A/N: This is my submission for HD_Cliche 2013, my cliche was 'Adultery'. I'd like to send out a thanks to eidheaan_writes (LJ) for the quick beta, it was perfect and she's lovely. Disclaimers apply. If you have time, reviews and concrit are welcome.
Warnings: Adultery, sex - M/M & M/F
All's Fair (In Love and Marriage)
By the time he has the soft, magenta cushions of Hermione's sofa under his buttocks, the memory is already starting to fester. Hermione's wand is flicking, staccato and irritated, coaxing spluttering teacups and crumbling biscuits from her kitchen. Ron, ever consistent Ron, is jittering with pent up energy by the fireplace. Harry thinks it likely he is resisting the urge to pace and stomp.
Draco is wedged deeply into Hermione's only armchair, a book as large as his lap held aloft and obscuring all but the fine, blond hair flopping over his forehead. If it were any other day, Harry might have teased him mercilessly about his reading choice, be it an archaic history tome or an encyclopedia of the centuries greatest potion breakthroughs. Harry would call him a nerd, Draco would be a smart arse – probably claim he was 'fond of intelligent conversation' – and they would fall into their usual back and forth bantering that, somewhere along the line when nobody was looking, had become commonplace between the two of them.
On any other day. But not today.
Today, the entire house is silent as the grave, an apt description in Harry's humble opinion considering he has just witnessed not five minutes ago: Ginny strangling the life from their marriage and banishing it six feet under using only her mouth and another man's dick. And if he's a little bitter? Well he thinks he has the right to that and so much more.
Anger, he should be angry. He isn't though, not yet. Hermione assures him that will come after the shock has worn off. The situation has to be epically fucked for her to be wrong so he believes her.
He's pretty sure it's the passing flashes of memory that are keeping him suspended, frozen, at the disbelieving stage. Another man's hands trailing and catching in the messed tangle of her auburn hair, flaming bright with deception under the vivid glare of their kitchen lights. Ginny nestled between his spread thighs, fingers clasping at the folds of cloth at his knees. Harry remembers thinking, fleetingly before disapparating, that she had never once in their five years sacrificed her knees on the solid stone tiles for him like that.
He even remembers, much as he'd like to forget, the bunching of his arse where he perched on their table – where Harry ate breakfast that very morning – and he rocked his hips leisurely. It's all there, pictures locked inside along with the pungent, sharp scent of sex that curls in the air, the feeling of thickness and humidity. But, even with all that to choose from, it's the sounds that stab at his chest like acid corrosion The panting and grunting and the quiet whimpers that are born at the back of throats. The wet sounds slicking from between Ginny's plumped lips.
He'd like to forget. Love to. But he can't.
Apart from Ron's aggravated puffs – Harry can certainly understand if he wants to cling to the possibility that his best friend who has never lied to him, is lying to him – and the very occasional shuffle of old paper as Draco turns a page of his mega-novel, the room is quiet. That is, until Hermione can't stand the building tension any longer.
"I can't believe this. Are you sure?"
"No, Hermione, I imagined coming home to my wife with another bloke's-"
"NO! I do not need to hear that!" Ron screams hysterically, whipping around from the empty grate.
"I don't mean I don't believe what you're saying, Harry," Hermione attempts to placate. "All I'm saying is this doesn't sound like Ginny. Maybe she's been-"
Draco's resigned, melodramatic sigh – no doubt accompanied by a hidden eye roll – stops her from continuing. He snaps his million page magnum opus shut with vigour and slips it into the warm crease between his thigh and the armrest. He crosses his legs and dusts at the pristine thighs of his trousers before lacing his fingers like he is the Great Prophet of Wisdom and the three of them should be honoured to wait upon his words.
"Before you go pouncing on your bookish theories of 'make everything right', Granger," he finally says, "I'd like to remind you all of the health of this particular partnership."
Draco has one beseeching eyebrow raised, like this statement should be enough of an elaboration for them all to be instantaneously enlightened. Harry is suddenly all too aware of the reason Draco and Hermione still don't always see eye-to-eye, why their little group tenses at the thought of any academic debate. The fact of the matter is that they are both too smart with moral standings so polar they've stampeded past attraction and into the realms of violent disagreement. Basically, they are both too brainy for their own good.
"For starters, when have we visited the Potter household and not left fleeing from a raging argument? It's like they're battling for a war every dinnertime. Point two, if I may ask a personal question, Potter? When was the last time you two had sex? And I don't mean average, for-the-sake-of-the-bedroom sex, I mean hell-raising, heart-pounding, through-the-matress, walls vibrating, vocal chord ripping, 'I-fucking-love-you' sex."
Draco's eyes are burning and Harry barely notices Ron marching steadfastly towards the door, face like thunder. "I don't need to hear this shit about my sister. See you tomorrow for dinner, Mione." The door slamming shakes the whole house.
"I'm not sure I want to answer that," Harry murmurs after a lengthy pause which has nothing to do with the background interruption.
"I've made my point, have I not, Granger," Draco says, looking smug and as much of a git as he did in school.
"And whatever you're going to suggest Harry do about this," Hermione replies, decisive and reasonable as always, "is likely to be immoral and Slytherin and won't fix a thing." Her hands find her hips with startling familiarity and she sniffs self-righteously, her nose high. "I know you, Malfoy, and I won't have any part of whatever you're going to manipulate Harry into doing."
"No," Draco agrees, a rare occurrence in itself, "but it'll be more fun than anything you can find in your dusty textbooks." His grin is alarmingly crafty, life a fox with gleaming teeth and a penchant for mischief.
Harry knows he should be put off by the smile, which is all faux innocence and charm. He realises he should be wary of anything Hermione disapproves of. But he also knows how Slytherins work, how the writhing nest of snakes hidden at the back of his own mind operates. He knows it will involve vengeance.
And right at this second, with the bubbling anger just starting to worm its way under his skin, revenge sounds so much sweeter.
It isn't that Harry is losing faith in Draco. He's witnessed a great deal of character growth in the last seven years and he's fairly sure there isn't an evil bone in Draco's body. Yes, there may be ethically questionable ones and, sure, the odd sadistic slash ruthless plot but there's always a reason, however twisted or misguided, and Harry has learned to trust that and to wait for it to emerge.
But right now, this very second, Harry can admit he's having his doubts. Very serious doubts. The kind of doubts you normally expect when you're standing on the edge of a cliff and your best friend is telling you you can fly, those kinds of doubts.
The kind of doubts that spring themselves upon you when you find yourself in bed with your best Slytherin friend, who is more than capable of being heinously cunning, in nought but your undies. Certainly, Harry is trying to repeat Draco's reasoning to himself over and over in the hope that it will sink in and be real at some point, but he can't honestly say that it's working.
'We're getting even, Harry,' he had said, like Ginny's little 'fidelity' problem was suddenly one of his battles, like she had personally slighted him with her lack of gag reflex.
This kind of casual nakedness has always made Harry nervous and right now he can't remember being this uneasy in his own skin since he was a fresh-faced schoolboy. It's sweltering under the duvet. They aren't even laying that close but Harry can feel the sweat collecting in all the hollows of his body. Maybe it's the nerves clattering through him over what they're about to do, or what they're about to pretend to do anyway. Maybe it's the fury that's been simmering in his veins since Draco had first started babbling in his upper-class tones of nonsense. Maybe it's the irritation itching at him with the way Draco can just lay there on the other pillow, completely relaxed, with his arms behind his head and his eyes closed like this situation isn't affecting him at all.
Meanwhile, Harry can't take his eyes off the muggle clock on his bedside table next to his abandoned wand. Looking at it now, it's really rather tempting to make a grab for the piece of wood and attempt to hurtle himself through his wards, bodily and with great force, in order to escape his predicament.
The clock is telling him, according to an average time taken from five years of research, that Ginny will be home in approximately five minutes. Even more gut-fuzzlingly nerve wracking is that Draco is making no move to share any further parts of the plan with him.
Harry is irrationally scared when Draco decides it's time to slip into action. There are no sudden movements but instead he feels like he's being stalked, which sets his heart into a stuttering gallop. He slides onto his side, his entire body so much closer to Harry than he is happy with. His temperature sky-rockets like fever and he tries to ignore the sticking of his skin against Draco's where they touch.
The second his clock ticks six o'clock, breath tickles at his ear, light and flirtatious, and Draco's voice is murmuring, like silk over polished diamonds, near imperceptibly quiet, ghosting across his puckering skin.
"Showtime, Potter."
Draco's lips are mouthing aggressively at the underside of his jaw, they are plump and fleshy. It should be jarring, knowing a man is going at his neck like he wants to claim him, but his lips are no less soft than any woman's and, for the moment, he can pretend it's his own stubble that's sharp against his skin.
There's nothing sexual about it, he's perfectly aware that it's Draco Malfoy nibbling at him. But there is an intimacy he hadn't even realised he's been living without for a long time.
There's a heat, like infernos boiling lazily somewhere deep in his belly, definitely present and infinitely strong, but for now content to linger below the surface. And there is a tenseness that leaks through his muscles, pulling them tight like taut chains, the links straining under the pressure.
It's a surprise; he hadn't realised he had left his body wanting for so much. It isn't like he hasn't had an orgasm in his entire married life. Nowadays, 'special time' with Ginny is mechanical and a chore, one of his more enjoyable chores to be sure, but still sex is sex and he's only human. So between that and any private time – which is, tragically, more satisfying – he can scrounge for himself, he had thought his body was settled.
But the curling warmth awakening is telling him otherwise. Every touch is blistering hotness and there is a fear niggling at his spine about how intense this could be if he released the building storm.
Except none of this is real. This is just Draco suckling his way down his throat so he can enact a revenge he isn't sure he wants to go through with now he's here in just his skivvies waiting for his traitorous wife to come home and catch him in the act.
But the yowling whine that rips from his vocal chords when Draco teeths at his clavicle – and, Jesus, hasn't he gnawed a long way – is entirely sexual, sensual even, involuntary and when did that start?
Draco's eyes, when he catches them in his panic, are wide and disarming, glittering and dark, like he has lost himself in the moment as well and now he is pausing to consider whether this venture is worth continuing. He's a strategist, and Harry knows in any condition he will weigh costs with outcomes, so is the risk of kissing at Harry's pulse worth the possible loss of their friendship?
He must see something in Harry's face that he himself isn't aware of, be it his embarrassed blush or raging iris', because he sets back to his task with new focus, ravishing at Harry's skin and dragging wrecked sounds from between his teeth.
Harry can feel his limbs shifting without consent, twisting up to encase Draco's lithe form, legs winding, arms tangling, fingers splaying over flushing skin. And he knows this is the defining moment, the exact time where what is reality is shifting around him and their stage show is taking on life, becoming real.
There might be the flash of autumn hair and the stomp of angry feet and the slide of tears on wet cheeks but Harry is too preoccupied with the shiver that courses down his spine when smooth fingertips trickle over the apex of his hip bone, thumb flicking at the elastic of his underwear with a hesitant determination.
There might be the swishing of clothes but Harry's ears are already full of his own heartbeat, thumping away somewhere he isn't sure is his chest any more, it feels more like it's migrating up into his tonsils. There might be the background puff of feminine fragrance, bursting through the room like nauseatingly sweet flowers and rotting summer, but Harry's nose can only pick up the salt mingling on their skin and the deep musk which permeates around him and through his sheets.
Draco's hands are everywhere, ravenous and strong, every motion is sure and confident and manipulates racking shivers from his skin like ice melting, glacially slow, on his nipples. Nails he can't remember being this sharp drag and scratch their way into his boxers, like kittens claws dusted with velvet, and weave their way down into the heat beneath, caressing at the soft hair of his thighs, through the harsher wires between them. His flesh is burning and pulses when they accidentally-on-purpose graze him. He doesn't remember feeling the throb of impending hardness but there is so much blood rushing everywhere his whole body is on fire with it, one tremendous throbbing organism of want.
Draco's mouth is moist and dewy against the sprinkling of hair on his chest, a drop catches and drips to his skin, hot like molten lava. His nose brushes the quivering muscle of his stomach as he brushes past, pausing to dip his tongue lightly into his navel, a gentle pressure that makes Harry crave scratches and bruises and love bites.
The slide of fabric over his skin is excruciating and an cruelly long torture, but when it is done his erection springs from the confines thick and solid and ready. Draco pounces on him immediately like he has been waiting years to do this. He takes him down hard and dirty and rough, his lips wide and his teeth only just tucked away. The roar that tears from his throat sounds broken and destroyed even to his own ears and it tapers off to consistent whimpers quickly, his voice shredding under the force and dying out.
There's salacious lips and sucking and dirty, wet sounds that explode into the room. And it's when he hits the back of Draco's throat. When he hums earth-quaking vibrations around his cock. When Draco's cheeks suction themselves inwards, leaving his cheekbones stark and naked and Harry can feel the gusting of air as he breaths in through his nose and knows he's about to sink all the way back down again. It's when Draco rolls his tongue, skilled and purposefully lewd, around the crown.
It's then that he knows he can't last. How can he possibly when Draco is staring up at him like this, earnest and urgent with his stone eyes iridescent silver with his lust?
He can't last. So he doesn't.
There's a note waiting for him on the soiled kitchen table when they wake up the next morning with the daybreak birds.
'We need to talk
Noon, The Leaky Cauldron'
Harry thinks her choice of neutral location is tight with finality, her lack of signature is sharp and she couldn't have been more ominous if she'd said 'pistols at dawn' but when he glances apprehensively back at Draco, catches his eyes glinting in the low, warm morning hues that stream through the open window, he doesn't think it's something he should be worried about.
Perhaps he doesn't want to win the war.
