarding world can claim that?

            But Potter turned back to his cauldron and cast something into it. The cauldron smoked. Draco didn’t even have the anticipation of knowing the cauldron would blow up in Potter’s face any moment, because this potion was supposed to do that at that particular moment in time.

            Draco clenched his fists. He wouldn’t be drawn. He wouldn’t. He’d already made his move, and now it was Potter’s turn. Draco wouldn’t be the one doing all the chasing, not when Potter had been the one with the silly little crush in the first place.

            So he forced himself to ignore Potter back, as hard as it was, and even thought things were working pretty well when the Slytherin-Gryffindor Quidditch match came along and spoiled all his fine ignoring.



            In the Air

            Harry checked the hang of the scarlet robes over his body and smiled at his reflection. The enchanted mirror promptly started to coo at him about how handsome he looked, but Harry rolled his eyes and flicked his wand to shut off the voice. He hated the stupid thing.

            Robes. Check.

            Broom. Check. Harry had bought a new Firebolt for himself on his eighteenth birthday, not caring when Hermione made a shocked face over all the Galleons he was spending. He ought to be able to do what he wanted, for once.

            Determination.

            More than check, Harry thought, winking at his reflection and spinning away from it.

            He walked towards the door of the bathroom with his head held high, and opened the door to find the bedroom full of chaos. Ron was yelling that he couldn’t find his gloves, and Hermione was yelling at him for yelling at her. Neville stood in a corner as though he’d lost all the courage he’d gained in the war, his face red. Harry suspected that someone had already yelled at him. Seamus and Dean were arguing at the top of their lungs about whether the Chasers were actually any good after only a few months of practice.

            “Pay attention!” Harry shouted.

            Amazingly, they did, even Ron and Hermione spinning around to face him. Harry cast a Summoning Charm into the silence, and Ron’s gloves zoomed out from under his bed. Harry handed them to his friend with a raised eyebrow. Ron had the good grace to duck his head and murmur something sheepish as he slipped them on.

            “We’re going out to play Slytherin today,” Harry said, glancing around from face to face. He didn’t have the whole of the team here, but that didn’t matter. In a way, this was a testing ground for the speech he would make to the team when he had them assembled. “And they’re going to give us a battle. It’s no good disguising that, since we aren’t very prepared. But we’re still going to win.”

            “That’s the spirit, Harry!” Seamus cheered, waving his arms in the air. Dean thumped him on the back of the head when he would have gone on.

            “Can’t you see he’s going to say something, mate?” he hissed out of the corner of his mouth, when Seamus turned to him in indignation.

            “Thanks, Dean,” Harry said, not bothering to hide his grin. “We’re still the better team. We work together, and every member of the Slytherin team wants to be acknowledged, so they go too far in acting on their own.” He saw Hermione opening her mouth—she had been disapproving of that kind of talk for months—and hurried on. Hermione just didn’t understand Quidditch and the importance of team spirit. “Don’t worry about us. I guarantee that Slytherin will never know what hit them.”

            One Slytherin in particular, he thought proudly as he went downstairs to find Ginny and the rest of the team.

            There was no way that he would let Malfoy win this match; he wasn’t that big a fool, or a sap. But he would hand him something else today, something that Malfoy would value more than a victory if he was lucky.

*

            There were seven red-robed figures on the field, but Draco’s eyes immediately sought the smallest and scrawniest, who had scraggly black hair projecting every which way from his head, and stayed there. He knew they walked forwards, knew they stood there for Madam Hooch’s speech about the rules, and knew that the rest of his team was nodding and grunting in unison, but he was utterly incapable of looking away from Potter.

            Potter noted the direction of his gaze and smiled lazily. Draco found himself tensing up. The smile could have been mistaken for one of the teasing smirks that he had given Draco in Potions, but Draco didn’t think so, not this time. Something was different about it, something that made his muscles ache. He shifted around and attracted Madam Hooch’s disapproving stare.

            “Do you have to use the bathroom, young man?” she asked.

            Draco quickly shook his head as Potter’s fellows snickered. Potter himself didn’t make a sound. He stood still, and his breathing had quickened slightly, but Draco knew that only because of the way his lips parted and how some of the hair near his face fluttered.

            The stillness took Draco, too, as he stared at Potter, and when the call came, he nearly didn’t swing a leg over his broom before the balls leaped into the air.

            But when he was aloft, his strange reactions blew away and he settled over the broom with a satisfied little nod. Yes, this was where he was meant to be, permanently if he could. The wind whistling around him, the robes ruffling around his head, the way he had to balance and turn and make progress to the side before he could rise…they were all right and responded to the deepest notes in his soul.

            For the first time, Draco wondered about becoming a professional Quidditch player after leaving school. He hadn’t thought he was good enough, but he had a quiet confidence that he knew only came from skill.

            Then Potter breezed past him and destroyed it all.

            Draco was consciously competent, Potter unconsciously competent. He made the same motions Draco did in half the time. He glanced over his shoulder, and his eyes were so bright that they made Draco blink, feeling as if his own weren’t really open.

            Potter made his broom dance in the air and opened his mouth. Thanks to the volume of wind roaring past him, Draco wouldn’t have heard him if he shouted, and the git knew that. He mouthed the words instead, and Draco couldn’t help reading his lips and translating the words that way.

            I’m going to give you something you’ll never forget.

            Then Potter zoomed downwards, and Draco kicked his broom like a reluctant Abraxan and followed, not thinking twice about it. It could have been a feint to distract him from the true direction of the Snitch. He didn’t care. His gaze was locked on Potter’s arse and the red robes streaming from it.

            Down, up, down, up, and then sideways and upside-down, Potter led him a merry chase. Draco tried to keep his eyes peeled for a sight of gold, but he barely knew how the game was progressing. Everything he wanted was right there in front of him, and he was going to have it.

            Exactly how he would grasp it, on the field in front of everyone—in fact, the focus of hundreds of staring eyes—Draco had no idea. He didn’t care, either. He would figure out some plan later.

            Potter turned around and looked at him, closed one eye in a slow wink, and then begin to spin in a corkscrew-like figure. It would be extraordinarily difficult to try and get close to him, but Draco could still follow, and right now, he wasn’t in the mood for anything else. He hovered not far from Potter’s side, darting right, darting left. He felt a thrill when he realized it would look to the spectators as if Draco were herding Potter. It would take an angle in the air itself to tell who was leading.

            That’s all I want, he tried to tell Potter by means of his grip on the broom and his wide eyes and the cock that had hardened between his legs, pressing against the wood of the shaft with exquisite pain. For you to follow me for once, for us to be equal.

            Potter glanced over as if he’d heard him, winked again, and then snapped a hand up. Draco knew what he would see before Potter turned his hand over. Tiny mad wings fluttered through the cage of his fingers.

            Draco gritted his teeth and tried to bear the sour pain of loss and the worse bitterness of the idea that Potter had only lured him up here to distract him.

            As the roar broke from beneath them and the crowd surged to its feet, Potter leaned towards Draco. He must have cast some sort of charm, because his voice was as clear as if they’d stood on the ground together in utter silence.

            “I can’t give you the Snitch, or the game. But I can give you something else.” His eyes were brilliant. “If you’re strong enough to come to that little alcove in the dungeons you hid in last week and take it.”

            His intention shone in his face like light from a blade.

            Draco was gaping and still trying to come up with an answer when Potter skimmed towards the ground like a swallow, his team surrounding him and pinwheeling around him in an explosion of ridiculous Gryffindor enthusiasm.

            On the other hand, he didn’t need to come up with an answer, did he?

            Not when the heat between his legs answered for him.

            A Meeting Most Splendid

            It wasn’t easy to slip away from his insistent teammates, but on the other hand, they wanted to celebrate the game more than any of the individual players, and when the rest of Gryffindor mobbed them, Harry saw his chance. He had already shucked off his robes and was carrying them in one hand, to make it harder for people to follow him, and he’d shrunk his broom and stuck it in his pocket.

            There was a gap between two bodies, which he slipped through.

            Then he was hurtling up the long stretch of grass towards the doors of Hogwarts, and into the school, and down towards the dungeons, and then along the corridors. His body did all that before he thought to pause and check over his shoulder to see if anyone was pursuing him.

            Nobody.

            Harry grinned and slowed to a jog. He was already near the alcove where Malfoy had run on the night when Harry had seen “him” kissing Parkinson. Harry walked the last few steps and began to set up privacy wards and Notice-Me-Not spells. He would have gone to the Room of Requirement, but Ron had talked about having a celebration there. Harry wanted a place that no one would find them in or know about.

            Especially since I’m not sure how long this is going to last, he admitted to himself, as he turned and conjured a thick cloak edged with fur to cover the floor.

            Was he sure that he wanted to do this? Harry halted, staring at his wand for some minutes, and then shook his head impatiently and increased the covering of fur and cloth on the floor, as well as casting some Warming Charms. Then he stepped outside the alcove so Malfoy could see him and peered down the corridor.

            Yes, he was sure that he wanted to have sex with Malfoy. What came after that, he wasn’t sure about, and couldn’t make any decisions about, because they needed Malfoy’s input as well as his. But the initial step…

            Harry shivered. The dreams had flashed through his body like storms of fiery rain for weeks. Seeing Malfoy in his Slytherin-green robes today had been almost more than he could bear, especially after he noticed the way Malfoy was practically drooling over him. His cock ached as he thought about it, and Harry put a hand down to squeeze himself, trying not to stroke, so he wouldn’t ruin the fun before Malfoy ever got here.

            He was sure that he wanted this part. That was enough, for right now.

            And then he saw a glimpse of pale hair around the corner, and straightened up, unable to prevent the smile that spread across his face. “You’re late,” he called. Malfoy came into view still wearing his Quidditch robes, and Harry raised his eyebrows. “You didn’t even bother to change?”

            Malfoy scowled at him. “Unlike some people, no one cares about what I’m wearing right now,” he said in a dangerously low voice.

            “I do,” Harry said, and stepped out to meet him. There was no reason to hesitate, no, and now that Malfoy was here, he could give in to all the greedy impulses that his cock was sending to the rest of his body. He began to fold back the robes from Malfoy’s neck, staring him steadily in the eye, and brought up his hand so that he could rest two fingers in the hollow where Malfoy’s pulse beat madly. “I care a lot.” And he leaned forwards until his lips brushed Malfoy’s.

            Malfoy made a greedy little moan and took control of the kiss, pressing Harry back and down and sideways until they reeled into a wall. Harry didn’t know where the wall was, and he didn’t care. He wrapped his arms around Malfoy and yanked him close, grinding against the hardness of hipbone and cock and wand, grunting because trying to get enough breath to speak right now was impossible.

            This time, Malfoy’s moan sounded like a sob. He pulled at Harry’s shirt, and Harry pulled at his robes, and when he looked up, Harry saw that they were safely within the spells covering the alcove, so that was all right.

            When he turned back, Malfoy had the superior little smirk on his lips that Harry had seen the first day of school, and it made his heart race with the memory of what this boy had been and dreams of what he might be. The words that emerged then were utterly natural, and no one had better dare to tell him otherwise.

            “Fuck me.”

*

            Draco would have laughed with triumph, but there was a kind of blazing hardness in Potter’s face that prevented that. Besides, he might take it the wrong way.

            Instead, he snaked his tongue out and around Potter’s collarbone. Potter gabbled his response and seized Draco’s head, dragging his mouth up so that he could kiss him again. Draco enjoyed the harsh meeting of teeth and tongues, but Potter’s words still echoed in his head, and he was doing his best to fulfill them.

            “Slow down,” he breathed, dragging his fingers through Potter’s hair and watching in smug glee as Potter’s eyes fluttered from the simple touch.

            Potter blew his breath out, then nodded in response and started stroking Draco’s shoulders. Draco rolled his eyes. “Not that slow,” he said, and tore Potter’s shirt as he yanked it off with a satisfying ripping sound.

            “Malfoy!” Potter yelled, and Draco took out his wand to cast a Silencing Charm, the one kind of spell missing from Potter’s little arsenal that blocked the corridor. He couldn’t do anything else. His eyes were busy feasting on the sight that was Potter’s chest.

            So, all right, it wasn’t nearly as manly or heroic as Draco had thought it would be, with spindly little muscles and sparse curls of hair. But he remembered that this was Harry Potter, whom Draco would never have thought that he would see like this, and he remembered the way Potter had kissed him and fought with him and glared at him with blazing eyes in the past and looked at him in the Quidditch game, and he had no problem getting hard.

            “Going to suck your nipples,” he told Potter, and leaned forwards.

            “Who says—what?” Potter spluttered, and Draco thought that his brain hadn’t caught up with his body yet, because he sure as fuck didn’t object when Draco got his mouth in place.

            Draco sucked furiously, tugging as if he wanted to rip the nipple right off Potter’s body, and then bit. Potter gasped and seized the back of his head, holding him in place while he rubbed shamelessly against Draco’s hip.

            “Get those bloody trousers off,” Draco whispered, though since his voice was muffled against Potter’s skin, he wouldn’t blame the git for not understanding him. He began to pull at Potter’s trousers.

            Potter attacked his robes at the same time. But since Draco was wearing shirt and trousers under the Quidditch robes, he had twice as far to go.

            And, Draco had to admit, he wasn’t much help. He groped and twisted and pulled until Potter’s trousers and pants were down, and then he froze, staring at the long, slender cock in front of him that had already flushed the color of strawberries. He moaned, and wasn’t ashamed.

            Potter shuffled his weight. Draco thought he was probably blushing from the flush that ran the length of his body, seeming to touch the tip of his cock, but he couldn’t look up and see.

            He couldn’t do anything but drop to his knees, open his mouth, and reach out.

            Potter said, “Hang on, you’re not naked yet—” and then he went silent in a most gratifying way. There was a squeak, and he rose on his toes, which was only not gratifying because his cock seemed to be trying to poke the back of Draco’s throat out. There was a thrust, and a moan, and a whole series of thrusts.

            Draco lashed and curled his tongue, trying vaguely to remember the one time he’d done this before, to a Ravenclaw who was drunk on his feet and promised Draco it would taste good. It hadn’t, but the Ravenclaw was a sweaty sot who couldn’t even be bothered to bathe. Potter was cleaner.

            It occurred to some part of Draco’s brain that Potter had just come from a Quidditch game and probably wasn’t clear. The rest of Draco’s brain told that part to shut up.

            Oh, but it was wonderful, it was, the way Potter’s cock slipped and turned in Draco’s throat, the softness and slickness of the head contrasted with the greater hardness of the shaft, and the warmth. Draco had always thought the important thing about blowjobs was how warm the other bloke’s or girl’s mouth was. But no one had ever told him, or he had forgotten, about the blood-heat of the cock, how it seemed to generate its own coat of warmth that Draco had to break through in order to taste everything, feel everything, experience everything.

            He ran his tongue curiously up the vein in the underside of Potter’s cock, and Potter cried out and came.

            Draco coughed and reared back, feeling as though someone had just dropped a load of boiling salt into his mouth and given him no chance to say whether he wanted it or not. He gagged and spat and moaned until Potter reached out and thumped him on the back, saying, “It’s not that bad.”

            Those were exactly the right words to say, though probably Potter didn’t know why. Draco gave him a look that he knew was stony—he couldn’t help that—and demanded, “Who else have you done this with? Or two?”

            “Um, no one,” Potter said, looking blank. “I was—er, am—er, fuck, I was a virgin, all right?”

            A deep satisfaction settled itself in Draco’s stomach, but that just left another question, if the first one had to go unanswered. “Then how do you know it’s not that bad?” he asked.

            “I hope it isn’t,” Potter said, “considering what I’m going to do to you.” And he knelt on the floor and ripped at Draco’s Quidditch robes, so that they were discarded before Draco thought about it, and started on his trousers and pants.

            “I thought you were going to let me fuck you,” Draco said, dizzy and gasping at the very thought of his cock inside Potter, no matter what hole it went in.

            Potter only grunted in response—Draco would have to remember that his intellectual prowess declined quickly during sex—and tore open his pants at last, sinking his mouth on Draco’s cock.

            Draco arched and opened his mouth to cry out, though no cry emerged. It was bliss, blinding and racing, comet-like bliss with a side of pain where Potter’s teeth scraped, though he wasn’t sure that he could find the breath to say so.

            Potter backed off, coughing, said, “Malfoy, you don’t half have a strange taste,” and then curled his tongue out again and began to suck and swallow alternately.

            Draco once again wanted to ask how he knew, and again his questions drowned in the glory of what was being done to his cock. His head rocked back, and he reached down and latched his hand firmly into place on Potter’s hair. Potter moved away in irritation, but Draco followed, his fingers curling, his body instinctively seeking the warmth.

            This was—

            He was going to need more of this. He was going to need this until the world broke open and the sun dropped from the sky. Potter had stopped the word from ending once, when he killed the Dark Lord, and now he would just have to stay around and keep Draco’s own personal world from ending, too.

            Because it was Potter, and it was wonderful.

            The Powers of Pleasure

            Harry was usually languid after orgasm. He had expected to want to lie down and sleep after he finished with Malfoy, which was one reason he had wanted Malfoy to fuck him. If he’d already come, he’d be relaxed, and it seemed like that would be a good idea if Malfoy’s cock was actually going to go inside him.

            But instead, his body was buzzing with energy, lighting him up from the inside like a star, and he couldn’t rest until he shared some of it with Malfoy.

            He could have kissed him or wanked him off, but he needed to show him, and it would take too long to do that with hands. (Or so Harry thought. The thoughts had made sense at the time). So he showed him with his mouth, and once he got settled into the rhythm of swallow, suck, swallow, suck, it seemed to work well.

            And Malfoy seemed to like it a lot.

            Harry rolled his eyes smugly upwards and watched Malfoy leaning against the wall, his hips rising and falling, his hands clenched at his sides, his tongue lolling out of his mouth and his eyes—when they were open—an even darker grey than normal with lust. Malfoy met his gaze briefly, but then his eyes slid shut again as Harry flicked the head with his tongue, and he howled.

            Harry braced himself, knowing what that probably meant and determined to give Malfoy as much pleasure as he could.

            And to win, of course.

            Malfoy came down his throat, his body twisting and thrashing, his cries abbreviated, as if he couldn’t find the breath to give them. Harry relaxed his throat as much he could and gulped, breathing frantically through his nose.

            It worked—barely. It wasn’t something Harry would want to do again until he got the chance to practice some more.

            Of course, the best practice is sucking Malfoy, Harry thought, as he wiped his mouth and sat back on his heels, waiting for the moment when Malfoy would look at him and see that Harry, unlike a certain prissy little Slytherin, had managed to swallow it all. Which means this needs to happen again.

            There was such a lack of opposition in Harry at the thought that he knew what he would decide even before the eagerness flared in his chest like a sunburst.

            I want him.

            He leaned up, opened his mouth to show Malfoy that it was empty and therefore he didn’t have to worry about that salty taste he hated so much flooding his tongue, and then kissed him. Chest to chest, sticky cocks rubbing against each other, fingers clutching greedily—and Malfoy was doing just as much clutching as Harry was—they kissed until Harry’s lips felt numb.

            “Well?” he asked, when they broke free and Malfoy had let his head fall onto Harry’s shoulder as if he were exhausted and couldn’t hold it up any longer. “Do you want to do this again?” He picked up a few strands of Malfoy’s hair and took delight in twining the spunk that was still on his fingers through it. “Because I sure as fuck do.”

*

            Draco closed his eyes and labored to speak. That had been a far more exhausting experience than he’d thought it would be.

            It was just—Potter—

            Potter had tugged Draco along after him the way he had drawn Draco in the Quidditch game, because he was a master flyer and not following him would be unthinkable. Draco wondered if it would be like this after every time: his muscles trembling, his throat feeling scraped by the necessity of breathing, his mind tumbling and whirling among myriad possibilities.

            Oh, I hope so.

            Draco braced his hands on Potter’s elbows and drew back enough to look into his face. Potter stared at him, a small smile pulling at his lips. His eyes were tender, or maybe that was Draco’s wistful thinking—

            Then Potter reached up and pushed back a few strands of hair from his forehead, and leaned in for another kiss, this one long and slow.

            Oh. All right, then. Draco blinked and cleared his throat, and said, “I—how could I walk away from this?”

            “Not quite the romantic love-speech I might desire,” Potter said judiciously. “But you’re you, and that’s enough.” His smile broke across his face. Draco caught his breath. He didn’t think he’d ever noticed how bright Potter’s smile was, or maybe it had never been this bright before. It spoke of a lot more sweat and groping and sucking and probably fucking in the near future. “It’ll do.”

            Draco leaned forwards and kissed Potter again, cradling the back of his head again, showing how gentle he could be.

            Then Potter had to take over control from him and show Draco how gentle he could be, down to light, teasing little strokes against his cheeks.

            But Draco was determined not to be beaten like that, so he shoved Potter against the wall and caressed his lips while staring into his eyes.

            “Listen, you wanker,” Potter said, running his fingertips over Draco’s neck and speaking through gritted teeth, “I’m the Gryffindor around here, and you’re the Slytherin. I’m supposed to be the loving and adoring one, and you’re supposed to lie back and accept my gestures while watching me through half-lidded eyes.”

            “As if I’d let you win,” Draco snarled, and watched the light in Potter’s eyes flare and spark at deeper and deeper levels, a fire at the core of his being.

            Yes, this was how it was supposed to be, Draco thought in satisfaction as their mouths met again. They were entangled, struggling, never letting the other win more than a momentary victory.

            But always, no matter what they did, together.

            The End.
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Come Slowly, Eden