Title: Exorcism
Author: tigersilver
Characters: Harry/Draco
Rating: R
Warning(s): Spanking.
Word Count: 817
Prompt: hd_seasons – 13 Nights of Smut, Prompt #2 (Haunted House; hands)
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: Safe havens are to be found in the strangest of places.
Grimmauld Place wasn't a nice house, not by any means. And it was a haunted house, besides. Shadowy, tattered, cobwebby still in far too many corners; full of rattles and bumps and the occasional mummified Doxy, the air inside tasted still of decay and faded memory. When Harry blinked, he saw Sirius. Tonks and Remus, Mad Eye and Snape, too, all pacing quickly through darkened hallways, whispering, whispering always, so the young Harry—the invisible boy who lived only in memory now-couldn't overhear.
"I wish I could, but I can't, Harry."
"Potter! Your presence is not required at this moment. Be off."
"Oh, Harry, a word, if you please…"
"Wotcher, Harry!"
"Harry," Dumbledore would murmur in his ear, and he'd whip his head about, startled shiteless and searching wildly, for that was the croak of an old man dying by acid and not the Headmaster he'd so long admired. "Harry…"
If he blinked hard enough and enough times in succession, they'd recede again, those legless whispering drifts of ectoplasm—those familiar voices. And if Malfoy touched him, even in passing, they'd simply disappear. Magical, that.
But it was less and less so that it happened.
Slowly, ever so slowly, they were carving out a niche for the living in Grimmauld, he and Malfoy. The kitchen, once Kreatcher's and Molly Weasley's domain, was now Harry's. Cooking for two young bachelors was cake compared to cooking for angry, imperious Dursleys. He didn't mind it, and it soothed him, after a hard day in training.
The en suite which adjoined Harry's—once Sirius's—bedroom was owned by lithe young man with exquisite taste. Malfoy flat out refused to function without 'some comforts, Potter', so now it boasted a fresh coating of stark white porcelain on the huge, claw-footed tub and newly updated fixtures, all done up in shiny brass and gleaming nickel. The towels were enormous: white, fluffy and always warm from the racks; there was a bath mat one could sink one's feet up to the ankles in. The room was fragrant with the life of its two male occupants, redolent of Malfoy's aftershave (indescribable, really, but delicious), Harry's Muggle bargain store strawberry-scented shampoo and the costly milled French lavender soap Malfoy swore by. Mint, musk and steam, it was a haven. No ghosts dared show their faces there.
Last but not at all least was their bedroom. Sirius's once, yes, but now unmistakably the property of Potter and Malfoy, Ltd. Brand new fourposter in pride of place, hung with silks; Malfoy's antiques from the Manor scattered about and Harry's discarded robes, trainers and miscellany, happily scattered, over, around and in the general vicinity of his ancient school trunk. Malfoy, in an uncharacteristic and entirely silent show of understanding, said nary a cutting word about the comforting confusion.
The closest he came, actually, to chastising Harry for the trail of mess he habitually left behind him (always, like a slug's trail, or a breadcrumb one, but comprised of fabric and bits-and-pieces from pockets instead) was a smack or ten across his bum—in fact, the only punishment Harry ever earned from Malfoy was a good, sound spanking.
Malfoy's hands were always warm on Harry, wherever they landed. Sharp and staccato across his bared arse (the world tip-tilted dizzily when Harry viewed it from that angle, but he didn't care, much—not with his cock teased to madness by the buttoned flies on Malfoy's woolen winter trousers) or slow and soothing down his spine when the whispers started up again, they were never bloodless nor flinching nor curled into anger. Never harsh, never repulsed.
Never.
And if they bruised his skin (that signet ring of Malfoy's, in particular), they'd always follow after, laying down aloe balm and paving the way for kisses. Harry had no complaints, really—and especially not since he'd asked for it in the first place.
He was well aware Malfoy hated it, for all that his prick was just as engorged as Harry's by the count of a dozen round swats. He flinched when he struck, and Harry had to be extra careful after with him, easing him into readiness with slow fingers and sloth-like thrusts, demonstrating that his pain was only fleeting; that it carried away with it some of the misery.
For the misery was deeply ingrained. Grimmauld had never been, by any stretch, a happy house, nor was it even something one could properly call a home…yet. And Harry's ghosts only bounced back up again—eerie Jack-in-the-Boxes-on the insides of his eyelids even if chased off momentarily. But the occasional reassuring meting out of just consequences (scattered clothes, messy habits; oh, but who would ever imagine such a small punishment—a childish pain-had such collateral benefits?) did the trick mostly, and Malfoy's hands did the rest.
Perhaps not 'happy', Grimmauld, but certainly healing. It was more than enough to be going on with.