[It Moves]

Draco Malfoy was something else.

Harry thought of food first, because he had learned to equate food with good things, never having had enough of either. Draco was not chocolate frogs – that was Dumbledore, twinkling and yet distant in his portrait frame, like a dream of a grandfather. Draco was not roasts nor loins nor the succulent flesh of fowl, spitted or grilled and sauced or drizzled with butters and garnish. Too tart and too sweet for that, he was. But he was not candy, either, and could not be contained within the sacks and packets of carefully horded treasures Harry religious carried back from Honeydukes, bright in their sparkly wrappers and promising a quick sugar rush.

Harry was quite certain that Draco had nothing in common with pastries. He was not pies nor fairy cakes nor cream horns, not éclairs nor petit fours, though the last two were properly snooty and Harry was only au fait with their Frenchy names because they'd made a lasting impression on him, materializing on the Gryffindor table and properly identified by Hermione. So, good old English treacle tart, maybe, since he'd had that and liked it, but… that wasn't accurate either, for Malfoy was not exactly known for his gooiness and buttery, crumbly tractability, though Harry had rendered him boneless and spineless and supine often enough, ready to be bitten into like a piping hot mince tart.

Maybe wine, then; a substance sophisticated by its very nature and therefore somewhere in the right range of Malfoy…except that Harry was no judge, having not had more than a few swigs of celebratory champagne with the Weasleys and several glasses of smoky-flavored red stuff at Slughorn's soirees, which the Professor averred was a fine compliment to the rack of lamb or the scallops of veal, and which crept up with a nasty acid bite and swimmy head later. Draco was jealous after Harry's ventures into what could be termed 'polite society' – Ginny Weasley came late from class to these coveted gatherings and looked like a real girl for once in her tomboyish life– and he was equally sneaky showing his spite, with his stinging love bites to the neck not easily hidden and a chilling lack of the silvery admiring glances Harry had uneasily come to expect. At least Harry thought Draco was jealous, but then again that might have been him simply wishing, since he would be snippy too, if it were his shoes.

Draco was not like girls. Harry had come to that conclusion, which really should have been, well. Bloody obvious. Those dreary times with Cho and then lippy fumbles with Hermione just in case, and then his two weird summers, one after another, solitary and horny and creeping out at all hours of the night, up to no good – they'd been rather eye-opening, upon later consideration. He'd learnt more than a uncomfortable things about himself since his debut at fourteen… like why Sirius could never, ever quite be a true 'father figure' and why Snape's snapping dark eyes were prickly uncomfortable on Harry's skin too often for complaisance.

Harry had discovered other hidden facets, as well, all on his own with no mates to tease or unconsciously guide him, such as the fact that purchasing lube and condoms in a Muggle corner convenience store at ten o'clock at night on a Thursday was just as embarrassing as incorrectly pronouncing the basic sex charm the first time at three p.m. in the afternoon on a Hogsmeade Saturday and that both these humps in the road of experience could be gotten over completely when somebody else was bent arse-up over a dirty toilet tank (or hastily unzipped in a nearby village jitty) asking for it nicely enough. By then Harry'd usually had more than enough of the colorless alcohol laced with cranberry punch (or was sufficiently hyped up on Hinkletoff's Turkish Delight, 'an affordable and delicious treat for a young Wizard's folly!', depending) in his system to jet past most of his internal barriers, if not quite all.

Still, Harry was chary with his favors. Draco was the only bloke who'd ever had him thus far, and that was exactly how he preferred it.

Well, returning to Draco. Malfoy. To be defined, an intellectual feat Harry hadn't quite managed. And it wasn't as though he could just ask Hermione.

…Maybe it was pumpkin juice, after all. If he was still sticking with this 'items familiar and favorite' metaphor. He'd been glad enough to get back to it, tasty and fresh in his mouth, all dark orange shimmer and depth and Hogwarts again, hurrah! Or there was butterbeer, his other old stand-by, but Draco was definitely more 'pumpkin juice' than any sort of lager or malt beverage, being the very stuff of magic as Harry learned it first, aged eleven. Malfoy was the very meat and bones of Harry's brave new world, his skin a scented cloak only barely wrapped 'round everything mysterious Harry'd never dreamed of, his grey eyes scrying pools disdainfully reflecting the 'new-and-improved' Harry Potter's new and unfamiliar face.

And that particular train of thought got him bugger all. Food and drink comparisons were not, when it came down to it, a good way to describe someone.

Magic itself was peculiar: each one Harry met had their own feel. Ron's magic was sturdy and complex; a wall built of intricate stonework with hidden symbols and sigils and strength cemented in. Madame Pomfrey's predictably smelt of antiseptic and starch and clean sheets and little pats and pets to the knees and shoulders that healed just as much as her potions. Voldemort's was appropriately riddled and pockmarked, distorted and agonized and so terribly foul every nerve of Harry's stretched to near breaking and he could only dodge and slam and slash to get away from it all.

Draco's magic was different again, though. A seamless clean sweep of light that arced through the boy and transformed his spellwork into a thing of beauty. Pureblood stuff, Harry guessed. Inherently valuable. Ancient and leanly encrusted with jewels and artisan-wrought.

Harry watched for glimpses of brilliance between bouts of Malfoy temper, admiring from afar Draco's genetic grace in form, ingrained deep as generations of dancing and elocution and Olde Worlde Courtesie could go, imbued at birth to all Malfoys as a Right, Ineluctable. He wondered if that was Draco's own springboard, the leap that gave him ownership of the air around him, the very particles of dust? Or was it his youth, akin to Harry's, pumping bright blood into dusty old spells, changing them into something fresh, something new? Harry only knew it was very alluring, Draco's magic; it called him, as no one else's did, and he wanted to trace it with his fingers and wand and mouth and belly and coax it closer, always closer, till it merged with his own, inseparable.

But Draco was not all magic – he was flesh. And a million little wants that had to be catered to and a dozen or more larger holes desperately in need of plastering over. He craved Harry as much as Harry could give and then asked for additional – 'Pretty please? Come on, Potter!' - till Harry knew he'd been absolutely correct in his gut-wrenching hunch that first time, calmly requiring Malfoy's silence in exchange for this pleasure-based truce between them. For Draco would've netted him with words as well as wants and words really meant very little, even spoken before witnesses, even as Promises or Spells or Unspeakables - and Harry would not ask anyone to lie to him ever again. Not Malfoy, especially not Malfoy, already hiding so much. That was one thing Potter could give back freely, a gift that no galleons could buy.

Not that he didn't give Draco a great deal; more than Harry could afford, really. Bits and pieces of himself, his cum, his gaze, his time. And then still managed to feel vaguely guilty. As Draco did, perhaps , but then as a Malfoy he was ages better at disguising it than Harry was – not cracks in that veneer - and even so both of them were brilliant at creating rooms in their heads filled with non-important furniture and bric-a-brac. Harry felt like he was there, sometimes, guised in his father's cloak, mucking about in Draco's antique flotsam and jetsam, hopelessly seeking something of worth. And he knew Draco did it too; his touch in Harry's being was the brush of moth wings on mirrors and veils and yet Harry always knew Draco took away nothing he was not already willing to give.

Harry would've if he could've, yes. He could honestly admit that. If things were really, really different; if things were not like this. But Harry wasn't as nice a bloke as his friends believed he was – and fuck Malfoy for those unpredictable and occasional soppy sideways glances – and so he didn't, full stop. Made that choice, he had, at one of many fucking hugely significant crossroads he'd screamed through on his way to eternity. And since his road was already there right under his feet and Draco wasn't likely to be strolling it with him in this lifetime, it made no sense at all to ask for something Draco couldn't offer, so taking what was available was the only choice. No sense at all.

It wasn't like he wanted structure.

It wasn't as though it was a problem. No, all the shagging he could handle was. Not. A. Problem. Ever. Harry knew more about Draco's body now than Draco did himself: how the sinews were twined together, the exact placement of the ribs; that one testicle was larger than the other, that the sharp chin was only stubbly an hour after curfew; that Malfoy wanted to work for it; that Malfoy needed the tease. That Draco went utterly silent at the very last moment, only mouthing Harry's name – sometimes 'Harry!'; sometimes 'Potter!' - and that he squeaked when Harry bit him on the scruff of his neck and went down pliant and whining like a puppy if tongued.

Harry had a veritable catalogue compiled on Malfoy: that he was proud of his current height and excessively ticklish, the more so for never being tickled 'Before Harry'; that he washed every part of his elegant body, inside and out, and scented and oiled himself like a courtesan when he had warning and that he could then turn around the very next day with a slash of a grin on his straight-edged features and fuck Harry through the locker wall grimy and sweaty and beastly fierce, just raw spit coating his cock and no boundaries.

And Harry could bring Draco off with just the barest touch now, fingertips sliding under tightly buttoned waistband and narrow leather belt, a hot gust in his ear. Malfoy always blushed scarlet and his grey eyes sparked hatred and then he gave back as good as he got, if not ten times more so.

Harry liked that about him, Malfoy's anger. They were more alike than anyone knew, he and Draco. They were more alike than anyone could ever begin to appreciate and Harry had learned through experience that what he found to be incredibly valuable was generally only his. Ron was blind in this arena and while Hermione saw both the forest and the trees, her vision encompassing, detailed, more like a scan than a look-see, she only took away with her as 'knowledge' the map of the creature's pathways and the health of the plant life and the likelihood of the forest being paved into tarmac. Statistics and probability, facts and details.

Harry knew the bark, rough under his hands, the pant of the stag, the odor of the leaf litter. He could stand there for hours, silent and still, and feel sap waxing and waning, petals falling, rain coming to soak him, defenseless and needing none, just another animal there. Draco was the fox sliding quicksilver between his rooted legs, the squirrel scampering up him, the twist of strangling vine, flowering murkily in the dusk, tracking tight 'round his shoulders, wrapping him in scent. Draco was that thin and that frail and that rare, that reedy, whipcord steel-bound tough, and so alike Harry, so near, they were more often.

One. Year. One and half, at this marker, sixth-year Christmas hols in the offing. In less than a fortnight Draco would be leaving and Harry wouldn't see him till January and the New Year. If ever again.

Harry's fancy was tickled when Draco celebrated the season wordlessly by transfiguring two classroom chairs and a workbench into a king-sized bed one Friday midnight, all clad in green silks and scarlet satin down-filled duvet, briefly resplendent with golden Snitch-shaped tassels and real fairy lights. In return, Harry gave him a night in Hogsmeade, well away from prying Filches and nosy Snapes. The bed at the inn was much narrower and far less sumptuous but Draco seemed well chuffed with the meager accommodations, plucking worn sheets between pale fingers and hiding grins that gave away far too much gen concerning the state of his insides. And lastly, on the very eve of the Eve, at an hour for which no excuse acceptable to the Headmaster existed, the two of them perched high above the starry-skied world, nesting owls huffing steamy breaths all around them and the freezing air pungent and dank-musty, their naked hands fasted, Malfoy's beaky frigid nose poked tight against Harry's nape. Draco gave Harry silent tear-tracks down the frayed neck of his last-year's Weasley jumper and Harry offered drifting off-kilter kisses and then Harry said

Stay. Come.

And Draco answered

I have to—

And Harry offered nothing more, because he didn't need to.