Let Go

Chapter 2: An Awkward Encounter

*Author's Note: Ok! So here's the next chapter! I got it up here nice and quickly for you guys. I hope you guys like it and thank you so much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter or added this story to their story alerts list! I really appreciate your interest! :D*

Harry was woken suddenly in the middle of the night by a distressed cry from Draco's room across the hall. He wasn't awake enough to really register what it meant, however, and he fell asleep again before he could really process the event. When Harry woke in the morning to his alarm clock shouting at him to: "WAKE UP YOU LAZY GIT!" he barely remembered his sleep being disturbed by Draco's outburst at all. It wasn't until he had pulled on a pair of boxers and had stumbled blearily out into the living room that he realized what Draco's yell must have meant. A cup of stone cold tea sat abandoned on the coffee table, and a pang of guilt shot through Harry. Whenever a cup of un-drunk tea was left out it meant that Draco had just had a nightmare. It had taken Harry over a week of living with Draco to figure out what the cup of tea meant, but after several nights of being woken by screams followed by cold tea in the morning had made the pattern clear. Sometimes Draco woke screaming about the fire, sometimes about various Death Eaters torturing someone, but it always made Harry shiver in horror. He knew exactly how those types of nightmares felt, but there was nothing he could do. Draco wouldn't exactly react kindly to Harry wandering out in the middle of the night to comfort him after a bad dream. After all, if there was one thing the Malfoy family had in abundance, it was pride.

So Harry did what he had done every other morning he had awoken to find a too quiet Draco and a stone cold cup of tea: he dumped the un-drunk tea down the sink, washed the glass, and placed it back in the cupboard. He knew that he could just do these things by magic, but it felt more right to do them by hand, more like he was really doing something to help. It wasn't until Harry turned around to see a damp Draco emerging from the bathroom in nothing but a towel that he remembered what else had happened last night besides Draco's nightmare.

Harry had caught Draco watching him wank and had then immediately proceeded to come the second their eyes met.

Bloody. Fucking. Hell!

Harry had no idea how he should react. He should have thought out how he was going to deal with this before he left the safety of his bed room, before he was face to face with a dripping wet and blushing Draco Malfoy. Now he would have to decide on the spot. Harry suddenly became uncomfortably aware of the fact that he was clothed in nothing but his boxers. He knew he must look like a combination of a deer in the headlights and a tomato with the way he was blushing, but he couldn't help it. It was just too embarrassing! He had actually orgasmed just from seeing that Draco was watching him jerk off. It was completely mortifying.

"Um, good m-morning," stammered Harry, deciding on the spot that pretending nothing had happened was the only way he was going to be able to stay at all sane. "Sleep, um, well?" he asked and then silently cursed himself for asking such a dumb question. He had heard the blonde wake in the middle of the night with a scream. Of course Draco hadn't slept well.

"Yeah, um, fine," replied Draco, refusing to meet Harry's eyes, although Harry wasn't complaining. He was too embarrassed to look at Draco as well.

"So, um, have you had any breakfast?" asked Harry and he strode over to the fridge, determined to press on towards normalcy. "I was going to make some eggs if you want some. Don't think we've got much time for anything fancier before we've got to leave for training."

"Er, yeah, I guess eggs sound good," replied Draco, shooting Harry a quick nervous glance before he practically ran off to retreat into his room. Once Draco was out of the room Harry released a breath he hadn't known he had been holding, pulling a carton of eggs out of the fridge and flicking his wand to summon a frying pan. He just hoped Auror training would be less awkward than breakfast was bound to be.

-XXXXXXX-

"Not going to happen," said Draco firmly as he stared at the Skrewts in the pen before them in horror. "There is no way I'm going anywhere near those ugly brutes let alone milking one. I don't care if it will make me the invincible or live forever. Nothing is worth that." Harry rolled his eyes.

"Actually, their milk is an ingredient in a potion to make someone temporarily invisible, but whatever. You're going to have to milk one of them, Malfoy. It's part of the task, and if I don't pass this task because you're too much of a nancy-boy to get your hands dirty, I'm going to beat your thick skull in with a rock, magic be damned," growled Harry. He had put up with Draco's complaints from the instant their assignment had been made clear, and his patience was rapidly running out. "Besides, they're really not that bad," he continued. One of the Skrewts sneezed and fire exploded out of its rear end. Draco's eyes widened in horror.

"Oh Merlin, no. So not going to happen. I'm not getting within ten feet of those horrible things," Draco muttered, taking a rapid step away from the Skrewts' pen.

"What, Malfoy, afraid of a little Skrewt?" taunted Harry, trying to goad Draco into action.

"Yes, Potter, it's called an instinct for self-preservation. I would ask if you know what that is, but you obviously don't, what with all of the daft, life-risking things you've done over the years," replied Draco shamelessly.

"Just because I fought Voldemort doesn't mean I don't have an instinct for self-preservation…" grumbled Harry.

"Actually, I was referring to the time that you said Pansy's perfume smelled like cat urine, but that works too," said Draco with a shrug. Harry laughed, then he realized he was laughing at a joke made by Draco, and promptly stopped in shock. Draco looked equally as surprised for a second before he coughed awkwardly and quickly changed the subject.

"So how is it that we're supposed to milk these wankers again? I don't even see anywhere that looks like milk could possibly come out unless that milk was on fire," Draco commented hurriedly.

"I think Barnibus said that they were supposed to have some sort of tube on their stomachs," said Harry, eyeing the Skrewts skeptically.

"I see. And how exactly are we supposed to get it to lie politely on its back and let us milk it?" drawled Draco skeptically. These Skrewts looked more like miniature fire-breathing tanks than anything else, and they were not exactly known for being the most cooperative of creatures. Harry scratched the back of his neck in an embarrassed sort of way.

"Well, we could try stunning it? Or paralyzing it perhaps? And then just flip it on its back and have a go," he suggested half-heartedly. If it was that simple he doubted that Barnibus would have bothered making it one of their challenges.

"Well I can't think of a better idea," conceded Draco. "So shall we just pick one out and start shooting curses at it?"

"Alright," said Harry, pointing to one of the smaller Skrewts near the edge of the pen. "How about that one?"

"Ok," nodded Draco. "On three. One, two, three!" On three both boys raised their wands and shouted incantations.

"Stupify!"

"Petrificus Totalus!"

Two jets of light shot towards the Skrewt only to bounce off of its shiny scales with a twanging noise. All of the Skrewts in the pen instantly froze, large, scorpion-like stingers shooting up into the attack position as they turned in unison to face the two horrified boys.

"Oh bloody hell," breathed Harry.

"You don't suppose they can get over the fence if they're mad enough, do you?" asked Draco in a whisper, clearly afraid that speaking too loudly would push the enraged Skrewts over the edge. Unfortunately for him, keeping his voice down was not enough to placate the furious Skrewts. As one being they charged forward, barreling down on the fence in torrents until it collapsed under the sheer number of them.

"I'd say they can get over the fence if they're mad enough," replied Harry in horror. "Run!" The pair took off across the field, their mission forgotten as the need to simply survive took over. A fireball shot past Harry's head, missing him by mere inches.

"Any ideas, Malfoy," he yelled to his partner as they sprinted across the grass in front of the horde of pissed off Skrewts.

"Yeah, not dying, that's my idea," replied Draco, swerving to avoid another fire ball.

"I meant more of how we should actually accomplish not dying," gasped Harry as a fire ball passed by him so closely that he could actually feel the heat of it against his flesh. "And we still need to get milk from one of them." Draco gave Harry a look that clearly said: have you gone completely mental?

"Are you kidding? Have those fireballs fried the last of your working brain cells? Milking one of those demons is the last thing on my mind. I just want to get out of here not burnt to a bloody crisp!"

"Well you may have low aspirations, but I don't," declared Harry, his face twisting into a determined frown. "I want to actually become an Auror sometime in the near future, not just do these ridiculous tasks." With that proclamation, Harry twisted around to shoot a spell back over his shoulder towards the Skrewts.

"Potritus Apoxus!" he yelled, and a jet of golden sparks shot from the tip of his wand to form a shimmering wall around the enraged Skrewts, stopping them in their tracks. Both boys slowed to a halt, Draco finding himself impressed despite himself.

"Nice one, Potter. Guess you aren't completely useless after all," commented Draco, examining the glittering wall in admiration. "How long will that hold?" A fireball from one of the Skrewts smashed into the wall at Draco's words, causing the wall to shoot sparks as cracks formed along its surface.

"I'm going to guess not as long as we'd like…" replied Harry glumly. "So long as we can keep the group contained and just single out one we should be ok, though."

"Uh-huh, and how were you planning to allow just one Skrewt out of your nifty wall and not the rest of the blood thirsty horde too?" asked Draco in a tone that clearly conveyed just how much of an idiot he thought Harry was.

"Um, well, I'm actually not sure…" admitted Harry sheepishly.

"Of course you're not," drawled Draco, rolling his eyes in exasperation. "I am clearly going to have to be the one to do the thinking between the two of us. Alright, here's what we'll do. We'll get further back from them to give us a little time to work and then you'll remove that twinkly little wall of yours, which by the way, sparkles? Really? So manly, Potter. And then I'll blast one of the Skrewts off to the side and you can put that wall back up around the rest." Harry nodded slowly. It was actually a pretty decent plan, for all that Draco had been the one to come up with it. Besides, Harry couldn't think of anything better.

"Alright," he said. "I'm in. Let's back the hell up. I don't want to be anywhere near those bloody things when that wall vanishes." The pair ran several meters back and turned to face the Skrewts once more.

"Ready, Malfoy?" asked Harry, raising his wand. Draco nodded. "Ok, here we go. Finite Incantatum!" The wall vanished and the Skrewts wasted no time in surging forward.

"Rexilum!" shouted Draco, aiming his wand at one of the Skrewts on the outskirts of the pack. A jet of purple sparks hit the Skrewt and it went flying, landing awkwardly on its side several meters away from the main group of its charging companions.

"Potritus Apoxus!" called Harry again, erecting the same glittering gold wall around the rest of the group.

"Great work, Malfoy!" said Harry excitedly, glowing with triumph at the success of their plan, but that was all the time to be happy about their victory he had since the Skrewt they had separated from the pack had righted itself and was charging.

"I see a flaw in our plan," yelped Draco. "We forgot that we don't actually know how to stop these things without using that wall of yours."

"Oh shit…" said Harry, eyes widening as he realized that Draco was correct and that they couldn't stun the furious Skrewt now charging full speed towards them. The Skrewt drew closer and closer with every second and in an instant it was almost upon them, teeth gnashing and stinger poised to attack. Operating on pure instinct, Harry pointed his wand at it and performed the first spell that popped into his head.

"Wingardium Leviosa!"

The Skrewt look bewildered for a moment as it found itself, not sinking its pincers into supple flesh like it had intended, but instead floating 8 feet in the air and unable to attack anything.

"Brilliant," breathed Draco despite himself before he realized what he had just said and quickly corrected his mistake. "I mean, not bad, Potter."

"Yeah, it was pretty good, wasn't it?" said Harry in surprised pride. He hadn't really thought it through, it had just been the first spell to pop into his panicked brain, but it was actually perfect. Now they had clear access to the Skrewts stomach, and it couldn't get them since none of its many sharp and deadly ends were on its belly.

"I think I can see the tube we're supposed to get the milk from too," continued Harry, squinting up at the Skrewt's scaly underside. He looked expectantly at Draco.

"Don't look at me," said Draco. "Malfoy's don't milk things. It's unbecoming." Harry rolled his eyes.

"Fine you pouf, I'll milk the bloody thing myself." Harry approached the hovering Skrewt and frowned up at the small, black tube protruding from the center of its stomach. "Any idea how we're supposed to get the milk out of this thing?" he asked dubiously.

"None whatsoever. Try pulling on it," suggested Draco with a shrug.

"Alright," said Harry, reaching up tentatively and gingerly grabbing hold of the tube. It felt slippery under his hand, like gelatin. Then Harry pulled. Nothing Happened. Harry pulled again, harder this time. Still nothing happened. Harry frowned in frustration, glaring up at the tube as though he could just intimidate the milk out of it, and tugged a third time, even harder this time. Instantly a jet of pearly white liquid gushed out, slamming into Harry with much more force and in a greater volume than Harry would have thought possible. In seconds, Harry was drenched from head to toe in the sickly sweet substance. There was a long, stunned silence where droplets of the white fluid dripped from the hem of Harry's robes and then Draco burst out laughing. He laughed so hard his face turned as red as a tomato and then he still couldn't stop laughing until fell to the grass below. Harry gingerly wiped milk out of his eyes and glared at the blonde rolling around on the ground in unstoppable fits of mirth.

"You're an arse, Malfoy," he said flatly. Draco just kept laughing.

"You. Should. Have. Seen. Your. Face," gasped Draco through huge, shuddering breaths.

"A complete arse," Harry said again, glaring fiercely at Draco before squaring his shoulders angrily and storming off across the grass towards the Aurors' office building and safety. Draco still couldn't stop laughing, and at this point the pain in his stomach from laughing so much was almost too much.

"Finite Incantatum!" grumbled Harry once he was a good ways away, pointing his wand at the wall surrounding the Skrewts. Draco stopped laughing.

"Oh shit."

The Skrewts charged.

*Author's Note: Well there you have it: chapter 2 is complete! I should have chapter three finished and posted very soon and don't worry, more of that delicious sexual tension is on the way I promise as well as Draco's point of view on the whole being caught watching Harry jerk off thing. ;) Please review with any feedback as it's what keeps me and this story going haha. Thank you very much for reading!*