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Thunderclap	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 3708 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Thunderclap
- 1
Title: Thunderclap
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Warnings: Minor angst, brief description of violence
Wordcount: 11,000
Rating: R
Summary: Seeing Harry Potter as not himself, even if momentarily, hits Draco like a thunderclap. He allows himself to dream, briefly, of what he would do if the situation lasted. But it’s not going to, and Draco has a choice to make.
Author’s Notes: Written for arashi wolf princess as a birthday gift requested by vampygurl402 and containing top Draco, smut, and romance, as promised. Happy birthday!
Thunderclap
            Draco turned his chair around and peered out through the door of his office. The best thing about working as a file organizer and generator of paperwork just down the corridor from the Auror offices was that he got to hear all the gossip when it was juicy and fresh.
            And just now, Draco had heard a voice he didn’t recognize.
            He wandered out of his office, clutching his teacup as an excuse if anyone asked. Probably no one would. The best thing about being despised by pure and self-righteous Aurors was that they looked right through him, and so Draco got to hear even juicier gossip, often while it was still twitching and thrashing.
            The unfamiliar voice was coming from Potter and Weasley’s office. Draco smiled a little. Potter had been in hospital for a week. Perhaps they’d assigned Weasley a temporary partner, despite his vociferous protests against the idea of working with anyone else.
            Lounging against the wall as if he’d had a distracting thought, Draco managed to crane his neck to the side and see around the corner and through the open door.
            Weasley stood in the middle of the office, facing Draco, with a beam of such foolish enjoyment that Draco could feel his mouth water. Who would he welcome like this? Weasley was dully faithful to Granger, not usually fodder for the gossip mills, but right now, Draco wondered if this was some secret lover no one knew about. Or former lover, perhaps. Weasley might just have gained some depth.
            The figure was a man, his voice raspy, standing with his back to Draco. He had short black hair, cut so short that Draco’s interest stirred again; perhaps he was recovering from a disease or had been through a fire. The only facial feature Draco could make out with certainty, besides the bridge of a high nose, was the furrowed scar that cut into his right cheek. It looked as though someone had dipped a quill in dark ink and dragged it up his flesh.
            The man turned his head a little, and Draco could see deep-set eyes, so deep-set that he couldn’t make out the color of them from here. The scar curved up his right cheek, and around the edge of the eye, like a mask.
            Who looks like that? Such a marking should have been distinctive, but Draco had never heard of a Ministry worker who had one. He slinked a little nearer, still making sure that he could pull his head back around the corner before the man could turn around fully.
            “I’m so glad that you’re back, mate,” Weasley said, and clapped the man on the shoulder.
            The laughter was familiar, as nothing else about him had been. Draco almost stumbled. Potter? That man is Potter? He had known that Potter had been caught in some sort of explosion on his last case, hence the week in hospital, but he hadn’t heard anything about damage to his face.
            This was the sort of thing he couldn’t ignore, couldn’t dismiss. He had to get a glimpse of Potter’s face from the front, and see what had happened.
            He cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself, made sure it was complete, and then deliberately scratched his hand against the wall. A small sound, but one that a trained Auror like Potter couldn’t miss. He turned around with his hand on his wand, automatic reaction conquering whatever notion he had that the Ministry was a safe place.
            Draco saw his face.
            The long scar really did run up and circle around his eye, but it did more than that. It flowed up onto his forehead, meeting—and obliterating—the lightning bolt scar. There was still a slight jagged edge to the line on his brow, but if someone had been looking at Potter with no notion that he’d once had a separate scar there, they wouldn’t know. Draco was more than familiar with Potter’s usual appearance, and even he had to work hard to distinguish it.
            It made Potter’s face older, harder. It made it entirely unlike the face of the boy who had taunted Draco and helped free him and shrugged away the life-debts Draco had explained to him as not being worth the trouble to claim.
            Draco didn’t know him anymore, any more than he’d known him from his voice or the sideways glimpse of him.
            Draco stared, and stared, long past the point where Potter had dismissed the sound as a random one and turned back to converse with Weasley. No matter how long he looked at the scar, on Potter’s face or in memory, it never became more familiar. No matter how long he listened to the voice, it was never the voice he knew.
            He did hear, as from a distance, Weasley ask Potter how long his voice would be raspy, and Potter answer, “Probably only a fortnight or so. They said that it was just a side-effect of the spell that Cropper used.”
            Draco closed his eyes. That was like Potter, he told himself, desperate to struggle against this strange reaction. Cropper had been the scourge of the Auror Department for months, a killer who liked to send parts of the body of his latest victim to the victim he intended to stalk next. He had got away with killing a lot of wizards despite the around-the-clock protection of Hit Wizards on people who started receiving body parts by post.
            It was like Potter to have taken on the worst Dark wizard to arise in at least a year, and even take some sort of explosive curse to the face, and yet emerge with only a temporarily changed voice and a scar.
            The scar might be temporary, too. Draco still knew something about Potions, and a gradually changing voice suggested a regimen of healing potions that Potter had to take on a strictly ordered schedule. That might mean that the scar would fade when the change to his voice did.
            But—
            Draco opened his eyes again. Potter was laughing at something Weasley had said, and he was more than half-facing Draco again.
            The scar still made his face look wild. Like the face of someone Draco might have liked as a child, if they had met under other circumstances.
            Like the face of someone Draco might want.
            Draco turned and went on his way, only remembering to remove the Disillusionment Charm when other Ministry workers began to bump into him. All the while, his heart raced and his breath came in quick pants, and he stopped to scrub his hands on his trousers more than once.
            It was stupid. It was absurd. After all, the changes would fade in a few weeks, or at least one of them. And the scarred face combined with Potter’s normal whiny voice would probably chill Draco’s ardor instantly.
            But he remained thinking about it, and Potter’s face was in his dreams that night, and if Draco didn’t need to wank, it wasn’t because he was completely cool and normal. He rather suspected that waking with a sticky groin had a lot to do with it.
*

            Two days later, Draco was sitting at his desk and staring into his teacup. Its bottom wasn’t any grittier than his eyes. He had stayed awake worrying about his attraction to Potter more than it was worth.
            So. The attraction wasn’t going away, and he couldn’t stop wondering about it. That left only a few options, and Draco didn’t think that dosing himself with Forgetfulness Potion or leaving his job for a while would actually be all that effective.
            No, what he needed was to explore the attraction, and see what happened. If Potter said no, that was fine. Draco knew that Potter was averse to gossip in a way that was—well, baffling. He wouldn’t spread it all over if he refused Draco, and Draco certainly didn’t intend to do it in front of other people, so that solved the major problem.
            There was the sound of the raspy voice from down the corridor, talking to someone through the Floo. Draco swallowed and stood up. Potter had developed a routine of coming back from lunch early to converse with his Healers at St. Mungo’s. It was Draco’s best chance to catch him alone. Weasley, the greedy and unchanged, stayed to eat the rest of his lunch.
            And probably the rest of Potter’s, too, Draco thought, but the words were only a small, flowing stream on top of the muddy anxiety in his stomach.
            He shook his head and pushed forwards. The corridor seemed to tighten and contract around him, and there he was, outside Potter’s office. He knocked on the half-open door.
            There was one more minute during which Potter spoke, apparently not inclined to hurry up for his visitor. Draco scowled mildly at that. Yes, most of the Ministry was at lunch and slow today anyway, but you never knew. He could have been carrying news of an imminent disaster.
            Potter opened the door a few seconds after the Floo closed. He stared at Draco long enough that Draco could examine the scar, and see whether things had changed at all. No. It still made Potter look—different.
            Fine. Dark and passionate and like someone I’d want to get to know.
            Then Potter’s neutral expression settled in all around the scar, not killing its impact but diminishing it, and he leaned on the door. “What is it, Malfoy? Come to gloat?”
            That deep voice sent thrills through Draco. He shook his head, not even bothering to resent that Potter thought his first impulse would be to gloat. “No. To ask if you’d like to go out with me.”
            At least Potter was the drop-jawed one now, which somewhat made up for the way that he had taken Draco aback on the first day of his new self. He looked at Draco so intently that Draco was glad he hadn’t any sort of crime on the brain. This must be why Potter was a good interrogator.
            Then Potter looked past him and up and down the row of mostly shut office doors. “Did someone put you up to this? You ought to know that the last time I fell for this kind of shit, I did still figure it out before the person who was ‘dared’ to date me could run off and tell all his friends.”
            Draco’s mouth fell open, and he felt his stomach boil a little. Someone had done that? And he had missed the gossip? Between that and the possibility of Weasley’s secret lover, it was clear that he didn’t have the best spy network anymore after all.
            “No,” he said. “I saw you with the scar and heard your voice the other day, and—”
            “You want the exciting story of what happened?” Potter rolled his eyes. “It’s the same as the official version. For once. Bar the things that no one except an Auror could know, which I wouldn’t tell you no matter how drunk you got me.”
            Draco shook his head again. “You seemed different with the scar,” he said. Maybe Potter would admire honesty, and Draco had no better excuse to offer. He hadn’t thought to come up with a story. “With the voice. Like someone I might want to date. Someone attractive.”
            He waited. At least Potter’s laughter, if it showed up, wouldn’t wound him now the way it would have a few years ago. Draco still preferred being the spreader of rumors to the object of them, but at least he had endured enough cruel laughter at his trial to make him immune to it.
            Potter, though, only blinked and touched his scar as if he thought it would fade away for the rubbing of it. Then he said, “But I don’t believe in any of that Slytherin bollocks about blood purity.”
            It took Draco a long second to work through that one, and when he had, he snorted. “I’m not looking for someone to marry and have children with,” he said. “Not that I could have children with you anyway. I’m looking for someone to date.”
            “But you still want someone who believes the same things you do, right?” Uncertainty sounded good in Potter’s new voice, though Draco had to admit it probably would have sounded good on the normal man, too. Again his hand rose and touched the scar, this time as though tracing its line would give him some guidance, the way it might in Divination. “I just—I can’t believe this. I thought you hated me.”
            Despised you, maybe. Used you as a source of gossip. But saying something like that would lessen his chances, so Draco just shrugged and smiled. “I never much looked at you before. But this scar makes things different. Unlike the other one,” he had to add. It was important that Potter know where he stood. Well, some things about where he stood.
            Potter gave a languorous blink that Draco liked. He could imagine Potter doing that in bed. “You know that the Healers are going to take both the scar and the change to my voice away as soon as the potions work properly?”
            Draco nodded. “I know Potions. I probably know more about how they work than you do,” he added, ready to offer Potter the benefits of his superior expertise if he wanted it.
            “You want to do this anyway?”
            I haven’t decided it all the way through yet. Unlike some people, I don’t treat every chance encounter like a Gryffindor conundrum in moral thinking.
            Draco nodded patiently. “Yes, I do. Really, what this date depends on is your consent.”
            Potter looked, and looked, and looked. Draco waited. He thought that if Potter was going to outright refuse him, he would have done it in the first few minutes.
            Then Potter laughed, and Draco jolted. He hoped that Potter didn’t realize exactly how much that sound attracted Draco, or they would be in big trouble. Well, he would be, and Potter would probably drag himself there, too.
            “Why not?” Potter asked, sounding as if he enjoyed the prospect. “Why the hell not? Do you know how long it’s been since I did anything different? Why not try it?”
“And how long is it since you had any fun?” Draco asked. “This could be part of it. I know that you might not think much of some of my beliefs, but I do know how to show my date a good time.”
Potter grinned. “If I didn’t think that, I wouldn’t bother.”
Draco licked his lips. Even Potter’s selfishness attracted him. Maybe this would stand a chance of surviving multiple nights. “Right. I’ll see you at six, Potter, on the corner of Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley.”
Potter rolled his eyes. “That barely gives me enough time to get home and change out of my Auror robes, Malfoy.”
            “For where I plan to take you, you can wear anything you like.”
            Potter leaned in. “I don’t suppose you’d care to explain that?”
            “Leave that up to me,” said Draco, and touched the scar on Potter’s face. It felt as deep as a canyon and smooth as water. “Don’t worry your pretty scarred head about it.”
            He thought he’d gone too far, for a second, because Potter froze. But maybe because he was used to hearing references to scars even if it wasn’t that one, he half-smiled and said, “I’ll hold you to that. It would be nice to relax, too.”
            He shut his office door, but slowly, because Draco’s hand was still on his cheek and Draco had trouble removing it, even when he knew that he would get his hand shut in the door otherwise.
            Eyes closed, Draco reoriented himself hard enough to make the floor stop spinning, and went back to work.
            Maybe Potter wouldn’t be the only one in trouble here.
*
            “So what’s this good time you’re going to show me, Malfoy?”
            Draco grinned. They’d been walking steadily down the middle of Diagon Alley for more than six minutes now, and that was the first time Potter had asked something. He turned around to answer, walking backwards so he could admire Potter in the dark green robes that accented his eyes.
            “There’s a new shop that’s opened,” he said, and let his grin widen at the way that Potter shook his head. “Yes, I know that you don’t care to spend a lot of that enormous vault you have. But this is different. What you pay for is an experience, not goods.”
            Potter spoke in a voice Draco thought he might deliberately have deepened. That was all right. Artificial voice or not, that scar was real, and Draco could watch it move with the shape of Potter’s jaw. “It’s like a restaurant?”
            “If you like,” said Draco. “But you don’t get to eat anything. You get to feel something.”
            “It’s a fabric shop?”
            Draco dropped back so he fell into step beside Potter, and took his arm. Potter jumped as though he didn’t know why anyone would do that, but Draco ignored it, running his hand down the thick muscles of Potter’s arm hidden beneath the cloth. “Can you let go and trust me?” he whispered. “It’s best if you can.”
            Potter tensed for a long second as though he was thinking about refusing, and then he grunted and relaxed. “All right.”
            They finally reached the right corner, and Draco stepped into the short alley that connected Diagon with the shop’s location. From the front, he knew, it looked quiet, but not necessarily impressive. It had a stone façade with a set of pillars that resembled nothing so much as the columns in front of some ancient Greek building. You had to look closely to realize that around the pillars twined floating, wavering shapes with arms and faces reminiscent of underwater creatures.
            “It’s a lake?”
            “Closer than you’ve been,” Draco murmured, and guided him in, watching the play of light and shadows through the big blue glass windows, as they caressed Potter’s face and that scar. But even the scar drew less of his attention now than the way Potter moved. It was like a big cat, so confident that he made Draco almost drool, somewhat pacing, somewhat gliding.
            “You’re here for the experience?”
            Draco looked around. Blaise had told him about this place, but Draco hadn’t been here himself. At least he knew enough to be prepared for the shopkeeper, though, who had a deep voice like a man’s, blue skin, and long blue-green hair like a mermaid’s. He—Draco thought it was probably a he—glided forwards until he loomed over them, and stood there on webbed feet. His hands were linked in front of him as though he cradled something behind them.
            Draco looked around once before he answered. Yes, the shop inside was as Blaise had described it to him, a big, echoing, stone hollow of a room. You only saw what you’d experience when you’d paid for it.
            “Yes,” he said, facing the man again. “We are. How much?”
            “Is this a good idea?” Potter breathed, so softly Draco didn’t think he would have heard him if he was further away.
            The man ignored Potter altogether. “Five Galleons. Each.”
            “Expensive, but worth it,” said Draco, to Potter instead of the man, and dug in his pocket. Five Galleons didn’t come easily to hand, but the man waited without moving until Draco placed the coins in his hand. Then Draco nudged Potter, who was looking around the stone room as if trying to discern where the trap was hidden.
            “Pay up,” Draco said.
            “How in the world do we know we can trust this?” Potter asked, but Draco gave him a stern look, and perhaps Potter remembered that he trusted Draco now. Or that the time to object was before this. His jaw was stern beneath the scar as he found a pouch and came out with the right amount of money.
            Once the man had his hands on the coins, he bowed deeply, his trailing hair sweeping the floor. “The experience will begin in a moment. Remain still. Nothing here will harm you.” With those, Draco had to admit, less than reassuring words, he turned and practically floated out of the room.
            “What kind of experience is this, Malfoy?” Potter muttered, close to his ear.
            Draco raised a hand. There was a soft noise in the distance, one that Draco mistook for chattering or whispering people until he recognized it. It was the sound of rushing water.
            Potter drew his wand. Draco caught his wrist. “What are you doing?”
            “I can cast a Bubble-Head Charm,” Potter said. He didn’t look at Draco, apparently have deciding that the attack would come from the ceiling. He stared up at it, and his wand was already moving in the small, necessary movements for the charm. “It’s probably our only chance to survive here, although even then, the pressure if the cascade comes down hard enough—”
            “Nothing is going to hurt us, Potter.”
            Potter gave him a swift glance. “I don’t think that you brought me here on purpose to hurt me. I think that maybe you’re playing a joke, but you didn’t consider that what you’ve experienced might be a little harder when—”
            Draco didn’t get to find out that line of reasoning, either. The ceiling opened—Potter had good instincts for the direction that sounds were coming from even if he didn’t have them for much else—and water came pouring out.
            Potter opened his mouth as if to yell, and then paused. Draco thought that only partially had to do with Draco’s tight hold around his waist. He might have taken a closer look at the water and realized that it didn’t look like normal water.
            Draco put his hand out. He wanted to feel the curling, silky, white-edged silver-green water as it came down on them, but he didn’t want to do it with both hands, because touching Potter was still more important.
            The water drifted as it reached them, falling lazy as feathers. It parted above Draco’s palm, and then came back together on either side of his hand, curling and pouring past it. It was the softest, warmest water Draco had ever felt, even more so than the baths the house-elves used to prepare for him when he was dirty after playing Quidditch. He sighed.
            “Malfoy?”
            Draco looked at Potter, smiling when he saw what the water had done there. It was curling around Potter’s jaw like the tail of a curious kitten, waving back and forth as it caressed the scar. Potter stood stiff and aloof, hands folded as though succumbing to the warm touch would be a deadly mistake.
            It’s a good thing I only touched the scar for a second, if that’s the way he reacts to it, Draco thought, and tugged a little on Potter’s arm. “Look. It doesn’t drown you. It lets you drift. It’s the most relaxing thing that I’ve ever heard of. Like being underwater, but you don’t drown, and you’re a lot warmer, and you can listen to the songs of the creatures here without fearing that anyone’s going to attack you.”
            “So, not very much like being underwater, then.”
            But Potter was smiling, and Draco was heartened to see it. He released Potter and stepped into the waterfall that was still coming down from the ceiling. “See, I’ll show you how it’s done.”
            As he had suspected, those words made Potter follow him into the cascade immediately. No way was he letting a Malfoy do something he couldn’t do.
            Once they surrendered completely, the water stopped flowing around them and began to cradle them instead, picking them up and floating them around the room. Draco kicked his legs, and found that he could swim if he wanted, while the water passed smoothly in and out of his lungs. For a moment, he didn’t do anything except drift, just overwhelmed by the experience. Then, he only kicked until he had turned over mostly on his side and could see Potter.
            Potter was staring at his hands as if the sight of them under clear blue-green water was unusual. Well, it probably was, Draco conceded, magnanimously. Then Potter looked up and kicked, and the water pressed back against him in gentleness before yielding. He stretched out as if he would swim, arms pointed in front of him.
            Then he let go, like Draco.
            Draco sighed, as the warm water massaged his shoulders and made them release the tension that was always there after a long day of hunching over his desk in the Ministry. The tickles of water were more delicate than the fingers of any house-elves and infinitely gentler. He moved his head back, and nothing impeded it. He moved it forwards; it was the same. Draco stretched out, and it was like being on the world’s softest bed, under a Heating Charm. It bent against him, it flowed around him, it was everywhere that he wasn’t. It was utterly wonderful.
            Into his ears wandered the songs of dolphins and sirens, and the deep calling of whales to each other across the distance. If he squinted, Draco could see the shapes of swimming blue-green dragons, formed from the water in the manner of a flickering fire, and then dashed away again by the flow of the currents.
            But better than that, at least for the moment, was watching Potter’s first encounter with the water.
            He had forgotten himself, forgotten the alertness that Draco now thought must have been part of him ever since the war. He almost fell through the water, arms sprawled, legs sprawled, the laziest smile on his face. Whenever one of the images of dragons formed near him, he could barely track it with his eyes. A swirl of dolphin sound spread over them, and he turned his head and laughed.
            The scar was still there, but now it added an air of mystery to an open face. Draco was entranced, although he looked back at the dragons soon, before he was caught staring.
            At last, the water began to sink down from the surface, and returned them gently to their feet as it flowed out of hidden cracks in the floor. Potter opened his mouth as if to ask what was going to happen next, and then caught his breath as a warm wind blew over them from the walls. In a few seconds, their hair and clothes and the rest of them were dry.
            “That was wonderful,” Potter said. His movements were languid, and his eyes were shining as he turned to Draco. Draco could only stare, the way he had when he’d first seen the scar on Potter’s face. He bet this was the way Potter would look when he first got out of bed, and he wanted to see more. “Thank you.”
            “You’re welcome,” Draco said, glad that he had enough self-possession not to lapse into an awkward silence. He extended his hand. “Now. Do you want to go and eat, or do you want to go home and collapse into bed?”
            Potter gave another laugh and a yawn that he couldn’t stifle. He was still moving with graceful slowness when he took Draco’s hand and shook it firmly. “Another night, maybe? I think I’ll actually sleep tonight.”
            He said it so casually, as if he wasn’t revealing something intimate to Draco. Draco held his face immobile, but there was the thunderclap of something soft and warm inside him.
            “Another night would be wonderful,” he said, and then leaned forwards and took both Potter’s wrists. Potter went still again, although not as tense as he would have been before the water, eyes curious.
            Draco didn’t kiss him. It was too soon for that. Instead, he nodded from that short distance away, letting Potter focus on him, and then slipped back and said, “Tomorrow night, perhaps? At the Crystal Bell?”
            “Do you like the sea, or what?”
            I like the way you look when you’re confronting something from the sea.
            Admitting that might make conversation awkward, though, so Draco just said, “Or what. Well?”
            “I’ve never gone to the Crystal Bell. Too many people I’ve arrested there.”
            Draco knew what he meant. The sort of people who were less likely to be involved in violent crime and more likely to buy their way out of the accusations frequented the Crystal Bell.
            “It’s a part of the world you helped save,” he said. “You deserve to be there, too.”
            Potter hesitated one more time, then asked again, as he had when Draco first proposed a date, “Why the hell not?” and slid free of Draco’s hold. “Seven tomorrow, then?”
            “Too early,” said Draco, with a practiced little sniff. “The Crystal Bell doesn’t open until seven. Eight?”
            “I do have work the next morning.”
            Draco said nothing, only looked at him with a little smile, and Potter finally seemed to remember that, technically, Draco did too. He snorted and said, “Right. Well. It is intriguing, Malfoy. Eight, then.”
            Draco bowed, because it seemed the right time for it, and enjoyed the soft look in Potter’s eyes—even if they were mostly soft from astonishment and not adoration, yet. He watched as Potter left.
            He waited to make sure that the shopkeeper wasn’t about to come back, and then did a small dance, in the middle of the shop, his hands clenched above his head and his body swaying nearly as much as it had when he was in the water.
*
            “And this was a good idea, was it?”
            Draco regally ignored the way Potter muttered at him out of the side of his mouth. Yes, it was a good idea. They were in the middle of the Crystal Bell, in the middle of wealth and privilege—the sort Draco had been born to, and the sort Potter deserved. And yes, they were pausing in the middle of the carpeted dais that reared above the floor, where guests stood to be announced by a herald of sorts before they proceeded down the steps and among the other round tables.
            The ceiling overhead arched into a transparency and shape that was meant to make the customer feel like they were inside a giant crystalline bell, hence the restaurant’s name. Every table had a small globe in the middle that played quiet snatches of music or showed various Divination symbols if one wanted to examine them. Drifting illusions moved about the room, entertaining the guests. Quiet and rational conversation prevailed. That was the way it should be.
            The rude stares they were receiving, Draco thought, came as much from them being together as from who either of them was on their own.
            “Did you hear me?”
            Draco ignored the way that Potter tugged against his hold, instead promenading gracefully down the steps, the way they were supposed to, and around to the side. The host who had led them in, impeccably imperturbable, bowed them to the table, and an illusion of a winged horse, golden pinions spread wide, drifted down to hover above them.
            “Your choices for food will be out shortly, sirs,” said the host, and glided away
            “Wait, we didn’t tell him what we wanted,” Potter protested, giving a suspicious glance at the padded round chair Draco pulled out for him. When he had apparently contented himself that there were no curses under the seat, he sat.
            Draco took the chair across from him, smiling. This would be a challenge, but that was the sort of thing he liked about Potter. “I did, when I firecalled last night.”
            Potter went very still, tilting his head back while his eyes narrowed at Draco around and above that scar. “I don’t like it when people presume to know better than I do.”
            “Good thing I never presumed that, then.” Draco placed his fingertips together. The stares were lessening as the other diners decided their food was more important than Malfoy and Potter being together. Draco didn’t mind that one way or the other. What mattered was that Potter’s attention remained where it should be, on him. “I’ve watched you eat, you know, in your office and at Hogwarts.”
            “And from that, you think you know everything I’d like to eat at a fancy place like this?”
            “Yes,” said Draco.
            “That smile,” Potter said, slowly, deliberately, as if he wanted Draco to savor every nuance of what he was saying, “needs to be smacked off your face.”
            Draco leaned towards him and lowered his voice persuasively. “Listen. I’ve noticed that you never pay much attention to the taste of your food, except when there’s a combination of unusual flavors. Right? So you ignore the pumpkin juice, it might as well be water that you’re gulping down, but that day they had mango juice mixed into the pumpkin, you slowed down and gave it your full attention.”
            Potter blinked and shifted, but didn’t deny it. Draco continued with more confidence. “And you sometimes like things that are sweet. Your taste for treacle tart was legendary in Slytherin.”
            “Somehow it shouldn’t surprise me, that the Slytherins had nothing more important to talk about than what sweets I liked.”
            That was easy enough to ignore. Draco continued valiantly. “And you don’t like fish. I saw you turn your nose up at it at Hogwarts.”
            “You’re wrong.” Potter pointed his finger at Draco like a wand. “I can eat fish just fine! It’s not like I’m allergic to it or anything.”
            “What does being allergic have to do with it?” Two enchanted paper swans, more solid than the illusions, drifted crystal glasses of wine to the table. Draco picked his up and sipped, watched Potter intently. “You don’t like the taste. Probably the oil. Sure you can choke it down, the same way that people who don’t like broccoli can choke it down if they have to. That doesn’t mean you should have to.”
            Potter was silent. Draco looked up, ignoring the twist of fear that said after all he had gone too far. He would not allow it to manifest.
            Potter was clenching the edge of the table and looked as if he would bolt. “How did you know that?” he whispered.
            Draco relaxed in a glow that felt nearly as good as if it had come from the meal that was approaching. “Because I paid attention,” he said. “Maybe I didn’t have a good reason for paying attention when we were in Hogwarts, but you can’t deny that it’s going to pay off now.”
            Potter sat down again, looking at him. He looked and looked. Draco waited, using one hand to toy with the foot of his wineglass. It was the only sign of nervousness that he would allow himself to betray.
            “And the scar?”
            Draco cocked his head. He could pretend that Potter was asking about the lightning bolt scar, when Draco himself had mentioned the past, but he also knew that it would be dishonest if he did. So he said simply, “It was the scar that first made me decide to approach you. Suddenly there was something there I’d never seen, and it made you look different.”
            “You know it’ll go away,” said Potter.
            “You told me,” said Draco. “And come to think of it, I told you about the scar, too. Do we have to have the whole conversation over again, or do you trust me when I say that the scar is one of the things that made me pay attention to you, and not the only one?”
            Potter bit his lip in what looked like vexation. His voice was soft, almost gentle, when he said, “I don’t know if I like you ordering for me.”
            “But you’ll like this,” Draco said, and nodded to the plates that were approaching their table on the stiffened wings of more swans.
            Potter went on looking skeptical until the swans deposited the plates in front of them. Then he stared at the little, whole roast birds stuffed with cheese and a complicated combination of spices. Draco sliced into the first of them and swallowed a delicate bite, shutting his eyes and moaning with appreciation as the taste exploded through his mouth, across his tongue.
            “I didn’t pay that much attention to you, you know.”
            Draco blinked his eyes open, swallowed the bite in his mouth, and then patted his mouth with the napkin. “I know. Except during sixth year.”
            Potter smiled and gestured at Draco. “But that moan kind of changed you for me the way that I think this scar changed me for you.”
            Draco tilted his head at the plate instead of answering, because he was both pleased and irritated. The moan was such a small thing. At least Draco had the good taste to focus on something major about Potter. “I told you that you were going to like your pigeons. Are you going to taste it or not?”
            Potter had picked up his fork, but he put it down again. “They’re pigeons?”
            Draco was puzzled until he knew, as if by Legilimency, what Potter must be thinking of. He laughed. “Not the dirty birds that hang about Muggle London. Raised ones. In a dovecote.”
            Potter poked the nearest one with his fork. “Why is it so small?”
            “Squabs,” Draco explained. “The tenderest and the fattest, taken after they’d been fed a lot.”
            “You want me to eat baby pigeons? Stuffed with cheese?”
            “And spices.” Draco speared another piece, eyes challengingly on Potter. “Try it. You’ll love it.”
            Draco didn’t know exactly what made Potter try the food, maybe the spirit of competition or the desire to prove him wrong, but he closed his eyes and sat there for a long minute. Then he started eating fast.
            “Shame they’re so small,” he muttered.
            Draco smiled at some more plates approaching on the wings of swans. “It’s a good thing I took the precaution of ordering some more.” And he reached out and rapped his finger against the crystal globe in the center of the table, starting the soft music that he also knew Potter would enjoy.
*
            Draco leaned back against the door and closed his eyes. He had been on his third date with Potter tonight, and it had gone well. This time, he had taken Potter to a small pool deep in a part of the Forbidden Forest that even the centaurs wouldn’t venture to. The Malfoys had made a truce with the Dark creatures that guarded that part of the Forest long ago, though, and they were more than welcome.
            Potter’s eyes had widened when they made their way down into the center of the deep green little vale, glowing like the heart of an emerald. “What is that?” he whispered, aiming a finger at the pool gathered in the center of the vale, as though he thought something lived beneath it that would rear up and attack if he was too loud.
            “I realize that your experience is limited, but surely you can recognize water.”
            Potter shot Draco a grimace and turned back to stare at the pool again. “It doesn’t look like it reflects anything.”
            Draco grinned. He hadn’t expected Potter to pick up so quickly on what was special about the pool. “That’s because it doesn’t,” he said, and took Potter’s hand. “Come on. We’re invited guests here. Any Malfoy or someone escorted by a Malfoy is.”
            “What is it with you and water?” Potter muttered, but he accepted Draco’s sliding escort down the slope.
            Draco balanced them on the rounded grey rock a few centimeters from the edge of the pool, and reached down to hold his hand above it. “We would commune with the Reverse,” he said, making sure his voice was smooth and loud. “Will you show it?”
            For a moment, the surface of the water trembled, thick and black as old blood, and Draco thought that nothing would happen. But then the water made a figure, rising up out of it, a sleek body that grew four legs and a pointed appendage on its head. It stood on the surface and swung its muzzle towards them, and Draco realized he was seeing a black unicorn.
            “What is that?” Potter’s voice was hushed beside him. Draco shot him a sharp glance, glad to see that he wasn’t reaching for his wand.
            “This is the Reverse,” said Draco. “A spirit, of sorts, who lives in the water and reflects things from the land—but in its own way. I think it amuses the spirit to obey some of the laws that water is supposed to obey, in a totally backwards way.”
            “Why does it let us come here?” Potter now tilted his head back as if he was looking into the air for the source of the Malfoys’ truce with the Reversal.
            “Because one of my ancestors did it a favor.”
            “How can you do a favor for a pool of water?”
            “I don’t know,” Draco admitted. “The records were always scanty for that part.” He stretched out his hand slowly, and the black unicorn stepped forwards. “Have you ever wanted to pet a unicorn and been frustrated that they wouldn’t let you close? Now’s your chance.”
            “This is the strangest date ever,” Potter said under his breath, but he obediently stepped forwards until he was wobbling on the edge of the rock. His hand rested under the unicorn’s snout for a second without response. Then the unicorn dipped its head, and brushed its rounded nose against Potter’s palm. Draco heard Potter catch his breath, thick and unexpected.
            “It doesn’t feel like a normal unicorn,” Potter whispered.
            “It’s made of water, what do you expect?” Draco touched the creature’s mane. It was heavy and sopping, thick enough to feel like hair for a second, and then it went back to the texture and consistency of weed. He snorted. The Reverse liked to bend the creatures’ personalities, too. Unicorns were usually solemn creatures once they grew out of being foals, so a reversed unicorn would play jokes. Draco glanced at Potter. “Do you feel up to putting some of your blood in the pool?”
            Potter jerked around to stare at him. “For blood magic?”
            Draco folded his arms. He couldn’t deny that that stung a little. Maybe he had first had his mind opened to how good a prospect Potter would make by the evidence of Dark magic that had marked his face, but Draco had changed since the war. “Yes, I work in the middle of the Ministry and practice blood magic every day.”
            Potter gave him one of those glances that seemed to fill the air between them with lightning, then winced and lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m not very good at this.”
            Draco sniffed. “Yes, you ought to apologize.” He relented when Potter eyed him cautiously, face still averted. “It’s all right. But if you put some of your blood in the pool, then the Reverse can create an image of you. It’s an image of what you’re not. A strange way to look in the mirror. But it can make you know yourself better.”
            Potter narrowed his eyes, but not as if he wasn’t considering it. “How did you know that would appeal to me?”
            “You like risks.”
            Potter paused in reaching for his wand. “A lot of people say that about me, but it’s not true. I don’t take any more risks that any other Auror.”
            “I didn’t mean you put your life in danger. Or other people’s, either,” Draco had to add, because Potter still looked sensitive. “I just mean that you like the rush of adrenaline for its own sake. There’s no other explanation for some of the challenges you ran.”
            Potter smiled in a way that tugged the scar up and towards the side. Draco hadn’t seen that particular smile before. “You do have a way of putting things,” he said. “It’s strange that I’ve never met someone who could do that before. Who saw me like that and then phrased things in a way I didn’t expect,” he added, when Draco raised his eyebrows.
            The black unicorn snapped a hoof down into the surface of the water, showering them both. “It’s getting impatient,” said Draco. “You should decide whether you’re going to put your blood in the water or not.”
            “You knew what the answer was going to be,” Potter said, rolling his eyes and speaking the spell that would open a small cut in his skin. Draco shivered. Hearing that raspy, powerful voice speaking magic did things to him.
            The blood fell into the pool a second later, as Potter tilted his hand. At once the black unicorn disappeared, melting apart into a cascade that caused Draco to splutter. Potter only waited with his head on one side as if he could see into the heart of the Reverse.
            A second later, the water bubbled and burbled and lifted one of the most transparent images Draco had ever seen it produce. Most of the time, the creatures it raised had a tar-like consistency, and you had to guess at the general outlines of their bodies to see what they were, like a silhouette.
            But this one had depth to the face, and the eyes, and it lifted a shape Draco thought was a sword with a swift and daring smile.
            And there was only one scar on its face, the one that so intrigued Draco, cupping and caressing that version of Potter’s jaw like a lover.
            For a second, Potter seemed transfixed. Then he turned his head and looked at Draco. “It’s probably too black for me to see the scar on my forehead,” he muttered.
            “I don’t know,” Draco said. “It got that one pretty well.”
            “But that can’t be my reflection,” said Potter, perplexed, turning back to it. “That scar doesn’t matter a lot to who I am.”
            “I did say that it was a reversed reflection, not the actual thing,” said Draco dryly, back in control again after his moment of surprise. “That you can learn more about what you’re not from watching it than what you are. Or do you only pay attention when it suits you to do so?”
            Potter rolled his eyes and glanced back at the reflection again. “And I don’t carry a sword, either,” he said.
“Only one in a place you haven’t permitted me to look at yet,” Draco said, and tried out a leer. It was an evening of surprises. He might as well.
Astonishingly, color flooded Potter’s fair skin, and he shook his head and glanced away from Draco as though Draco was the one who had done something weird. I’m not the one who followed an old school rival into the Forbidden Forest and put my blood into a pool on his suggestion, Draco thought, ignoring the fact that he was the one who had made those suggestions.
“And I don’t think I have that dark an expression on my face,” Potter persisted, talking to himself this time.
“I know,” said Draco. “You’re all innocence.”
            “But I’m not,” Potter said, shockingly. “And that’s the point, isn’t it? The Reverse doesn’t just create the opposite of what you are. That would be boring, and not how reflections work. It shows you something of yourself in the features that it chooses. You just have to figure out what it is.”
            He stepped up to the very edge of the rock, confronting his mirrored self. Draco held his breath. The Reverse was intelligent enough to hold a truce with his ancestors and follow some consistent rules, but it could be unpredictable.
            “The scar shows something of my darkness,” Potter told his image, eyes tracking slowly over its face. “The expression shows that, too.” He looked at the sword. “And I often prefer to use physical force to fight my enemies, instead of magic.”
            No wonder you end up with scars, Draco longed to say. But he held his peace. It wasn’t like Potter could help it if his enemies blew things up in his face or attacked him in his cradle when he was a baby.
            Besides, he was more interested in what Potter would say next than interjecting his own opinion.
            “But there’s something else about you,” Potter said. “The way you smile. The way you’re so fearless, like a falcon. I know I’m not. I’m usually afraid right before I go in to arrest a criminal or something. But you…you shine.”
            The dark image bowed to Potter, extending its hands as though offering the sword up to him across its palms. For a second, Draco thought Potter would take it, that the Reverse would create something solid instead of something watery and offer it. But then the image arched backwards and disappeared into the water, and splashed Potter so effectively that he bowled back into the shore, spitting and cursing.
            Draco waded down through mud and wet grass to rescue him, chuckling under his breath. Potter glared up at him through glasses that looked as though he’d been caught in a rainstorm.
            “Did you know it would do that?”
            “No,” said Draco. “But like you said, the reflection is sometimes true at a deep level, in some way, if you can discover it.”
            He didn’t expect Potter to respond to that, but Potter went still, which was inconvenient when Draco was trying to get him back up on his feet. Potter blinked and stared, and didn’t seem to notice the ground soaking around him.
            “That was the way I affected you, didn’t I?” Potter whispered. “I’m sorry.”
            “Don’t be,” said Draco, his voice rough himself, and he reached out and cupped that scarred jaw and kissed Potter before he could regret the thought.
            Potter had stood still and returned his kiss with cold lips, with dripping hands, with interest. Draco had stood there and kissed him and kissed him, and now he relived the memory of that kiss and slipped his hand beneath the band of his trousers and so into his pants, stroking himself with his knuckles.
            He didn’t need his hand. He came so quickly and powerfully that he sagged down to the floor the way Potter had sagged to the shore of the pool, cursing softly under his breath.
            Not so much like a splash as like a thunderclap, he thought afterwards, cleaning his hand and lying on the floor to stare up at the ceiling. It was a little strange, but not the strangest thing Potter had made him do.
            He did wonder what would happen in a week’s time, when Potter made the journey to St. Mungo’s that would cure him of the scar and the raspy voice that Draco had found so attractive.
*
            “What are you doing here, Malfoy?”
            Draco looked up. He made sure to keep his face bland, partially because he didn’t want to pick a fight with Weasley on the day Harry was taking the last potions, but also because he knew it would annoy Weasley. “Sitting on a chair.”
            There was no immediate attack of spluttering the way there would have been a few years ago, but Weasley did look as though he would have smacked Draco if they were anywhere else. He moved around to the side as though he had to keep Draco under observation. There was no one else in this particular waiting room of St. Mungo’s, unless you counted the faded photographs pining away on the covers of old periodicals; watching Draco couldn’t have been that difficult. “I know that you and Harry have been dating.”
            “Then why are you surprised I’m here?”
            Weasley closed his eyes and leaned his cheek on the wall. Draco was glad he could help Weasley become better-acquainted with it. “Because just because—I mean, dating Harry doesn’t mean that you feel affection for him.”
            It surprised Draco a Gryffindor would come to a conclusion like that, he had to admit, and especially Weasley, whose affection for Granger was widely-known. “What else would there be?”
            Weasley turned red enough to answer the question, which was just as well, as Draco thought he would never make his tongue move in the words. Draco sighed and shook his head. “You don’t have sex with someone like Potter in the first fortnight of dating them.”
            “Then you would do it with other people in the first fortnight!” Weasley didn’t quite aim his finger and crow, but the intention was there, Draco saw.
            “Yes,” said Draco. “Whores generally expect it, for example. And so do people you pull in a bar.”
            Weasley looked utterly lost. Draco concealed a snicker. Then again, the only person he thought Weasley had dated besides Granger was Lavender Brown. It was no surprise if he had a skewed idea of what one did with what people and when. “What do you want Harry for, if not—that?”
            Draco idly entertained the idea of making Weasley say sex by staying silent until he did, but he wanted to keep on mild terms with Harry’s friends. “I want to date him. I was attracted to him.”
            “You are!”
            Draco could have said pitying things about people who didn’t have eyes in their heads, but he knew what Weasley meant. “Not just that. You should ask him to tell you about some of the dates. We had fun.”
            Weasley gave him another long, slow considering look. “He did tell me about them. They sounded like weird dates.”
            Draco hoped that if Harry had told Weasley about the Reverse and the dark pool in the Forbidden Forest, he at least hadn’t included directions. The Reverse wouldn’t be so kind to someone who showed up without a Malfoy at their side. “They were. But you have to admit that it’s sort of strange for people like us to be dating at all. I was trying to let him have fun and enjoy himself. I think I succeeded.”
            “You did. Hello, Ron.”
            Draco turned, startled. Somehow, he had thought he would have a sense of it when Harry walked into the room, especially because he would be bereft of the scar and the raspy voice that had first won Draco’s attention. But Harry had sneaked in, and now he leaned against the wall and grinned as if he was enjoying his effect on them.
            Draco was surprised to see how little Harry’s face had changed. Well, the scar was gone, of course. But the shadows that Draco had seen in his eyes, the intriguing ones, the ones that were the shadows of the ones in the eyes of his Reverse image, were still there.
            And his voice wasn’t as deep, but Draco seemed to have learned to listen to his smile, and the words, rather than the way Harry said them.
            “This is rather odd, you have to admit,” said Weasley. He looked caught between the need to scold Harry, and maybe Draco with him, and to be happy for his best friend.
            “I know,” said Harry calmly. “But he told me he got attracted to me after he saw me in a new light with the scar and the voice, and that might all be gone now, as far as I know.” He turned to face Draco, something both strong and vulnerable in the way he lifted his head. “And now?”
            Draco smiled truly, helplessly, in response. “It’s not gone,” he replied. “It’s still up to you to decide how you spend your time, but it’s not gone on my part.”
            Another long moment while Harry studied him and Draco thought that he might leave. After all, his friends disapproved, and they had gone on weird dates, and they still didn’t call each other by their first names.
            Then Harry reached for Weasley’s hand with one of his, and Draco’s with the other. “I don’t see why I can’t have everything,” he murmured, with the edge of that wicked smile Draco wished he had got to know earlier.
            Draco didn’t try to prevent the outer smile, or the inner tumble down, down, down.
*
            “Damn, you’re aggressive when I say simple things to you.”
            Draco slammed Harry against the door of his house, and then realized it was still open, and shut it behind them with another slam of his foot. He didn’t want anyone except Harry to share the moment with him.
            “I want so many things,” he said, and drove his mouth against Harry’s. They’d been to the Crystal Bell again, for the third time, and Harry had smiled at him and said teasing things, mostly about how no one would ever believe that they’d been on ten dates now and had only kissed the once. Then he’d let his hand trail across Draco’s, and only released him when the magical paper swans brought more of their food.
            It was more than anyone could be expected to withstand.
            Harry smiled at him and brought up a hand to trail along his jaw, as lightly and teasingly as he’d touched Draco in the restaurant. “What do you want?” he whispered, and kissed Draco again, a sweep of his tongue rising to touch a secret place under Draco’s ear—secret because Draco had never realized it existed, but immediately it ignited him.
            “I want to call you Harry,” Draco said, and dropped into a crouch. He hadn’t timed this perfectly, because he’d thought he would fall gracefully to his knees and then that didn’t happen, and instead he went cross-eyed with the realization of how hard Harry was and how close he was. But he reached out and still managed to tuck Harry’s robes back in one relatively smooth motion, and then he leaned up and said, “I want this.” He closed his mouth on Harry through the warm cloth of his robe, sucking hard.
            Harry arched up with his eyelashes fluttering so desperately that Draco was concerned for a second, wondering if you could sprain your eyelids. Then he was groaning and pushing into Draco’s mouth, and that was obviously okay. It wasn’t like you could sprain your cock.
            “You can do that,” said Harry, with a shakiness on the last word that pleased Draco, and reached down to touch Draco’s face again. But abruptly his hand was strong, and he was tilting Draco’s head back, so that their eyes met. Draco allowed it because that was right, too. It was right that Harry should demand certain things of him, and want to make those demands.
            “I want to call you Draco.”
            Draco turned his head to the side, tonguing Harry’s fingers for a second before he returned to the sucking.
            That only went on until Harry pulled back and drew his wand and conjured both their clothes off, in a puff of blue and purple smoke that left all of them, even their pants, neatly folded on the other side of the room. Draco looked up at him and reached out his hands to take Harry’s, grinning. “Tell me that you didn’t learn that from Dumbledore and I won’t find my robes all purple with stars on them in the morning.”
            “They would still become you,” Harry mumbled, and flung himself against Draco, leading to a brief wrestling match on the floor.
            Draco approved of naked wrestling matches, but there were more comfortable places for them. By dint of kissing and begging and coaxing and dragging, he finally got Harry around the corner and into his bed. Harry sprawled there, one knee up and his hand placed on it, his eyelids fluttering in deliberate exaggeration this time.
            “You seemed eager enough to get me here,” he muttered, when Draco only stood there and stared. “What is it? Do I have some food between my teeth?” He stuck his tongue out and licked at his lips, once seriously, once to be a tease.
            That was what Draco blamed for his control breaking and his fast crawl across the bed into Harry’s embrace, anyway.
            Once again they were wrestling, but this time it was wrestling with a purpose; they learned each other’s warmth that way, and the places that made them gasp with ticklish laughter, and they got their wands out of the way and the lube safely out. Draco was glad that he had moved it into the drawer beside his bed recently instead of leaving it in his bathroom the way he used to. Then again, that was Harry’s fault as well.
            He looked up from making sure he had enough lube squeezed onto his hand, because Harry had gone silent. Draco had to admit that he hadn’t even asked if Harry had been with a man before. He had known Harry wanted to be with him, and that was enough for him.
            Harry seemed to have decided, too. Because he was lounging back against the pillows at the head of the bed—well, the ones they hadn’t sent skittering in a dozen different directions, anyway—and lofting his arse carefully in the air, his hands tucked beneath it. He looked at Draco from beneath his eyelashes and made an expression probably best described as an illegal pout.
            Draco dived at him again, but this time, with a hand full of lube.
            Harry laughed sharply enough that Draco had a hard time getting his hand in the right place, but lots of other things were hard, too. Then Draco got his hand in the right place, and among the hard things were Harry’s breathing, and eyelash-fluttering. Draco watched Harry riding the thrusts of his fingers until Harry said, “Enough. Enough.”
            Draco nodded and withdrew his hand. He had to coat his cock carefully, for fear he’d come. The tingling pleasure that suffused every nerve of him was thrilling, wonderful, but also a little dangerous. It felt as though he was pushing back against most of the orgasms he’d ever had in his life.
            “When I said enough,” Harry said, his voice deep enough to sound like the rasping one that had first caught Draco’s attention, “I meant enough teasing, too.”
            He made a determined thrust of his arse downwards, and nearly caught Draco’s cock in the right place, like he’d caught Draco’s fingers, earlier. Draco was between his thighs, though, and despite the temptation to stay there and ride them both to completion, he wanted something even better. He turned to the side, and backwards, and inched down the bed, and wriggled, and adjusted, and then he was in the right place, and he and Harry both groaned as he slid inside.
            “It’s enough,” Harry sighed, head falling back until the fire on the hearth brilliantly lit the hollow of his throat.
            “Good,” said Draco, and cleared his throat when he realized how raspy he was. “Because I don’t know how much more I could give you.”
            “You’ve given a lot already,” said Harry, and lifted his head, shaking his hair out of his eyes and grinning at him. “Although I have to admit that I’m puzzled about the lack of water on this date.”
            “The Crystal Bell didn’t have water,” Draco muttered, and shifted up. The first overwhelming moments were past, and he thought he could make a good go of it. “Shall we?”
            “What else am I asking for?” Harry asked, and skimmed one hand down the bed to grope at his. “What more could I ask for?”
            Draco laughed. “I’ll teach you some things,” he murmured, and began doing what he’d wanted to do at least since he saw Harry confronting his own image at the Reverse’s pool.
            Harry met him thrust for thrust, where he could. When Draco was thrusting too close, or nearly bent him in half, or picked up his ankles and maneuvered them around to the sides, then Harry dropped back and panted.
            And laughed, sometimes. Draco found the laughter didn’t bother him the way it might have with some other lovers. It was like the laughter Harry had given when Draco asked him out, when he had said that they might as well.
            They had taken a chance, Draco thought, fanning his fingers out and watching Harry do the same thing with his own fingers, so that they met and matched. And they might not have worked out, but they had.
            It was enough.
            He had to drop his hands to grip Harry’s hips and pick up the pace again, but he knew from Harry’s smile that his thoughts were understood, as much as he needed them to be.
            Harry’s breathing was fast and shallow long before the end, his eyes opening and slipping closed again, and then he reached down and took Draco’s hand with a hard grip. He couldn’t speak anymore, Draco knew. He couldn’t himself.
            He turned his head and closed his fingers, and if Harry needed the permission, he took it, coming in long bursts that Draco felt trembling through his own flesh, into him, down and through and across, and then he came, too, in sharp satisfaction, sighing as he collapsed slowly across Harry.
            “You’re hot,” said Harry, and pushed at him.
            Draco reached for his wand without speaking and conjured a small, cold shower that scattered welcome coolness across his skin, and made Harry yelp.
            “See, there’s water involved,” Draco said, and slid over to the side, the motion made easier by the water collecting between their bodies. He listened to the drowsy creak of Harry’s breath through his ribs, and sighed.
            “Are you really going to sleep in a wet bed?” Harry pushed at him again.
            “It was already wet with other things.” Draco grinned as his eyes slid shut. Knowing that Harry was this fastidious after sex was oddly charming. “But you can cast a Drying Charm if you want. I won’t mind.”
            “We’re going to wash,” Harry said firmly, and stood up and tugged Draco out of bed. “That’s the only kind of water I’m interested in right now.”
            Draco stood up and considered him again. The shadows weren’t in Harry’s face right now; it was as open and full of pleasure as Draco had ever seen it. But he thought it only right to enjoy that as well as the other faces that Harry had shown him.
            “Whatever you say,” he said, and grinned at the suspicious look Harry showed him, and together they ambled into the bathroom.
            The End.
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