Title: Nunquam Securus
Rating: R
Word Count: 2888
Summary: Draco knew anything that involved Harry Potter was never simple.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or it's characters, nor am I making any profit from writing this.
A/N: Written for Glompest 2010 for hollys_tree. Thank you for the great prompt! Thank you to Celestlyn for betaing and for all your opinions!

-.-.-

Draco should have known that anything involving Harry Potter wouldn't be simple.

He approached him out of sheer curiosity. He wondered if they could make a friendship in the years after the war, or at least be friendlier after everything that had happened. After all, Potter had saved his family from incarceration. And he wanted to know what it was like, being friendly with Potter the way Weasley was. He wanted to know how it would have been different if he had approached Potter in another way, or if his hand had been accepted.

They worked closely together sometimes. It was inevitable, the way he was head Auror, and Draco a top Hit Wizard. They worked on the same cases together. It would be easier to work with Potter if there were no hostilities in the way, Draco told himself.

He asked Potter after the file had been closed and sealed for the day and the culprit behind bars if he would care to go out.

Potter said yes.

There was a brief hesitation, but Draco knew it would have to be there. It was necessitated.

It began as awkward meetings, neither of them knowing what to say. Eventually, they were able to find a common ground in work. Later, it was arguing on the finer points of Quidditch. After that, there were the pros and cons of generic Muggle inventions.

Every meeting had the threat of a heated argument hovering over it, imbibing their conversations and forcing its presence down their throats. It was guaranteed that they would row at least once during every outing.

Draco wasn't surprised that the one-eighty in their relationship was a great topic of discussion for their friends. Weasley and Granger eyed him mistrustfully. Pansy and Greg wondered why he felt the need to interact with Potter any more than what was expected to happen. His parents received the news with pursed lips, but said nothing. The Wizarding world in general held its breath as they waited for the explosion they felt was coming.

It didn't happen though. Not for a few years anyways.

When they worked together, they made a formidable team. There was satisfaction in the days work. Their conversations were easier, but still rocky, always tainted by the memories they shared of the past.

They still argued.

They wouldn't be Potter and Malfoy if they didn't.

And that's what they were. Potter never called him 'Draco' and in return, Draco never called Potter 'Harry'. It was the way things were supposed to be. It was a comfort, a certainty in the chaos that now surrounded their new relationship.

There were times when the outings just weren't the two of them. Occasionally, Weasley or Granger felt the need to make sure that Draco was not up to anything nefarious. Pansy and Greg would hear too, and thus feel the need to accompany him. To protect him from Mudbloods and blood traitors alike, they said. Draco let them.

They grew close. Weasley was often seen laughing at a joke that Blaise told when he began to join the party. Humorous and gently scathing, they complemented each other. Granger and Theo got along well when he decided to turn up. They were bookish; they fit.

Their group spread. It nearly encompassed the entire houses of Gryffindor and Slytherin, and the majority of the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs that had been in the same year.

And through it all, there was a distance between he and Potter.

Draco found it rather ironic actually. He had originally set out to befriend Potter, and instead, ended up uniting everyone but him and Potter.

It was frustrating.

It seemed that there was too much between them. For every interaction that occurred was the same as it had always been; tense and strained.

There were times when one or the other did not attend the now weekly gatherings of their housemates. Draco found it disheartening. The friendship he had longed for, cravedfor even, with Potter during school was instead being shared with Pansy. And Greg, and Blaise even.

That was the hardest for Draco to bear. Potter and Blaise got along quite well. Perhaps it was the fact that Blaise was everything Potter wasn't. Blaise had never really been noticed much at Hogwarts. Not compared to Potter, or Draco or Longbottom even, in his own fumbling way. He hadn't played a strong part in the war. His family had supported neither side, he had never taken extreme action against the other students during the last horrid year at school, had never gotten a detention for wrong doing or stepping out of bounds. Blaise was… quiet, peaceful, contained. He neither gave nor received attention in any large amounts. Though he was on the sidelines, he was by no means invisible. He was noticed, but did not demand the level of attention that Potter unwillingly received. He was ensured his own privacy, a courtesy that Potter had long been denied.

Draco watched the development of their relationship grow. He saw the tricks Zabini taught Potter. He saw the way Zabini's eye undressed Potter when he wasn't looking. He noticed the returned look of lust in Potter's gaze, though the heated cheeks from embarrassment were a hefty distraction.

And that's when Draco realized.

He and Potter had only ever been able to feel strong emotions towards each other.

Hate was one of them.

Love was another.

And since hate had already been tried out and exhausted. Draco fell to the love. Could he love Potter? Could he love the clothes that, despite living on his own and not needing to accept the toss-offs of a colossal cousin, were still slightly too large? Could he appreciate the horrid glasses that covered the brilliance of the green depths, and instead notice the way they enhanced the shape of his eyebrows, or the line of his jaw? Could he long to run his hand through the thick mane of hair that was eternally mussed, notice the softness of it and long even more to use that as leverage to draw him in close? Could he live to inhale the scent that even now invaded his senses, that seemed to permeate from the boy– no the man that sat a mere few feet away from him?

Draco decided he would have to, if he wanted friendship from Potter. If he wanted anything at all but animosity between them.

But that didn't stop Draco from having his doubts. Sure, Potter had saved him from going to Azkaban, but he had saved his parents as well and that was out of thanks to his mother for lying to the Dark Lord. Yes, he had saved Draco from the fire in the Room of Requirement, but even Potter himself had confessed about his "saving people" thing. It was in his blood.

What Draco wondered now was if Potter was able to love him. Hate was out of the question. So was dislike, indifference, ignorance, pity… Potter could save, but could he save? Would he know that it wasn't Draco's life that was in danger this time, but his heart? His pride and his dignity? Would he know that his own would be at stake just as much as Draco's was?

It was a risk he would have to take. Love was like that; it hurt like a bitch, but that was apparently what made life worth living, according to Granger as she looked at Weasley. What his own mother had told him when his father had been in prison, or afterwards when they had a personified evil in their Manor. It had been the deciding factor in Lily Evans' death, but it was also that which gave life to her son. It was what Potter himself had died for, and yet he had still lived to see another day. It was in the protection that was evident when Voldemort had tried to curse Hogwarts.

Draco had no idea how to present this idea. His palms perspired when he thought of it; he bit the inside of his cheek in nervousness, or his lip. And then, worst of all, was when Potter looked at him. It had never bothered Draco before. In fact, he had found it quite satisfying to have the Saviour's attention in a way that meant he wasn't in need to be rescued, or hated. Instead, the bottom began dropping out of his stomach when he looked at even the colour green. His normally fluent speech often found a way to stutter when Potter looked at him; devoted his attention to hearing what Draco had to say.

But Draco couldn't say. Not what he wanted to at any rate.

It was one night, when by accident –not really, Draco knew Potter would be there and had thought enough was enough– they were both at the bar, surrounded by a gaggle of friends.

Blaise was there too.

Draco had forgotten him in his ploy to get Potter to listen to him and understand his reasoning. He had no idea if their relationship had progressed further than it had been the last time he had seen the two together. Potter never mentioned it at work, which was professional and stayed that way.

But it seemed, and Draco was verycareful in his observations and not too quick to jump to conclusions and allow the swell of his heart to cloud his judgment, that though they were close, there was nothing distinctly romantic in the air about them. The casual touches and looks they shared were the same as those exchanged between Potter and Weasley or Granger, or Draco and Pansy or Greg.

Draco's breath whooshed back into him. He hadn't even realized that he had been holding it. Hadn't realized that the grip on his glass had tightened, and that there was a freezing coldness streaming from his palm to the drink inside and solidifying it. Draco released his grip and flexed his hand to get the warmth of blood back into it.

Potter never drank much during these meetings. He had a sense of not only duty, but also responsibility and a maturity that was lacking in the others. He stayed alert because he was an Auror, and because he was a voice of reason for when someone was about to do something stupid. Draco hoped he wouldn't play the voice of reason for Draco when the time came, as if he supposed Draco had had too much to drink.

He needn't have feared. Draco wouldn't have been able to stomach the swill as he contemplated the best angle to approach this with.

It was near the end of the night when Draco asked for a private word. And like before, Potter agreed. He followed Draco further down the alley from the Apparition point and waited patiently for him to begin.

But Draco had no words.

He had no idea how to explain what he had thought was a reasonable course of action and solution to melt the ice that still existed between them. He began, haltingly, to say that. That there was a block in their friendship. That it wouldn't work as one the way he had hoped.

Potter's eyes seemed to shutter, and Draco cursed himself seven different ways as he watched the bright gleam fade from the emerald. He had caused that to happen.

It was, Potter said, foolish to suppose anything could have worked out between the two of them anyway. That the past could be put behind them and the future brighter. They had no common ground. They liked different Quidditch teams, he said, as if that were a deciding factor.

When he turned, it was a rejection like no other. As he approached the Apparition point, Draco's heart shattered into a million tiny pieces, only to be ordered back into repair before Potter got away. Draco hadn't done a very good job explaining himself after all. He had probably just misunderstood.

Draco could hope.

He all but tackled Potter before he was able to complete the turn for departure. He mumbled, his face pressed against the material of Potter's robe and the warmth emitting from his chest that that was not what he had meant, that was not it at all.

Draco felt the hands on his shoulders push him back. He relinquished his grip, his arms hanging by his sides as Potter ordered himself to explain, as if Draco were a five-year-old child who had just broken his mother's favourite vase.

He was unable to meet the green, knowing that it would distract him from talking. He cursed Potter for choosing to wear a green robe tonight, when not twenty minutes before, he had been lauding him for his choice in a colour that brought out his eyes. So he looked at the ratty trainers Potter wore instead. And Draco hated that he was being sappy. Maybe he wasn't far off from that five-year-old child after all. This was not like him, Draco thought dimly. Where was the Draco that was able to meet the gaze of his father and tell him that his only son could very well love Harry Potter? Where was the Draco that had the determination to see out a plan that he wanted no part in?

But Potter had always been able to affect him differently than his father or the Dark Lord had ever been able to do.

Quicker was better, Draco thought as he rushed through an explanation that made no sense to him, but must have meant something to Potter. He stood stiffly, Draco knowing that his arms were crossed over his chest by the slight raise of his robe above his trainers.

Even with the explanation finished, with the last words –love, not hate– settling down in the air between them and making it feel sticky and Draco's palms begin a fresh sweat and his pulse to pound in his ears and the world to shrink to a small pin prink that consisted entirely of Potter's trainers, Draco was still unable to meet Potter's gaze. He had no idea if the stiffness that resonated through the body before him was from revulsion or bafflement, whether the lack of any noise at all was because Potter was speechless with fury or surprise or even delight.

Draco decided not to take his chances. Head still bowed, he backed away from the still figure, and hoped that his departure would be smooth so as to not inflict any more pain to his soul.

But Potter's arm shot out, and Draco forgot his promise to himself to not look into his eyes.

For then, Potter was kissinghim, and pushing him back into the stone wall. He was using his body to push Draco into the wall and pull him forwards at the same time. Draco did both as well, pulling Potter closer and pushing against the strong warmth with everything he had. His arms wrapped themselves tightly around him, burying into the black softness of his hair, pulling Potter down and closer so as to deepen the kiss as far as it could go.

It was as if in a dream that Potter broke away only to tug Draco back to the Apparition point and twist with him into crushing darkness.

It was surreal appearing in Potter's flat and have himself dragged towards a destination Draco had never suspected arriving at so quickly this night.

It was impossible that Potter should be gasping out his own need for Draco, the thought that Draco would never have him, that he had thought there was no chance in hell as he placed kisses over Draco's face, his lobes, throat and collarbone.

It was incomprehensible that Potter should be tugging at his clothing, just as surely as Draco was attacking Potter's.

He didn't dare believe that he hadn't unknowingly been slipped a hallucinogen and that this would disappear like the bursting of a bubble.

But as their clothes mysteriously vanished, and there was skin-to-skin contact, Draco was overcome. He dimly realized that he was gasping his own need, clawing at Potter's back, running his hands through the thick black hair to pull him closer for those kisses he couldn't get enough of. That he was arching into the grip that was on his cock as Potter pressed their arousals together. That a deeper relationship, not one based on mutual hatred, was what he had wanted from the time that they were eleven. Not some petty friendship.

Draco had never seen a sight as wondrous as the sight Harry made as he curled around him. The sound of contentment that escaped from his perfect lips. The way his muscular body felt so right next to Draco's own, and how that intoxicating scent pervaded all things. When Draco turned and lipped at Harry, it was to find the taste that he knew he had been craving for years.

Of course, Draco was still afraid. How could he not be? This thing between them… it was so delicate. As delicate as the patterns that were being traced onto his skin.

But Draco was comforted by a single thought: that things were never easy when it came to Harry.

And Draco liked it that way.

fin