This is the first fanfic I've written with Dean in it, I hope I do him justice, I imagine him as very intense when it comes to art and that affects the way that he looks at things, at the beauty of things, the way he tries to get right into the depths of the subject... this is another oneshot but not very long, it explores the build up to something more than the fruits of those labours... I hope you enjoy it, please review and tell me what you thought.

Disclaimer: I don't own Draco. I don't own Dean. I don't own the National Portrait Gallery and I certainly do not own Florence. I own very little in the grand scheme of things...

Intimate.

A portrait gallery by skinnyrita

Shafts of sunlight were filtering through high arched windows early in the morning, in such a clarifying way as to become distracting to one's thought, and flaw enhancing to the complexion of anyone who chanced to breach them. Draco Malfoy shielded his eyes against the unwelcome glare, irritably, and checked his watch. He had been waiting outside the nondescript studio for over ten minutes, and he had already arrived fashionably late, so this prolonged stint of tardiness was not to be borne at all. The battered blue door this supposed haven of artistic activity lay behind taunted him immovably, and he considered ringing the crude bell-pull yet again. He slouched unseen against the wall so that he might evade those damnable sunrays that were no doubt wreaking havoc on his pallid skin because he had forgotten to apply his habitual sun blocking salve this morning. He hoped the portkey had brought him to the correct warehouse; the indefinite wait was beginning to stir his suspicions that it hadn't been made correctly, and this errand was turning out to be a fool's one.

At almost the exact moment that Draco had decided that enough was enough, that he shouldn't even be awake at such an antisocially sunny hour and that the portkey was clearly a dud, the blue door swung inwards with a groan and he scrambled away from the wall immediately in an attempt at propriety.

"God, I am so sorry for keeping you waiting, thanks for hanging around," the host was saying. He had that slurring tone of sleep about him and shook himself before looking at Draco properly with an indefinable expression, mish-mashing between admiration, relief, apology and a soft smile about the eyes. "Please come in, I'm really sorry about the mess, I have this exhibition coming up in a couple of months and just got a canvas order."

Draco ducked under the beam of the doorframe and walked into the space his parents seemed to expect him to want to sit in for long periods. It was, not exactly a dump, but certainly the artistic equivalent of one. The workbench not covered in rolled canvasses was spattered with dried paint, the floor was littered with wood shavings, crumpled pieces of paper and loose brushes, and the notice boards pinned haphazardly with photographs and the rough scribbles of unfinished sketches. He hoped that the portrait artist he had come to give a lot of money to, when all was said and done, was not expecting him to sit in this place for very long. He hardly knew where to stand.

Turning to raise an incredulous eyebrow at the portraitist, he was able to take in the other properly for the first time. He was tall and lean, with perfectly even black-indigo skin and a swipe of red paint on his forearm where the sleeves of his spattered shirt had been rolled to the elbow. His dark eyes framed by low-set brows and strong cheekbones were gently regarding, almost inquisitive in their natural expression. "I'm Thomas," he offered, wiping slightly painty-charcoally fingers on the hem of the shirt before offering his hand to Draco.

"Draco."

"Ah, right, okay then. I'm Dean, actually." He elaborated at the quizzical expression: "Thomas is my surname, sorry, I guess I just assumed you'd want me to call you Malfoy," he laughed self-consciously.

Draco dropped the hand and looked at him more closely. There was a stirring of some recollection there, but he was finding it hard to place. "Do we, uhm, have we known each other?" he asked, not without a little trepidation. The name of Malfoy was not celebrated by every quarter, and it wouldn't do to have to spend an inordinate amount of time sitting in front of someone who harboured too large a grudge. His parents should really start vetting people in their employ more closely.

"I was at Hogwarts, but no, not really. I was a Gryffindor," Dean added, clarifying. There was a pause of awkwardness. Draco could hear the steady drip of a tap coming from somewhere behind him. Dean cleared his throat. "Um, so. I hope you don't mind but I set up a sort of scene for you to sit in, it's a lot easier than adding one in later, and when your portrait is enchanted to move and inherit your characteristics, I'm sure it would appreciate having something to actually do. Come this way," he began to walk away, and Draco followed, "it's a sort of library idea, but of course we can change it. I would have come to your library to do it but I'm afraid we'll have to do the portrait in stages and I'm expecting some paint deliveries I need to be here to collect. I took the liberty of having one of your chairs sent over so that we can create a better illusion."

"Thank you." The politeness was instinctive; a lifetime of social coaching, but Draco was rather impressed and intrigued by the effort this Dean person had gone to. He supposed it was all in the process of ensuring a more perfect painting, and that the artist was probably hoping that this commission might lead to more business with the families of Malfoy acquaintance. However, it was still all pretty unexpected. He was internally grateful that his imagined horror of perching on an uncomfortable stool did not seem to be in the billing after all.

"Here we go, mind your step, sorry," Dean repeated, pulling aside a nondescript grey velvet curtain that was acting as a door into a sort of alcove. He hooked one side behind an iron bar to keep it out of the way. "We can alter it but I thought that the light for the portrait would look better as dimly lit, with perhaps a couple of shafts of light coming down to highlight key areas, from an unseen window outside of the piece – you're so pale, I remembered from school. The contrast would help your features stand out better. Did you manage to bring a couple of sets of robes?"

Draco paused, taking in the rapid waves of information and trying to process them all. He had had his portrait done as a child in the summer before Hogwarts – resplendent in his new uniform and very superior – by his family's longstanding portraitist (now long since dead, hence the change in scene), but he didn't remember anyone taking quite so much trouble over the preliminaries. "I brought a few dress robes, they're shrunk into my pocket."

"Fantastic." Draco assumed that Dean was a morning person; he seemed quite cheerful. "I think for today we should just get you used to sitting – posing for a portrait like this takes a while and can be pretty tiring, so you need to be sure you're going through it all for something worthwhile. We'll do some short, quickly sketched poses in different outfits and positions, maybe a couple with a book or something? Then you can discuss them with your parents and decide which one you'd like to sit for in the long run."

"Alright." Draco was a little out of his depth. He took the robes out of his pockets and resized them, before seating himself in the armchair within the sort of 'library' alcove Dean had created for him. He allowed the other wizard to pose him, awkwardly at first, as he was not used to having the smallest motions of his crossed legs and 'casually' leaning elbow dictated, the heirloom Malfoy signet ring carefully displayed for the portrait – just in case there was any doubt over his ancestry. However, once he relaxed a little, he began to reluctantly enjoy the experience.

Dean was a very intense and attentive artist. His gaze seemed to scrutinise Draco from the outside-in, and it became a rather hypnotic experience. Sometimes he would mutter things like, "…into the cheekbone, just there…" or, "…around the curve of the ear…" to himself, but mainly he asked Draco a constant stream of questions that although they began as a rather obvious attempt to break the silence, soon became a lot more like an actual conversation.

888

Draco learned that Dean had been in his year at Hogwarts, but apparently their paths hadn't really crossed a lot. He was a Muggleborn wizard, and the studio they were sitting in was sat deep in they greyness of Muggle London – there were some galleries nearby that displayed his work, but there was also a great deal of trade in portraiture for wizards, particularly large family portraits. Draco could tell that Dean was very enthusiastic about other people's art too; he mentioned many names excitedly, some that Draco recognised, and many that he had never heard of. His forte was portraiture with pencils, charcoals and oils, but he also found photography was an excellent tool for capturing the moment, perhaps to be enjoyed as a spur of the moment thing, or alternatively as a base to create a canvas from later on.

As for Draco, he was working as a sometime journalist for the Daily Prophet, but had never been expected to work at all, so his career so far was a little holey and haphazard. The portrait was to mark his coming of age by pureblood standards, that of twenty-three, which was approaching in a few months. Dean found it almost amusing when the blond divulged that the traditional portrait's main purpose would be as a sort of advert, shown to the families of Pureblooded daughters who were approaching their own twenty-third birthdays.

The pencil that had been flying across the paper, stilled in Dean's hand. He had been in the process of capturing a very animated glint in his subject's eyes, but at the mention of traditional marriage arrangements, they had faded into melancholy. It had been three days since Draco had first arrived at his studio, and he was attempting the final draft in pencil of the pose they thought was working the best, and was relatively easy for the blond to hold for a while.

"You don't seem to particularly want to get married," he observed, softly.

Draco gave him an irritated glance and broke the pose.

"Sorry. None of my business. Come on, we'll have a break. I've got tea and biscuits…" Draco trailed out of the 'library' alcove after him and through a door he supposed led to Dean's actual living quarters. They had entered a small kitchen that was for its size quite light and half full of windows. Draco leaned against the ledge and peered out at the nondescript rooftops. No, he didn't particularly want to get married. The kind of life he did want, was and would always be totally out of the question. Behind him the kettle was making a funny noise – everything Dean owned seemed to be Muggle, except his wand, which Draco had only seen him use a handful of times. What a strange wizard.

He turned back only to catch Dean hastily sketching his likeness on a bit of scrap paper with the stub of a very worn out looking pencil. He flushed. "You looked so different in that pose, I couldn't resist."

"I don't mind posing for you; I've nothing else to do."

"Would you? I mean, maybe something a bit less, you know," he flapped his hand at Draco's dress robes with their starched high collar and myriad buttons, "formal."

"In what way less formal?"

"Shirt and trousers, a book on your lap? Asleep? I really don't mind. You have …a good sort of quality to your features, for drawing, sketching. Expressive. These robes your parents want you to wear, they're too stiff and cumbersome to get you down like you should be drawn." He stopped abruptly and flushed, though Draco almost missed it because his skin was so dark.

In the end, they spent longer than planned, in the plainer setting of the studio. Draco allowed Dean to place him on the creaky couch and pose him in several 'reclining', 'relaxing' positions with books or with a cuppa, but even they didn't seem to be what the artist had in mind because he quickly got distracted from them too, and decided to take photos of Draco instead whilst talking to him about a hundred topics of conversation at once. The next afternoon he showed the images to Draco, developed the Muggle way, and all black and white. There were a hundred different expressions, gesticulations and sensations in just one roll of film. He took three of his favourites and pinned them to the least shambolic of the notice boards. In one of them Draco looked melancholic and pensive, in another he was laughing in a way he had never seen himself laugh before, and in the third he was staring into a cup of tea, expressionless. The rest, he gifted to Draco.

888

The following week he showed Draco three large canvases, perfect black and white and swirly grey tones of oil paints showing what had been in those three photographs. He wanted permission to show them in the exhibition coming closer, and of course Draco said that he could.

In the meantime, the formal portrait was nearly finished, in lavishly rich colours, golds and silvers depicting the light-play across the gilded strands of Draco's hair, ivory and rose in the lacy trims of the dress robe cuffs. The glint of power to be found in the family crest. It had taken several weeks, but Dean felt himself trying to draw out the process with increasingly needless slowness. Once the portrait was done there would be no excuse for taking down his subject in other sittings, and he continued to be fascinated with the blonde's look; there was something in his eyes that he had still been unable to capture, even with the use of a camera; something intimate but shuttered, the truth of innocence and the depths of himself that he longed to capture onto canvas. The commissioned portrait was of course a stunning feast of colour and opulence, and was also, it must be said, a very fine likeness of the subject. But for Dean it paled when alongside the more informal canvasses he had produced, and so he would have to act if he wished to prolong the unexpected acquaintance further.

"I have to go to Florence to see an exhibition at the Uffizi. This fellow who's quite rarely seen will be showing a limited private view of his work. I know it's a bit short notice, but I was wondering if you'd come with me."

"To Florence?" Draco's expression changed to one of stunned numbness, and Dean stilled the brush.

"I know it's not, um… basically, I would really like to create some more work of you for the exhibition, not just paintings but maybe some life sketches… if you'd let me. You wouldn't have to pay for anything. Just bring yourself."

"I'd love to." Draco's cheeks rose to a flush that Dean had to haul himself back from adding into the portrait, and returned to his formal pose with bright eyes. Dean's brush flew over the canvas to get them down before they could fade.

888

It was stifling hot in the late summer, early autumnal weather of Florence. Sticky and muggy at night, dry and dusty during the day, all stirred up by the masses of tourists and industrious locals swarming around the Uffizi, the Duomo and the claustrophobic leather markets. Dean became enamoured by the local scenery, often leaving Draco to wander the cobbled streets and narrow alleys alone during the morning and even the main part of the day. When the heat began to overwhelm even his cooling charms, he would seek sanctuary in their top floor hotel room, a simple layout in cream and terracotta, the slatted window blinds providing welcome relief from the unrelenting sun. Dean seemed to get along fine in the heat, distracted by his art. Draco found himself peering over into the market square from the good view afforded him from his own bedroom window, watching the crowds who surged in rudely on his painter, who remained oblivious to their attentions.

One night when they were walking their dinner off, three or four days into their trip, Dean became so enraptured by the beauty of the Ponte Vecchio, where buskers were playing fiddles and accordions by the waning evening light, that he abandoned Draco there whilst he rushed back to the hotel for his watercolours. By the time he returned, the buskers had packed up, but he insisted on painting Draco quickly against the sunset and the lights of the old jewellery shops anyway, flashing shades of burnt orange into his platinum locks.

"May I see it?"

"Um, of course. Not very polished, sorry."

Draco took the pad and looked down on his likeness. It really was him, and so finely taken, that he thought he could see all the emotions he'd just felt, flicker in the fiery eyes of the portrait. He felt breathless and strange, unable to look into Dean's expectant face when he returned it. "The bridge looks amazing," he said. He couldn't pinpoint his confusion, but it was not the first time he had felt it after being painted by the talented artist.

"I might stay out and see what else I can get down," Dean said. He sounded a little crestfallen.

When Draco awoke, the only light in the room was the bright white of the moon, and a strange amber flicker cast by a dying streetlamp outside. Dean must have opened all the shutters, because he knew that he had not done it. He lay still, unmoving from the position he had woken from, the thin, cheap sheet provided by the hotel coasting low on his hips, too long blond hair swept across his shoulder, the lay of his back, the jutting shoulder blades, the softly curving spine, dipping, fragile waist and tantalisingly bunching bedclothes all bare to the pencil he could hear scratching behind him. For a single moonlit moment, he thought he was breathing outside of his own body.

"Have you finished?"

A satisfying, scrambling clunk and a gasped curse told him that Dean had fallen from the position he had been sketching in – most likely resting on his haunches. He pulled the sheet up his body swiftly and turned over. "Don't you dare go anywhere."

"I'm so sorry, I'm-"

"If you wanted to sketch me naked, you should have asked, not snuck into my room like a creeping stalker."

"Sorry."

"Give it to me, I want to see it."

"Sure."

They stared at the intimate sketch in silence, the night wind carrying an aroma of leather and fresh flowers across the room, the murmur of a million people awake in the old city, walking on the streets, clearing the markets, stumbling in and out of the restaurants and gelatarias. Draco gazed at the drawing intently, never having seen himself from the angle, nor so exposed. So vulnerable and erotic.

"Do you have more of these?"

"Only this. I swear. I came in to see if you were awake – you just looked so beautiful, Draco. God, I'm sorry, I'm just – I find you so attractive, I did at school, but even more now. I really do want to paint you. I should never have done this." Dean stopped, trying to slow down his breathing. Draco stared at him with his mouth slightly agape.

"I guess you'd better get into bed then."

"What?"

"You're painting the sunrise over the Duomo in three hours. Come to bed." He turned his back again whilst Dean undressed, heart thudding so loudly he almost started when the other side of the bed dipped and a dark body spooned against his white back. If he could have prevented himself from breathing so audibly, he didn't know how.

"Draco?" a cautious finger swept his hair away from his neck and stroked across it, questioning. He gently removed it and pulled Dean's arm around his waist, his wrist caught under the pale fingers. He exhaled slowly as the other man's chest settled against his back.

"Not now. Not yet. Nothing else." He paused to watch their fingers entwine. "Look at our skin. It's perfect."

"Ebony and Ivory."

"Shade and Tone," Draco quipped, bravely.

"Now you're thinking like an artist."

"Shhh…" and with every sleeping breath of Dean's, in, out, in out, across his neck, he found that he could only lie awake and feel it, like being made love to again and again. Softly.

888

They never spoke about what had led them to sleep together in Draco's bed for the duration of the trip. Dean seemed to have a preoccupation with drawing and painting the sweep of the blonde's naked back, the set of his shoulders. The quiet eroticism of his sleep tousled hair, but always when he was awake to sanctify the portrait. The camera made a reappearance to capture several more close up shots of Draco mid conversation, but that was all.

On the last day, Dean asked permission to take one more photograph. A single full body nude shot. Draco felt he should tease the other man for leaving the room for Draco to arrange himself in the prescribed 'innocently sleeping' position, the sheets kicked across one ankle as though flung from the body in the sweaty heat of the night, and the pose twisted, one thigh across the groin in concealment – erotic, not pornographic, not ever – but he found that he could not. He had been sleeping with the evidence of the artist's yearning for him against his lower back every night for just under a week, but he couldn't explain why the taking of the photograph brought such a violent blush to his features. Thus sprawled, he shut his eyes, and waited for the camera shutter to click.

888

"Where is he? Is he here yet?" A foursome of elbowy people wriggled through the crowd to the red velvet cord separating the masses from entry into the private viewing evening of "Dean Thomas: Intimate," the new exhibition opening at the National Portrait Gallery. Ron was being difficult, unable to keep within the limits of Muggle mannerisms for more than ten minutes at a time – he had just been nattering on about how much of a shame it was that the portraits wouldn't be able to move, very nearly embarrassing them all.

"Well it's his own exhibit, he's probably already in there… yes we're on the list, two Weasleys and two Potters, thanks."

"Bloody hell." They had just been greeted by a beautiful black and white trio of paintings, of someone who looked very familiar. "Is that… Malfoy?"

"Dean must have been painting him for something," Ginny peered at the cards next to the works. "Hmm, I never knew he had so many facial expressions. Come on, let's see what else Dean's been hiding."

"That looks official." They had come across the originally commissioned portrait. "It must be a marriage portrait, they'll have to enchant it later."

"I don't think Malfoy's going to need a marriage portrait judging by that one behind you."

"Oh… wow."

"Hermione!"

"What? Look at it, it's like a monument to sensual… where's Dean, we have to ask him what's going on here!"

"Ah, hello lads and ladies."

"Hi Seamus… what do you think?"

The Irishman laughed. "You think that's sexy, you've got to get to the end of the exhibition yet. I don't think I've ever wanted another man before in my life, but I'd go gay any day for Malfoy!"

"Are they-"

"HOW DARE YOU!"

The assembled crowd turned and stared. "Looks like we found Dean…" Ron mumbled.

"MY SON IS GETTING MARRIED, YOU SICK, YOU DISGUSTING-"

"Mrs Malfoy, please, why don't we talk about this somewhere a little more private…"

In the excitement, a nondescript figure crept out into the next part of the gallery.

888

"It's beautiful. Thank you." Dean started and turned around to find a slight, tawny haired man loitering behind him, looking up at the finale piece. He hadn't been allowed to see the painting created from that final photograph until that evening. It was a simple pose, naked and vulnerable, yes, but strong in erotic innocence, rosy patches on skin catching the light, the shading in the folds of the crumpled bed sheet, even that was sensual, and the closed eyelids sighed out their message of peace. But if anything was remarkable about the painting, it wasn't the shock factor of the setting and lack of adornment; it was the certain sense of how deeply the artist felt for the subject, and that was something he had never thought could be painted. He faced Dean again. "But I don't see my favourite piece here… a little sketch in a dark room. I was asleep."

"Draco?"

"Shh…" he faded the glamour for a moment, then raised it again. "I had a feeling that incognito would be best. You decided not to show that piece?"

"That one is private."

"In your studio?"

"Yes."

"Meet me there."

It was dim in the studio when Dean got there. He stood on the threshold, trying to get his bearings to navigate around the stacks of canvasses, boxes of paint, and various other odds and ends. Lights were on in the adjoining room, casting a column of light through the half open door. He scrambled over there, finding the blond where he knew he would be: by the main pin board. He would have found the sketch by now. He was shirtless and perfect, glamour all gone and restored to his own unique perfection. The breath caught in Dean's throat as the object of his perusal turned and leaned against the paint-splattered counter, waiting for him. He walked to him in a daze.

Let him raise two white hands to his burning face.

"Now. Now."

Finally they were kissing, tentatively at first, and then Dean was surging forwards, lifting, and Draco was on the counter, he had Dean's shirt open, couldn't stop touching his skin, touching, tasting his neck, tasting, until Dean finally bore him down onto the counter, hands on the blonde's fly, opening, his mouth on the creamy acre of stomach, teeth on his hips and his thighs, and him, him, him. Intimacy on a whole other level with Draco's hands in his hair and on the back of his neck and brimming over until he was boneless.

Dean rested his cheek on a softly downy thigh for a moment, breathing, before lifting his chin enough to look at the other man's face. He was staring at him, panting. Lifting one hand he dipped his finger through a smudge of orange paint and reached down to draw it along the dark man's cheekbone. Dean swirled a whirl of blue through some of the drying passion escaped across the blonde's stomach. He blushed.

"I'm sorry about my parents. I should never have invited them."

"Nothing they say could ruin tonight. Draco…" leaning over to kiss him again, fitting together. Intimate.

"I want to go to bed with you. No more waiting."

"Are you sure?"

He sat up. "Someone who can paint me like that… 'intimate,' like you said. No one's ever made me feel like that before."

Dean pressed their foreheads together. "How do you feel?"

"Like you loved me."

"...I think I do."

The End.

Please review, it's lovely of you. skinnyrita xxxx