Title: HD 'The Flight Path to My Heart Is As Follows…"
Author: tigersilver
Characters: Harry/Draco
Rating: NC-17
Warning(s): AU; EWE; 8th Year, Hogwarts
Word Count: 3300+/-

Prompt: 'Snitch', prompt from alaanafair , for her birthday.

Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.

Summary: Candy is dandy….

When Draco opened his bulging bookbag in Charms one fine Friday afternoon in November, he found it. A box of ruinously expensive chocs, comprised of small, delicately wrought, edible gold-leaf coated Snitches. All of them liquid-filled, with caramel and strawberry, raspberry and Seville orange centres, with the hint of exotic liquors as they melted, dark chocolate wings fluttering, across his ecstatic tongue.

He closed his eyes in secret delight: one was treacle-filled, with a figgy aftertaste, and that was by far the sweetest of them all. He'd consumed them all the day long, one by one, after first discovering them and scanning them with numerous diagnostic spells, to ensure their harmlessness. Nor were they Charmed to produce boils or poison; nor was the gift a trap nor a trick, but simply a pleasaunce, these golden, sweet Snitches. A memory of better days, created of chocolate, doused in innocent, childhood memories.

Pure pleasure, in sweets form, from exactly the person Draco very much wished all such gestures to come from: Potter.

He ate the final one at midnight, licking the shell of dark, rich cacao to the thinnest of boundaries with a exquisitely sensitized pink tongue, completely uncaring of the streaks of sweet left on his lips, until finally it exploded into a fine burst of flavour, filling his mouth to the fullest. Treacle again, and this time with cardamom and nutmeg and…was that brandy? Oh, yes, it was. Draco closed his eyes tight against the canopy, as the swell of anticipation took him, and immediately set about to thinking up a clever way to return the favour.

For if it was Potter—if it was, and Draco could think of no one else who would give him chocolate Snitches from Grandjean's in Diagon, the premiere chocolatier in Wizarding Britain—then all his finely attuned Potter-senses weren't telling him gross lies. Potter had been looking, furtively, same as he'd been; Potter had been desperately curious, just as he was. He wasn't alone in this feeling, strange though it was.

Grandjean's, as Draco discovered on a lightning-fast Floo visit that weekend (first to the Manor for the purpose of obtaining appropriate civvies for shopping, then Gringott's for sufficient Galleons, then finally Diagon, for he needed more quills and parchment and an order for a rare Potions text had at last been filled by Flourish & Blott's; all excuses, but none more important than his true reason for vacating Hogwarts for a weekend night mid-term) sold brooms. Lollies that were shaped exactly like miniature brooms, after the various famous makers. There were Centuries and Comets, Fleet Street Specials, Nimbuses and…Lightning Bolts. Just as Potter's had been when he saw it last, gripped between his bony knees and the only bloody thing keeping Draco from imminent death by Fiendfyre. In seventeen different flavours they were and all long-lasting. Hours of enjoyment, there, and not just on Potter's part as he consumed them. Draco would have the pleasure of watching Potter suck and lick and savour, from a safe distance.

Except that distance, as a concept, had grown wearing. He wanted no more of it, not now. This year was the first in a new Age, and Draco was young yet, and Potter still tormented him, though in a much more satisfactory way than ever previous.

He bespoke a case of the broom lollies, all sorts, to be delivered to Hogwarts as of the next day, Sunday, which was Quidditch practice for the lower years and the day he generally spent the most time in Potter's company, coaching the little prats in the name of InterHouse Unity. All the would-be's, candidates and current players gathered on the Pitch right immediately after luncheon and he and Potter, those Weasleys, the mopsey girl one and that Weaselbee git, and any number of other, older and now retired elder players from various Houses (even that strapping Johnson bint had returned and Marcus Flint, too, the name of community service) would divvy them all up in smallish groups and teach them tricks, tips and what-have-you. There'd be scrums after; pickup games with teams made up the old familiars (whomever still lived) and the untried noobs, in which the Ravenclaw Cockatiels would battle the Slytherin Skrewts for a mock-Cup made of a Charmed Bludger by that brain-of-the-ages, Granger.

It was all in good fun and served a purpose, and Headmistress had commanded the Eighth Years run it.

Draco had despised it at first. After all, it placed him in constant interaction with Potter, and he'd been dreaming of Potter for months by then. Steamy, languorous dreams of skin against skin, fisticuffs that transfigured miraculously into snogging sessions, chapped and calloused hands grasping cocks to stroke them furiously, finger entwined with finger, sweat intermingling. It had been shameful at first, then rather wantonly beguiling, and then—as the pleasure far outweighed any shame; had he not felt strongly for Potter for literally years now? This was no different, really—the best of all possible outlets for his now unhampered libido.

For love, like youth, had passed Draco by, courtesy the evil bastard. He'd not experienced it, not even believed in it. There'd been no time to indulge in girly fantasies when death loomed and all his family's lives were in danger. Thus, he'd not admitted, not even to himself, that Potter was strangely fascinating, above and beyond his abhorrent gittishness.

Not that Draco's eyes hadn't more often than not found themselves resting on that nest of crow's feathers, or the much-mended spectacles that reflected brilliant light from eyes deep as the old growth in the Forbidden Forest. He'd not allowed his grudging interest in Potter's wiry body (so pale the skin of it, the parts he could see, yet with an odd golden cast to it all, like a fine burnish) nor his undeniable grace in the air, on a broomstick, nor his striking features when they firmed obstinately, glaring in Draco's direction as they so often did, to overcome his anguished, gut-roiling sense of urgency. Certainly, he never once acknowledged—not even to himself—that much, if not all, the wanking he'd done in Sixth and Seventh Years had been to the thought of those hands, that arse, that incredibly brilliant grin Potter had possessed, once upon a time.

This was a new Age, though. Draco could relax his brittle self-control at last, and did, and relished it to the utmost, much as he wallowed in receiving a box of Snitch chocos from a not-so-secret admirer. 'Lotus-eater', he chided himself; 'indulgent and shallow, too, old git', his inner voice harangued at him, screeching, but Draco merely shrugged it off.

If not now, then when? Time, even the worst moments of it, was a fleeting measure. And here was Potter, grinning that famed smile once again. Draco must seize the day, or it would leave him.

The distinctive case came by post Owl during Sunday morning's breakfast, magically Shrunken and tied up in string and plain brown paper. He couldn't help but glance Potter's way, to discover to his delight that Potter was watching him, eyes narrowed. One dark brow tilted up in silent question and Draco made a business of shrugging, his smile of giddy anticipation severely tucked away after a mere three seconds appearance on stage.

Oh, yes. He was by no means alone in this. The thought buoyed him all through gritting his teeth over the Hufflepuff Thirdies not learning maneuvers despite repeated attempts to teach them. And all through the indignity of Captaining their straggly, giggly team, called the Hammerheads by an obnoxiously teasing Potter, and what an insult that was! But Draco swallowed the indignity with remarkably good grace—he'd plans in train for later, and they all centred on Potter.

The packet, still Shrunken, found its way to Potter's kit, for after practice, piled haphazardly in the Gryffindor bench in the newly rebuilt broom shed. It was Potter's habit to shower after their Sunday scrums, and Draco knew it well. He'd been watching, after the younger years departed in a giggly rush, for the moment when Potter took his turn at the communal showers and stood under the spray starkers for twenty minutes of sheer wank material, soaping his limbs with slow, careful strokes.

Draco, biding his time, silently urged the remaining stragglers to go on, especially that git, the Weasel. Wouldn't do to have him hanging about when Draco commenced seduction.

He caught himself at that thought of that, frowning just a bit, as he at last stepped under the streaming shower head next to Potter, tilting his head back to the welcome wave of warmth and closing his eyes. In the adjacent room, the shed's door closed with a silent whoosh, and they were finally alone, he and Potter.

It wasn't seduction, per se. No, nothing so…so lame or empty of promise. It was a wooing, this thing he and Potter had going. Had all the trademarks of it. Furtive hands slipping over robe-draped shoulders in the corridors between classes; quick brush-bys of hips in the Potions closet, a bustle with students gathering supplied, and the unending staring contest they were always engaged in: none of that was only due to mere adolescent lust, no matter how long suppressed.

"So." Potter's voice, creaky after shouting out orders at Youngers all the afternoon, startled Draco into thumping the back of his seal-sleek head against the tile. "What did you think…Malfoy? I thought the lesson with the Fourths in the Wronski Feint went rather well, actually. Seemed like they caught on pretty well. You?"

Draco turned his head, ever so slowly, and one very tiny part of his mind knew there was a lump rising on the back and he'd be sporting a headache later. But now? Now, nothing mattered more than the damp, water-streaked form of the boy next to him, who smelt of regulation school shampoo and plain soap. And Potter himself, an elemental musk if ever there was one.

"I think I need to—" Draco swallowed, suddenly nervous. What if all of this by-play and flirting had been nothing much, really? Had it happened at all, as he'd perceived it?—or had he only desperately wanted to believe Potter was noticing him, as he noticed Potter?

"I know." Noisily clearing his throat, Draco flung away the last of his shields and conscious veils—all that had protected him from years of Potter's more painful insults. He caught up a soap sliver as an excuse to keep his nervous hands busy and off of Potter, a forearm's reach away. "I need to thank you."

Potter met his gaze steadily, and Draco blinked, watery droplets scattering off his darkened lashes as he did so. Merlin, but the cords on that neck as it twisted were a moveable feast and Potter had the most amazing nipples down below a delineated collarbone—small and taut, like brownish berries begging to to be gathered. And the breadth of his chest, with ribs apparent yet but so delicately muscled, and the dark line of furry curls that began at his water-sluiced navel and continued on down in an arrow—nosebleed inducing, all of it. Draco could hardly think at all, he was so turned on by it. It'd been years since they'd been this close.

Potter smiled, and stepped even closer, possessing himself of Draco's soap with a wicked gleam in those pure, clear eyes of his. Draco swallowed again, with increasing difficulty, and matched that quiet closing of the small distance that yet remained between them. There was only the hiss of the water beating down and the sound of two heartbeats. And harsh breathing—and not just his, only.

He'd so wanted Potter to appreciate those lollies, as he'd mooned over his Snitches. It would all be worth it—every Cruciatus, every lie of omission, every moment of agonized terror—if this was to be where a chaotic Fate deposited him, standing before Potter utterly exposed and damned glad to be so.

"Pot—"

"I like," Potter mused, his voice barely audible over the rush of the water, "I like very much how I've marked you, Malfoy, though I'm sorry it happened the way it did." He trailed a sudsy palm down the centre of Draco's heaving chest and looked up, lids heavy with desire.

Draco stuck a hand out wildly, settling it after a bit of fumble on the jut of Potter's hipbone. He curled his fingers and dug into smooth skin, gently, urging his captive another half-step forward. Potter came, smiling yet, though his canines gleamed in a rather predatory manner.

Draco's heart rate picked up speed. He gasped, and choked it back, tasting bile. The remembered taste of treacle ghosted across his dried-out tongue, the one that was practically lolling out of his mouth, gagging after Potter.

"I like that you've Marked me, Potter," he managed, in a rushed confession. "I—I was yours well before I was ever his, you realize? 'S'not surprising, that."

"No…"

Potter smirked up at him, and it was without doubt the most wonderful thing yet, or so Draco discovered, as he avidly watched creases of silent laughter echo across that so-familiar face. He'd not realized he could be undone completely by the quirk of a wry lip or the wrinkle of that damned still-straight nose he'd once broken.

"Potter!"

He'd found another handhold without even consciously acknowledging his hungry lunge forward and they were a hair's breadth apart, now. Both of Potter's broad hot palms and all ten elegant digits were trailing slow, soapy circles over Draco's thudding heart, cupping his nipples and the toned bulk of muscled built round them, as if all the time in the world remained before them, instead of a mere blink or two till their mouths inevitably met.

For that moment had always been coming.

"Harry, are you—I mean, do you? Er—"

"And I like," Harry went on, as if this was merely a discussion of Quidditch technique or perhaps the Huffles soddingly poor chances at any House Cup, ever, "that you've bought me a present. I've not gotten many—"

Draco didn't wait to hear how Potter knew or why Potter hadn't. He couldn't. He daren't—someone might come looking, someone such as the Weasel or that nosy Mu-Granger, and he'd lose his chance.

Not even his carefully planned scenario, the one vision in which Potter would be sucking on a Firebolt-shaped lolly—a molasses-flavoured one, yes!—which Draco had just presented him in some rosy-tinted, anticipation-filled 'perfect' moment (that so longed-for moment, when first their respective mouths opened toward each other and met in a crushing sally, sans angry words tumbling out or needlessly cruel hexes; that dreamt-of meeting, in which Potter-the-fucking-tease at last confessed his end of this endlessly mutual attraction; that so-desired pause, when all this infernal tip-toe sense of trembling uncertainty would finally culminate in desire.) That moment. That. The one he'd foolishly believed he wanted to engineer and control, for if he didn't retain some measure of power, he'd be swept away.

Draco couldn't wait for that. Pricy broom-shaped lollies be hanged; rehearsed words discarded—there was, at the heart of it, only a inner melting flow like all the glaciers in the world giving way and swelling the bounteous oceans. It burst through his thrumming, hungry chest just as rapturously as a Grandjean's golden Snitch choco exploded across his taste buds.

"Ha!" he exclaimed, and that could've been "Harry!" or it could've simply been satisfaction made sound.

"I love the way," Harry's slow-voiced musing chopped his own name clean in half as it fell from Draco's parted lips, erasing beforehand all the pent-up fond idiocies Draco knew for a fact he'd be spilling as soon as his tongue wasn't occupied with licking—knowing; learning—the shape of Potter's perfect mouth. "You watch me, as if you'll devour me on the spot. Did you know that, Draco?"

Draco's chest clamped down on that, to keep it fast, the same as his hands grasped Harry's Salazar-given perfect arse cheeks, and there was only a brilliant flash reverberating through the both of them both as barriers to all else in the world sprang up without volition. If a stray Huffle Thirdie found a forgotten Quaffle lying about on the Pitch and banged on the clubhouse door, he or she'd find no entry there.

"Budge up!" Draco commanded, and threw himself into unwrapping Potter. Stripping him of whatever else remained between them. Exposing himself, for his cock could drill through to Australia. "Legs 'round my waist, Harry," he commanded, and it was very fucking right that Harry should listen—should jerk into instant obedience without a peep to the contrary.

If he'd been even a tenth as welcoming all those years ago—and no; Draco had not another second to waste on regrets.

"Yeah, like that," he praised, and waggled his pale brows into a leer. This was better than Firebolt lollies and even treacle-filled Snitches. "Oh, gods, Harry!"

Harry Potter was the most gladsome git to watch in all of creation. Visual chocolates; sensory sweets. Draco eased the falling spray to a fine mist, just so he could see it bead across Potter's skin like tiny opals. Swiped a hand down the dripping slop of suds on his chest for quick lubricant and found the pinkened pucker pressed tight up against his swollen balls.

"Herne!" Harry liked that, very much—Draco could see. His hard fingers circled once, twice, teasing, then he was jamming in a knuckle, on a twist. Then two fingers, stretching, and then three, exceedingly careful now.

"Merlin, Draco!" he was rewarded with the thrust of firm slippery body and a glancing sweep of soapy-tasting tongue. He exulted.

Draco struggled; really, he did. To keep his wits about him; to make it brilliant for Harry; to keep this moment 'perfect' in living memory. And it was, despite all that.

"Draco—now! Fuck it, now!"

He locked on target, hefting the weight of his dick in tremulous fingers and eased in, inch by killer inch. It took eons, that. Harry's features screwed themselves into misery for an eternal hangtime (and that was far more insidiously cruel than anything the Dark Lord had ever done to him) and then relaxed, at the last, on a stuttering gasp. He wriggled his back against the tile and his arse round Draco's shaft and, by all the old gods, Draco was certain his ears were so red, they'd vent steam, same as the showers.

"G-Go! Go on, you sod!" Draco was the one ordered, this time, and he fell to, snapping to instant attention. Thrust, and thrust again, quicker. Was deft in it, too, for though he was rusty, he'd still had experience, whereas Harry apparently had not.

He was Harry's first. That was enough to sustain Draco through any foreseeable fall-out.

He would be Harry's last, and Harry's only, and even if Harry had no clue—likely didn't, really, knowing Potter as Draco did—Draco would make it so, for fucking forever. He'd found his course, the path of all his flights; arrow-sure, dead-on certain, and it was set and not to be deviated from. This was the one tantalizingly golden Snitch he'd never, ever leave go of.

Fin